[Illustration: Helen Mason Grose
“I WAS THINKING—OF MR. STANLEY G. FULTON”]

OH, MONEY! MONEY!
A NOVEL

BY

ELEANOR H. PORTER

Author of

The Road to Understanding, Just David, Etc.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY

HELEN MASON GROSE

To
My Friend
Eva Baker

CONTENTS

[CHAPTER I]
[CHAPTER II]
[CHAPTER III]
[CHAPTER IV]
[CHAPTER V]
[CHAPTER VI]
[CHAPTER VII]
[CHAPTER VIII]
[CHAPTER IX]
[CHAPTER X]
[CHAPTER XI]
[CHAPTER XII]
[CHAPTER XIII]
[CHAPTER XIV]
[CHAPTER XV]
[CHAPTER XVI]
[CHAPTER XVII]
[CHAPTER XVIII]
[CHAPTER XIX]
[CHAPTER XX]
[CHAPTER XXI]
[CHAPTER XXII]
[CHAPTER XXIII]
[CHAPTER XXIV]
[CHAPTER XXV]
[CHAPTER XXVI]

ILLUSTRATIONS

“I Was Thinking—of Mr. Stanley G. Fulton” Frontispiece

“I Can’t Help It, Aunt Maggie. I’ve Just Got to Be Away!”

“Jim, You’ll Have to Come!”

“And Look Into Those Blessed Children’s Faces”

From drawings by Mrs. Howard B. Grose, Jr.

CHAPTER I
EXIT MR. STANLEY G. FULTON

There was a thoughtful frown on the face of the man who was the possessor of twenty million dollars. He was a tall, spare man, with a fringe of reddish-brown hair encircling a bald spot. His blue eyes, fixed just now in a steady gaze upon a row of ponderous law books across the room, were friendly and benevolent in direct contradiction to the bulldog, never-let-go fighting qualities of the square jaw below the firm, rather thin lips.

The lawyer, a youthfully alert man of sixty years, trimly gray as to garb, hair, and mustache, sat idly watching him, yet with eyes that looked so intently that they seemed to listen.

For fully five minutes the two men had been pulling at their cigars in silence when the millionaire spoke.

“Ned, what am I going to do with my money?”

Into the lawyer’s listening eyes flashed, for a moment, the keenly scrutinizing glance usually reserved for the witness on the other side. Then quietly came the answer.

“Spend it yourself, I hope—for some years to come, Stanley.”

Mr. Stanley G. Fulton was guilty of a shrug and an uplifted eyebrow.

“Thanks. Very pretty, and I appreciate it, of course. But I can’t wear but one suit of clothes at a time, nor eat but one dinner—which, by the way, just now consists of somebody’s health biscuit and hot water. Twenty millions don’t really what you might call melt away at that rate.”

The lawyer frowned.

“Shucks, Fulton!” he expostulated, with an irritable twist of his hand. “I thought better of you than that. This poor rich man’s ‘one-suit, one-dinner, one-bed-at-a-time’ hard-luck story doesn’t suit your style. Better cut it out!”

“All right. Cut it is.” The man smiled good-humoredly. “But you see I was nettled. You didn’t get me at all. I asked you what was to become of my money after I’d done spending it myself—the little that is left, of course.”

Once more from the lawyer’s eyes flashed that keenly scrutinizing glance.

“What was it, Fulton? A midnight rabbit, or a wedge of mince pie not like mother used to make? Why, man alive, you’re barely over fifty, yet. Cheer up! It’s only a little matter of indigestion. There are a lot of good days and good dinners coming to you, yet.”

The millionaire made a wry face.

“Very likely—if I survive the biscuits. But, seriously, Ned, I’m in earnest. No, I don’t think I’m going to die—yet awhile. But I ran across young Bixby last night—got him home, in fact. Delivered him to his white-faced little wife. Talk about your maudlin idiots!”

“Yes, I know. Too bad, too bad!”

“Hm-m; well, that’s what one million did—inherited. It set me to thinking—of mine, when I get through with them.”

“I see.” The lawyer’s lips came together a little grimly. “You’ve not made your will, I believe.”

“No. Dreaded it, somehow. Funny how a man’ll fight shy of a little thing like that, isn’t it? And when we’re so mighty particular where it goes while we’re living!”

“Yes, I know; you’re not the only one. You have relatives—somewhere, I surmise.”

“Nothing nearer than cousins, third or fourth, back East. They’d get it, I suppose—without a will.”

“Why don’t you marry?”

The millionaire repeated the wry face of a moment before.

“I’m not a marrying man. I never did care much for women; and—I’m not fool enough to think that a woman would be apt to fall in love with my bald head. Nor am I obliging enough to care to hand the millions over to the woman that falls in love with them, taking me along as the necessary sack that holds the gold. If it comes to that, I’d rather risk the cousins. They, at least, are of my own blood, and they didn’t angle to get the money.”

“You know them?”

“Never saw ’em.”

“Why not pick out a bunch of colleges and endow them?”

The millionaire shook his head.

“Doesn’t appeal to me, somehow. Oh, of course it ought to, but—it just doesn’t. That’s all. Maybe if I was a college man myself; but—well, I had to dig for what education I got.”

“Very well—charities, then. There are numberless organizations that—” He stopped abruptly at the other’s uplifted hand.

“Organizations! Good Heavens, I should think there were! I tried ’em once. I got that philanthropic bee in my bonnet, and I gave thousands, tens of thousands to ’em. Then I got to wondering where the money went.”

Unexpectedly the lawyer chuckled.

“You never did like to invest without investigating, Fulton,” he observed.

With only a shrug for an answer the other plunged on.

“Now, understand. I’m not saying that organized charity isn’t all right, and doesn’t do good, of course. Neither am I prepared to propose anything to take its place. And maybe the two or three I dealt with were particularly addicted to the sort of thing I objected to. But, honestly, Ned, if you’d lost heart and friends and money, and were just ready to chuck the whole shooting-match, how would you like to become a ‘Case,’ say, number twenty-three thousand seven hundred and forty-one, ticketed and docketed, and duly apportioned off to a six-by-nine rule of ‘do this’ and ‘do that,’ while a dozen spectacled eyes watched you being cleaned up and regulated and wound up with a key made of just so much and no more pats and preachments carefully weighed and labeled? How would you like it?”

The lawyer laughed.

“I know; but, my dear fellow, what would you have? Surely, unorganized charity and promiscuous giving is worse—”

“Oh, yes, I’ve tried that way, too,” shrugged the other. “There was a time when every Tom, Dick, and Harry, with a run-down shoe and a ragged coat, could count on me for a ten-spot by just holding out his hand, no questions asked. Then a serious-eyed little woman sternly told me one day that the indiscriminate charity of a millionaire was not only a curse to any community, but a corruption to the whole state. I believe she kindly included the nation, as well, bless her! And I thought I was doing good!” “What a blow—to you!” There was a whimsical smile in the lawyer’s eyes.

“It was.” The millionaire was not smiling. “But she was right. It set me to thinking, and I began to follow up those ten-spots—the ones that I could trace. Jove! what a mess I’d made of it! Oh, some of them were all right, of course, and I made those fifties on the spot. But the others—! I tell you, Ned, money that isn’t earned is the most risky thing in the world. If I’d left half those wretches alone, they’d have braced up and helped themselves and made men of themselves, maybe. As it was—Well, you never can tell as to the results of a so-called ‘good’ action. From my experience I should say they are every whit as dangerous as the bad ones.”

The lawyer laughed outright.

“But, my dear fellow, that’s just where the organized charity comes in. Don’t you see?”

“Oh, yes, I know—Case number twenty-three thousand seven hundred and forty-one! And that’s all right, of course. Relief of some sort is absolutely necessary. But I’d like to see a little warm sympathy injected into it, some way. Give the machine a heart, say, as well as hands and a head.”

“Then why don’t you try it yourself?”

“Not I!” His gesture of dissent was emphatic. “I have tried it, in a way, and failed. That’s why I’d like some one else to tackle the job. And that brings me right back to my original question. I’m wondering what my money will do, when I’m done with it. I’d like to have one of my own kin have it—if I was sure of him. Money is a queer proposition, Ned, and it’s capable of—’most anything.”

“It is. You’re right.”

“What I can do with it, and what some one else can do with it, are two quite different matters. I don’t consider my efforts to circulate it wisely, or even harmlessly, exactly what you’d call a howling success. Whatever I’ve done, I’ve always been criticized for not doing something else. If I gave a costly entertainment, I was accused of showy ostentation. If I didn’t give it, I was accused of not putting money into honest circulation. If I donated to a church, it was called conscience money; and if I didn’t donate to it, they said I was mean and miserly. So much for what I’ve done. I was just wondering—what the other fellow’d do with it.”

“Why worry? ’Twon’t be your fault.”

“But it will—if I give it to him. Great Scott, Ned! what money does for folks, sometimes—folks that aren’t used to it! Look at Bixby; and look at that poor little Marston girl, throwing herself away on that worthless scamp of a Gowing who’s only after her money, as everybody (but herself) knows! And if it doesn’t make knaves and martyrs of them, ten to one it does make fools of ’em. They’re worse than a kid with a dollar on circus day; and they use just about as much sense spending their pile, too. You should have heard dad tell about his pals in the eighties that struck it rich in the gold mines. One bought up every grocery store in town and instituted a huge free grab-bag for the populace; and another dropped his hundred thousand in the dice box before it was a week old. I wonder what those cousins of mine back East are like!”

“If you’re fearful, better take Case number twenty-three thousand seven hundred and forty-one,” smiled the lawyer.

“Hm-m; I suppose so,” ejaculated the other grimly, getting to his feet. “Well, I must be off. It’s biscuit time, I see.”

A moment later the door of the lawyer’s sumptuously appointed office closed behind him. Not twenty-four hours afterward, however, it opened to admit him again. He was alert, eager-eyed, and smiling. He looked ten years younger. Even the office boy who ushered him in cocked a curious eye at him.

The man at the great flat-topped desk gave a surprised ejaculation.

“Hullo, Fulton! Those biscuits must be agreeing with you,” he laughed. “Mind telling me their name?”

“Ned, I’ve got a scheme. I think I can carry it out.” Mr. Stanley G. Fulton strode across the room and dropped himself into the waiting chair. “Remember those cousins back East? Well, I’m going to find out which of ’em I want for my heir.”

“Another case of investigating before investing, eh?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, that’s like you. What is it, a little detective work? Going to get acquainted with them, I suppose, and see how they treat you. Then you can size them up as to hearts and habits, and drop the golden plum into the lap of the worthy man, eh?”

“Yes, and no. But not the way you say. I’m going to give ’em say fifty or a hundred thousand apiece, and—”

“Give it to them—now?”

“Sure! How’m I going to know how they’ll spend money till they have it to spend?”

“I know; but—”

“Oh, I’ve planned all that. Don’t worry. Of course you’ll have to fix it up for me. I shall leave instructions with you, and when the time comes all you have to do is to carry them out.”

The lawyer came erect in his chair.

“Leave instructions! But you, yourself—?”

“Oh, I’m going to be there, in Hillerton.”

“There? Hillerton?”

“Yes, where the cousins live, you know. Of course I want to see how it works.”

“Humph! I suppose you think you’ll find out—with you watching their every move!” The lawyer had settled back in his chair, an ironical smile on his lips.

“Oh, they won’t know me, of course, except as John Smith.”

“John Smith!” The lawyer was sitting erect again.

“Yes. I’m going to take that name—for a time.”

“Nonsense, Fulton! Have you lost your senses?”

“No.” The millionaire still smiled imperturbably. “Really, my dear Ned, I’m disappointed in you. You don’t seem to realize the possibilities of this thing.”

“Oh, yes, I do—perhaps better than you, old man,” retorted the other with an expressive glance.

“Oh, come, Ned, listen! I’ve got three cousins in Hillerton. I never saw them, and they never saw me. I’m going to give them a tidy little sum of money apiece, and then have the fun of watching them spend it. Any harm in that, especially as it’s no one’s business what I do with my money?”

“N—no, I suppose not—if you can carry such a wild scheme through.”

“I can, I think. I’m going to be John Smith.”

“Nice distinctive name!”

“I chose a colorless one on purpose. I’m going to be a colorless person, you see.”

“Oh! And—er—do you think Mr. Stanley G. Fulton, multi-millionaire, with his pictured face in half the papers and magazines from the Atlantic to the Pacific, can hide that face behind a colorless John Smith?”

“Maybe not. But he can hide it behind a nice little close-cropped beard.” The millionaire stroked his smooth chin reflectively.

“Humph! How large is Hillerton?”

“Eight or ten thousand. Nice little New England town, I’m told.”

“Hm-m. And your—er—business in Hillerton, that will enable you to be the observing fly on your cousins’ walls?”

“Yes, I’ve thought that all out, too; and that’s another brilliant stroke. I’m going to be a genealogist. I’m going to be at work tracing the Blaisdell family—their name is Blaisdell. I’m writing a book which necessitates the collection of an endless amount of data. Now how about that fly’s chances of observation. Eh?”

“Mighty poor, if he’s swatted—and that’s what he will be! New England housewives are death on flies, I understand.”

