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of her for a while since she had a new job at one of the hotels on the lake. She needed the security of a full-time paycheck to pay for something purchased on credit. She promised to call Mother when she had some free time. We all knew it would not be long. Mabel hated being tied down to a regular job.
    Later that morning Billy’s wife telephoned. He had been helping one of the deacons of the Baptist church repair the steeple when he fell and broke his ankle. Billy would be laid up for at least a month. Mother didn’t have to worry about not being able to afford him for a while.
    Cassie and I pitched in with a vengeance over the next week. She got out the tractor and mowed, then raked all ten acres around the house. I trimmed the walkways, borders, and flowerbeds and cleaned out all the dead weeds and grass. Fortunately, Cassie rescued a nest of baby bunnies before I annihilated them with the weed whacker.
    The weather was wonderful. The days were getting shorter but they were filled with delicious mellow sunshine as yellow as the sweet Anjou pears that ripened on all six trees at once.
    Mrs. Nick, our ninety year-old neighbor came up one day, and we all picked and wrapped as many pears as we could in newspaper to keep them from getting overripe. We made pear butter, preserves, and chutney out of the rest.
    When the pears were taken care of, we went back to work on the house and yard. We cleaned out the gutters and fencerows and carried all the debris by the wagonload to the old dry pond bed where we lit bonfires every night. We showered off the dirt and grime and fell into bed too tired to eat only to rise early the next morning with the appetite of farmhands. Mother would cook us a big country breakfast and send us out to work again. At noon she made us fresh lemonade and pimento cheese sandwiches on wickedly unhealthy but wonderfully soft white bread. We ate on the patio, napped a short while in the sun, only to get up and stretch our weary city muscles and start all over again.
    It was one of those sweet and well-deserved naps that Mother interrupted with the news that a registered letter had arrived from Ernest Dibber’s lawyer. We grumbled a bit and sat up while she opened it and began to read.
    She suddenly turned white as a sheet and then just as quickly beet red. Alarmed I jumped up and caught her just as she started to tip over out of her chair. Cassie grabbed the letter when she saw her grandmother was all right. At least I would like to think she thought about that.
    â€œSon of a bitch!” she exclaimed. “Son of a low down dirty bitch!”
    Mother steadied herself and took a deep breath. The color faded to a more normal shade in her face. I held her ice cold hands in mine.
    â€œAre you okay, Mother?” I inquired anxiously.
    â€œNo, dammit!” Mother never, ever, swore. It was not “lady like.”
    â€œWhat the hell is in that letter?” I always swore.
    â€œCrap! That’s what!” Cassie could swear really well. “He left it all to that bastard!” she continued heatedly, “all of it except some piddling amount to Gran, his three cousins, and some old guy. Five hundred thousand goes to some church school and three million dollars to Dibber, Mom. Three million dollars!”
    I sat down hard on the concrete patio still holding Mother’s hand. I almost pulled her back out of the chair.
    â€œYou have got to be kidding!”
    Mother was a woman of steel now.
    â€œNo, darling, she is not kidding. There is nothing even remotely amusing about this. William left three million dollars to Ernest Dibber.”
    â€œThis is just not fair!” cried Cassie. “Gran, that’s your money! It doesn’t belong to some stupid stranger!”
    â€œLet me see the letter, Cassie.”
    She passed it over to me. I read quickly through the opening legal preamble and got to the meat of the letter. William had left each of his three cousins five