“Oh, I want to hug you!” And he did it.
Then he got his notes and sat down and began to check
off, for first purchase, the luxuries which he should
earliest wish to secure. “Horse—buggy
—cutter—lap-robe—patent-leathers—dog—plug-hat
—church-pew—stem-winder—new
teeth—say, Aleck!”
“Well?”
“Ciphering away, aren’t you? That’s
right. Have you got the twenty thousand invested
yet?”
“No, there’s no hurry about that; I must
look around first, and think.”
“But you are ciphering; what’s it about?”
“Why, I have to find work for the thirty thousand
that comes out of the coal, haven’t I?”
“Scott, what a head! I never thought of
that. How are you getting along? Where
have you arrived?”
“Not very far—two years or three.
I’ve turned it over twice; once in oil and
once in wheat.”
“Why, Aleck, it’s splendid! How
does it aggregate?”
“I think—well, to be on the safe
side, about a hundred and eighty thousand clear, though
it will probably be more.”
“My! isn’t it wonderful? By gracious!
luck has come our way at last, after all the hard
sledding, Aleck!”
“Well?”
“I’m going to cash in a whole three hundred
on the missionaries —what real right have
we care for expenses!”
“You couldn’t do a nobler thing, dear;
and it’s just like your generous nature, you
unselfish boy.”
The praise made Sally poignantly happy, but he was
fair and just enough to say it was rightfully due
to Aleck rather than to himself, since but for her
he should never have had the money.
Then they went up to bed, and in their delirium of
bliss they forgot and left the candle burning in the
parlor. They did not remember until they were
undressed; then Sally was for letting it burn; he
said they could afford it, if it was a thousand.
But Aleck went down and put it out.
A good job, too; for on her way back she hit on a
scheme that would turn the hundred and eighty thousand
into half a million before it had had time to get
cold.
The little newspaper which Aleck had subscribed for
was a Thursday sheet; it would make the trip of five
hundred miles from Tilbury’s village and arrive
on Saturday. Tilbury’s letter had started
on Friday, more than a day too late for the benefactor
to die and get into that week’s issue, but in
plenty of time to make connection for the next output.
Thus the Fosters had to wait almost a complete week
to find out whether anything of a satisfactory nature
had happened to him or not. It was a long, long
week, and the strain was a heavy one. The pair
could hardly have borne it if their minds had not had
the relief of wholesome diversion. We have seen
that they had that. The woman was piling up fortunes
right along, the man was spending them —spending
all his wife would give him a chance at, at any rate.
