THE REVELATION.
“Tell me what it is all about, Tom, won’t you?” asked Hugh, as he
followed the other upstairs to his own room. Somehow, Tom seemed to feel
that they ought to be alone so his mother might not overhear what passed
between them.
“I’ll just close the door, Hugh, before I say anything,” remarked Tom,
“though for that matter there’s no danger Benjy will interrupt us,
because he’s gone off for the evening. This time I’m glad to tell you
it’s to a sociable they’re having over at our church for the young
people.”
His manner when saying this showed that Tom would be a happy fellow,
indeed, if he could only know that every night Benjy was away from home,
he was enjoying himself in similar innocent amusements as on this
particular occasion.
“It’s this way, you see, Hugh,” he continued, after finding a seat close
to his visitor, “for a little while now Benjy’s been acting mighty
decent, and I’ve come to let myself take on more hope than I had the
last time you and I talked it over. He seems more like his old self, and
was even asking some questions about the scouts, though up to now he’s
never seemed to care a thing about our organization, you remember. But
it was too good to last, Hugh.”
Remembering what he had seen that afternoon, with Benjy counting silver
coins he had received from the bird fancier, Hugh himself was obliged to
mentally confess that it looked very much that way.
“Go on, please, Tom!” he urged when the other paused.
“Well, this is how it happened,” explained the other, slowly, as though
he hated to talk about such a painful subject, and had to force himself
to take it up only because he knew it was necessary he should enter into
details. “After supper this evening, just before Benjy went out, he gave
me a quick look when he thought I wasn’t paying any attention, and then
slipped upstairs. I waited for a little while, and then just couldn’t
stand it any longer, so I managed to leave the sitting room and go up
the back stairs.
“Keeping on my tiptoes, I moved along the upper hall in the half shadows
to where I could watch the door of my room. It was partly open, and
there was a light inside, but I couldn’t see Benjy at all, though I
could hear him moving about as if looking for something. Then the light
suddenly went out, and he came out. Hugh, it made me as cold as ice when
I even heard him chuckling to himself as he hurried to his own room,
just as if he thought he had played a good joke on me.”
“Of course he didn’t know you were so close to him?” asked Hugh when Tom
stopped talking to swallow as though something seemed to be choking him.
“No, and as soon as he disappeared in his own room I slipped downstairs
again, and took up the book I had been reading. He went off a few
minutes afterwards, and called out good-night to all as cheery as he
used to in the old days before he got going with that tough set.”
“Did you come up here and look around to find out what he had been
doing?” asked the scout master.
“I wanted to the worst kind, Hugh, but it seemed as if I just couldn’t.
I was almost afraid to look for fear of making some more discoveries
that would upset me. Why, Hugh, honest to goodness, I feel so weary this
very night you would think I was an old man, and yet I’ll be sixteen
to-morrow, you remember.”
“Well,” Hugh told him, “it’s always my principle, when I’ve got a
disagreeable task to perform, to get at it right away. The longer you
wait, Tom, the worse it gets for you. The only way is to shut your teeth
hard together, and pitch in.”
“I guess you’re right, Hugh—sure you must be. I’ve been silly to hold
back. No matter what I learn, the truth can’t be any worse than this
terrible uncertainty that’s gripping me, and making me shiver as if I
had the ague again.” He jumped from his seat as though determined to
carry his words into effect.
“I suppose the first thing I ought to look at is my trunk, eh, Hugh?” he
went on to say, fumbling in a pocket for his keys.
“Well, you know better than I do where you keep your valuables,” said
the other, trying to appear merry, though somehow, Tom did not respond
to any appreciable extent. “I see that since that other time I was up
here you’ve changed your way of leaving your trunk unlocked.”
Tom flushed, and shook his head.
“Oh! I tell you it galled me to think I was locking it against my own
brother,” he said, tremulously, “but then I remembered that it is a sin
to put temptation in the path of any fellow whose weakness you know.
Though for that matter a common key would unlock this trunk.”