“Well, I’ll risk this one.”

“You poor fellow!” There were exasperation and amusement in the lawyer’s eyes, but there was only mock sympathy in his voice. “And to think I’ve known you all these years, and never suspected it, Fulton!”

The man who owned twenty millions still smiled imperturbably.

“Oh, yes, I know what you mean, but I’m not crazy. And really I’m interested in genealogy, too, and I’ve been thinking for some time I’d go digging about the roots of my ancestral tree. I have dug a little, in years gone. My mother was a Blaisdell, you know. Her grandfather was brother to some ancestor of these Hillerton Blaisdells; and I really am interested in collecting Blaisdell data. So that’s all straight. I shall be telling no fibs. And think of the opportunity it gives me! Besides, I shall try to board with one of them. I’ve decided that.”

“Upon my word, a pretty little scheme!”

“Yes, I knew you’d appreciate it, the more you thought about it.” Mr. Stanley G. Fulton’s blue eyes twinkled a little.

With a disdainful gesture the lawyer brushed this aside.

“Do you mind telling me how you happened to think of it, yourself?”

“Not a bit. ’Twas a little booklet got out by a Trust Company.”

“It sounds like it!”

“Oh, they didn’t suggest exactly this, I’ll admit; but they did suggest that, if you were fearful as to the way your heirs would handle their inheritance, you could create a trust fund for their benefit while you were living, and then watch the way the beneficiaries spent the income, as well as the way the trust fund itself was managed. In this way you could observe the effects of your gifts, and at the same time be able to change them if you didn’t like results. That gave me an idea. I’ve just developed it. That’s all. I’m going to make my cousins a little rich, and see which, if any of them, can stand being very rich.”

“But the money, man! How are you going to drop a hundred thousand dollars into three men’s laps, and expect to get away without an investigation as to the why and wherefore of such a singular proceeding?”

“That’s where your part comes in,” smiled the millionaire blandly. “Besides, to be accurate, one of the laps is—er—a petticoat one.”

“Oh, indeed! So much the worse, maybe. But—And so this is where I come in, is it? Well, and suppose I refuse to come in?”

“Regretfully I shall have to employ another attorney.”

“Humph! Well?”

“But you won’t refuse.” The blue eyes opposite were still twinkling. “In the first place, you’re my good friend—my best friend. You wouldn’t be seen letting me start off on a wild-goose chase like this without your guiding hand at the helm to see that I didn’t come a cropper.”

“Aren’t you getting your metaphors a trifle mixed?” This time the lawyer’s eyes were twinkling.

“Eh? What? Well, maybe. But I reckon you get my meaning. Besides, what I want you to do is a mere routine of regular business, with you.”

“It sounds like it. Routine, indeed!”

“But it is—your part. Listen. I’m off for South America, say, on an exploring tour. In your charge I leave certain papers with instructions that on the first day of the sixth month of my absence (I being unheard from), you are to open a certain envelope and act according to instructions within. Simplest thing in the world, man. Now isn’t it?”

“Oh, very simple—as you put it.”

“Well, meanwhile I’ll start for South America—alone, of course; and, so far as you’re concerned, that ends it. If on the way, somewhere, I determine suddenly on a change of destination, that is none of your affair. If, say in a month or two, a quiet, inoffensive gentleman by the name of Smith arrives in Hillerton on the legitimate and perfectly respectable business of looking up a family pedigree, that also is none of your concern.” With a sudden laugh the lawyer fell back in his chair.

“By Jove, Fulton, if I don’t believe you’ll pull this absurd thing off!”

“There! Now you’re talking like a sensible man, and we can get somewhere. Of course I’ll pull it off! Now here’s my plan. In order best to judge how my esteemed relatives conduct themselves under the sudden accession of wealth, I must see them first without it, of course. Hence, I plan to be in Hillerton some months before your letter and the money arrive. I intend, indeed, to be on the friendliest terms with every Blaisdell in Hillerton before that times comes.”

“But can you? Will they accept you without references or introduction?”

“Oh, I shall have the best of references and introductions. Bob Chalmers is the president of a bank there. Remember Bob? Well, I shall take John Smith in and introduce him to Bob some day. After that, Bob’ll introduce John Smith? See? All I need is a letter as to my integrity and respectability, I reckon, so my kinsmen won’t suspect me of designs on their spoons when I ask to board with them. You see, I’m a quiet, retiring gentleman, and I don’t like noisy hotels.”

With an explosive chuckle the lawyer clapped his knee. “Fulton, this is absolutely the richest thing I ever heard of! I’d give a farm to be a fly on your wall and see you do it. I’m blest if I don’t think I’ll go to Hillerton myself—to see Bob. By George, I will go and see Bob!”

“Of course,” agreed the other serenely. “Why not? Besides, it will be the most natural thing in the world—business, you know. In fact, I should think you really ought to go, in connection with the bequests.”

“Why, to be sure.” The lawyer frowned thoughtfully. “How much are you going to give them?”

“Oh, a hundred thousand apiece, I reckon.”

“That ought to do—for pin money.”

“Oh, well, I want them to have enough, you know, for it to be a real test of what they would do with wealth. And it must be cash—no securities. I want them to do their own investing.”

“But how are you going to fix it? What excuse are you going to give for dropping a hundred thousand into their laps like that? You can’t tell your real purpose, naturally! You’d defeat your own ends.”

“That part we’ll have to fix up in the letter of instructions. I think we can. I’ve got a scheme.”

“I’ll warrant you have! I’ll believe anything of you now. But what are you going to do afterward—when you’ve found out what you want to know, I mean? Won’t it be something of a shock, when John Smith turns into Mr. Stanley G. Fulton? Have you thought of that?”

“Y-yes, I’ve thought of that, and I will confess my ideas are a little hazy, in spots. But I’m not worrying. Time enough to think of that part. Roughly, my plan is this now. There’ll be two letters of instructions: one to open in six months, the other to be opened in, say, a couple of years, or so. (I want to give myself plenty of time for my observations, you see.) The second letter will really give you final instructions as to the settling of my estate—my will. I’ll have to make some sort of one, I suppose.”

“But, good Heavens, Stanley, you—you—” the lawyer came to a helpless pause. His eyes were startled.

“Oh, that’s just for emergency, of course, in case anything—er—happened. What I really intend is that long before the second letter of instructions is due to be opened, Mr. Stanley G. Fulton will come back from his South American explorations. He’ll then be in a position to settle his affairs to suit himself, and—er—make a new will. Understand?”

“Oh, I see. But—there’s John Smith? How about Smith?”

The millionaire smiled musingly, and stroked his chin again.

“Smith? Oh! Well, Smith will have finished collecting Blaisdell data, of course, and will be off to parts unknown. We don’t have to trouble ourselves with Smith any longer.”

“Fulton, you’re a wizard,” laughed the lawyer. “But now about the cousins. Who are they? You know their names, of course.”

“Oh, yes. You see I’ve done a little digging already—some years ago—looking up the Blaisdell family. (By the way, that’ll come in fine now, won’t it?) And an occasional letter from Bob has kept me posted as to deaths and births in the Hillerton Blaisdells. I always meant to hunt them up some time, they being my nearest kith and kin. Well, with what I already had, and with what Bob has written me, I know these facts.”

He paused, pulled a small notebook from his pocket, and consulted it.

“There are two sons and a daughter, children of Rufus Blaisdell. Rufus died years ago, and his widow married a man by the name of Duff. But she’s dead now. The elder son is Frank Blaisdell. He keeps a grocery store. The other is James Blaisdell. He works in a real estate office. The daughter, Flora, never married. She’s about forty-two or three, I believe, and does dressmaking. James Blaisdell has a son, Fred, seventeen, and two younger children. Frank Blaisdell has one daughter, Mellicent. That’s the extent of my knowledge, at present. But it’s enough for our purpose.”

“Oh, anything’s enough—for your purpose! What are you going to do first?”

“I’ve done it. You’ll soon be reading in your morning paper that Mr. Stanley G. Fulton, the somewhat eccentric multi-millionaire, is about to start for South America, and that it is hinted he is planning to finance a gigantic exploring expedition. The accounts of what he’s going to explore will vary all the way from Inca antiquities to the source of the Amazon. I’ve done a lot of talking to-day, and a good deal of cautioning as to secrecy, etc. It ought to bear fruit by to-morrow, or the day after, at the latest. I’m going to start next week, and I’m really going exploring, too—though not exactly as they think. I came in to-day to make a business appointment for to-morrow, please. A man starting on such a hazardous journey must be prepared, you understand. I want to leave my affairs in such shape that you will know exactly what to do—in emergency. I may come to-morrow?”

The lawyer hesitated, his face an odd mixture of determination and irresolution.

“Oh, hang it all—yes. Of course you may come. To-morrow at ten—if they don’t shut you up before.”

With a boyish laugh Mr. Stanley G. Fulton leaped to his feet.

“Thanks. To-morrow at ten, then.” At the door he turned back jauntily. “And, say, Ned, what’ll you bet I don’t grow fat and young over this thing? What’ll you bet I don’t get so I can eat real meat and ’taters again?”

CHAPTER II
ENTER MR. JOHN SMITH

It was on the first warm evening in early June that Miss Flora Blaisdell crossed the common and turned down the street that led to her brother James’s home.

The common marked the center of Hillerton. Its spacious green lawns and elm-shaded walks were the pride of the town. There was a trellised band-stand for summer concerts, and a tiny pond that accommodated a few boats in summer and a limited number of skaters in winter. Perhaps, most important of all, the common divided the plebeian East Side from the more pretentious West. James Blaisdell lived on the West Side. His wife said that everybody did who was anybody. They had lately moved there, and were, indeed, barely settled.

Miss Blaisdell did dressmaking. Her home was a shabby little rented cottage on the East Side. She was a thin-faced little woman with an anxious frown and near-sighted, peering eyes that seemed always to be looking for wrinkles. She peered now at the houses as she passed slowly down the street. She had been only twice to her brother’s new home, and she was not sure that she would recognize it, in spite of the fact that the street was still alight with the last rays of the setting sun. Suddenly across her worried face flashed a relieved smile.

“Well, if you ain’t all here out on the piazza!” she exclaimed, turning, in at the walk leading up to one of the ornate little houses. “My, ain’t this grand!”

“Oh, yes, it’s grand, all right,” nodded the tired-looking man in the big chair, removing his feet from the railing. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and was smoking a pipe. The droop of his thin mustache matched the droop of his thin shoulders—and both indefinably but unmistakably spelled disillusion and discouragement. “It’s grand, but I think it’s too grand—for us. However, daughter says the best is none too good—in Hillerton. Eh, Bess?”

Bessie, the pretty, sixteen-year-old daughter of the family, only shrugged her shoulders a little petulantly. It was Harriet, the wife, who spoke—a large, florid woman with a short upper lip, and a bewilderment of bepuffed light hair. She was already on her feet, pushing a chair toward her sister-in-law.

“Of course it isn’t too grand, Jim, and you know it. There aren’t any really nice houses in Hillerton except the Pennocks’ and the old Gaylord place. There, sit here, Flora. You look tired.”

“Thanks. I be—turrible tired. Warm, too, ain’t it?” The little dressmaker began to fan herself with the hat she had taken off. “My, ’tis fur over here, ain’t it? Not much like ’twas when you lived right ’round the corner from me! And I had to put on a hat and gloves, too. Someway, I thought I ought to—over here.”

Condescendingly the bepuffed head threw an approving nod in her direction.

“Quite right, Flora. The East Side is different from the West Side, and no mistake. And what will do there won’t do here at all, of course.”

“How about father’s shirt-sleeves?” It was a scornful gibe from Bessie in the hammock. “I don’t notice any of the rest of the men around here sitting out like that.”

“Bessie!” chided her mother wearily. “You know very well I’m not to blame for what your father wears. I’ve tried hard enough, I’m sure!”

“Well, well, Hattie,” sighed the man, with a gesture of abandonment. “I supposed I still had the rights of a freeborn American citizen in my own home; but it seems I haven’t.” Resignedly he got to his feet and went into the house. When he returned a moment later he was wearing his coat.

Benny, perched precariously on the veranda railing, gave a sudden indignant snort. Benny was eight, the youngest of the family.

“Well, I don’t think I like it here, anyhow,” he chafed. “I’d rather go back an’ live where we did. A feller can have some fun there. It hasn’t been anything but ‘Here, Benny, you mustn’t do that over here, you mustn’t do that over here!’ ever since we came. I’m going home an’ live with Aunt Flora. Say, can’t I, Aunt Flo?”

“Bless the child! Of course you can,” beamed his aunt. “But you won’t want to, I’m sure. Why, Benny, I think it’s perfectly lovely here.”

“Pa don’t.”

“Indeed I do, Benny,” corrected his father hastily. “It’s very nice indeed here, of course. But I don’t think we can afford it. We had to squeeze every penny before, and how we’re going to meet this rent I don’t know.” He drew a profound sigh.

“You’ll earn it, just being here—more business,” asserted his wife firmly. “Anyhow, we’ve just got to be here, Jim! We owe it to ourselves and our family. Look at Fred to-night!”

