“I’ll call in a couple of pizzas, some pasta, and breadsticks on the way, pick it up, and bring it all to the house,” Lily said. “Holly and Braden aren’t going to want to leave those cats alone today.”

“While they’re getting the pizza ready, I’ll dash into the Dollar Store and get litter, a pan to put it in, and a small bag of food,” Sally said.

Thank God for cats, Lily thought several times that afternoon. Holly informed them that Mama Cat really was the mother cat’s name, and then she and Braden discussed what they’d name the other three all afternoon. Every so often Holly would sigh and dab her eyes, but for the most part, she took Granny Hayes’s death better than Lily had thought she would. Neither of the kids asked about the coffee cans, which seemed strange to Lily, but then what was money when they had three frisky kittens in the house?

Sally left in the middle of the afternoon to make some phone calls about the chickens and ducks, and Mack hitched up the trailer to go get the Angus steers. By evening they were in their new home in the pasture on the north side of the lane, and the goats were all in the one on the south side.

The whole day seemed surreal that evening, but it got even stranger when Lily and Mack opened the box with the coffee cans. She figured they’d be full of change—dimes, nickels, and maybe some quarters—but each can was filled with neatly rolled hundred-dollar bills. Twenty bills to each roll. Ten rolls to each can.

Lily tried to do the math in her head. Seven times $20,000 was mind-boggling. The total was well over $100,000, and Granny Hayes had kept it in her cabin. Right there on the shelf, where anyone could have broken in and stolen it. Where had she gotten that kind of money, anyway? She certainly didn’t make that much selling earrings, scarves, and shawls.

“I’d say that Holly’s college fund just took one giant step forward,” Mack said.

“Where did she get that kind of money?” Lily finally asked. “Was she growing pot out there on her land?”

“I would imagine that her father had no time for banks, and her mother never used them, either,” Mack said. “This is probably her inheritance from them. She probably added to it every year when she sold a steer or two that she didn’t need for meat. Did you see that rifle hanging above her fireplace? I wouldn’t be surprised if she had done some hunting—maybe deer, quail, rabbits. She would raise the steers, but then when she didn’t need them, she’d sell them and put the money in the coffee cans.”

“Should we really keep all this money?” Lily asked.