He soon threw back the lid and bent over, fumbling through the contents.
Hugh stood close by, watching him with more or less curiosity and
interest. He saw that Tom was evidently in fear and trembling, as though
constantly dreading lest he make some unpleasant discovery.
As he proceeded he seemed to regain a portion of his former confidence.
“Here’s my little savings bank all right, Hugh, and no one could ever
manage to get anything out of that in the short time he was in my room,
even if the trunk could be opened. So far as I can see, nothing has been
taken out of here.”
When he allowed the lid to drop again Tom was looking more or less
relieved. Evidently his main concern had been in connection with the
money, he had in that little metal bank, for if Benjy had meant to take
anything it would seem that ready cash would tempt him more than all
else.
“Oh! perhaps, Hugh, he didn’t come in here for that,” he broke out with.
“I remember now that sometimes in the past when Benjy was going out to a
party he used to want to fix his tie, and brush his hair before the
mirror in my room, for he said the light was better here. It may have
been that, Hugh, you know.”
The scout master understood that poor Tom was like a drowning man
clutching at a straw in hopes of keeping himself afloat. Hugh himself
might have been inclined to look at the matter from much the same
standpoint only for that strange incident of the afternoon, which he
could not explain, try as he might, save along very unpleasant lines.
“Let’s hope so, Tom,” he hastened to say, “though now you’re about it,
in order to ease your mind, and leave no stone unturned, I should think
you had better make a clean sweep in here.”
“Do you mean search every drawer in my chiffonier and dresser, Hugh?”
demanded Tom. “I can do that easily enough, but surely he wouldn’t think
to take any of my clothes. I might tell if he’d mussed around in the
drawers searching for my savings bank, though, because I keep everything
just so; and the clean shirt I expect to wear to-morrow morning I placed
on the top of the pile. That’s my habit as a scout to have things kept
as neat as wax. Why, Hugh, my mother laughs at me, and calls me a fussy
old maid, you know, all on account of those habits of thrift and
preparedness.”
He started in at the bureau drawers for some reason or other, and as he
opened each one and ran his eye over the contents, Tom continued to
talk.
“Seems like nothing has been bothered that I can notice, Hugh. Here’s
another drawer containing some of my surveying instruments, for, with
Bud Morgan, I’m still interested along those lines, though of late I
haven’t been out afield with him. I was a little afraid one of these
instruments might be gone. You see, they’re worth considerable money,
and were made a present to me by an old uncle who’s interested in my
career. But, so far as I can see, not a single thing is missing, Hugh.”
There was a positive air of relief in Tom’s voice when he said this.
Undoubtedly the contents of that drawer of instruments had been giving
him more anxiety than he had confessed, and he was glad that no
unpleasant discovery had developed.
“The rest will be just an apology of a search, Hugh, because, you see,
there’s absolutely nothing worth taking besides these things. Still, to
satisfy my mind as you say, perhaps I’d just better run through the
drawers of the chiffonier.”
He started at the top one. Hugh indolently watched his progress
downward, never dreaming that there would come anything out of the
ordinary. Suddenly, as Tom started to open the drawer that he said
contained his clean shirts, the scout master saw him give a big start.
“Why, what’s this?” Tom stammered, at the same time taking out a long
package carefully tied up, and with something written on the outside.
Hugh also noticed that an envelope was pinned on to the paper covering.
Somehow or other Hugh experienced a thrill. It was as if he had a
premonition that something in the nature of a great surprise was coming.
Tom was staring hard at what he saw written on the paper. Then he
snatched the note, and with trembling hands commenced to get at the
enclosure, while the scout master strove to analyze his feelings from
the flitting expressions that chased each other across his face.
He saw Tom read on, first with incredulity, then sheer amazement, and
finally a look of supreme joy came upon his countenance that spoke even
louder than his words could the revelation that had come to his faithful
heart.
“Oh! Hugh! Hugh! would you believe it, Benjy’s all right? He’s—he’s—oh!
I’m so happy I hardly know what to say! Read his note, Hugh, please!”