BREAKING THE NEWS
“Great Cæsar, Roy! What’s come over you?”
Rex was staring in amazement at his brother, who had turned quite white
at the sight of the undertaker’s wagon standing in front of the miser’s
home. He had halted and gone off to one side of the road to lean
against a tree, where he stood now, mopping his face with his
handkerchief.
“I hadn’t any idea he would die so soon,” he said. “It seems like an
awful shock, although I do remember that Dr. Martin said he was in a
pretty bad way. And he asked me to come and see him to-day; I mean Mr.
Tyler did. I wonder when he died.”
“What luck for his heirs,” remarked Rex.
“Don’t!” cried Roy, starting forward as if to place his hand over his
brother’s mouth. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Well, I suppose it was a little rough when the old man’s scarcely cold
perhaps. I say, aren’t you going on? We can find out just when he died,
you know.”
Mechanically Roy followed his brother, his eyes still fixed on that
black wagon. He could not realize it yet. Mr. Tyler dead so soon after
making that will which left Mrs. Pell all his money. No more poverty
for them. The stable need no longer be empty and—
Roy checked these thoughts with a half suppressed exclamation of
disgust. It seemed sacrilegious to be speculating in this fashion on
the gain from the death of the old man who had been so fond of life,
for all he had made such poor use of it.
They were now close enough to the cottage to see that the doctor’s
carriage stood there just behind the ominous vehicle belonging to Mr.
Green. The doctor himself was coming out of the house.
Seeing the boys he halted till they came up with him.
“Oh, doctor, when did it happen?” asked Roy.
“Last night about ten,” was the answer. “Didn’t Sydney tell you?”
“No, I haven’t seen Syd since I left him here yesterday. Is he here
now?”
“No. He is very busy in town seeing about the arrangements there. You
know he is one of the executors. Things take queer turns in this world
of ours, don’t they? You little thought at this time yesterday morning
that before twenty-four hours had passed you would be the means of
bringing a great fortune into the family. But good-by. I must hurry off
to do what I can for the living now.”
“There is nothing that I can do for him, is there?” Roy stepped apart
from his brother and closer to the doctor to ask the question.
“No, my boy,” was the answer. “Nothing now. You have obeyed his last
request of you. It is not your fault that you are too late.”
The physician drove off, leaving the two boys standing in the road in
front of the silent cottage, for the undertaker was carrying on his
work noiselessly.
“Roy,” said Rex suddenly, placing a hand on each of his brother’s
shoulders, and looking him squarely in the face, “what did Dr. Martin
mean by what he said just now about your being the means of bringing a
fortune into the family?”
“Don’t—don’t ask anything about it just here. Come, let’s hurry off
toward home. I’ll tell you on the way.”
Roy slipped his arm through his brother’s and led him off down the
hill.
“Now then,” said Rex impatiently when they had reached the Marley
turnpike again, “you must tell me. Did Mr. Tyler leave you any money
for what you did for him yesterday?”
“No,” replied Roy, in a kind of burst, “but he left his whole fortune
to mother.”
Rex did not stop and throw up his hands as Roy had half expected he
would do. He came closer to his brother and suddenly passed one arm
about his neck as they walked on together and drew him close to him.
“Oh, Roy,” he said, “we owe all this to you.”
Then he walked off to the side of the road and dropped down on the
grass. Roy came over to take his place beside him.
“I didn’t want to say anything about it before,” he explained. “It
might have been years before we came into the money. And now it may not
be nearly so much as I said. We only have old Mr. Tyler’s word for it,
but both Syd and Dr. Martin seemed to think he was telling the truth.”
“Does mother know?” asked Rex in a low voice. He seemed to be quite
changed since he had heard the wonderful news. His manner had become
quiet, subdued, more like Roy’s.
“No, nobody knows but you, and Syd and Dr. Martin.”
“But you will tell mother as soon as you get back?”
“Yes, I suppose I had better.”
“I can’t realize it yet, Roy. Half a million! That’s five hundred
thousand dollars. And now we live on an income of about two thousand!”
