IN THE MISER’S HOME
“Have you hurt yourself, Mr. Tyler?” asked Roy anxiously. “You didn’t
break a limb when you fell, did you?”
“No, no, it is here,” and the old man put his hand up to his head.
“The sun was too hot for you,” went on Roy. “You haven’t got over it
yet.”
“I am afraid I shall never get over it, Roy Pell.” The miser looked at
him in a steady way that would have frightened some boys. “And I don’t
want to die yet, not till I have made my will. I must have a lawyer.
Where is Sydney Pell, that brother of yours.”
“He isn’t my brother. He’s a boy that father adopted when he was very
young, but he’s better than a good many brothers. And he’s a good
lawyer, too. Would you like to see him. He’ll be back on the
five-thirty train.”
“Yes, I should like to see him if it won’t be too late. What time is it
now? You haven’t got a watch, have you? Look at mine and tell me.”
“Quarter past five, and now you ought to be taken home right away, and
have a doctor.”
“You think I am very bad then?” Again the frightened look came into the
old man’s face.
“No, of course not. Lots of people have to call the doctor when they’re
not going to die.”
“Don’t speak of dying. I’m afraid to die. See, I don’t mind telling you
so. And I ought to be. I haven’t done very much good in the world.
There isn’t anybody I can think of will be sorry to have me go. That
isn’t the way to live, Roy Pell. You ought to be happy, so happy,
because you are young, and have your life before you to make it the way
it should be made.”
“You have life before you, too, Mr. Tyler. You are not so very old.
You’re not much more than seventy.”
“I’m seventy-two. But come, let me see if I can get up with your help.
I want you to take me home, so you can go for Sydney. He’s a good boy,
you say, one I can trust?” The old man looked in Roy’s face closely as
the latter bent over him.
“Sydney is the best fellow that ever lived,” replied Roy soberly. “He’s
been a staff to my mother ever since father died, and has almost taken
his place to us children.”
“Yes, yes. I’ve heard that what your father did for him years ago was
like bread cast upon the waters that’s coming back after many days. Let
me see, how old are you?”
“Fifteen. I tell you what, Mr. Tyler. The girls are down under the
bridge. Wait a minute till I call down to them to send Syd over as soon
as he comes. Then I’ll go home with you and needn’t leave you.”
“All right. You’re very good to me, Roy Pell.” The miser sank back on
the grass, while Roy hurried to the edge of the bluff and making a
trumpet of his hands, called down:
“Eva! Jess!”
“Yes, are you all right, Roy?” came back the answer in Eva’s tones.
“All O. K., but Mr. Tyler’s a little done up. I’m going home with him.
And he wants you to send Syd over as soon as he gets back. It’s some
business matter, quite important, and we may both be late for tea.
Don’t wait. Do you understand?”
“Yes, all right. We’ll go to meet Syd now. Shall we send the doctor,
too?”
Roy thought a minute.
“Yes. I think you’d better,” he called down.
“I told them to send the doctor to your house,” he reported to Mr.
Tyler. He half expected the latter to raise a protest, but he didn’t.
“All right,” he said feebly. “He’ll do for one of the witnesses. Now.”
Roy bent down so that the old man might lean on his shoulder. He put
one arm about his back to steady him, and thus supported he was able to
move slowly along the cinder path beside the track.
“What did you attempt to walk across the trestle for, Mr. Tyler?” asked
Roy.
“I made up my mind suddenly to go to town,” was the answer. “There
wasn’t time to go around by the turnpike. I thought I could get across
before the train came. I’ve seen boys go over it.”
“But you’re not a boy,” rejoined Roy, with a smile.
“No. I’m not a boy,” and Roy could feel a shudder pass through the arm
that was resting on his shoulder.
Mr. Tyler lived in a house not far from the Burdock station. An old
woman did the cooking for him and went home at night. For the rest he
dwelt almost like a hermit, and so far as any one knew he had not a
relative in the world. But the report had gone out as it always does in
such cases, that he was very rich, and now his desire to see a lawyer
and make a will convinced Roy that for once rumor must be right.
“I wonder how much he’s got and to whom he’ll leave it?” he asked
himself, but now they were within sight of the little house and the old
man leaned so heavily upon him, that all his attention was centered on
getting him safely to the end of their journey.
