_All About Uncle Issachar's Visit_
The next morning's stage carried seven passengers to Windy Creek, as
Miss Frayne with a big roll of "copy" also took her departure.
Diogenes had been quite docile and amenable to my rule since the
licking I gave him, so we had a pleasant and comfortable return
journey on the following day.
"I hope, Lucien," said Silvia, "you won't refuse to cash this check
for a good amount. The Polydore parents may never show up, and it's
only right we should be reimbursed for their keep."
"I will cash it," I assured her, "and use it for a housekeeper or else
send the boys off to a school. I should like very much to have it out
with Felix Polydore, but, as you suggest, I may never have the
opportunity to see him at close range."
Beth, Rob, and Ptolemy met us at the station.
"Where are 'Them Three'?" I asked hopefully.
"Huldah is feeding them little pies hot from the kettle--the kind she
cooks like doughnuts, you know."
"Huldah cooking for 'Them Three'!" I exclaimed. "She must have passed
into her second childhood. She grudged them even an apple to piece
on."
"She has pampered them ever since our return," said Rob.
"Poor Huldah! She must indeed be afflicted with softening of the
brain," I decided.
"She has probably been so lonely, shut in here by herself," said
Silvia, "that even 'Them Three' looked good to her."
In the hallway Huldah met us. She was beaming with pleasure, but
except in her bearing toward the children, she was quite normal.
"We've all had a real good rest," she observed, "and you do look so
well, Mrs. Wade. My! but this place has been lonesome. I'm glad we're
all together again."
"Now, Silvia, shut your eyes," directed Beth, "and come into the
library. Ptolemy has bought you a present with the check his father
gave him."
"Beth helped me pick it out," said Ptolemy.
Beth led the way into the library, and we followed.
"Open your eyes."
Silvia gave a little cry of pleasure, and looking over her shoulder, I
beheld a baby grand piano.
"Oh, Ptolemy!" she cried, giving him a fervent kiss and fond hug, "I
can never let you do so much."
"Oh, yes," he said, flushing a little under the endearments which were
doubtless the first ever bestowed upon him. "Father's got a whole lot
of money grandpa left him and it's fixed so he can't draw out only so
much each year. He said the board and bother of us was worth more than
this and we'll all enjoy the music. But Thag and Em and Dem ain't to
touch it. I'll knock tar out of the first one that comes near it."
I was disconsolate. I didn't see how we could return it and I didn't
want the Polydore web woven any tighter. To think of Silvia's
receiving from them what it had been my longing to give her! But as I
was to learn later, she was to acquire much more than a piano from the
eminent family.
After dinner Silvia asked Huldah to come in and hear the music, and
when Silvia's repertoire was exhausted, we gave our faithful servant
all the little details of our trip which Beth had not supplied.
"Now tell us, Huldah, how things went along here," said Silvia.
"Well, you think some wonderful things happened to you all on your
trip mebby--ghosts and proposals," looking at Beth and Rob, "and fires
and Polydores, but back here in this quiet house something happened
that has your ghosts and things skinned by a mile."
"Oh, dear!" cried Silvia apprehensively, "what is it?"
"Break it very gently, Huldah," I cautioned. "You know we've borne a
good deal."
"Your uncle Issachar was here for a couple of days."
She certainly had made a sensation.
"Not Uncle Issachar! Not here?" exclaimed Silvia incredulously.
"Yes, ma'am. He came the next day after Beth and Mr. Rossiter and
Polly left. I told him you'd gone away for a little vacation and rest.
I didn't let on that I knew where you had gone, because I didn't want
him straggling up there, too, or sending for you to come back. He said
your absence would make no difference to his plans; that he never let
nothing do that. He come to pay a visit and he should pay one."
"Yes," said Silvia feebly. "That sounds like Uncle Issachar."
"I told him to make himself perfectly at home; that every one did that
to this place, and he said he would. I'd just slicked up the big front
room upstairs and I seen to it that he had everything all right. I
cooked the best dinner I knew how, and he said it was the first white
man's meal he had eat since his ma died, so I found out what she used
to cook and fed him on it. Them three kids and him eat like they was
holler. I guess if Polly hadn't took them away your grocery bill would
'a looked like Barb'ry Allen's grave.
"Well, as I was saying, your uncle he eat till he got over his
grouches, and like enough he'd be here eating yet, if he hadn't got a
telegraph to hit the line for home, some big business deal, he said,
and I guess it was a great deal, for he licked his chops and smacked
his lips over it, and he give me a ten dollar bill to get a new dress
and each of Them Three one dollar fer candy."
"The old tightwad!" I exclaimed. "It was your cooking, sure, that made
him loosen up that way."
"Tightwad nothing!" she declared indignantly. "You won't think he was
tight-wadded when you read this here letter he left for you. He told
me what was in it, and I've just been busting to tell it to Beth, but
I waited for you to know it first."
With great excitement Silvia opened the letter, read it, gasped,
re-read it, and then in consternation handed it to me.
"Read it aloud, Lucien," she bade. "Maybe I can believe it then."
This was the letter.
