Percy Driscoll had worn himself out in trying to save his great
speculative landed estate, and had died without succeeding. He was hardly
in his grave before the boom collapsed and left his envied young devil of
an heir a pauper. But that was nothing; his uncle told him he should be
his heir and have all his fortune when he died; so Tom was comforted.

Roxy had no home now; so she resolved to go around and say good-by to her
friends and then clear out and see the world--that is to say, she would
go chambermaiding on a steamboat, the darling ambition of her race and
sex.

Her last call was on the black giant, Jasper. She found him chopping
Pudd'nhead Wilson's winter provision of wood.

Wilson was chatting with him when Roxy arrived. He asked her how she
could bear to go off chambermaiding and leave her boys; and chaffingly
offered to copy off a series of their fingerprints, reaching up to their
twelfth year, for her to remember them by; but she sobered in a moment,
wondering if he suspected anything; then she said she believed she didn't
want them. Wilson said to himself, "The drop of black blood in her is
superstitious; she thinks there's some devilry, some witch business about
my glass mystery somewhere; she used to come here with an old horseshoe
in her hand; it could have been an accident, but I doubt it."




CHAPTER 5 -- The Twins Thrill Dawson's Landing