The Corpse in Oozak's Pond by Charlotte MacLeod Page B

get back to work as soon as we’ve finished eating,” Helen promised. “You’re really pinning your faith to them, aren’t you?”
    “Faith is all I have so far, my love. Was Balaclava any sort of bookkeeper?”
    “Compulsive. If he spent a penny for a postage stamp, down it went in the ledger.”
    “He wasn’t the type to deed over a whole acre of land without at least jotting down a memorandum?”
    “Not unless somebody swiped his ink pot. Even if they had, I expect he’d have brewed some more out of oak galls and iron filings or something. Balaclava was a great one for making the best use of everything, including people. It irked him terribly to see the brightest boys going off to be ministers or lawyers instead of sticking to the land and making it pay. He was absolutely wedded to the idea of an agricultural college, you know, even when he was still a teenager teaching in a one-room school.”
    “Is all that in the archives?”
    “It certainly is. Balaclava used to go on and on about his plan in his journals. He kept a diary right from the time he scraped together enough cash to buy his first quire of paper. His mother stitched the sheets together with needle and thread to make him a book. That’s the most precious thing in the entire Buggins Collection, to my way of thinking. Balaclava never had literary aspirations, like his nephews Corydon and Belial, but he did have lots of ideas. He liked to work things out on paper so he’d be all set to put them into practice when he got the chance.”
    “Then nothing but lack of money kept him from establishing the college long before 1850.”
    “That’s right. His father could have helped but he wouldn’t. Habakkuk Buggins wasn’t one to pamper his sons with handouts during his lifetime. And when he died, he stuck to the old British custom of favoring the elder son. Abelard got the house and the best of the land, most of which his sons and grandson sold off or frittered away, as you know. All Balaclava got was this parcel out here in what was then considered the middle of nowhere. Habakkuk had picked it up for about two cents an acre, and most of his neighbors thought he’d got the short end of the deal. I’m sure you’ve heard all this before. More stew? Or some cherries without the tapioca?”
    “Cherries, please. Go on about Balaclava.”
    “What I’m driving at is that his land was all Balaclava had. He couldn’t bear to give up teaching, and he farmed on the side, as you know. That kept his family fed and clothed, but it didn’t give him any working capital, so he made the land work for him. He sold off timber and fought for years to get the county road extended his way. Once he’d managed to push that through, he was able to attract a few tenant farmers, and the village began to evolve. This of course made his land more valuable, so he began selling off small parcels around the edges. By 1850, he was in a position to start building not only barns and dormitories but also houses he could rent or sell to his teachers. I don’t have to tell you he wrote it right into the charter that the college was always to keep title to the land these houses stood on.”
    “By gad, yes. That’s important, Helen. In lieu of anything specific about Oozak’s Pond, a comprehensive statement of Balaclava’s consistently farseeing policies with regard to his real estate might be enough to give the college the benefit of the doubt over this damned fool bet he’s supposed to have lost. The hell of it is, there’s always so much public sentiment, in favor of the downtrodden private citizen up against the big, wicked institution.”
    “Those are generally your sentiments, too,” Helen reminded him.
    “Likewise yours, my love. But dag-nab it, in this case the college is the good guy. And I’m afraid it’s up to you and me to establish that fact before any more Bugginses get done in and they hang the rap on Svenson. Here’s wishing us luck. God knows we’re