"My dear Niece:
"I was sorry not to see you, but glad to learn that, as every wise
and good woman should do, you are raising a fine family--a family
of _sons_, which is what our country most needs. Your son
Pythagoras informed me that you had taken your oldest child,
Ptolemy, and your youngest, Diogenes, with you, I am glad you left
three such promising samples for me to see.
"As you have five sons, I have, agreeable to my promise, placed in
your name in the First National Bank of your city the sum of
twenty-five thousand dollars.
"Your affectionate uncle,
"Issachar Innes."
"Huldah," I asked, "did you tell him the Polydores were our
children?"
"Me?" she repeated indignantly. "Me tell a lie like that! No; I didn't
get no chance to tell him anything about them. 'Them Three' done the
telling. The first thing that one"--pointing to Pythagoras--"said was,
'Mudder went away and took the baby, Diogenes, with her.' And then
that next one"--indicating Emerald--"said: 'Yes, and our oldest
brother, Ptolemy, went on with Beth to see them.'
"The old gent asked them all their names and ages and he was so
pleased and said he thought it was just fine for you to raise five
sons, so I didn't have no heart to tell him no different. 'Twan't none
of my business anyhow. Then 'Them Three' kept talking about stepdaddy,
and your Uncle Issachar asks 'Who the devil is he? Did my niece marry
again?' And I told him as how Mr. Wade was all the husband you ever
had, and that stepdaddy was nothing but a sort of pet-name the kids
had give Mr. Wade."
"I told him," said Demetrius, "that stepdaddy was cross to us
sometimes and not as nice as mudder, and he said--"
"You shut up," commanded Huldah quickly, "and let me talk."
"No," I intercepted, "I'd really be interested in hearing what he told
Uncle Issachar. What was it, Demetrius, that your great-uncle said to
you?"
"He said," stated the imp, darting his tongue out in triumph at his
victory over Huldah, "that he always thought you was a stiff."
"He didn't say nothing of the kind!" declared Huldah. "He said you was
stiff-necked, and that he presumed you would act more like a
stepfather than the real thing. Well, as I was saying, he asked their
names, and he liked them fine. Said they were so classy."
"Didn't he say classic, Huldah?" inquired Rob.
"Mebby. What's the difference?" snapped Huldah.
"None," I assured her quickly, dodging a definition.
"She told him--" began Emerald.
"You shut up," again adjured Huldah, "or I'll never bake you one of
those small pies no more."
"Oh, please, Huldah," I coaxed. "Let us hear everything. I've always
told you my life's secrets, and I don't mind what you or the boys told
him."
"Well, I suppose what he was going to tattle was that I thought the
old gent might feel hurt, 'cause none of them was named after him, so
I told him Polly's middle name was Issachar."
"Why, Huldah," remonstrated Silvia.
"Well, he's always wanted a middle name, and he's never been baptized,
so you can stick it in and have him ducked next Sunday and then that
will square that. 'Them Three' stuck to him like a hive of bees, and I
was scairt for fear they'd let the cat out of the bag, and so long as
they had put it in, I thought it might just as well stay in, but they
were just as slick as grease in all they said. They'll hang in that
rogues' gallery yet."
"I suppose they were pretty--strenuous," said Silvia with a sigh.
"They was more than that. The first afternoon right after dinner when
he was sitting on the front porch, sleeping peaceful and snoring, that
there one--" pointing to Pythagoras--
"Tattle-tale!" he began, but I administered a cuff and he subsided
into surprised silence.
[Illustration: "He went to the front window and dropped a young kitten
down on the old gent's head."]
"He," said Huldah, looking pleased at this little attention to the
boy, "went to the front window and dropped a young kitten down on the
old gent's head. It clawed something fierce. We had just got things
going smooth again when Emmy got one of his earaches. I roasted an
onion and put in his ear, and what did he do but take it out of his
ear and slip it down your poor uncle's back."
"Why didn't you beat them?" I asked indignantly.
"Because the old gent did that. He put 'em across his knee, and
believe me, it was some licking they caught. They didn't let out a
whimper and that pleased him."
"Huh!" said Emerald. "Thag don't know how to cry. He hasn't got any
tears, and old Uncle Iz didn't hurt me, because, you see, when I heard
Thag getting his, I went and stuffed the Declaration of Independence,
that book of stepdaddy's that Demetrius tore the pictures out of, in
my pants."
"Go on!" urged Rob delightedly. "What else did you all do? Uncle must
have had some time. It would make a fine scenario. 'The first visit of
the rich uncle.'"
"Well," resumed Huldah. "One of 'em put red pepper in the old man's
bed, and he like to sneeze his head off, but he said as how sneezing
was healthy, and showed you'd got rid of a cold."
"He never got on to the pepper," said Demetrius gleefully.
"In the morning, that second one put a toad in his new uncle's pocket,
and Emmy broke his specs. Then Meetie he dropped his watch. They used
his razor to cut the lawn with. And then they took him down to the
creek to go fishing, and they put the fish in Uncle's silk hat, and
and----"
"Stop!" implored Silvia, who was now in tears. "Uncle Issachar
believes them mine! Ours! And that I brought them up! Oh, why did we
ever go away?"
