Chapter III

“What do you think now, Miss Viney?” asked Mrs. Waxwell, as they met, soon after the storekeeper’s disaster had been made public.

“I hope Mr. Burton will be able to pay his debts.”

“But he won’t—I know he won’t.”

“Probably, if they had given him any notice of their intention to demand the payment of their claims, he would have been prepared to meet them.”

“I guess Mrs. Burton will not feel quite so stuck up after this.”

“I hope you have done nothing to bring about this sad result.”

“But I have; I made my husband sue his note, and when he put on, the others did. Thirty dollar cloak indeed!”

“I am sorry you have done this; you may ruin Mr. Burton by it.”

“That’s just what I mean to do!” and Mrs. Waxwell’s malignant expression betrayed the jealousy she had so long harbored.

“You did? It was very unkind and ungrateful in you to do so,” replied Miss Viney, indignantly.

“Humph!”

“Any trader would be likely to come out badly to have all his creditors pounce upon him without giving him a chance to collect his debts.”

“I don’t believe he has any to collect.”

“Even your husband, as well off as he is, might be embarrassed if suddenly called upon to pay his debts;” and Miss Viney looked significantly at her angry companion.

“I doubt it.”

“He may have a trial,” said the maiden lady, as she moved towards the store.

“What can she mean by that?” thought Mrs. Waxwell.

Miss Viney had some property of her own, and it was all in the hands of Farmer Waxwell, who had, on his own account, invested the greater part of it in railroad stock.

This is what she meant. She would claim the three thousand dollars her husband owed her, and a cold chill passed through her veins as the thought struck her. Farmer Waxwell was rich in houses, lands, and stocks, all of which yielded him a good income; but he had not three thousand dollars in money, and it might cost him some trouble to raise it.

“Don’t cry, my dear; I have enough due me in Boston to pay these debts ten times over,” said Mr. Burton to his wife, who was much alarmed by the storm which threatened them.

“What will people think?”

“What will they think when I pay them all? The whole amount is not above nine hundred dollars.”

Just then Miss Viney entered the house. In a few words, she explained the circumstances which had led to the sudden “strike” among the creditors.

Mrs. Burton, kind soul, shed a flood of tears when she heard how cruel Mrs. Waxwell had been—she whom she had nursed with all the tenderness of a mother, when her frightened neighbors fled from the contagious disease.

“Never mind it, my dear. We may expect any thing from a meddler, a gossip, a slanderer,” said Mr. Burton. “I must start for Boston in the noon train.”

“Allow me, Mr. Burton, to offer you the money to discharge these liabilities. I have three thousand dollars in the hands of Mr. Waxwell.”

“You are very kind, and I accept your offer,” replied Mr. Burton, “and next week I shall have the means of repaying you. I assure you I am worth at least five thousand dollars.”

In proof of his assertion, he showed her various notes, mortgages, and certificates of stock.

“I presume, if the people here knew that I was not a bankrupt, they would not have molested me. In spite of all my amiable neighbor, Mrs. Waxwell, may say, I think I am abundantly able to give my wife a thirty dollar cloak.”

“I never doubted it,” replied Miss Viney, as she hastened to the village lawyer to put her note in course of collection.

Farmer Waxwell was at dinner when the lawyer, who was a personal friend, called upon him.

“Sorry to trouble you, but I am instructed to collect this note,” said he.

“The devil!” exclaimed Farmer Waxwell.

“The ugly hussy!” added Mrs. Waxwell, as she perceived that Miss Viney’s prophetic words had been burdened with a meaning.

“I beg your pardon, madam,” said the lawyer; “but if I understand it rightly, you have publicly boasted that you brought about all this difficulty.”

“I?”

“Yes, madam: that new cloak did the business. You set your husband on, and all the rest followed him; so Miss Viney tells me.”

“My gracious!”

“And now she wants the money to assist Mr. Burton out of the difficulty into which you have plunged him.”

“That’s plain speech, squire,” said the farmer.

“But true.”

“I can’t raise the money.”

“Then I must sue.”

“Can’t we compromise?”

“Burton is worth at least five thousand dollars, and when he gets a remittance from Boston, will pay all.”

“I will dissolve my attachment, and be bound for the payment of the others. Will that do it?”

“Yes, if Miss Viney will consent.”

Miss Viney did consent,—she was a kind-hearted lady—and the matter was compromised.

“Now, wife,” said Farmer Waxwell, on the following week, as he put the three hundred dollars in his pocket which Burton had paid, minus thirty which he held in his hand, “here’s thirty dollars, and I think you’d better go and buy one of them ’ere cloaks. Your foolish envy like to have got me into the cu’sedest scrape I ever got into in my life.”

She would not take it; she was too mean to dress well herself, and too envious to permit others who were able to do so in peace. But she gathered from the events of our story a healthy experience of the wisdom of that excellent maxim.—“Mind your own business.”