“Oh, yes, where is Fred?” queried Miss Flora.

“He’s over to Gussie Pennock’s, playing tennis,” interposed Bessie, with a pout. “The mean old thing wouldn’t ask me!”

“But you ain’t old enough, my dear,” soothed her aunt. “Wait; your turn will come by and by.”

“Yes, that’s exactly it,” triumphed the mother. “Her turn will come—if we live here. Do you suppose Fred would have got an invitation to Gussie Pennock’s if we’d still been living on the East Side? Not much he would! Why, Mr. Pennock’s worth fifty thousand, if he’s worth a dollar! They are some of our very first people.”

“But, Hattie, money isn’t everything, dear,” remonstrated her husband gently. “We had friends, and good friends, before.”

“Yes; but you wait and see what kind of friends we have now!”

“But we can’t keep up with such people, dear, on our income; and—”

“Ma, here’s a man. I guess he wants—somebody.” It was a husky whisper from Benny.

James Blaisdell stopped abruptly. Bessie Blaisdell and the little dressmaker cocked their heads interestedly. Mrs. Blaisdell rose to her feet and advanced toward the steps to meet the man coming up the walk.

He was a tall, rather slender man, with a close-cropped, sandy beard, and an air of diffidence and apology. As he took off his hat and came nearer, it was seen that his eyes were blue and friendly, and that his hair was reddish-brown, and rather scanty on top of his head.

“I am looking for Mr. Blaisdell—Mr. James Blaisdell,” he murmured hesitatingly.

Something in the stranger’s deferential manner sent a warm glow of importance to the woman’s heart. Mrs. Blaisdell was suddenly reminded that she was Mrs. James D. Blaisdell of the West Side.

“I am Mrs. Blaisdell,” she replied a bit pompously. “What can we do for you, my good man?” She swelled again, half unconsciously. She had never called a person “my good man” before. She rather liked the experience.

The man on the steps coughed slightly behind his hand—a sudden spasmodic little cough. Then very gravely he reached into his pocket and produced a letter.

“From Mr. Robert Chalmers—a note to your husband,” he bowed, presenting the letter.

A look of gratified surprise came into the woman’s face.

“Mr. Robert Chalmers, of the First National? Jim!” She turned to her husband joyously. “Here’s a note from Mr. Chalmers. Quick—read it!”

Her husband, already on his feet, whisked the sheet of paper from the unsealed envelope, and adjusted his glasses. A moment later he held out a cordial hand to the stranger.

“Ah, Mr. Smith, I’m glad to see you. I’m glad to see any friend of Bob Chalmers’. Come up and sit down. My wife and children, and my sister, Miss Blaisdell. Mr. Smith, ladies—Mr. John Smith.” (Glancing at the open note in his hand.) “He is sent to us by Mr. Chalmers, of the First National.”

“Yes, thank you. Mr. Chalmers was so kind.” Still with that deference so delightfully heart-warming, the newcomer bowed low to the ladies, and made his way to the offered chair. “I will explain at once my business,” he said then. “I am a genealogist.”

“What’s that?” It was an eager question from Benny on the veranda railing. “Pa isn’t anything, but ma’s a Congregationalist.”

“Hush, child!” protested a duet of feminine voices softly; but the stranger, apparently ignoring the interruption, continued speaking.

“I am gathering material for a book on the Blaisdell family.”

“The Blaisdell family!” repeated Mr. James Blaisdell, with cordial interest.

“Yes,” bowed the other. “It is my purpose to remain some time in your town. I am told there are valuable records here, and an old burying-ground of particular interest in this connection. The neighboring towns, too, have much Blaisdell data, I understand. As I said, I am intending to make this place my headquarters, and I am looking for an attractive boarding-place. Mr. Chalmers was good enough to refer me to you.”

“To us—for a boarding-place!” There was an unmistakable frown on Mrs. James D. Blaisdell’s countenance as she said the words. “Well, I’m sure I don’t see why he should. we don’t keep boarders!”

“But, Hattie, we could,” interposed her husband eagerly. “There’s that big front room that we don’t need a bit. And it would help a lot if—” At the wrathful warning in his wife’s eyes he fell back silenced.

“I said that we didn’t keep boarders,” reiterated the lady distinctly. “Furthermore, we do need the room ourselves.”

“Yes, yes, of course; I understand,” broke in Mr. Smith, as if in hasty conciliation. “I think Mr. Chalmers meant that perhaps one of you”—he glanced uncertainly at the anxious-eyed little woman at his left—“might—er—accommodate me. Perhaps you, now—” He turned his eyes full upon Miss Flora Blaisdell, and waited.

The little dressmaker blushed painfully.

“Me? Oh, mercy, no! Why, I live all alone—that is, I mean, I couldn’t, you know,” she stammered confusedly. “I dressmake, and I don’t get any sort of meals—not fit for a man, I mean. Just women’s things—tea, toast, and riz biscuit. I’m so fond of riz biscuit! But, of course, you—” She came to an expressive pause.

“Oh, I could stand the biscuit, so long as they’re not health biscuit,” laughed Mr. Smith genially. “You see, I’ve been living on those and hot water quite long enough as it is.”

“Oh, ain’t your health good, sir?” The little dressmaker’s face wore the deepest concern.

“Well, it’s better than it was, thank you. I think I can promise to be a good boarder, all right.”

“Why don’t you go to a hotel?” Mrs. James D. Blaisdell still spoke with a slightly injured air.

Mr. Smith lifted a deprecatory hand.

“Oh, indeed, that would not do at all—for my purpose,” he murmured. “I wish to be very quiet. I fear I should find it quite disturbing—the noise and confusion of a public place like that. Besides, for my work, it seemed eminently fitting, as well as remarkably convenient, if I could make my home with one of the Blaisdell family.”

With a sudden exclamation the little dressmaker sat erect.

“Say, Harriet, how funny we never thought! He’s just the one for poor Maggie! Why not send him there?”

“Poor Maggie?” It was the mild voice of Mr. Smith.

“Our sister—yes. She lives—”

“Your sister!” Into Mr. Smith’s face had come a look of startled surprise—a look almost of terror. “But there weren’t but three—that is, I thought—I understood from Mr. Chalmers that there were but three Blaisdells, two brothers, and one sister—you, yourself.”

“Oh, poor Maggie ain’t a Blaisdell,” explained the little dressmaker, with a smile. “She’s just Maggie Duff, father Duff’s daughter by his first wife, you know. He married our mother years ago, when we children were little, so we were brought up with Maggie, and always called her sister; though, of course, she really ain’t any relation to us at all.”

“Oh, I see. Yes, to be sure. Of course!” Mr. Smith seemed oddly thoughtful. He appeared to be settling something in his mind. “She isn’t a Blaisdell, then.”

“No, but she’s so near like one, and she’s a splendid cook, and—”

“Well, I shan’t send him to Maggie,” cut in Mrs. James D. Blaisdell with emphasis. “Poor Maggie’s got quite enough on her hands, as it is, with that father of hers. Besides, she isn’t a Blaisdell at all.”

“And she couldn’t come and cook and take care of us near so much, either, could she,” plunged in Benny, “if she took this man ter feed?”

“That will do, Benny,” admonished his mother, with nettled dignity. “You forget that children should be seen and not heard.”

“Yes’m. But, please, can’t I be heard just a minute for this? Why don’t ye send the man ter Uncle Frank an’ Aunt Jane? Maybe they’d take him.”

“The very thing!” cried Miss Flora Blaisdell. “I wouldn’t wonder a mite if they did.”

“Yes, I was thinking of them,” nodded her sister-in-law. “And they’re always glad of a little help,—especially Jane.”

“Anybody should be,” observed Mr. James Blaisdell quietly.

Only the heightened color in his wife’s cheeks showed that she had heard—and understood.

“Here, Benny,” she directed, “go and show the gentleman where Uncle Frank lives.”

“All right!” With a spring the boy leaped to the lawn and pranced to the sidewalk, dancing there on his toes. “I’ll show ye, Mr. Smith.”

The gentleman addressed rose to his feet.

“I thank you, Mr. Blaisdell,” he said, “and you, ladies. I shall hope to see you again soon. I am sure you can help me, if you will, in my work. I shall want to ask—some questions.”

“Certainly, sir, certainly! We shall be glad to see you,” promised his host. “Come any time, and ask all the questions you want to.”

“And we shall be so interested,” fluttered Miss Flora. “I’ve always wanted to know about father’s folks. And are you a Blaisdell, too?”

There was the briefest of pauses. Mr. Smith coughed again twice behind his hand.

“Er—ah—oh, yes, I may say that I am. Through my mother I am descended from the original immigrant, Ebenezer Blaisdell.”

“Immigrant!” exclaimed Miss Flora.

“An immigrant!” Mrs. James Blaisdell spoke the word as if her tongue were a pair of tongs that had picked up a noxious viper.

“Yes, but not exactly as we commonly regard the term nowadays,” smiled Mr. Smith. “Mr. Ebenezer Blaisdell was a man of means and distinction. He was the founder of the family in this country. He came over in 1647.”

“My, how interesting!” murmured the little dressmaker, as the visitor descended the steps.

“Good-night—good-night! And thank you again,” bowed Mr. John Smith to the assembled group on the veranda. “And now, young man, I’m at your service,” he smiled, as he joined Benny, still prancing on the sidewalk. “Now he’s what I call a real nice pleasant-spoken gentleman,” avowed Miss Flora, when she thought speech was safe. “I do hope Jane’ll take him.”

“Oh, yes, he’s well enough,” condescended Mrs. Hattie Blaisdell, with a yawn.

“Hattie, why wouldn’t you take him in?” reproached her husband. “Just think how the pay would help! And it wouldn’t be a bit of work, hardly, for you. Certainly it would be a lot easier than the way we are doing.”

The woman frowned impatiently.

“Jim, don’t, please! Do you suppose I got over here on the West Side to open a boarding-house? I guess not—yet!”

“But what shall we do?”

“Oh, we’ll get along somehow. Don’t worry!”

“Perhaps if you’d worry a little more, I wouldn’t worry so much,” sighed the man deeply.

“Well, mercy me, I must be going,” interposed the little dressmaker, springing to her feet with a nervous glance at her brother and his wife. “I’m forgetting it ain’t so near as it used to be. Good-night!”

“Good-night, good-night! Come again,” called the three on the veranda. Then the door closed behind them, as they entered the house.

Meanwhile, walking across the common, Benny was entertaining Mr. Smith.

“Yep, they’ll take ye, I bet ye—Aunt Jane an’ Uncle Frank will!”

“Well, that’s good, I’m sure.”

“Yep. An’ it’ll be easy, too. Why, Aunt Jane’ll just tumble over herself ter get ye, if ye just mention first what yer’ll pay. She’ll begin ter reckon up right away then what she’ll save. An’ in a minute she’ll say, ‘Yes, I’ll take ye.’”

“Indeed!”

The uncertainty in Mr. Smith’s voice was palpable even to eight-year-old Benny.

“Oh, you don’t need ter worry,” he hastened to explain. “She won’t starve ye; only she won’t let ye waste anythin’. You’ll have ter eat all the crusts to yer pie, and finish ‘taters before you can get any puddin’, an’ all that, ye know. Ye see, she’s great on savin’—Aunt Jane is. She says waste is a sinful extravagance before the Lord.”

“Indeed!” Mr. Smith laughed outright this time. “But are you sure, my boy, that you ought to talk—just like this, about your aunt?”

Benny’s eyes widened.

“Why, that’s all right, Mr. Smith. Ev’rybody in town knows Aunt Jane. Why, Ma says folks say she’d save ter-day for ter-morrer, if she could. But she couldn’t do that, could she? So that’s just silly talk. But you wait till you see Aunt Jane.”

“All right. I’ll wait, Benny.”

“Well, ye won’t have ter wait long, Mr. Smith, ’cause here’s her house. She lives over the groc’ry store, ter save rent, ye know. It’s Uncle Frank’s store. An’ here we are,” he finished, banging open a door and leading the way up a flight of ill-lighted stairs.

CHAPTER III
THE SMALL BOY AT THE KEYHOLE

At the top of the stairs Benny tried to open the door, but as it did not give at his pressure, he knocked lustily, and called “Aunt Jane, Aunt Jane!”

“Isn’t this the bell?” hazarded Mr. Smith, his finger almost on a small push-button near him.

“Yep, but it don’t go now. Uncle Frank wanted it fixed, but Aunt Jane said no; knockin’ was just as good, an’ ’twas lots cheaper, ’cause ’twould save mendin’, and didn’t use any ’lectricity. But Uncle Frank says—”

The door opened abruptly, and Benny interrupted himself to give eager greeting.

“Hullo, Aunt Jane! I’ve brought you somebody. He’s Mr. Smith. An’ you’ll be glad. You see if yer ain’t!”

In the dim hallway Mr. Smith saw a tall, angular woman with graying dark hair and high cheek bones. Her eyes were keen and just now somewhat sternly inquiring, as they were bent upon himself.

Perceiving that Benny considered his mission as master of ceremonies at an end, Mr. Smith hastened to explain.

“I came from your husband’s brother, madam. He—er—sent me. He thought perhaps you had a room that I could have.”

