[_Unable to bear the suspense longer, Seth seizes the paper. He scans it until his eyes catch the all-important paragraph._] SETH. "--Bequeath all my earthly possessions to my wife, Jennie Polland." [_Their thunderbolt has descended. They stand like two men suddenly deprived of thought and motion. Medusa's victims could not have been more pitiable. They have been hurled from their El Dorado, which, at the worst, was to have been their common property._ _Then Seth's voice comes to him, and sufficient strength to drop into a chair._] SETH. The damned old critter. LON. I'll be swaned. SETH [_blazing out_]. That's gratitude. LON. After all we done fur him. SETH [_pathetically_]. An' me a plannin' these last five years on gettin' that house an' ground. LON. My kids are packin' our furniture this afternoon, gettin' ready t' move in. SETH [_with supreme disgust_]. Leavin' it t' Ma. LON. Her who he ain't hardly spoke t' in twenty years. SETH. Jest as though yuh an' me wasn't alive. LON. We'd a given him our last pipeful. SETH. His own flesh an' blood. LON. Why, he told me more 'an a thousand times he hated Ma. SETH. She don't need it. LON. She's ready fur the grave-yard. SETH. She's that stingy, cuttin' an' choppin' wood, sellin it t' the city folks. We might a knowd. LON. An' me a comin' all the three miles an' a quarter t' see him a fore he died. SETH. I been settin' here two days a waitin'. LON. An' then t' treat us like that. [_Wipes his mouth._] Why, the hull place ain't worth a damn! SETH. A cavin'-in shanty an' two acres yuh couldn't grow weeds on. LON. A pile o' sand. SETH [_rising; bursting into fire like an apparently dead rocket_]. She ain't a goin' t' heve it! LON. What? SETH. I won't let Ma heve it! LON. But how yuh goin' t' stop her? 'Twon't do no good t' tear up the will an' testament. It's rec-ord-ed. SETH. Don't make no difference. She ain't a goin' t' heve that place. LON [_eagerly_]. But how yuh goin'--? SETH. I don't know. But I'm a goin' t'. LON. It ain't hers by rights. SETH. Didn't she leave him twenty years ago? LON. Why, she ain't even expectin' it! SETH. She'll never miss it if she don't git it. LON [_shaking his head_]. Me an' the kids packed up, ready t' move in. [_There is a silence. Lon deep in his disappointment, Seth making his brain work as it has never worked before. And he is rewarded for his diligence. A suggestion of his sneering smile comes to his face._] SETH. Lon? LON. Yes? SETH [_looks about, making sure that only his brother is listening_]. Yuh 'member what yuh done t' Rogers when he didn't leave yuh paint his bath-house? LON [_his eyes open wide_]. Burn it? SETH. Sh! LON. Oh, no! SETH. Yuh don't want Ma t' heve it, does yuh? LON. When I burned that bath-house I didn't sleep good fur a couple o' nights. I dreamed o' the sheriff. SETH. Nobody knows but me. An' nobody'll know yuh an' me set fire t' Pa's old place.