“Oh, I want to hug you!” And he did it. Then he got his
notes and sat down and began to check off, for first purchase,
the luxuries which he should earliest wish to secure.
“Horse–buggy–cutter–lap-robe–patent-leathers–dog–plug-hat–
church-pew–stem-winder–new teeth–SAY, Aleck!”
“Well?”
“Ciphering away, aren’t you? That’s right. Have you got the twenty
thousand invested yet?”
“No, there’s no hurry about that; I must look around first,
and think.”
“But you are ciphering; what’s it about?”
“Why, I have to find work for the thirty thousand that comes out
of the coal, haven’t I?”
“Scott, what a head! I never thought of that. How are you
getting along? Where have you arrived?”
“Not very far–two years or three. I’ve turned it over twice;
once in oil and once in wheat.”
“Why, Aleck, it’s splendid! How does it aggregate?”
“I think–well, to be on the safe side, about a hundred and eighty
thousand clear, though it will probably be more.”
“My! isn’t it wonderful? By gracious! luck has come our way at last,
after all the hard sledding, Aleck!”
“Well?”
“I’m going to cash in a whole three hundred on the missionaries–
what real right have we care for expenses!”
“You couldn’t do a nobler thing, dear; and it’s just like your
generous nature, you unselfish boy.”
The praise made Sally poignantly happy, but he was fair and just
enough to say it was rightfully due to Aleck rather than to himself,
since but for her he should never have had the money.
Then they went up to bed, and in their delirium of bliss they forgot
and left the candle burning in the parlor. They did not remember
until they were undressed; then Sally was for letting it burn;
he said they could afford it, if it was a thousand. But Aleck went
down and put it out.
A good job, too; for on her way back she hit on a scheme that would
turn the hundred and eighty thousand into half a million before it
had had time to get cold.
CHAPTER III
The little newspaper which Aleck had subscribed for was a Thursday sheet;
it would make the trip of five hundred miles from Tilbury’s village
and arrive on Saturday. Tilbury’s letter had started on Friday,
more than a day too late for the benefactor to die and get into
that week’s issue, but in plenty of time to make connection for the
next output. Thus the Fosters had to wait almost a complete week to
find out whether anything of a satisfactory nature had happened to him
or not. It was a long, long week, and the strain was a heavy one.
The pair could hardly have borne it if their minds had not had the
relief of wholesome diversion. We have seen that they had that.
The woman was piling up fortunes right along, the man was spending them–
spending all his wife would give him a chance at, at any rate.
At last the Saturday came, and the WEEKLY SAGAMORE arrived.
Mrs. Eversly Bennett was present. She was the Presbyterian
parson’s wife, and was working the Fosters for a charity.
Talk now died a sudden death–on the Foster side. Mrs. Bennett
presently discovered that her hosts were not hearing a word she
was saying; so she got up, wondering and indignant, and went away.
The moment she was out of the house, Aleck eagerly tore the wrapper
from the paper, and her eyes and Sally’s swept the columns for the
death-notices. Disappointment! Tilbury was not anywhere mentioned.
Aleck was a Christian from the cradle, and duty and the force of
habit required her to go through the motions. She pulled herself
together and said, with a pious two-per-cent. trade joyousness:
“Let us be humbly thankful that he has been spared; and–”
“Damn his treacherous hide, I wish–”
“Sally! For shame!”
“I don’t care!” retorted the angry man. “It’s the way YOU feel,
and if you weren’t so immorally pious you’d be honest and say so.”
Aleck said, with wounded dignity:
“I do not see how you can say such unkind and unjust things.
There is no such thing as immoral piety.”
Sally felt a pang, but tried to conceal it under a shuffling attempt