“A room?” Her eyes grew still more coldly disapproving.

“Yes, and board. He thought—that is, they thought that perhaps—you would be so kind.”

“Oh, a boarder! You mean for pay, of course?”

“Most certainly!”

“Oh!” She softened visibly, and stepped back. “Well, I don’t know. I never have—but that isn’t saying I couldn’t, of course. Come in. We can talk it over. that doesn’t cost anything. Come in; this way, please.” As she finished speaking she stepped to the low-burning gas jet and turned it carefully to give a little more light down the narrow hallway.

“Thank you,” murmured Mr. Smith, stepping across the threshold.

Benny had already reached the door at the end of the hall. The woman began to tug at her apron strings.

“I hope you’ll excuse my gingham apron, Mr.—er—Smith. Wasn’t that the name?”

“Yes.” The man bowed with a smile.

“I thought that was what Benny said. Well, as I was saying, I hope you’ll excuse this apron.” Her fingers were fumbling with the knot at the back. “I take it off, mostly, when the bell rings, evenings or afternoons; but I heard Benny, and I didn’t suppose ’twas anybody but him. There, that’s better!” With a jerk she switched off the dark blue apron, hung it over her arm, and smoothed down the spotless white apron which had been beneath the blue. The next instant she hurried after Benny with a warning cry. “Careful, child, careful! Oh, Benny, you’re always in such a hurry!”

Benny, with a cheery “Come on!” had already banged open the door before him, and was reaching for the gas burner.

A moment later the feeble spark above had become a flaring sputter of flame.

“There, child, what did I tell you?” With a frown Mrs. Blaisdell reduced the flaring light to a moderate flame, and motioned Mr. Smith to a chair. Before she seated herself, however, she went back into the hall to lower the gas there.

During her momentary absence the man, Smith, looked about him, and as he looked he pulled at his collar. He felt suddenly a choking, suffocating sensation. He still had the curious feeling of trying to catch his breath when the woman came back and took the chair facing him. In a moment he knew why he felt so suffocated—it was because that nowhere could he see an object that was not wholly or partially covered with some other object, or that was not serving as a cover itself.

The floor bore innumerable small rugs, one before each chair, each door, and the fireplace. The chairs themselves, and the sofa, were covered with gray linen slips, which, in turn, were protected by numerous squares of lace and worsted of generous size. The green silk spread on the piano was nearly hidden beneath a linen cover, and the table showed a succession of layers of silk, worsted, and linen, topped by crocheted mats, on which rested several books with paper-enveloped covers. The chandelier, mirror, and picture frames gleamed dully from behind the mesh of pink mosquito netting. Even through the doorway into the hall might be seen the long, red-bordered white linen path that carried protection to the carpet beneath.

“I don’t like gas myself.” (With a start the man pulled himself together to listen to what the woman was saying.) “I think it’s a foolish extravagance, when kerosene is so good and so cheap; but my husband will have it, and Mellicent, too, in spite of anything I say—Mellicent’s my daughter. I tell ’em if we were rich, it would be different, of course. But this is neither here nor there, nor what you came to talk about! Now just what is it that you want, sir?”

“I want to board here, if I may.”

“How long?”

“A year—two years, perhaps, if we are mutually satisfied.”

“What do you do for a living?”

Smith coughed suddenly. Before he could catch his breath to answer Benny had jumped into the breach.

“He sounds something like a Congregationalist, only he ain’t that, Aunt Jane, and he ain’t after money for missionaries, either.”

Jane Blaisdell smiled at Benny indulgently. Then she sighed and shook her head.

“You know, Benny, very well, that nothing would suit Aunt Jane better than to give money to all the missionaries in the world, if she only had it to give!” She sighed again as she turned to Mr. Smith. “You’re working for some church, then, I take it.”

Mr. Smith gave a quick gesture of dissent.

“I am a genealogist, madam, in a small way. I am collecting data for a book on the Blaisdell family.”

“Oh!” Mrs. Blaisdell frowned slightly. The look of cold disapproval came back to her eyes. “But who pays you? we couldn’t take the book, I’m sure. We couldn’t afford it.”

“That would not be necessary, madam, I assure you,” murmured Mr. Smith gravely.

“But how do you get money to live on? I mean, how am I to know that I’ll get my pay?” she persisted. “Excuse me, but that kind of business doesn’t sound very good-paying; and, you see, I don’t know you. And in these days—” An expressive pause finished her sentence.

Mr. Smith smiled.

“Quite right, madam. You are wise to be cautious. I had a letter of introduction to your brother from Mr. Robert Chalmers. I think he will vouch for me. Will that do?”

“Oh, that’s all right, then. But that isn’t saying how much you’ll pay. Now, I think—”

There came a sharp knock at the outer door. The eager Benny jumped to his feet, but his aunt shook her head and went to the door herself. There was a murmur of voices, then a young man entered the hall and sat down in the chair near the hatrack. When Mrs. Blaisdell returned her eyes were very bright. Her cheeks showed two little red spots. She carried herself with manifest importance.

“If you’ll just excuse me a minute,” she apologized to Mr. Smith, as she swept by him and opened a door across the room, nearly closing it behind her.

Distinctly then, from beyond the imperfectly closed door, came to the ears of Benny and Mr. Smith these words, in Mrs. Blaisdell’s most excited accents:—“Mellicent, it’s Carl Pennock. He wants you to go auto-riding with him down to the Lake with Katie Moore and that crowd.”

“Mother!” breathed an ecstatic voice.

What followed Mr. Smith did not hear, for a nearer, yet more excited, voice demanded attention.

“Gee! Carl Pennock!” whispered Benny hoarsely. “Whew! Won’t my sister Bess be mad? She thinks Carl Pennock’s the cutest thing going. All the girls do!”

With a warning “Sh-h!” and an expressive glance toward the hall, Mr. Smith tried to stop further revelations; but Benny was not to be silenced.

“They’re rich—awful rich—the Pennocks are,” he confided still more huskily. “An’ there’s a girl—Gussie. She’s gone on Fred. He’s my brother, ye know. He’s seventeen; an’ Bess is mad ’cause she isn’t seventeen, too, so she can go an’ play tennis same as Fred does. She’ll be madder ’n ever now, if Mell goes auto-riding with Carl, an’—”

“Sh-h!” So imperative were Mr. Smith’s voice and gesture this time that Benny fell back subdued.

At once then became distinctly audible again the voices from the other room. Mr. Smith, forced to hear in spite of himself, had the air of one who finds he has abandoned the frying pan for the fire.

“No, dear, it’s quite out of the question,” came from beyond the door, in Mrs. Blaisdell’s voice. “I can’t let you wear your pink. You will wear the blue or stay at home. Just as you choose.”

“But, mother, dear, it’s all out of date,” wailed a young girl’s voice.

“I can’t help that. It’s perfectly whole and neat, and you must save the pink for best.”

“But I’m always saving things for best, mother, and I never wear my best. I never wear a thing when it’s in style! By the time you let me wear the pink I shan’t want to wear it. Sleeves’ll be small then—you see if they aren’t—I shall be wearing big ones. I want to wear big ones now, when other girls do. Please, mother!”

“Mellicent, why will you tease me like this, when you know it will do no good?—when you know I can’t let you do it? Don’t you think I want you to be as well-dressed as anybody, if we could afford it? Come, I’m waiting. You must wear the blue or stay at home. What shall I tell him?”

There was a pause, then there came an inarticulate word and a choking half-sob. The next moment the door opened and Mrs. Blaisdell appeared. The pink spots in her cheeks had deepened. She shut the door firmly, then hurried through the room to the hall beyond. Another minute and she was back in her chair.

“There,” she smiled pleasantly. “I’m ready now to talk business, Mr. Smith.”

And she talked business. She stated plainly what she expected to do for her boarder, and what she expected her boarder would do for her. She enlarged upon the advantages and minimized the discomforts, with the aid of a word now and then from the eager and interested Benny.

Mr. Smith, on his part, had little to say. That that little was most satisfactory, however, was very evident; for Mrs. Blaisdell was soon quite glowing with pride and pleasure. Mr. Smith was not glowing. He was plainly ill at ease, and, at times, slightly abstracted. His eyes frequently sought the door which Mrs. Blaisdell had closed so firmly a short time before. They were still turned in that direction when suddenly the door opened and a young girl appeared.

She was a slim little girl with long-lashed, starlike eyes and a wild-rose flush in her cheeks. Beneath her trim hat her light brown hair waved softly over her ears, glinting into gold where the light struck it. She looked excited and pleased, yet not quite happy. She wore a blue dress, plainly made.

“Don’t stay late. Be in before ten, dear,” cautioned Mrs. Blaisdell. “And Mellicent, just a minute, dear. This is Mr. Smith. You might as well meet him now. He’s coming here to live—to board, you know. My daughter, Mr. Smith.”

Mr. Smith, already on his feet, bowed and murmured a conventional something. From the starlike eyes he received a fleeting glance that made him suddenly conscious of his fifty years and the bald spot on the top of his head. Then the girl was gone, and her mother was speaking again.

“She’s going auto-riding—Mellicent is—with a young man, Carl Pennock—one of the nicest in town. There are four others in the party. They’re going down to the Lake for cake and ice cream, and they’re all nice young people, else I shouldn’t let her go, of course. She’s eighteen, for all she’s so small. She favors my mother in looks, but she’s got the Blaisdell nose, though. Oh, and ’twas the Blaisdells you said you were writing a book about, wasn’t it? You don’t mean our Blaisdells, right here in Hillerton?”

“I mean all Blaisdells, wherever I find them,” smiled Mr. Smith.

“Dear me! What, us? You mean we’ll be in the book?” Now that the matter of board had been satisfactorily settled, Mrs. Blaisdell apparently dared to show some interest in the book.

“Certainly.”

“You don’t say! My, how pleased Hattie’ll be—my sister-in-law, Jim’s wife. She just loves to see her name in print—parties, and club banquets, and where she pours, you know. But maybe you don’t take women, too.”

“Oh, yes, if they are Blaisdells, or have married Blaisdells.”

“Oh! That’s where we’d come in, then, isn’t it? Mellicent and I? And Frank, my husband, he’ll like it, too,—if you tell about the grocery store. And of course you would, if you told about him. You’d have to—’cause that’s all there is to tell. He thinks that’s about all there is in the world, anyway,—that grocery store. And ’tis a good store, if I do say it. And there’s his sister, Flora; and Maggie—But, there! Poor Maggie! She won’t be in it, will she, after all? She isn’t a Blaisdell, and she didn’t marry one. Now that’s too bad!”

“Ho! She won’t mind.” Benny spoke with conviction. “She’ll just laugh and say it doesn’t matter; and then Grandpa Duff’ll ask for his drops or his glasses, or something, and she’ll forget all about it. She won’t care.”

“Yes, I know; but—Poor Maggie! Always just her luck.” Mrs. Blaisdell sighed and looked thoughtful. “But Maggie knows a lot about the Blaisdells,” she added, brightening; “so she could tell you lots of things—about when they were little, and all that.”

“Yes. But—that isn’t—er—” Mr. Smith hesitated doubtfully, and Mrs. Blaisdell jumped into the pause.

“And, really, for that matter, she knows about us now, too, better than ’most anybody else. Hattie’s always sending for her, and Flora, too, if they’re sick, or anything. Poor Maggie! Sometimes I think they actually impose upon her. And she’s such a good soul, too! I declare, I never see her but I wish I could do something for her. But, of course, with my means—But, there! Here I am, running on as usual. Frank says I never do know when to stop, when I get started on something; and of course you didn’t come here to talk about poor Maggie. Now I’ll go back to business. When is it you want to start in—to board, I mean?”

“To-morrow, if I may.” With some alacrity Mr. Smith got to his feet. “And now we must be going—Benny and I. I’m at the Holland House. With your permission, then, Mrs. Blaisdell, I’ll send up my trunks to-morrow morning. And now good-night—and thank you.”

“Why—but, Mr. Smith!” The woman, too, came to her feet, but her face was surprised. “Why, you haven’t even seen your room yet! How do you know you’ll like it?”

“Eh? What? Oh!” Mr. Smith laughed. There was a quizzical lift to his eyebrows. “So I haven’t, have I? And people usually do, don’t they? Well—er—perhaps I will just take a look at—the room, though I’m not worrying any, I assure you. I’ve no doubt it will be quite right, quite right,” he finished, as he followed Mrs. Blaisdell to a door halfway down the narrow hall.

Five minutes later, once more on the street, he was walking home with Benny. It was Benny who broke the long silence that had immediately fallen between them.

“Say, Mr. Smith, I’ll bet ye you’ll never be rich!”

Mr. Smith turned with a visible start.

“Eh? What? I’ll never be—What do you mean, boy?”

Benny giggled cheerfully.

“’Cause you paid Aunt Jane what she asked the very first time. Why, Aunt Jane never expects ter get what she asks, pa says. She sells him groceries in the store, sometimes, when Uncle Frank’s away, ye know. Pa says what she asks first is for practice—just ter get her hand in; an’ she expects ter get beat down. But you paid it, right off the bat. Didn’t ye see how tickled Aunt Jane was, after she’d got over bein’ surprised?”