"Oh, pshaw," exclaimed Huldah comfortingly, "he said you had brung
them up fine; that they were no mollycoddles or Lizzie boys, and he
didn't suppose you had so much sense as to leave them natural."
"A left-handed one for mudder," laughed Beth.
"He must be a very peculiar man--ready for the asylum, I should say,"
commented Rob.
"He would have been if he'd stayed any longer, or else I would have
been," declared Huldah.
"Couldn't you make them behave, someway?" asked Silvia.
"Well, at first I tried to, and every time I pinched one of 'em when
the old gent wasn't looking, or knocked 'em down when I got 'em alone,
they would threaten to tell who they was, and then when I seen how
your uncle liked the way they acted, I just let 'em go it, head on.
And seeing as how they each brung you five thousand, I've treated 'em
best I know how. They're worth it, now. They done one thing more that
was awful. Could you stand it to hear?" turning to Silvia.
"Please, Silvia," implored Rob.
"Well," argued Silvia faintly. "I suppose we might as well know the
worst."
"You see the old gent didn't always get up to breakfast with the kids
and one morning when I brought in the cakes Emmy looked up and
grinned. I nearly dropped the plate. He had both sets of the old man's
false teeth in his mouth. I got 'em back in his room without his
waking, but I'd have liked a picture of Emmy."
"Pythagoras," I demanded, when we had recovered from this recital,
"why didn't you tell him who you were, and how you all came to be
here with us?"
"Because she is our mudder, and we are going to stay with her, always.
We've got a snap. So has father and mother. And Ptolemy told us that
if you ever got any kids, you'd get five thousand each for them, and I
thought we'd just make that much for you. So we played Uncle Iz for
it. Easy money, all right, all right."
"Talk about fine financiering," quoth Rob. "'Them Three' will surely
land on Wall Street."
But poor Silvia had no heart for humor and was weeping silently.
"Why, look here, my dear," I said in consolation, "this is a very
simple matter to adjust. In the morning when you feel better, just
write a full explanation of the affair and inclose your check for
twenty-five thousand."
Silvia quickly wiped away her tears.
"I'll do it tonight, Lucien. I feel better now. I never thought of
writing."
Huldah and "Them Three" looked most lugubrious.
"The old skinflint won't miss it as much as I would a penny," declared
our faithful handmaiden. "And I'm sure you've earnt that twenty-five
thousand if anyone ever did. You've had as much care and worry about
them brats as you would if they'd been your own."
"Huldah," I said severely, "there is a pretty stiff penalty for
obtaining money under false pretences."
"After all the pains we took to make things lively for him, so he
wouldn't get bored and think he was having a poor time!" regretted
Pythagoras.
"And us watching every word we spoke so as not to give it away,"
wailed Emerald.
"Cake's all dough," muttered Demetrius.
Ptolemy regarded the three disapprovingly. He had the old inscrutable
look, the look that foreboded mischief, in his eyes.
"You bungled, you fool kids!" he said in disgust, "and Huldah, what
did you want to let on to mudder for that he thought we was hers? You
ought to have torn up the note he left and just said he'd put
twenty-five thousand in the bank for her."
"Huh! you're just jealous because you weren't in the Uncle Izzy deal
yourself," jeered Pythagoras. "You always think you're the only one
that can do anything right."
"I wish you had been here, Polly," said Huldah, "I am sure you could
have worked it through somehow."
"I wish I had stayed and put it across," he answered. "If you and the
kids would only learn not to blab everything you know. It's the only
way to work anything. Minute you tell a thing, it's all off."
There was still a great deal of development work to be put on
Ptolemy's moral standard.
"You'll find, my lad," remonstrated Rob, "that honesty is the best
policy."
"I'd have been perfectly honest about it," he defended. "I would have
told him the truth, and how our parents had deserted us, and how
mudder took us in when we were homeless and was bringing us up like
her own because she hadn't got any, and how stepdaddy wanted to turn
us out, and she wouldn't let him, and then he would have decided
against stepdaddy and given mudder the money so she could keep us."
"Ptolemy," I said warningly, "there is a way of telling the truth, or
rather of coloring white lies with enough truth to make them deceive,
that is more dishonorable than an out and out lie."
"Tell me, Ptolemy," asked Silvia, "how did you know about that offer
of five thousand dollars for each child?"
"I overheard it," he said guardedly; "but I can't remember where."
"He heard me say so," confessed Huldah.
"It was when he first come here and he was making us so much trouble,
and I told him it was too bad we had to have other folks' brats around
when, if we only had our own, they'd be bringing in something."
The recital now broke up and Silvia sat down to write a long
explanatory letter to Uncle Issachar. The next morning I procured her
a check from the First National Bank and she filled it out.
"Oh!" she said with indrawn breath, when she had asked me how to write
twenty-five thousand dollars, "I never expected to be able to sign my
name to a check for such an amount."
"You never will again, I fear," was my sad prophecy.
"It must feel rich," said Beth, "just to have a large check pass
through your fingers."
"Them Three" came the nearest to tears that they were able to do.
"We worked so hard for it," they sighed.
"So did I!" muttered Huldah.
"I couldn't live a double life," declared Silvia.