Mr. Blackstone supervised construction of John Bone's mausoleum, a great windowless stone mass of black granite measuring forty feet square and forty feet high. According to Bone's will, over the great bronze doors would read the simply inscription: John Bone, Benefactor to Humanity.
The first construction problem, demolishing the rendering plant, was resolved when a fire of mysterious origin swept the works, leaving nothing behind but charred animal bones and a heap of smelly ashes. Regrettably, the fire also consumed the adjacent mansion, which was in such a state of disrepair that a spark in the breeze immediately set it alight.
The ramshackle workers' quarters, cheaply built years ago, survived the fire, and here the claimants to Bone's will struggled to find shelter. Fights broke out; the strongest among them took the best quarters, such as they were, while the rest manufactured shelter from charred wood and animal bones rescued from the fire.
Behind the ruins of the rendering works was an enormous pit, where for many years workers had dumped spoiled animal fat, offal, animals too weak to walk up the ramp into the plant, human waste and other detritus. Mixed together, these choice ingredients made a foul and fetid stew, that bubbled and belched forth methane and hydrogen sulfide gases. This gelatinous and putrid mass long survived the end of factory operations, bestowing the local atmosphere with a horribly flatulent aroma strong enough to induce tears among the strongest of men. Mr. Blackstone minimized his visits to the area, and generally wore a handkerchief over his nose. Men hired to work on the mausoleum received hazard pay. Others, such as instrumentalists and singers for the memorial service, remained well clear of the site itself.
The need for others to keep some distance from the site of the rendering works turned out to be a blessing for the claimaints, who were known derisively by denizens of neighboring farms and towns as "Bone's Boys". Children from nearby towns gathered to hoot and throw rocks at the ghostly figures who lurked among the ruins, but as the stench required them to stand well back, their projectiles generally fell well short of the intended targets.
In the first few years after Bone's demise the number of claimants thinned considerably. Mr. Blackstone would receive an anonymous letter claiming that so-and-so could not possibly be a son of John Bone, as he was born in another city or by another father. Almost invariably, when Mr. Blackstone investigated he found these charges to be true; armed with copies of the pertinent birth certificates and the ever-present handkerchief, he would go to Ticklish Rock and send the bogus claimant away, cursing.
Others were caught away from the site at an inopportune time. Since there were no provisions for food in the will, claimants had to scavenge what they could from the site. After the ruins and surroundings were picked clean, claimants survived by stealing apples from adjacent orchards or by capturing and slaughtering rabbits, racoons, squirrels, possums or unfortunate housecats wandering in the neighborhood. The general resort to thievery might have become a more serious threat to the well-being of towns in Washington County, but claimants lived under the ever-present threat that Mr. Blackstone might choose to visit at any time to take attendance; this possibility served to limit the extent and duration of scavenging to the immediate neighborhood.
To mitigate suffering, ladies of Beauneville organized food drives, and recruited the children and young people to throw potatoes, apples, grilled pork chops and other foodstuffs instead of rocks and other missles. The children of Beauneville took to this new sport with great pleasure, and found great amusement observing the scrum and fisticuffs that inevitably erupted among the ghostly claimants when a single pork chop landed in their midst.
By 1920, there remained only a dozen or so claimants living amid the ashes and rubble. Now known as "Bone's Ghosts", they found shelter by burrowing holes into the great heaps of ashes, charred timbers and animal bones. The stench abated somewhat, but decent people avoided the place as if it harbored some dreaded plague. Parents warned the children of Beauneville not to go near the place, knowing full well that the children of Beauneville would do so anyway. Even so, it became a matter of faith among the children that those who ventured too near the ruins might be captured and eaten.
Mr. Blackstone's son took over management of the trust in 1923. The investments were in a blind trust managed by a firm in Lake City. Each quarter, the younger Mr. Blackstone received a letter from the investment manager advising how much income could be spent to maintain the mausoleum. At first, the funds were sufficient to pay for fresh flowers and to plant some grass around the tomb, but after the stock market crash of 1929 the income began to dwindle, and the site began to blend into the ruined surroundings.
Meanwhile, the rock which was known as Ticklish continued to teeter on its precarious perch overlooking the valley, as if the smallest push would cause it to tumble.
