Ten North Frederick Read Online Free Page B

dollars, but the bulk of the estate was in stocks, bonds, and mortgages, identified by name or location.
    The sum of $ 100 , 000 was to be paid to the son, Joseph Benjamin Chapin Junior, and a like sum to the daughter, Ann Chapin. The remainder was to be used to create a trust fund for the widow, Edith Chapin. Upon her death the fund was to be divided equally between the son and the daughter. Personal items such as cuff links, cigarette cases, pearl studs, watches, watch chains were to be the property of the widow, but it was suggested that they might be distributed among friends: Chapin’s law partner, his physician, the steward of the Gibbsville Club and the first, as yet unborn, grandson.
    Edith Chapin, as she always had been, was a woman in comfortable circumstances. Now, in fact, in 1945 , she was in more than comfortable circumstances. She was rich. But it would not be known that she was rich. The details of her wealth were known to only a few persons, who were not likely to discuss those details with others not privileged to have the information. The directors of her bank would know, her husband’s law partner would know, the county Register of Wills would know. But there was no gossip value in the size of Joe Chapin’s estate or the terms of his will. He had left more money than anyone had expected him to leave, but not so much more that the amount was sensational. If he had died poor, or enormously wealthy, the public, the public curiosity would have had to be satisfied. He had not died poor, and only a little richer (and that was to be expected of a man like Joe Chapin); consequently there would be no dislocation of the Chapin family status, and the status had always been described as in comfortable circumstances. There was a butcher on the West Side of town who had less money than Edith Chapin, who lived on the East Side of town. The butcher had a Cadillac, and so had Edith Chapin, but the butcher’s was newer. The butcher’s son was studying for the priesthood and was no great drain on his father’s income; but Joe Chapin Junior was not studying for the priesthood, and he would be no great drain on his mother’s income. The 18 th Street butcher was said to be getting rich; the Frederick Street widow was said to be in comfortable circumstances.
    The butcher was not in attendance at the funeral of Joseph Benjamin Chapin, which took place in Trinity Church. The butcher and Joe Chapin never had spoken a word to each other in all their lives, and yet the butcher would have been surprised to discover how much Joe Chapin knew about him. A clever man who is a lawyer and bank director, and whose family have lived in a town through three generations, acquires and usually retains a great deal of information on his fellow citizens. And it was too bad, in some ways, that the butcher and the lawyer had not been friends, or at least closer acquaintances. There was only a small difference in their ages, an inconsiderable difference; and the two men had several matters in common. Each man had a son and a daughter, disappointing children. Both men had remote wives. from whom they never had been separated. And now, with most of life gone in the one case and all of it gone in the other, it was too late for either man to realize his great ambition. The butcher had wanted to be heavyweight prize-fight champion of the world. Joe Chapin had always wanted to be President of the United States, and thought he ought to be.
    One man among the imposing company of honorary pallbearers in Trinity Church knew how deep and serious Joe Chapin’s ambition had been. One man knew, and another suspected. The man who knew was Arthur McHenry, Joe’s law partner. The man who suspected was Mike Slattery, state senator and chairman of the Republican county committee. Arthur McHenry always thought Joe Chapin would have made a good President, and Mike Slattery hardly thought of it at all. Arthur McHenry knew more of the