A BOY AND A MILLIONAIRE.
Will Carden, little the worse for his ducking of the day before, sat in
his little “office” at the end of the barn, his feet braced against the
heater, his chair tipped backward, and his eyes fastened upon an open
letter he held in both hands.
He had read it a dozen times since Peter, the coachman up at the big
house, had brought it to him, and he was now reading it once more.
It was very brief, simply saying: “Please call at my office at your
convenience;” but it was signed “Chester D. Williams,” in big, bold
script, and that signature, Will reflected, would be good for thousands
of dollars--even hundreds of thousands--if signed to a check.
While the boy was thus engaged, the door burst open and Doctor Meigs
entered, stamping the snow from his feet and shaking it from his
shoulders as a shaggy Newfoundland dog shakes off the rain. It had been
snowing for an hour, and the big flakes were falling slowly and softly,
as if they had a mission to fulfill and plenty of time to accomplish it.
“Hello, Doctor,” said Will, cheerily. “Read that.”
Doctor Meigs took the letter, sat down, and read it carefully. Then he
looked up.
“How’s your throat?” he asked.
“All right,” said Will.
“Sore, any?”
“Not a bit.”
“Feel chills creeping up your back?”
“No.”
“Head hot?”
“Why, I’m all right, Doctor.”
“Put out your tongue!”
Will obeyed, just as he had done ever since he could remember.
“H--m! Strange; very strange,” muttered the doctor.
“What’s strange?” asked the boy.
“That you’re fool enough to jump into ice-water, and clever enough to
beat the doctor out of his just dues afterward.”
Will laughed.
“How’s Annabel?” he asked.
“As good as ever. Why did you pull her out so quick, you young rascal?
Don’t you know Chester D. Williams is rich enough to pay a big doctor’s
bill?”
“I was afraid, at first,” answered the boy, reflectively, “that I
hadn’t pulled Nan out quick enough. It was a close call, and no
mistake.”
“Well, your reward is at hand. The whole town is praising you, and
calling you a hero. And the great man himself has sent for you.”
Will shifted uneasily in his chair.
“You know, Doctor, it wasn’t anything at all,” he said.
“Of course not. One girl, more or less, in the world doesn’t make much
difference.”
“I don’t mean that. Annabel’s a brick, and worth jumping into twenty
ponds for. But anyone could have done the same as I did.”
“To be sure. How are the toad-stools coming?”
Will knew the doctor was in a good humor when he called their product
“toad-stools.” If he was at all worried he spoke of them as “mushrooms.”
“Pretty good. But what does Mr. Williams want to see me about?” he
enquired.
“Wants to give you ten dollars for saving his daughter’s life, perhaps.”
Will straightened up.
“I won’t go,” he said.
The doctor grinned.
“Throwing away good money, eh? We’ll have to raise the price of
toad-stools again, to even up. But, seriously, I advise you to go to
Mr. Williams, as he requests you to. He isn’t half a bad fellow. His
only fault is that he makes more money than any one man is entitled
to.”
“You don’t really think he’ll--he’ll want to pay me anything, do you?”
“No; he wants to thank you, as any gentleman would, for a brave, manly
action.”
For the first time Will grew embarrassed, and his face became as red as
a June sunset.
“I’d rather not, you know,” he said, undecidedly.
“It’s the penalty of heroism,” remarked the doctor, with assumed
carelessness. “Better go at once and have it over with.”
“All right,” said Will, with a sigh of resignation.
“I’m going back to town, and I’ll walk with you.”
So Will stopped at the house and sent Egbert to mind the fire, and then
he tramped away to the village beside the burly form of his friend.
It was not as cold as it had been before it began to snow, and the boy
enjoyed the walk. He liked to hear the soft crunching of the snow
under his feet.
When he shyly entered the office at the steel works his face was as
rosy as an apple, and he shook off the snow and wiped the moisture from
his eyes and looked around him.
There were two long rows of desks in the main room, and at one corner,
railed in to separate it from the others, was the secretary’s office
and desk. Will could see the bald head of Mr. Jordan held as rigidly
upright as ever, and recognized the two side locks of hair that were
plastered firmly to his skull.
Then Mr. Jordan turned slowly around and saw him, and after calmly
staring at the boy for a time he motioned to a clerk.
The young man approached Will and enquired his business.
“I want to see Mr. Williams,” he answered.
“Mr. Jordan transacts all the business here,” said the clerk, stiffly.