By the time this was accomplished Mr. Tyler was so completely exhausted
that he dropped down on the first chair they reached.
“After you are rested a bit,” said Roy, “I’ll help you to get to bed.”
“No, no,” protested the old man; “so many people die in their beds. Go
and tell Ann to get a little more for dinner to-night. You and Sydney
must stay and eat it with me. It will take quite a time to have my will
drawn up. You’ll find her in the kitchen.”
The woman was not much surprised when Roy told her of the condition in
which her master had come home.
“It’s what I’ve been expecting every day,” she said. “He doesn’t eat
enough to keep a bird alive. I’m amazed to think he should ask you to
stop to dinner. It’s little enough you’ll get, Master Roy, but I’ll do
my best.”
The house was a bare looking place, furnished only with the merest
necessities. No pictures were on the walls, no books on the tables; Roy
wondered what the old man did to pass the time here by himself. There
was not even a sofa for him to lie upon. He asked about this when he
returned to the front room.
“Then you’d better come in and lie on the outside of your bed if you
won’t get in it,” he suggested.
To this the older man acceded and allowed Roy to assist him to the
adjoining apartment where he slept.
“No,” he murmured, “I haven’t wasted much on myself, you see. That will
leave still more for those who come after me. What would you do with
$500,000 if you had it, Roy Pell?”
The question came so suddenly and in such contrasted tones to the
mumble in which the miser had heretofore been speaking that for the
moment Roy was too startled to make reply.
“No, I’m not raving, Roy Pell,” went on the old man. “There’s a
possibility—” he checked himself quickly—“what would you do with all
that money if you had it?”
“I’d give it to my mother,” answered Roy.
“Good boy, of course. I didn’t think of that. You’re a minor, and
you’re not selfish. You’d rather she would have it, eh, than that it
should be held by her in trust for you? But if you got it, you’d
promise to see that it was spent, and not hoarded as I have hoarded
mine? You’d promise that wouldn’t you?”
Roy by this time began to think that the partial sunstroke had
completely unhinged Mr. Tyler’s brain, already a little out of plumb.
“Oh, yes,” he laughed. “There’s no danger of our hoarding money. There
are too many things to spend it on for that.”
“Then you’re squeezed a little down at your place, eh?”
“Oh, we can get along,” returned Roy hastily; “but we can’t do much
branching out. My mother has only the income from father’s insurance,
and then there’s the place which we own, with the taxes to pay.”
The old man now relapsed into silence. He seemed to be thinking,
deeply. Suddenly he started up and exclaimed:
“It must be nearly time for Sydney to be here. Won’t you go outside and
watch for him?”
Roy was very glad to leave the miser. He realized that perhaps it was
wrong for him to feel that way, but then, believing him to be a little
unbalanced, it was but natural that he should be sensible of some
constraint in his presence.
“I wonder if he has got $500,000 put away somewhere?” he asked himself
when he reached the little portico. “He talked exactly as if he was
going to give it to me. I suppose for what I did for him on the bridge.
That would be just like a story episode, so much like one that there’s
no chance of its coming true. But what would Rex say if it did? Ah,
here comes Syd.”
Roy left the porch and hurried out to the gate to meet the fellow who
had been nearer and dearer to him than a brother as far back as he
could remember.
“Poor old chap,” he said as they met and he turned around, slipping his
arm within that of the tall young lawyer, “it was a shame to make you
walk all that distance in the hot sun when you must be tired out from
your day in town. But there’s a job at the end of the walk.”
“And a cheerful brother, too,” added the other. “Poor Rex! I saw him
over at the station. He takes it terribly to heart that he cannot go
off with the Bowmans. I wish I were rich, if only for you boys’ sakes.
But what’s this heroic deed I hear of your doing for old Mr. Tyler?
Positively, Roy, I’m proud of you.”
“Oh, the train didn’t come along for a good five minutes after I’d got
him off the trestle. You see that takes a good deal of the ‘heroic
rescue’ business out of the thing. But come on inside. He’s been quite
anxious to see you. I’ve made him lie down, for I think he’s in a very
bad way.”