|ABOUT ten days after the happenings recorded in the foregoing chapter
old Simon Walton sat alone in his office. A typewriter was clicking in
the counting-room adjoining, its sound deadened by the closed door
and thin partition through which it passed. With noiseless tread Toby
Lassiter, now older, more careworn, more machine-like than ever, entered
and laid a bulky express envelope before his employer.
“What is this?” the banker asked, as he examined the heavy wax seals and
reached for his paper-knife.
“I don't know, sir; it came just now,” and Toby silently withdrew.
Walton clipped the twine, pried under the seals, and tore open the thick
paper. It contained money. Six five-hundred-dollar bills were drawn out
and laid on the desk. Wondering what it meant, the old man looked into
the envelope. There was a letter, and it covered several pages of paper.
A glance at the writing caused him a dull thrill of surprise. There was
no address from which it was written, and it bore no date. It ran as
follows:
My dear Father,--I am sure you will be surprised to hear from me. I
would have written before this if it could have done either of us any
good. As I wrote you when I left, I had determined to turn over a new
leaf, if such a thing were possible. It was an awful fight against big
odds.
Finally, however, I happened to meet--and it was when I had almost given
up--a rich man with a good heart who befriended me, and offered me a
position in his big wholesale store. I had a struggle with myself as to
what I ought to do in regard to revealing my past life, but I finally
decided to tell him the truth, and I am glad to say he overlooked it all
and became my friend and benefactor. I never knew it, when I was a wild,
headstrong boy, bent on ruining myself and you, but I now realize that
every growing soul needs some sort of incentive to endeavor, and I have
found two which have helped me a lot. The first was to refund by honest
earnings what I took from you, the next to prove my worthiness of the
trust my employer placed in me when all hope was lost. I see now that I
never could have overcome my bad habits if I had stayed on in Stafford.
It was getting out into the world and learning what it means to fight
adversity, with no one to lean on, that helped me. When I think over
what you, yourself, had to go through with to get your start in life,
and remember that I was deliberately throwing away the hard-won rewards
of your efforts, the blood of shame fairly boils in my veins.
I am sending herewith three thousand dollars, which are my savings up to
date. I had got together only twenty-five hundred, but when my employer,
at my suggestion, succeeded in putting a certain deal through the other
day which he considered advantageous to his interests, he insisted on
adding five hundred dollars to the amount which I had told him was going
to you. I am sending the money by express instead of by draft on
any bank, for I would still prefer for you not to know where I am at
present. When I have made the last payment on my debt (if you will let
me call it that), I may feel differently, but until I am able to clear
it all up I shall still hide from you and everybody who knew me in the
past. I do hope you will read these lines kindly. I have wronged you
(terribly wronged you), dear father, but I am trying now to live
right, and surely you will be glad to know that, even at this late day.
Concealing my whereabouts may anger you, I am well aware of that; but
the good man for whom I am working thinks it is best--for a while, at
any rate. Of course, if I could have a talk with you, I'd know
better how you look at the matter, but being so far away leaves me
no alternative than to let things remain as they are. Good-bye, dear
father. It has taken six years to get together the money I am sending,
but if I live and keep my health I feel reasonably sure that I can send
the balance, including the interest, within the next two years, for I am
doing much better than I was.
When he had finished reading the letter, Simon Walton laid it on the
desk before him and sat in deep thought for several minutes. Then, with
no visible trace of emotion on his wrinkled face, he took the money in
his hands, laid it on the letter, and rose and went to the door opening
into the counting-room. He stood looking at the workers for several
minutes, and then, happening to catch the glance of Toby, who was
dictating to a stenographer, he signalled him to approach. Handing him
the letter and the bills, he said, curtly:
“Credit the money on my private account, then read that letter carefully
and bring it back to me. Don't let anybody see it. It's private.”
“Very well, sir,” said the clerk. “I was just dictating a note to Morton
& Co., telling them that we can't possibly extend--”
“Never mind about that _now_,” Walton ordered, sharply. “Do as I tell
you!” And he turned back into his office, where he sat slowly nodding
his great, shaggy head, as was his habit when making up his mind over
any matter of importance.
“Huh!” he said, suddenly and with a sneer, “that's it! I can see through
a millstone if it has a big enough hole in it. Huh, yes, that's it! I'd
bet a yearling calf to a pound of butter that I am onto the game, and it
is one, too, that would take in nine men out of ten.” He tapped his brow
with his pencil and smiled craftily. “Deep scheme; good scheme; bang-up
idea! Might have pulled the wool over my eyes _once_. But a burnt child
dreads the fire, and I've certainly been burnt.”
The door creaked. Toby Lassiter, with the letter quivering in his
excited hand, approached. His lethargic face was filled with emotion;
his mild eyes were glowing ecstatically.
“I always thought--I mean I always _hoped_, Mr. Walton--that it would
turn out this way.” He started to say more, but checked himself as his
glance fell on the parchment-like face craftily upturned to his.