“Why—er—really, Benny,” murmured Mr. Smith.

But Benny had yet more to say.

“Oh, yes, sir, you could have saved a lot every week, if ye hadn’t bit so quick. An’ that’s why I say you won’t ever get rich. Savin’ ’s what does it, ye know—gets folks rich. Aunt Jane says so. She says a penny saved ’s good as two earned, an’ better than four spent.”

“Well, really, indeed!” Mr. Smith laughed lightly. “That does look as if there wasn’t much chance for me, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.” Benny spoke soberly, and with evident sympathy. He spoke again, after a moment, but Mr. Smith did not seem to hear at once. Mr. Smith was, indeed, not a little abstracted all the way to Benny’s home, though his good-night was very cheerful at parting. Benny would have been surprised, indeed, had he known that Mr. Smith was thinking, not about his foolishly extravagant agreement for board, but about a pair of starry eyes with wistful lights in them, and a blue dress, plainly made.

In the hotel that night, Mr. John Smith wrote the following letter to Edward D. Norton, Esq., Chicago:

My Dear Ned,—Well, I’m here. I’ve been here exactly six hours, and already I’m in possession of not a little Blaisdell data for my—er—book. I’ve seen Mr. and Mrs. James, their daughter, Bessie, and their son, Benny. Benny, by the way, is a gushing geyser of current Blaisdell data which, I foresee, I shall find interesting, but embarrassing, perhaps, at times. I’ve also seen Miss Flora, and Mrs. Jane Blaisdell and her daughter, Mellicent.

There’s a “Poor Maggie” whom I haven’t seen. But she isn’t a Blaisdell. She’s a Duff, daughter of the man who married Rufus Blaisdell’s widow, some thirty years or more ago. As I said, I haven’t seen her yet, but she, too, according to Mrs. Frank Blaisdell, must be a gushing geyser of Blaisdell data, so I probably soon shall see her. Why she’s “poor” I don’t know.

As for the Blaisdell data already in my possession—I’ve no comment to make. Really, Ned, to tell the truth, I’m not sure I’m going to relish this job, after all. In spite of a perfectly clear conscience, and the virtuous realization that I’m here to bring nothing worse than a hundred thousand dollars apiece with the possible addition of a few millions on their devoted heads—in spite of all this, I yet have an uncomfortable feeling that I’m a small boy listening at the keyhole.

However, I’m committed to the thing now, so I’ll stuff it out, I suppose,—though I’m not sure, after all, that I wouldn’t chuck the whole thing if it wasn’t that I wanted to see how Mellicent will enjoy her pink dresses. How many pink dresses will a hundred thousand dollars buy, anyway,—I mean pretty pink dresses, all fixed up with frills and furbelows?

As ever yours,
Stan—er—John Smith.

CHAPTER IV
IN SEARCH OF SOME DATES

Very promptly the next morning Mr. John Smith and his two trunks appeared at the door of his new boarding-place. Mrs. Jane Blaisdell welcomed him cordially. She wore a high-necked, long-sleeved gingham apron this time, which she neither removed nor apologized for—unless her cheerful “You see, mornings you’ll find me in working trim, Mr. Smith,” might be taken as an apology.

Mellicent, her slender young self enveloped in a similar apron, was dusting his room as he entered it. She nodded absently, with a casual “Good-morning, Mr. Smith,” as she continued at her work. Even the placing of the two big trunks, which the shuffling men brought in, won from her only a listless glance or two. Then, without speaking again, she left the room, as her mother entered it.

“There!” Mrs. Blaisdell looked about her complacently. “With this couch-bed with its red cover and cushions, and all the dressing things moved to the little room in there, it looks like a real sitting-room in here, doesn’t it?”

“It certainly does, Mrs. Blaisdell.”

“And you had ’em take the trunks in there, too. That’s good,” she nodded, crossing to the door of the small dressing-room beyond. “I thought you would. Well, I hope you’ll be real happy with us, Mr. Smith, and I guess you will. And you needn’t be a mite afraid of hurting anything. I’ve covered everything with mats and tidies and spreads.”

“Yes, I see.” A keen listener would have noticed an odd something in Mr. Smith’s voice; but Mrs. Blaisdell apparently noticed nothing.

“Yes, I always do—to save wearing and soiling, you know. Of course, if we had money to buy new all the time, it would be different. But we haven’t. And that’s what I tell Mellicent when she complains of so many things to dust and brush. Now make yourself right at home, Mr. Smith. Dinner’s at twelve o’clock, and supper is at six—except in the winter. We have it earlier then, so’s we can go to bed earlier. Saves gas, you know. But it’s at six now. I do like the long days, don’t you? Well, I’ll be off now, and let you unpack. As I said before, make yourself perfectly at home, perfectly at home.”

Left alone, Mr. Smith drew a long breath and looked about him. It was a pleasant room, in spite of its cluttered appearance. There was an old-fashioned desk for his papers, and the chairs looked roomy and comfortable. The little dressing-room carried many conveniences, and the windows of both rooms looked out upon the green of the common.

“Oh, well, I don’t know. This might be lots worse—in spite of the tidies!” chuckled Mr. John Smith, as he singled out the keys of his trunks.

At the noon dinner-table Mr. Smith met Mr. Frank Blaisdell. He was a portly man with rather thick gray hair and “mutton-chop” gray whiskers. He ate very fast, and a great deal, yet he still found time to talk interestedly with his new boarder.

He was plainly a man of decided opinions—opinions which he did not hesitate to express, and which he emphasized with resounding thumps of his fists on the table. The first time he did this, Mr. Smith, taken utterly by surprise, was guilty of a visible start. After that he learned to accept them with the serenity evinced by the rest of the family.

When the dinner was over, Mr. Smith knew (if he could remember them) the current market prices of beans, corn, potatoes, sugar, and flour; and he knew (again if he could remember) why some of these commodities were higher, and some lower, than they had been the week before. In a way, Mr. John Smith was interested. That stocks and bonds fluctuated, he was well aware. That “wheat” could be cornered, he realized. But of the ups and downs of corn and beans as seen by the retail grocer he knew very little. That is, he had known very little until after that dinner with Mr. Frank Blaisdell.

It was that afternoon that Mr. Smith began systematically to gather material for his Blaisdell book. He would first visit by turns all the Hillerton Blaisdells, he decided; then, when he had exhausted their resources, he would, of course, turn to the town records and cemeteries of Hillerton and the neighboring villages.

Armed with a pencil and a very businesslike looking notebook, therefore, he started at two o’clock for the home of James Blaisdell. Remembering Mr. Blaisdell’s kind permission to come and ask all the questions he liked, he deemed it fitting to begin there.

He had no trouble in finding the house, but there was no one in sight this time, as he ascended the steps. The house, indeed, seemed strangely quiet. He was just about to ring the bell when around the corner of the veranda came a hurried step and a warning voice.

“Oh, please, don’t ring the bell! What is it? Isn’t it something that I can do for you?”

Mr. Smith turned sharply. He thought at first, from the trim, slender figure, and the waving hair above the gracefully poised head, that he was confronting a young woman. Then he saw the silver threads at the temples, and the fine lines about the eyes.

“I am looking for Mrs. Blaisdell—Mrs. James Blaisdell,” he answered, lifting his hat.

“Oh, you’re Mr. Smith. Aren’t you Mr. Smith?” She smiled brightly, then went on before he could reply. “You see, Benny told me. He described you perfectly.”

The man’s eyebrows went up.

“Oh, did he? The young rascal! I fancy I should be edified to hear it—that description.”

The other laughed. Then, a bit roguishly, she demanded:—“Should you like to hear it—really?”

“I certainly should. I’ve already collected a few samples of Benny’s descriptive powers.”

“Then you shall have this one. Sit down, Mr. Smith.” She motioned him to a chair, and dropped easily into one herself. “Benny said you were tall and not fat; that you had a wreath of light hair ’round a bald spot, and whiskers that were clipped as even as Mr. Pennock’s hedge; and that your lips, without speaking, said, ‘Run away, little boy,’ but that your eyes said, ‘Come here.’ Now I think Benny did pretty well.” “So I judge, since you recognized me without any difficulty,” rejoined Mr. Smith, a bit dryly. “But—YOU—? You see you have the advantage of me. Benny hasn’t described you to me.” He paused significantly.

“Oh, I’m just here to help out. Mrs. Blaisdell is ill upstairs—one of her headaches. That is why I asked you not to ring. She gets so nervous when the bell rings. She thinks it’s callers, and that she won’t be ready to receive them; and she hurries up and begins to dress. So I asked you not to ring.”

“But she isn’t seriously ill?”

“Oh, no, just a headache. She has them often. You wanted to see her?”

“Yes. But it’s not important at all. Another time, just as well. Some questions—that is all.”

“Oh, for the book, of course. Oh, yes, I have heard about that, too.” She smiled again brightly. “But can’t you wait? Mr. Blaisdell will soon be here. He’s coming early so I can go home. I have to go home.”

“And you are—”

“Miss Duff. My name is Duff.”

“You don’t mean—‘Poor Maggie’!” (Not until the words were out did Mr. Smith realize quite how they would sound.) “Er—ah—that is—” He stumbled miserably, and she came to his rescue.

“Oh, yes, I’m—‘Poor Maggie.’” There was an odd something in her expressive face that Mr. Smith could not fathom. He was groping for something—anything to say, when suddenly there was a sound behind them, and the little woman at his side sprang to her feet.

“Oh, Hattie, you came down!” she exclaimed as Mrs. James Blaisdell opened the screen door and stepped out on to the veranda. “Here’s Mrs. Blaisdell now, Mr. Smith.”

“Oh, it’s only Mr. Smith!” With a look very like annoyance Mrs. Blaisdell advanced and held out her hand. She looked pale, and her hair hung a bit untidily about one ear below a somewhat twisted pyramid of puffs. Her dress, though manifestly an expensive one, showed haste in its fastenings. “Yes, I heard voices, and I thought some one had come—a caller. So I came down.”

“I’m glad—if you’re better,” smiled Miss Maggie. “Then I’ll go, if you don’t mind. Mr. Smith has come to ask you some questions, Hattie. Good-bye!” With another cheery smile and a nod to Mr. Smith, she disappeared into the house. A minute later Mr. Smith saw her hurrying down a side path to the street.

“You called to ask some questions?” Mrs. Blaisdell sank languidly into a chair.

“About the Blaisdell family—yes. But perhaps another day, when you are feeling better, Mrs. Blaisdell.”

“Oh, no.” She smiled a little more cordially. “I can answer to-day as well as any time—though I’m not sure I can tell you very much, ever. I think it’s fine you are making the book, though. Some way it gives a family such a standing, to be written up like that. Don’t you think so? And the Blaisdells are really a very nice family—one of the oldest in Hillerton, though, of course, they haven’t much money.”

“I ought to find a good deal of material here, then, if they have lived here so long.”

“Yes, I suppose so. Now, what can I tell you? Of course I can tell you about my own family. My husband is in the real estate business. You knew that, didn’t you? Perhaps you see ‘The Real Estate Journal.’ His picture was in it a year ago last June. There was a write-up on Hillerton. I was in it, too, though there wasn’t much about me. But I’ve got other clippings with more, if you’d like to see them—where I’ve poured, and been hostess, and all that, you know.”

Mr. Smith took out his notebook and pencil.

“Let me see, Mrs. Blaisdell, your husband’s father’s name was Rufus, I believe. What was his mother’s maiden name, please?”

“His mother’s maiden name? Oh, ‘Elizabeth.’ Our little girl is named for her—Bessie, you know—you saw her last night. Jim wanted to, so I let him. It’s a pretty name—Elizabeth—still, it sounds a little old-fashioned now, don’t you think? Of course we are anxious to have everything just right for our daughter. A young lady soon coming out, so,—you can’t be too particular. That’s one reason why I wanted to get over here—on the West Side, I mean. Everybody who is anybody lives on the West Side in Hillerton. You’ll soon find that out.”

“No doubt, no doubt! And your mother Blaisdell’s surname?” Mr. Smith’s pencil was poised over the open notebook. “Surname? Mother Blaisdell’s? Oh, before she was married. I see. But, dear me, I don’t know. I suppose Jim will, or Flora, or maybe Frank—though I don’t believe he will, unless her folks kept groceries. Did you ever see anybody that didn’t know anything but groceries like Frank Blaisdell?” The lady sighed and shrugged her somewhat heavy shoulders with an expressive glance.

Mr. Smith smiled understandingly.

“Oh, well, it’s good—to be interested in one’s business, you know.”

“But such a business!” murmured the lady, with another shrug.

“Then you can’t tell me Mrs. Rufus Blaisdell’s surname?”

“No. But Jim—Oh, I’ll tell you who will know,” she broke off interestedly; “and that’s Maggie Duff. You saw her here a few minutes ago, you know. Father Duff’s got all of Mother Blaisdell’s papers and diaries. Oh, Maggie can tell you a lot of things. Poor Maggie! Benny says if we want anything we ask Aunt Maggie, and I don’t know but he’s right. And here I am, sending you to her, so soon!”

