"He suspected all was not right with the option and he has dug up the fact that the witness to your uncle's signature, and the man before whom the paper was attested, both believed the option was for a short time.
"Caleb Schell's book shows that it was for thirty days. Uncle Jeptha undoubtedly thought it was for that length of time and therefore the option expired several days before he died.
"Mr. Pepper may have fallen under temptation. He considered heretofore, like everybody else, that the railroad would pass us by in this section. Pepper gambled twenty dollars on its coming along the boundary of the Atterson farm--between you and Darrell's tract--and thought he had lost.
"Then suddenly the railroad board turned square around and voted for the condemnation of the original route. Pepper remembered the option he had risked twenty dollars on. If it was originally for thirty days, it was void, of course; but Uncle Jeptha is dead, and he hopes perhaps, that nobody else will dispute the validity of it.""It's a forgery, then?" cried Mrs. Atterson.
"It may be a forgery. We do not know," said the lawyer, hastily. "At any rate, he has the paper, and he is a shrewd rascal."Mrs. Atterson's face was a study.
"Do you mean to tell me we have got to lose the farm?" she demanded. "My dear lady, that I cannot tell you. I must see this option. We mustput it to the test---"
"But Schell and Pollock will testify that the option was for thirty days," cried Hiram.
"Perhaps. To the best of their remembrance and belief, it was for thirty days. A shrewd lawyer, however--and Pepper would employ a shrewd one--would turn their evidence inside out.
"No evidence--in theory, at least--can controvert a written instrument, signed, sealed, and delivered. Even Cale Schell's memoranda book cannot be taken as evidence, save in a contributory way. It is not direct. It is the carelessly scribbled record, in pencil, of a busy man.
"No. If Pepper puts forward the option we have got to see if that option has been tampered with--the paper itself, I mean. If the fellow substituted a different instrument, at the time of signing, from the one Uncle Jeptha thought he signed, you have no case--I tell you frankly, my dear lady.""Then, it ain't no use. We got to lose the place, Hiram," said Mrs. Atterson, when they left the lawyer's office.
"I wouldn't lose heart. If Pepper is scared, he may not trouble you again."It's got ten months more to run," said she. "He can keep us guessin' all that time.""That is so," agreed Hiram, nodding thoughtfully. "But, of course, as Mr. Strickland says, by raising a doubt as to the validity of the option we can hold him off for a while--maybe until we have made this year's crop.""It's goin' to make me lay awake o' nights," sighed the old lady. "And I thought I'd got through with that when I stopped worryin' about the gravy.""Well, we won't talk about next year," agreed Hiram. "I'll do the best Ican for you through this season, if Pepper will let us alone. We've got the bottom land practically cleared; we might as well plough it and put in the corn there. If we make a crop you'll get all your money back and more. Mr. Strickland told me privately that the option, unless it read that way, would not cover the crops in the ground. And I read the option carefully. Crops were not mentioned."So it was decided to go ahead with the work as already planned; but neither the young farmer, nor his employer, could look forward cheerfully to the future.
The uncertainty of what Pepper would eventually do was bound to be in their thought, day and night.