“Yes, I know, Toby!” Simon snarled, as he took the letter and put it
into his desk drawer. “You always thought the scamp had sprouting wings,
and now you are sure they are full size. That is why you have never
risen higher in life, Toby. Your eyes are too easily closed. Leave it to
you, and we'd never foreclose a mortgage on a widow with a full stocking
hid away under her hearth. Believing in heaven on earth has held many a
man back from prosperity.”
“Then you don't think--you don't actually believe that Fred--”
“Set down in that chair, Toby. Me and you are the only folks in Stafford
that know how that boy buncoed me, and I reckon it's only natural for me
to be willing to talk about it when there is anything to say. I endured
several years of that fellow's devilment, and I'm not calculated to be
fooled as easily as others might who never had him on their hands. You
see,” the banker went on, as his clerk lowered his thin person timidly
into a chair and leaned forward--“you will note that he writes that he's
got a good, substantial job with a rich man, who, while he knows all
about the boy's devilment here at Stafford, has completely overlooked
it. Huh! we all know the world is full of men of capital who are ready
to take in a runaway thief and hand over three thousand cool plunks to
him just to show good-will and the like! To begin with, Toby, _that_
is an underhanded slap at me; it is saying, in a roundabout way, that
a plumb stranger is giving a son of mine a chance that he never had at
home. But the tale, from start to finish, is a lie out of whole cloth,
as I have good and private reason to know.”
“Do you think so, Mr. Walton?” Lassiter's fallen countenance sank even
lower.
“Of course I think so, or I wouldn't be sitting here telling you about
it. I haven't been idle on this thing, Toby, though I never let anybody
know what I was up to. You see, I am an old man now, and in law I never
had but one heir to my effects, outside of my present wife, and it
struck me as pretty queer for that heir, disinherited on paper or not,
to keep absolutely out of sight and sound all these years when as big a
plum as I am supposed to be is still aboveground. You see, the scamp
has got what some folks would call a 'natural expectancy,' even on the
chance of breaking any will I might make, and you can bet there are
plenty of men slick enough to speculate on such chances, slim as they
might look to me or you. So you see, Toby, knowing all that, I kept a
sharp lookout for developments. I decided first of all to keep a watch
on the young woman he left high and dry and in such a miserable
plight. I used to sort o' saunter by her mammy's house once in a while.
Sometimes I'd catch a glimpse of the girl by accident, but she kept as
well hid as any mole that ever burrowed in the ground. Sometimes I'd
see her--when she was to be seen at all--daubing away at some picture
or other on a peaked frame, and I must say that every time I'd see her
looking so neat and pretty, with her fine head of hair flowing over her
brow in that easy, fluffy sort of way, and them big, deep, babyish eyes
of hers--well, to come to the point, I began to think that it wasn't
quite natural for _any_ fellow to go clean off and leave such a
creature behind for good and all. You see, she's too good-looking, too
attractive, for any man to drop once he was favored, and--well, it made
me suspicious, to say the least. Then I begun to notice the child, who
was always hemmed up in that little pen of a yard, and never allowed
to stick his head out or have any playmates. I saw that he was always
rigged up as fine as a fiddle, looking as if he'd just come out of a
bandbox; and as I knew, from personal knowledge, that the old lady had
no income to speak of, except the rent on her barren little farm, I used
to wonder where the cash was coming from. Now and then I'd see Watts &
Co.'s delivery wagon leaving groceries at the back door, and I found out
through them, on the sly, that the grub bills was always paid. Then what
do you think I did? I did some bang-up, fine detective work, if I _do_
say it. I nosed around until I found out, through a clerk in the express
office here, that packages of money were coming pretty regularly to the
sly little lassie from somebody in Atlanta who called himself 'F. B.
Jenkins.' Whoever it was, was using the express to hide his tracks,
instead of sending bank-checks, which might come to my attention, as
Fred well knew.”
“So you think, Mr. Walton--you think--”
“I think Fred's letter is a lie out of whole cloth,” old Simon blurted
out. “I don't think he is at work; I don't think it was ever _in_ him
to work in any capacity; but I _do_ believe he has set out to make good
that shortage for a deep-laid reason. Some sharper or money-shark may be
backing him, or he may have had a temporary streak of luck at poker or
cotton futures, and has decided to invest something in me, as too big
a fish to remain unhooked. I don't swallow one word of his mealymouthed
tale. I'd bet my last dollar he's this F. B. Jenkins, and that he has
been hanging around Atlanta all these years, keeping himself out of
sight, and, like as not, coming here now and then under cover of night
to see that woman. That's why she has kept so close at home. They have
guarded the child, too, so that he wouldn't let the cat out of the bag.
Toby, if I wanted to--if I just _wanted_ to--I could put a watch on that
cottage and nab our man in less than a month. I say, if I just _wanted_
to.”
“Then you wouldn't arrest him, Mr. Walton?” Lassiter breathed, in
relief.
“Well, not now, at any rate,” Walton said, grimly. “We are too solid in
every way now for such a thing to do us any great financial damage, but
I don't fancy the idea of stirring up the stench again. He has put in a
pretty big amount to start with, and he won't lie idle after that. Mark
my words, we'll hear from Atlanta, and it will be apt to come through
the fellow that calls himself F. B. Jenkins.”