“Very well, then,” smiled Mr. Smith. “I don’t see but what I shall have to interview Miss Maggie, and Miss Flora. Is there nothing more, then, that you can tell me?”

“Well, there’s Fred, my son. You haven’t seen him yet. We’re very proud of Fred. He’s at the head of his class, and he’s going to college and be a lawyer. And that’s another reason why I wanted to come over to this side—on Fred’s account. I want him to meet the right sort of people. You know it helps so much! We think we’re going to have Fred a big man some day.”

“And he was born, when?” Mr. Smith’s pencil still poised above an almost entirely blank page.

“He’s seventeen. He’ll be eighteen the tenth of next month.”

“And Miss Bessie, and Benny?”

“Oh, she’s sixteen. She’ll be seventeen next winter. She wants to come out then, but I think I shall wait—a little, she’s so very young; though Gussie Pennock’s out, and she’s only seventeen, and the Pennocks are some of our very best people. They’re the richest folks in town, you know.”

“And Benny was born—when?”

“He’s eight—or rather nine, next Tuesday. Dear me, Mr. Smith, don’t you want anything but dates? They’re tiresome things, I think,—make one feel so old, you know, and it shows up how many years you’ve been married. Don’t you think so? But maybe you’re a bachelor.”

“Yes, I’m a bachelor.”

“Are you, indeed? Well, you miss a lot, of course,—home and wife and children. Still, you gain some things. You aren’t tied down, and you don’t have so much to worry about. Is your mother living, or your father?”

“No. I have no—near relatives.” Mr. Smith stirred a little uneasily, and adjusted his book. “Perhaps, now, Mrs. Blaisdell, you can give me your own maiden name.”

“Oh, yes, I can give you that!” She laughed and bridled self-consciously. “But you needn’t ask when I was born, for I shan’t tell you, if you do. My name was Hattie Snow.”

“‘Harriet,’ I presume.” Mr. Smith’s pencil was busily at work.

“Yes—Harriet Snow. And the Snows were just as good as the Blaisdells, if I do say it. There were a lot that wanted me—oh, I was pretty then, Mr. Smith.” She laughed, and bridled again self-consciously. “But I took Jim. He was handsome then, very—big dark eyes and dark hair, and so dreamy and poetical-looking; and there wasn’t a girl that hadn’t set her cap for him. And he’s been a good husband to me. To be sure, he isn’t quite so ambitious as he might be, perhaps. _I_ always did believe in being somebody, and getting somewhere. Don’t you? But Jim—he’s always for hanging back and saying how much it’ll cost. Ten to one he doesn’t end up by saying we can’t afford it. He’s like Jane,—Frank’s wife, where you board, you know,—only Jane’s worse than Jim ever thought of being. She won’t spend even what she’s got. If she’s got ten dollars, she won’t spend but five cents, if she can help it. Now, I believe in taking some comfort as you go along. But Jane—greatest saver I ever did see. Better look out, Mr. Smith, that she doesn’t try to save feeding you at all!” she finished merrily.

“I’m not worrying!” Mr. Smith smiled cheerily, snapped his book shut and got to his feet.

“Oh, won’t you wait for Mr. Blaisdell? He can tell you more, I’m sure.”

“Not to-day, thank you. At his office, some time, I’ll see Mr. Blaisdell,” murmured Mr. Smith, with an odd haste. “But I thank you very much, Mrs. Blaisdell,” he bowed in farewell.

CHAPTER V
IN MISS FLORA’S ALBUM

It was the next afternoon that Mr. Smith inquired his way to the home of Miss Flora Blaisdell. He found it to be a shabby little cottage on a side street. Miss Flora herself answered his knock, peering at him anxiously with her near-sighted eyes.

Mr. Smith lifted his hat.

“Good-afternoon, Miss Blaisdell,” he began with a deferential bow. “I am wondering if you could tell me something of your father’s family.” Miss Flora, plainly pleased, but flustered, stepped back for him to enter.

“Oh, Mr. Smith, come in, come in! I’m sure I’m glad to tell you anything I know,” she beamed, ushering him into the unmistakably little-used “front room.” “But you really ought to go to Maggie. I can tell you some things, but Maggie’s got the Bible. Mother had it, you know, and it’s all among her things. And of course we had to let it stay, as long as Father Duff lives. He doesn’t want anything touched. Poor Maggie—she tried to get ’em for us; but, mercy! she never tried but once. But I’ve got some things. I’ve got pictures of a lot of them, and most of them I know quite a lot about.”

As she spoke she nicked up from the table a big red plush photograph album. Seating herself at his side she opened it, and began to tell him of the pictures, one by one.

She did, indeed, know “quite a lot” of most of them. Tintypes, portraying stiffly held hands and staring eyes, ghostly reproductions of daguerreotypes of stern-lipped men and women, in old-time stock and kerchief; photographs of stilted family groups after the “he-is-mine-and-I-am-his” variety; snap-shots of adorable babies with blurred thumbs and noses—never had Mr. John Smith seen their like before.

Politely he listened. Busily, from time to time, he jotted down a name or date. Then, suddenly, as she turned a page, he gave an involuntary start. He was looking at a pictured face, evidently cut from a magazine.

“Why, what—who—” he stammered.

“That? Oh, that’s Mr. Fulton, the millionaire, you know.” Miss Flora’s hands fluttered over the page a little importantly, adjusting a corner of the print. “You must have seen his picture. It’s been everywhere. He’s our cousin, too.”

“Oh, is he?”

“Yes, ’way back somewhere. I can’t tell you just how, only I know he is. His mother was a Blaisdell. That’s why I’ve always been so interested in him, and read everything I could—in the papers and magazines, you know.”

“Oh, I see.” Mr. John Smith’s voice had become a little uncertain.

“Yes. He ain’t very handsome, is he?” Miss Flora’s eyes were musingly fixed on the picture before her—which was well, perhaps: Mr. John Smith’s face was a study just then.

“Er—n-no, he isn’t.”

“But he’s turribly rich, I s’pose. I wonder how it feels to have so much money.”

There being no reply to this, Miss Flora went on after a moment.

“It must be awful nice—to buy what you want, I mean, without fretting about how much it costs. I never did. But I’d like to.”

“What would you do—if you could—if you had the money, I mean?” queried Mr. Smith, almost eagerly.

Miss Flora laughed.

“Well, there’s three things I know I’d do. They’re silly, of course, but they’re what I want. It’s a phonygraph, and to see Niagara Falls, and to go into Noell’s restaurant and order what I want without even looking at the prices after ’em. Now you’re laughing at me!”

“Laughing? Not a bit of it!” There was a curious elation in Mr. Smith’s voice. “What’s more, I hope you’ll get them—some time.”

Miss Flora sighed. Her face looked suddenly pinched and old.

“I shan’t. I couldn’t, you know. Why, if I had the money, I shouldn’t spend it—not for them things. I’d be needing shoes or a new dress. And I couldn’t be so rich I wouldn’t notice what the prices was—of what I ate. But, then, I don’t believe anybody’s that, not even him.” She pointed to the picture still open before them.

“No?” Mr. Smith, his eyes bent upon the picture, was looking thoughtful. He had the air of a man to whom has come a brand-new, somewhat disconcerting idea.

Miss Flora, glancing from the man to the picture, and back again, gave a sudden exclamation. “There, now I know who it is that you remind me of, Mr. Smith. It’s him—Mr. Fulton, there.”

“Eh? What?” Mr. Smith looked not a little startled.

“Something about the eyes and nose.” Miss Flora was still interestedly comparing the man and the picture, “But, then, that ain’t so strange. You’re a Blaisdell yourself. Didn’t you say you was a Blaisdell?”

“Er—y-yes, oh, yes. I’m a Blaisdell,” nodded Mr. Smith hastily. “Very likely I’ve got the—er—Blaisdell nose. Eh?” Then he turned a leaf of the album abruptly, decidedly. “And who may this be?” he demanded, pointing to the tintype of a bright-faced young girl.

“That? Oh, that’s my cousin Grace when she was sixteen. She died; but she was a wonderful girl. I’ll tell you about her.”

“Yes, do,” urged Mr. Smith; and even the closest observer, watching his face, could not have said that he was not absorbedly interested in Miss Flora’s story of “my cousin Grace.”

It was not until the last leaf of the album was reached that they came upon the picture of a small girl, with big, hungry eyes looking out from beneath long lashes.

“That’s Mellicent—where you’re boarding, you know—when she was little.” Miss Flora frowned disapprovingly. “But it’s horrid, poor child!”

“But she looks so—so sad,” murmured Mr. Smith.

“Yes, I know. She always did.” Miss Flora sighed and frowned again. She hesitated, then burst out, as if irresistibly impelled from within. “It’s only just another case of never having what you want when you want it, Mr. Smith. And it ain’t ’cause they’re poor, either. They ain’t poor—not like me, I mean. Frank’s always done well, and he’s been a good provider; but it’s my sister-in-law—her way, I mean. Not that I’m saying anything against Jane. I ain’t. She’s a good woman, and she’s very kind to me. She’s always saying what she’d do for me if she only had the money. She’s a good housekeeper, too, and her house is as neat as wax. But it’s just that she never thinks she can use anything she’s got till it’s so out of date she don’t want it. I dressmake for her, you see, so I know—about her sleeves and skirts, you know. And if she ever does wear a decent thing she’s so afraid it will rain she never takes any comfort in it!”

“Well, that is—unfortunate.”

“Yes, ain’t it? And she’s brought up that poor child the same way. Why, from babyhood, Mellicent never had her rattles till she wanted blocks, nor her blocks till she wanted dolls, nor her dolls till she was big enough for beaus! And that’s what made the poor child always look so wall-eyed and hungry. She was hungry—even if she did get enough to eat.”

“Mrs. Blaisdell probably believed in—er—economy,” hazarded Mr. Smith.

“Economy! My stars, I should think she did! But, there, I ought not to have said anything, of course. It’s a good trait. I only wish some other folks I could mention had more of it. There’s Jim’s wife, for instance. Now, if she’s got ten cents, she’ll spend fifteen—and five more to show how she spent it. She and Jane ought to be shaken up in a bag together. Why, Mr. Smith, Jane doesn’t let herself enjoy anything. She’s always keeping it for a better time. Though sometimes I think she does enjoy just seeing how far she can make a dollar go. But Mellicent don’t, nor Frank; and it’s hard on them.”

“I should say it might be.” Mr. Smith was looking at the wistful eyes under the long lashes.

“’Tis; and ’tain’t right, I believe. There is such a thing as being too economical. I tell Jane she’ll be like a story I read once about a man who pinched and saved all his life, not even buying peanuts, though he just doted on ’em. And when he did get rich, so he could buy the peanuts, he bought a big bag the first thing. But he didn’t eat ’em. He hadn’t got any teeth left to chew ’em with.”

“Well, that was a catastrophe!” laughed Mr. Smith, as he pocketed his notebook and rose to his feet. “And now I thank you very much, Miss Blaisdell, for the help you’ve been to me.”

“Oh, you’re quite welcome, indeed you are, Mr. Smith,” beamed Miss Blaisdell. “It’s done me good, just to talk to you about all these folks and pictures. I we enjoyed it. I do get lonesome sometimes, all alone, so! and I ain’t so busy as I wish I was, always. But I’m afraid I haven’t helped you much—just this.”

“Oh, yes, you have—perhaps more than you think,” smiled the man, with an odd look in his eyes.

“Have I? Well, I’m glad, I’m sure. And don’t forget to go to Maggie’s, now. She’ll have a lot to tell you. Poor Maggie! And she’ll be so glad to show you!”

“All right, thank you; I’ll surely interview—Miss Maggie,” smiled the man in good-bye.

He had almost said “poor” Maggie himself, though why she should be poor Maggie had come to be an all-absorbing question with him. He had been tempted once to ask Miss Flora, but something had held him back. That evening at the supper-table, however, in talking with Mrs. Jane Blaisdell, the question came again to his lips; and this time it found utterance.

Mrs. Jane herself had introduced Miss Maggie’s name, and had said an inconsequential something about her when Mr. Smith asked:—

“Mrs. Blaisdell, please,—may I ask? I must confess to a great curiosity as to why Miss Duff is always ‘poor Maggie.’”

Mrs. Blaisdell laughed pleasantly.

“Why, really, I don’t know,” she answered, “only it just comes natural, that’s all. Poor Maggie’s been so unfortunate. There! I did it again, didn’t I? That only goes to show how we all do it, unconsciously.”

Frank Blaisdell, across the table, gave a sudden emphatic sniff.

“Humph! Well, I guess if you had to live with Father Duff, Jane, it would be ‘poor Jane’ with you, all right!”

“Yes, I know.” His wife sighed complacently.

“Father Duff’s a trial, and no mistake. But Maggie doesn’t seem to mind.”

“Mind! Aunt Maggie’s a saint—that’s what she is!” It was Mellicent who spoke, her young voice vibrant with suppressed feeling. “She’s the dearest thing ever! There couldn’t be anybody better than Aunt Maggie!”

Nothing more was said just then, but in the evening, later, after Mellicent had gone to walk with young Pennock, and her father had gone back down to the store, Mrs. Blaisdell took up the matter of “Poor Maggie” again.

