PHILIP AT HOME.
When the funeral was over, Frank Dunbar, whom Philip regarded as his
most intimate friend, came up to him.
“Philip,” he said, “my mother would like to have you spend a few days
with us while you are deciding what to do.”
“Thank you, Frank!” answered Philip. “But until the auction I shall
remain at home. I shall soon enough be without a home.”
“But it will be very lonely for you,” objected Frank.
“No; I shall have my thoughts for company. When I am alone I can think
best of my future plans.”
“Won’t you come to our house to meals, then?”
“Thank you, Frank! I will do that.”
“When is the auction to be?”
“To-day is Monday. It is appointed for Thursday.”
“I hope there will be something left for you.”
“There will be about enough left to pay my father’s small debts and his
funeral expenses. I would not like to have him indebted to others for
those. I don’t think there will be anything over.”
Frank looked perplexed.
“I am sorry for you, Phil,” he said. “I wish we were rich, instead of
having hard work to make both ends meet. You would not lack for
anything then.”
“Dear Frank,” said Philip earnestly, “I never doubted your true
friendship. But I am not afraid that I shall suffer. I am sure I can
earn my living.”
“But why do you shut yourself up alone, Philip?” asked Frank, not
satisfied to leave his friend in what he considered the gloomy solitude
of a house just visited by death.
“I want to look over my father’s papers. I may find out something that
I ought to know, and after the auction it will be too late. Father had
some directions to give me, but he did not live long enough to do it.
For three days I have the house to myself. After that I shall perhaps
never visit it again.”
“Don’t be downhearted, Philip,” said Frank, pressing his hand with
boyish sympathy.
“I don’t mean to be, Frank. I am naturally cheerful and hopeful. I
shall miss my poor father sadly: but grieving will not bring him back.
I must work for my living, and as I have no money to depend upon, I
cannot afford to lose any time in forming my plans.”
“You will come over to our house and take your meals!”
“Yes, Frank.”
Frank Dunbar’s father was a small farmer, who, as Frank had said, found
it hard work to make both ends meet. Among all the village boys, he was
the one whom Philip liked best, though there were many others whose
fathers were in better circumstances. For this, however, Philip cared
little. Rich or poor, Frank suited him, and they had always been known
as chums, to adopt the term used by the boys in the village.
It may be thought that as Philip’s circumstances were no better, such
an intimacy was natural enough. But Philip Gray possessed special
gifts, which made his company sought after. He was a fine singer, and
played with considerable skill on the violin—an accomplishment derived
from his father, who had acted as his teacher. Then he was of a
cheerful temperament, and this is a gift which usually renders the
possessor popular, unless marred by positive defects or bad qualities.
There were two or three young snobs in the village who looked down upon
Philip on account of his father’s poverty, but most were very glad to
associate with our hero, and have him visit their homes. He was
courteous to all, but made no secret of his preference for Frank
Dunbar.
When Philip parted from Frank, and entered the humble dwelling which
had been his own and his father’s home for years, there was a sense of
loneliness and desolation which came over him at first.
His father was the only relative whom he knew, and his death,
therefore, left the boy peculiarly, alone in the world. Everything
reminded him of his dead father. But he did not allow himself to dwell
upon thoughts that would depress his spirits and unfit him for the work
that lay before him.
He opened his father’s desk and began to examine his papers. There was
no will, for there was nothing to leave, but in one compartment of the
desk was a thick wallet, which he opened.
In it, among some receipted bills, was an envelope, on which was
written, in his father’s well-known hand:
“The contents of this envelope are probably of no value, but it will be
as well to preserve the certificate of stock. There is a bare
possibility that it may some day be worth a trifle.”
Philip opened the envelope and found a certificate for a hundred shares
of the Excelsior Gold Mine, which appeared to be located in California.
He had once heard his father speak of it in much the same terms as
above.
“I may as well keep it,” reflected Philip. “It will probably amount to
nothing, but there won’t be much trouble in carrying around the
envelope.” He also found a note of hand for a thousand dollars, signed
by Thomas Graham.
Attached to it was a slip of paper, on which he read, also in his
father’s writing:
“This note represents a sum of money lent to Thomas Graham, when I was
moderately prosperous. It is now outlawed, and payment could not be
enforced, even if Graham were alive and possessed the ability to pay.
Five years since, he left this part of the country for some foreign
country, and is probably dead, and I have heard nothing from him in all
that time. It will do no harm, and probably no good, to keep his note.”
“I will keep it,” decided Philip. “It seems that this and the mining
shares are all that father had to leave me. They will probably never
yield me a cent, but I will keep them in remembrance of him.”
Phillip found his father’s watch. It was an old-fashioned gold watch,
but of no great value even when new. Now, after twenty years’ use, it
would command a very small price at the coming sale.
Ever since Philip had been old enough to notice anything, he remembered
this watch, which was so closely identified with his father that more
than anything else it called him to mind. Philip looked at it wistfully
as it lay in his hand. “I wish I could keep it,” he said to himself.
“No one else will value it much, but it would always speak to me of my
father. I wonder if I might keep it?”
Philip had a mind to put it into his pocket, but the spirit of honesty
forbade.
“It must be sold,” he said, with a sigh. “Without it there wouldn’t be
enough to pay what we owe, and when I leave Norton, I don’t want any
one to say that my father died in his debt.”
There was nothing else in the desk which called for particular notice
or appeared to be of any special value. After a careful examination,
Philip closed it and looked around at the familiar furniture of the few
rooms which the house contained.
There was one object which he personally valued more than anything
else. This was his violin, on which he had learned all that he knew of
playing. His father had bought it for him four years before. It was not
costly, but it was of good tone, and Philip had passed many pleasant
hours in practicing on it.
“I can take this violin, at any rate,” said Philip to himself. “It
belongs to me, and no one else has a claim on it. I think I will take
it with me and leave it at Frank Dunbar’s, so that it needn’t get into
the sale.”
He put back the violin into the case and laid it on one side. Then he
sat down in the arm-chair, which had been his father’s favorite seat,
and tried to fix his mind upon the unknown future which lay before him.
He had sat there for half an hour, revolving in his mind various
thoughts and plans, when he heard a tap on the window, and looking up,
saw through the pane the coarse, red face of Nick Holden, a young
fellow of eighteen, the son of the village butcher.
“Let me in!” said Nick; “I want to see you on business.”