“It isn’t exactly business,” replied the boy, and drew out the letter
he had received.
At once the clerk became more obsequious, and begged Will to be seated.
He watched the man whom he knew to be the son of a local store-keeper,
go to a glass door and rap upon it gently. Then he entered and closed
the door carefully behind him, only to emerge the next moment and
beckon Will to advance.
“Mr. Williams will see you at once, sir.”
Will walked into the private office feeling queer and uncomfortable,
and the clerk closed the door behind him.
Mr. Williams was sitting at his desk, but at once jumped up and met the
boy with both hands extended to a cordial greeting.
“I’m glad to see you, Will Carden,” he said, simply. “My little girl is
very dear to me, and I owe you more than I can ever repay.”
“Why, Nan’s dear to me, too, Mr. Williams,” replied the youth, feeling
quite at ease again. “And I’m glad and grateful that I happened to
be around just when she needed me. We’re in the same class at high
school, you know, and Annabel and I have always been chums.”
“That’s good,” said the great man, nodding as if he understood. “I hope
you will be better friends than ever, now. She wants to see you, and
Mrs. Williams has asked me to send you up to the house, if you will go.”
Will flushed with pleasure. To be invited to the big house by the
very woman who had snubbed him a few months ago was indeed a triumph.
He didn’t suspect, of course, that Mr. Williams had kept his promise
to the children, and “talked to” his wife with such energy that she
was not likely soon again to banish one of their playmates because he
chanced to be poor. Indeed, Mrs. Williams had no especial dislike to
the “vegetable boy;” she merely regarded him as a member of a class
to be avoided, and her sole objection to him as a companion to her
children was based upon a snobbish and vulgar assumption of superiority
to those not blessed with money.
“I’ll be glad to see Annabel again,” said Will. “I hope she’s none the
worse for her accident?”
“Just a slight cold, that’s all. But sit down, please. I want a little
talk with you about--yourself.”
Will became uncomfortable again. But he sat down, as the great man
requested.
“Tell me something of your life; of your family and your work; and let
me know what your ambitions are,” said Mr. Williams.
It was a little hard for Will to get started, but the man led him on
by asking a few simple questions and soon he was telling all about
Flo and Egbert, and how hard his mother was obliged to work, and of
the mushroom business the doctor had started and all the other little
details of his life.
Mr. Williams listened attentively, and when the boy mentioned the fact
that Mr. Jordan had always boarded with them since his father had gone
away, the millionaire seemed especially interested, asking various
questions about his secretary’s habits and mode of life which plainly
showed he was unfamiliar with Mr. Jordan’s private affairs.
“Do you remember your father?” he enquired.
“Not very well, sir,” Will replied. “You see, I was very young when he
went away, and he was accustomed to working so steadily night and day
at his steel factory that he wasn’t around the house very much. I’ve
heard mother say he was so occupied with thoughts of his invention that
he didn’t pay a great deal of attention to us children, although his
nature was kind and affectionate.
“Was Mr. Jordan with him much in those old days?”
“I can’t remember about that. But mother has always said that Mr.
Jordan was father’s best friend, and for years he always came to our
house on Sunday to dinner. He was a bank clerk, then; and that was
before he boarded with us, you know.”
“Is he kind to you now?”
“Mr. Jordan? Why, he’s neither kind nor unkind. But he pays his board
regular, and in a way that’s kindness, although he doesn’t say a word
to anyone. The boarder helps us to live, but it also wears out mother’s
strength, for she’s very particular to cook the things he likes to eat,
and to make him comfortable. I’m in hopes that the mushroom business
will prosper, for then we can let our boarder go, and it will be much
easier for mother.”
“I, too, hope you will succeed. But if you don’t, Will, or if you ever
need help in any way, come straight to me. It would make me very happy
to be of some use to you, you know.”
“Thank you,” said the boy. “I’ll not forget.”
The great mill owner was not at all a hard person to talk to. He seemed
to understand “just as a boy would,” Will afterward told Mrs. Carden.
And when he left the office it was with the pleasant sensation that he
had made a new friend--one that could be relied upon almost as much as
old Dr. Meigs.
Mr. Jordan was staring at him fixedly as he walked out; but he said
nothing about the visit, either then or afterward, when he met Will at
supper. But once in a while he would turn his queer spectacled eyes
upon the boy, as if he had just discovered a new interest in him.