Rex brought his eyes down from the sky where he had been allowing them
to soar, and fixed them on his last summer’s tan shoes. They were whole
yet, but had lost their freshness. He could have new ones now, he
reflected, without waiting for these old ones to wear out.
“How did he come to do it, Roy?” he went on, “Hasn’t he any relatives,
or anybody of his own?”
“I don’t know. Syd can tell you more about it than I can. Come, we had
better be getting home.”
The boys rose and resumed their walk. Presently Rex remarked:
“When shall we get hold of the money, do you suppose, Roy?”
“I don’t know. Don’t talk about it in that way. It seems awful.”
“Why, Roy, one would think you wished we hadn’t got it. What makes you
act so queer about the thing?”
“Because the thing itself seems queer, I suppose.”
“You are not sorry about it, are you? You almost act so.”
“Oh, no, I’m not sorry, but I can’t seem to realize it yet.”
“Well, I can, now I’ve had a little chance to get used to it. I can
realize that it means a new tennis suit for me, unlimited pairs of
shoes, horses and carriages and perhaps my trip to Canada with the
Bowmans.”
“Rex, don’t go on in that strain with the man still unburied. If you
only knew how it sounds.”
Reginald looked a little abashed, and as they reached a fork in the
road just then, announced that he was going up in the town to see his
friend Charlie Minturn.
“Don’t tell him about this,” Roy begged.
“What do you take me for?” returned Rex in his most dignified manner.
He strode on up the hill, his head thrown back, his chin the least bit
elevated in the air.
“I’m afraid for Reggie,” murmured Roy as he kept on toward the Pellery.
“Poverty didn’t suit him at all, but it seems to me riches are going to
suit him too well.”
The girls were hulling the strawberries on the side porch when he
reached the house.
“Where’s mother?” he asked as he came up and sat down at their feet.
“Gone to market,” replied Eva.
“Where have you and Rex been?” inquired Jess. “I saw you crossing the
bridge together. I thought the Crawfords were away. There’s nobody else
you’d be likely to go and see over in Burdock.”
“There’s Mr. Tyler,” replied Roy. “He asked me to go up and see him
to-day, but I was too late. He’s dead.”
“Dead! Oh, Roy!”
Both girls uttered the exclamation. Death almost always horrifies. They
had Roy tell them in detail all about the talk he had had with the
miser the previous afternoon. But he said nothing about the will. He
thought his mother ought to know first.
“There come mother and Rex now!” exclaimed Jess presently.
“I suppose he’s told her,” thought Roy.
This was the case. There was a flush in Mrs. Pell’s cheeks as she came
up, and Rex exclaimed as soon as he was within speaking distance:
“Mother knows. Have you told the girls yet, Roy?”
A look of annoyance crossed Mrs. Pell’s face, but before either she or
Roy could say anything, Jess sprang to her feet, nearly upsetting the
bowl of strawberries in the act.
“Told you what? There’s been an air of mystery about you ever since you
left the creek yesterday afternoon.”
“Of course there has,” exclaimed Rex exuberantly. “And it’s something
worth being mysterious about, eh, brub? What should you say, sisters
mine, if I should tell you that the magic wand of fortune has been
waved over the Pellery, which will transform yonder sober fowls into
gallant steeds, these homely pups into expensive hounds of the hunt,
and—”
“Reginald.”
Rex always knew he had gone too far when his mother spoke like that. He
ceased abruptly and dashed into the house, as if to cut himself off
from temptation to transgress further. The next moment they heard him
whistling a comic opera air up in his room.
“Mother, you tell me what all this means, won’t you?” This from Jess in
almost a desperate tone.
“Yes, you may as well all know now,” said Mrs. Pell, sinking into a
chair. “I find that half of the town seems to be aware of it already.”
“It! It! Quick, mother. It isn’t something awful, is it?”
“No, not awful for us my dears. It is just this. Your brother Roy
touched old Mr. Tyler’s heart by what he did for him yesterday, and in
the will he made last night he left all his fortune, about half a
million, to me.”
Both girls sat there as if stricken dumb, staring at their mother as
she told them the wonderful news.