A Farmer’s Life 
her death go by unnoticed. But when her will 
was proved, a year later, these unexpecting but 
fortunate people went into mourning for her. 
Soon after this it happened that another man, 
being left a widower with a lot of money, married 
a young wife. When at last his own turn to die 
came, there were plenty of villagers who hoped 
to benefit, John Smith’s father the potter being 
one of them. But they had reckoned without 
the young wife. She, the story went (and the 
old chap’s nurse vouched for it), held the dead 
man’s hand so as to make it sign a will in her 
favour. 
“Ts it slander to say such things?’ Mr. Smith 
twinkled, telling me and giving names. ‘“ Old 
Mrs. So-and-so that nursed him didn’t mince 
matters,” he added. “She said it openly, and 
she was in a position to know.” 
The young wife “ didn’t enjoy it long,”’ John’s 
sister urged. 
“No,” John conceded, ‘‘ but long enough to 
make things comfortable for all her own family.” 
But why tell more? Apart from John Smith’s 
own dry manner, these tales lose their flavour, 
and their only use here is to indicate something 
of the social environment he lived in, and how he 
wedged himself into it. He was for ever recalling 
some oddity or other to illustrate this or that point 
in his chatter; and some of these may be told of 
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