“I’ve been thinking what you said,” she began, “about our calling her ‘poor Maggie,’ and I’ve made up my mind it’s because we’re all so sorry for her. You see, she’s been so unfortunate, as I said. Poor Maggie! I’ve so often wished there was something I could do for her. Of course, if we only had money—but we haven’t; so I can’t. And even money wouldn’t take away her father, either. Oh, mercy! I didn’t mean that, really,—not the way it sounded,” broke off Mrs. Blaisdell, in shocked apology. “I only meant that she’d have her father to care for, just the same.”

“He’s something of a trial, I take it, eh?” smiled Mr. Smith.

“Trial! I should say he was. Poor Maggie! How ever she endures it, I can’t imagine. Of course, we call him Father Duff, but he’s really not any relation to us—I mean to Frank and the rest. But their mother married him when they were children, and they never knew their own father much, so he’s the only father they know. When their mother died, Maggie had just entered college. She was eighteen, and such a pretty girl! I knew the family even then. Frank was just beginning to court me.

“Well, of course Maggie had to come home right away. None of the rest wanted to take care of him and Maggie had to. There was another Duff sister then—a married sister (she’s died since), but she wouldn’t take him, so Maggie had to. Of course, none of the Blaisdells wanted the care of him—and he wasn’t their father, anyway. Frank was wanting to marry me, and Jim and Flora were in school and wanted to stay there, of course. So Maggie came. Poor girl! It was real hard for her. She was so ambitious, and so fond of books. But she came, and went right into the home and kept it so Frank and Jim and Flora could live there just the same as when their mother was alive. And she had to do all the work, too. They were too poor to keep a girl. Kind of hard, wasn’t it?—and Maggie only eighteen!”

“It was, indeed!” Mr. Smith’s lips came together a bit grimly.

“Well, after a time Frank and Jim married, and there was only Flora and Father Duff at home. Poor Maggie tried then to go to college again. She was over twenty-one, and supposed to be her own mistress, of course. She found a place where she could work and pay her way through college, and Flora said she’d keep the house and take care of Father Duff. But, dear me; it wasn’t a month before that ended, and Maggie had to come home again. Flora wasn’t strong, and the work fretted her. Besides, she never could get along with Father Duff, and she was trying to learn dressmaking, too. She stuck it out till she got sick, though, then of course Maggie had to come back.”

“Well, by Jove!” ejaculated Mr. Smith.

“Yes, wasn’t it too bad? Poor Maggie, she tried it twice again. She persuaded her father to get a girl. But that didn’t work, either. The first girl and her father fought like cats and dogs, and the last time she got one her father was taken sick, and again she had to come home. Some way, it’s always been that way with poor Maggie. No sooner does she reach out to take something than it’s snatched away, just as she thinks she’s got it. Why, there was her father’s cousin George—he was going to help her once. But a streak of bad luck hit him at just that minute, and he gave out.”

“And he never tried—again?”

“No. He went to Alaska then. Hasn’t ever been back since. He’s done well, too, they say, and I always thought he’d send back something; but he never has. There was some trouble, I believe, between him and Father Duff at the time he went to Alaska, so that explains it, probably. Anyway, he’s never done anything for them. Well, when he gave out, Maggie just gave up college then, and settled down to take care of her father, though I guess she’s always studied some at home; and I know that for years she didn’t give up hope but that she could go some time. But I guess she has now. Poor Maggie!”

“How old is she?”

“Why, let me see—forty-three, forty-four—yes, she’s forty-five. She had her forty-third birthday here—I remember I gave her a handkerchief for a birthday present—when she was helping me take care of Mellicent through the pneumonia; and that was two years ago. She used to come here and to Jim’s and Flora’s days at a time; but she isn’t quite so free as she was—Father Duff’s worse now, and she don’t like to leave him nights, much, so she can’t come to us so often. See?”

“Yes, I—see.” There was a queer something in Mr. Smith’s voice. “And just what is the matter with Mr. Duff?”

“Matter!” Mrs. Jane Blaisdell gave a short laugh and shrugged her shoulders. “Everything’s the matter—with Father Duff! Oh, it’s nerves, mostly, the doctor says, and there are some other things—long names that I can’t remember. But, as I said, everything’s the matter with Father Duff. He’s one of those men where there isn’t anything quite right. Frank says he’s got so he just objects to everything—on general principles. If it’s blue, he says it ought to be black, you know. And, really, I don’t know but Frank’s right. How Maggie stands him I don’t see; but she’s devotion itself. Why, she even gave up her lover years ago, for him. She wouldn’t leave her father, and, of course, nobody would think of taking him into the family, when he wasn’t born into it, so the affair was broken off. I don’t know, really, as Maggie cared much. Still, you can’t tell. She never was one to carry her heart on her sleeve. Poor Maggie! I’ve always so wished I could do something for her!

“There, how I have run on! But, then, you asked, and you’re interested, I know, and that’s what you’re here for—to find out about the Blaisdells.”

“To—to—f-find out—” stammered Mr. Smith, grown suddenly very red.

“Yes, for your book, I mean.”

“Oh, yes—of course; for my book,” agreed Mr. Smith, a bit hastily. He had the guilty air of a small boy who has almost been caught in a raid on the cooky jar.

“And although poor Maggie isn’t really a Blaisdell herself, she’s nearly one; and they’ve got lots of Blaisdell records down there—among Mother Blaisdell’s things, you know. You’ll want to see those.”

“Yes; yes, indeed. I’ll want to see those, of course,” declared Mr. Smith, rising to his feet, preparatory to going to his own room.

CHAPTER VI
POOR MAGGIE

It was some days later that Mr. Smith asked Benny one afternoon to show him the way to Miss Maggie Duff’s home.

“Sure I will,” agreed Benny with alacrity. “You don’t ever have ter do any teasin’ ter get me ter go ter Aunt Maggie’s.”

“You’re fond of Aunt Maggie, then, I take it.”

Benny’s eyes widened a little.

“Why, of course! Everybody’s fond of Aunt Maggie. Why, I don’t know anybody that don’t like Aunt Maggie.”

“I’m sure that speaks well—for Aunt Maggie,” smiled Mr. Smith.

“Yep! A feller can take some comfort at Aunt Maggie’s,” continued Benny, trudging along at Mr. Smith’s side. “She don’t have anythin’ just for show, that you can’t touch, like ’tis at my house, and there ain’t anythin’ but what you can use without gettin’ snarled up in a mess of covers an’ tidies, like ’tis at Aunt Jane’s. But Aunt Maggie don’t save anythin’, Aunt Jane says, an’ she’ll die some day in the poor-house, bein’ so extravagant. But I don’t believe she will. Do you, Mr. Smith?”

“Well, really, Benny, I—er—” hesitated the man.

“Well, I don’t believe she will,” repeated Benny. “I hope she won’t, anyhow. Poorhouses ain’t very nice, are they?”

“I—I don’t think I know very much about them, Benny.”

“Well, I don’t believe they are, from what Aunt Jane says. And if they ain’t, I don’t want Aunt Maggie ter go. She hadn’t ought ter have anythin’—but Heaven—after Grandpa Duff. Do you know Grandpa Duff?”

“No, my b-boy.” Mr. Smith was choking over a cough.

“He’s sick. He’s got a chronic grouch, ma says. Do you know what that is?”

“I—I have heard of them.”

“What are they? Anything like chronic rheumatism? I know what chronic means. It means it keeps goin’ without stoppin’—the rheumatism, I mean, not the folks that’s got it. they don’t go at all, sometimes. Old Dr. Cole don’t, and that’s what he’s got. But when I asked ma what a grouch was, she said little boys should be seen and not heard. Ma always says that when she don’t want to answer my questions. Do you? Have you got any little boys, Mr. Smith?”

“No, Benny. I’m a poor old bachelor.”

“Oh, are you poor, too? That’s too bad.”

“Well, that is, I—I—”

“Ma was wonderin’ yesterday what you lived on. Haven’t you got any money, Mr. Smith?”

“Oh, yes, Benny, I’ve got money enough—to live on.” Mr. Smith spoke promptly, and with confidence this time.

“Oh, that’s nice. You’re glad, then, ain’t you? Ma says we haven’t—got enough ter live on, I mean; but pa says we have, if we didn’t try ter live like everybody else lives what’s got more.”

Mr. Smith bit his lip, and looked down a little apprehensively at the small boy at his side.

“I—I’m not sure, Benny, but _I_ shall have to say little boys should be seen and not—” He stopped abruptly. Benny, with a stentorian shout, had run ahead to a gate before a small white cottage. On the cozy, vine-shaded porch sat a white-haired old man leaning forward on his cane.

“Hi, there, Grandpa Duff, I’ve brought somebody ter see ye!” The gate was open now, and Benny was halfway up the short walk. “It’s Mr. Smith. Come in, Mr. Smith. Here’s grandpa right here.”

With a pleasant smile Mr. Smith doffed his hat and came forward.

“Thank you, Benny. How do you do, Mr. Duff?”

The man on the porch looked up sharply from beneath heavy brows.

“Humph! Your name’s Smith, is it?”

“That’s what they call me.” The corners of Mr. Smith’s mouth twitched a little.

“Humph! Yes, I’ve heard of you.”

“You flatter me!” Mr. Smith, on the topmost step, hesitated. “Is your—er—daughter in, Mr. Duff?” He was still smiling cheerfully.

Mr. Duff was not smiling. His somewhat unfriendly gaze was still bent upon the newcomer.

“Just what do you want of my daughter?”

“Why, I—I—” Plainly nonplused, the man paused uncertainly. Then, with a resumption of his jaunty cheerfulness, he smiled straight into the unfriendly eyes. “I’m after some records, Mr. Duff,—records of the Blaisdell family. I’m compiling a book on—

“Humph! I thought as much,” interrupted Mr. Duff curtly, settling back in his chair. “As I said, I’ve heard of you. But you needn’t come here asking your silly questions. I shan’t tell you a thing, anyway, if you do. It’s none of your business who lived and died and what they did before you were born. If the Lord had wanted you to know he’d ‘a’ put you here then instead of now!”

Looking very much as if he had received a blow in the face, Mr. Smith fell back.

“Aw, grandpa”—began Benny, in grieved expostulation. But a cheery voice interrupted, and Mr. Smith turned to see Miss Maggie Duff emerging from the doorway.

“Oh, Mr. Smith, how do you do?” she greeted him, extending a cordial hand. “Come up and sit down.”

For only the briefest of minutes he hesitated. Had she heard? Could she have heard, and yet speak so unconcernedly? It seemed impossible. And yet—He took the chair she offered—but with a furtive glance toward the old man. He had only a moment to wait.

Sharply Mr. Duff turned to his daughter.

“This Mr. Smith tells me he has come to see those records. Now, I’m—”

“Oh, father, dear, you couldn’t!” interrupted his daughter with admonishing earnestness. “You mustn’t go and get all those down!” (Mr. Smith almost gasped aloud in his amazement, but Miss Maggie did not seem to notice him at all.) “Why, father, you couldn’t—they’re too heavy for you! There are the Bible, and all those papers. They’re too heavy father. I couldn’t let you. Besides, I shouldn’t think you’d want to get them!” If Mr. Smith, hearing this, almost gasped aloud in his amazement, he quite did so at what happened next. His mouth actually fell open as he saw the old man rise to his feet with stern dignity.

“That will do, Maggie. I’m not quite in my dotage yet. I guess I’m still able to fetch downstairs a book and a bundle of papers.” With his thumping cane a resolute emphasis to every other step, the old man hobbled into the house.

“There, grandpa, that’s the talk!” crowed Benny. “But you said—”

“Er—Benny, dear,” interposed Miss Maggie, in a haste so precipitate that it looked almost like alarm, “run into the pantry and see what you can find in the cooky jar.” The last of her sentence was addressed to Benny’s flying heels as they disappeared through the doorway.

Left together, Mr. Smith searched the woman’s face for some hint, some sign that this extraordinary shift-about was recognized and understood; but Miss Maggie, with a countenance serenely expressing only cheerful interest, was over by the little stand, rearranging the pile of books and newspapers on it.

“I think, after all,” she began thoughtfully, pausing in her work, “that it will be better indoors. It blows so out here that you’ll be bothered in your copying, I am afraid.”

She was still standing at the table, chatting about the papers, however, when at the door, a few minutes later, appeared her father, in his arms a big Bible, and a sizable pasteboard box.

“Right here, father, please,” she said then, to Mr. Smith’s dumfounded amazement. “Just set them down right here.”

The old man frowned and cast disapproving eyes on his daughter and the table.

“There isn’t room. I don’t want them there,” he observed coldly. “I shall put them in here.” With the words he turned back into the house.

Once again Mr. Smith’s bewildered eyes searched Miss Maggie’s face and once again they found nothing but serene unconcern. She was already at the door.

“This way, please,” she directed cheerily. And, still marveling, he followed her into the house.

Mr. Smith thought he had never seen so charming a living-room. A comfortable chair invited him, and he sat down. He felt suddenly rested and at home, and at peace with the world. Realizing that, in some way, the room had produced this effect, he looked curiously about him, trying to solve the secret of it.

