Mr. Budlong was confronted with such a list of
post-mortem debts that must be postpaid for his deceased Aunt Ida that
he almost begrudged her her bit of very real estate in Woodlawn. And
the Budlongs began to think that tombstones were in bad form if
ostentatious. Heirs have notoriously simple tastes in monuments.
They had always accounted Aunt Ida a hard-fisted miser before, but now
she began to look like a slippery-palmed spendthrift. They began
almost to suspect the probity of the poor old maid. Worse yet, they
feared that a later will might turn up bequeathing all her money to
some abominable charity or other. She had been addicted to occasional
subscriptions during her lifetime.
The Budlongs themselves were beginning, even at this distance from
their money-to-be, to suffer its infection, its inevitable reaction on
the character. Those who live beyond their means joyously when their
means are small, become small themselves, when their means get beyond
living beyond. The Budlongs began to figure percentages on sums left
in the bank or put out on mortgages. They began to think money; and
money is money, large or small. Mrs. Budlong began to feel that she
had been unjust to Aunt Ida. What she had called miserliness was
really prudence and thrift and other pleasant-sounding virtues. What
she had called liberality was wanton waste.
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