Reluctantly to himself he confessed that it was a very ordinary room. The carpet was poor, and was badly worn. The chairs, while comfortable looking, were manifestly not expensive, and had seen long service. Simple curtains were at the windows, and a few fair prints were on the walls. Two or three vases, of good lines but cheap materials, held flowers, and there was a plain but roomy set of shelves filled with books—not immaculate, leather-backed, gilt-lettered “sets” but rows of dingy, worn volumes, whose very shabbiness was at once an invitation and a promise. Nowhere, however, could Mr. Smith see protecting cover mat, or tidy. He decided then that this must be why he felt suddenly so rested and at peace with all mankind. Even as the conviction came to him, however he was suddenly aware that everything was not, after all, peaceful or harmonious.

At the table Mr. Duff and his daughter were arranging the Bible and the papers. Miss Maggie suggested piles in a certain order: her father promptly objected, and arranged them otherwise. Miss Maggie placed the papers first for perusal: her father said “Absurd!” and substituted the Bible. Miss Maggie started to draw up a chair to the table: her father derisively asked her if she expected a man to sit in that—and drew up a different one. Yet Mr. Smith, when he was finally invited to take a seat at the table, found everything quite the most convenient and comfortable possible.

Once more into Miss Maggie’s face he sent a sharply inquiring glance, and once more he encountered nothing but unruffled cheerfulness.

With a really genuine interest in the records before him, Mr. Smith fell to work then. The Bible had been in the Blaisdell family for generations, and it was full of valuable names and dates. He began at once to copy them.

Mr. Duff, on the other side of the table, was arranging into piles the papers before him. He complained of the draft, and Miss Maggie shut the window. He said then that he didn’t mean he wanted to suffocate, and she opened the one on the other side. The clock had hardly struck three when he accused her of having forgotten his medicine. Yet when she brought it he refused to take it. She had not brought the right kind of spoon, he said, and she knew perfectly well he never took it out of that narrow-bowl kind. He complained of the light, and she lowered the curtain; but he told her that he didn’t mean he didn’t want to see at all, so she put it up halfway. He said his coat was too warm, and she brought another one. He put it on grudgingly, but he declared that it was as much too thin as the other was too thick.

Mr. Smith, in spite of his efforts to be politely deaf and blind, found himself unable to confine his attention to birth, death, and marriage notices. Once he almost uttered an explosive “Good Heavens, how do you stand it?” to his hostess. But he stopped himself just in time, and fiercely wrote with a very black mark that Submit Blaisdell was born in eighteen hundred and one. A little later he became aware that Mr. Duff’s attention was frowningly turned across the table toward himself.

“If you will spend your time over such silly stuff, why don’t you use a bigger book?” demanded the old man at last.

“Because it wouldn’t fit my pocket,” smiled Mr. Smith.

“Just what business of yours is it, anyhow, when these people lived and died?”

“None, perhaps,” still smiled Mr. Smith good-humoredly.

“Why don’t you let them alone, then? What do you expect to find?”

“Why, I—I—” Mr. Smith was plainly nonplused.

“Well, I can tell you it’s a silly business, whatever you find. If you find your grandfather’s a bigger man than you are, you’ll be proud of it, but you ought to be ashamed of it—’cause you aren’t bigger yourself! On the other hand, if you find he isn’t as big as you are, you’ll be ashamed of that, when you ought to be proud of it—’cause you’ve gone him one better. But you won’t. I know your kind. I’ve seen you before. But can’t you do any work, real work?”

“He is doing work, real work, now, father,” interposed Miss Maggie quickly. “He’s having a woeful time, too. If you’d only help him, now, and show him those papers.”

A real terror came into Mr. Smith’s eyes, but Mr. Duff was already on his feet.

“Well, I shan’t,” he observed tartly. “I’M not a fool, if he is. I’m going out to the porch where I can get some air.”

“There, work as long as you like, Mr. Smith. I knew you’d rather work by yourself,” nodded Miss Maggie, moving the piles of papers nearer him.

“But, good Heavens, how do you stand—” exploded Mr. Smith before he realized that this time he had really said the words aloud. He blushed a painful red.

Miss Maggie, too, colored. Then, abruptly, she laughed. “After all, it doesn’t matter. Why shouldn’t I be frank with you? You couldn’t help seeing—how things were, of course, and I forgot, for a moment, that you were a stranger. Everybody in Hillerton understands. You see, father is nervous, and not at all well. We have to humor him.”

“But do you mean that you always have to tell him to do what you don’t want, in order to—well—that is—” Mr. Smith, finding himself in very deep water, blushed again painfully.

Miss Maggie met his dismayed gaze with cheerful candor.

“Tell him to do what I don’t want in order to get him to do what I do want him to? Yes, oh, yes. But I don’t mind; really I don’t. I’m used to it now. And when you know how, what does it matter? After all, where is the difference? To most of the world we say, ‘Please do,’ when we want a thing, while to him we have to say, ‘Please don’t.’ That’s all. You see, it’s really very simple—when you know how.”

“Simple! Great Scott!” muttered Mr. Smith. He wanted to say more; but Miss Maggie, with a smiling nod, turned away, so he went back to his work.

Benny, wandering in from the kitchen, with both hands full of cookies, plumped himself down on the cushioned window-seat, and drew a sigh of content.

“Say, Aunt Maggie.”

“Yes, dear.”

“Can I come ter live with you?”

“Certainly not!” The blithe voice and pleasant smile took all the sting from the prompt refusal.

“What would father and mother do?”

“Oh, they wouldn’t mind.”

“Benny!”

“They wouldn’t. Maybe pa would—a little; but Bess and ma wouldn’t. And I’D like it.”

“Nonsense, Benny!” Miss Maggie crossed to a little stand and picked up a small box. “Here’s a new picture puzzle. See if you can do it.”

Benny shifted his now depleted stock of cookies to one hand, dropped to his knees on the floor, and dumped the contents of the box upon the seat before him.

“They won’t let me eat cookies any more at home—in the house, I mean. Too many crumbs.”

“But you know you have to pick up your crumbs here, dear.”

“Yep. But I don’t mind—after I’ve had the fun of eatin’ first. But they won’t let me drop ’em ter begin with, there, nor take any of the boys inter the house. Honest, Aunt Maggie, there ain’t anything a feller can do, ’seems so, if ye live on the West Side,” he persisted soberly.

Mr. Smith, copying dates at the table, was conscious of a slightly apprehensive glance in his direction from Miss Maggie’s eyes, as she murmured:—

“But you’re forgetting your puzzle, Benny. You’ve put only five pieces together.”

“I can’t do puzzles there, either.” Benny’s voice was still mournful.

“All the more reason, then, why you should like to do them here. See, where does this dog’s head go?”

Listlessly Benny took the bit of pictured wood in his fingers and began to fit it into the pattern before him.

“I used ter do ’em an’ leave ’em ’round, but ma says I can’t now. Callers might come and find ’em, an’ what would they say—on the West Side! An’ that’s the way ’tis with everything. Ma an’ Bess are always doin’ things, or not doin’ ’em, for those callers. An’ I don’t see why. They never come—not new ones.”

“Yes, yes, dear, but they will, when they get acquainted. You haven’t found where the dog’s head goes yet.”

“Pa says he don’t want ter get acquainted. He’d rather have the old friends, what don’t mind baked beans, an’ shirt-sleeves, an’ doin’ yer own work, an’ what thinks more of yer heart than they do of yer pocketbook. But ma wants a hired girl. An’ say, we have ter wash our hands every meal now—on the table, I mean—in those little glass wash-dishes. Ma went down an’ bought some, an’ she’s usin’ ’em every day, so’s ter get used to ’em. She says everybody that is anybody has ’em nowadays. Bess thinks they’re great, but I don’t. I don’t like ’em a mite.”

“Oh, come, come, Benny! It doesn’t matter—it doesn’t really matter, does it, if you do have to use the little dishes? Come, you’re not half doing the puzzle.”

“I know it.” Benny shifted his position, and picked up a three-cornered bit of wood carrying the picture of a dog’s paw. “But I was just thinkin’. You see, things are so different—on the West Side. Why even pa—he’s different. He isn’t there hardly any now. He’s got a new job.”

“What?” Miss Maggie turned from the puzzle with a start.

“Oh, just for evenin’s. It’s keepin’ books for a man. It brings in quite a lot extry, ma says; but she wouldn’t let me have some new roller skates when mine broke. She’s savin’ up for a chafin’ dish. What’s a chafin’ dish? Do you know? You eat out of it, some way—I mean, it cooks things ter eat; an’ Bess wants one. Gussie Pennock’s got one. all our eatin’s different, ’seems so, on the West Side. Ma has dinners nights now, instead of noons. She says the Pennocks do, an’ everybody does who is anybody. But I don’t like it. Pa don’t, either, an’ half the time he can’t get home in time for it, anyhow, on account of gettin’ back to his new job, ye know, an’—”

“Oh, I’ve found where the dog’s head goes,” cried Miss Maggie, There was a hint of desperation in her voice. “I shall have your puzzle all done for you myself, if you don’t look out, Benny. I don’t believe you can do it, anyhow.”

“I can, too. You just see if I can’t!” retorted Benny, with sudden spirit, falling to work in earnest. “I never saw a puzzle yet I couldn’t do!”

Mr. Smith, bending assiduously over his work at the table, heard Miss Maggie’s sigh of relief—and echoed it, from sympathy.

CHAPTER VII
POOR MAGGIE AND SOME OTHERS

It was half an hour later, when Mr. Smith and Benny were walking across the common together, that Benny asked an abrupt question.

“Is Aunt Maggie goin’ ter be put in your book, Mr. Smith?”

“Why—er—yes; her name will be entered as the daughter of the man who married the Widow Blaisdell, probably. Why?”

“Nothin’. I was only thinkin’. I hoped she was. Aunt Maggie don’t have nothin’ much, yer know, except her father an’ housework—housework either for him or some of us. An’ I guess she’s had quite a lot of things ter bother her, an’ make her feel bad, so I hoped she’d be in the book. Though if she wasn’t, she’d just laugh an’ say it doesn’t matter, of course. That’s what she always says.”

“Always says?” Mr. Smith’s voice was mildly puzzled. “Yes, when things plague, an’ somethin’ don’t go right. She says it helps a lot ter just remember that it doesn’t matter. See?”

“Well, no,—I don’t think I do see,” frowned Mr. Smith.

“Oh, yes,” plunged in Benny; “’cause, you see, if yer stop ter think about it—this thing that’s plaguin’ ye—you’ll see how really small an’ no-account it is, an’ how, when you put it beside really big things it doesn’t matter at all—it doesn’t really matter, ye know. Aunt Maggie says she’s done it years an’ years, ever since she was just a girl, an’ somethin’ bothered her; an’ it’s helped a lot.”

“But there are lots of things that do matter,” persisted Mr. Smith, still frowning.

“Oh, yes!” Benny swelled a bit importantly, “I know what you mean. Aunt Maggie says that, too; an’ she says we must be very careful an’ not get it wrong. It’s only the little things that bother us, an’ that we wish were different, that we must say ‘It doesn’t matter’ about. It does matter whether we’re good an’ kind an’ tell the truth an’ shame the devil; but it doesn’t matter whether we have ter live on the West Side an’ eat dinner nights instead of noons, an’ not eat cookies any of the time in the house,—see?”

“Good for you, Benny,—and good for Aunt Maggie!” laughed Mr. Smith suddenly.

“Aunt Maggie? Oh, you don’t know Aunt Maggie, yet. She’s always tryin’ ter make people think things don’t matter. You’ll see!” crowed Benny.

A moment later he had turned down his own street, and Mr. Smith was left to go on alone.

Very often, in the days that followed, Mr. Smith thought of this speech of Benny’s. He had opportunity to verify it, for he was seeing a good deal of Miss Maggie, and it seemed, indeed, to him that half the town was coming to her to learn that something “didn’t matter”—though very seldom, except to Benny, did he hear her say the words themselves. It was merely that to her would come men, women, and children, each with a sorry tale of discontent or disappointment. And it was always as if they left with her their burden, for when they turned away, head and shoulders were erect once more, eyes were bright, and the step was alert and eager.

He used to wonder how she did it. For that matter, he wondered how she did—a great many things.

Mr. Smith was, indeed, seeing a good deal of Miss Maggie these days. He told himself that it was the records that attracted him. But he did not always copy records. Sometimes he just sat in one of the comfortable chairs and watched Miss Maggie, content if she gave him a word now and then.

He liked the way she carried her head, and the way her hair waved away from her shapely forehead. He liked the quiet strength of the way her capable hands lay motionless in her lap when their services were not required. He liked to watch for the twinkle in her eye, and for the dimple in her cheek that told a smile was coming. He liked to hear her talk to Benny. He even liked to hear her talk to her father—when he could control his temper sufficiently. Best of all he liked his own comfortable feeling of being quite at home, and at peace with all the world—the feeling that always came to him now whenever he entered the house, in spite of the fact that the welcome accorded him by Mr. Duff was hardly more friendly than at the first.

To Mr. Smith it was a matter of small moment whether Mr. Duff welcomed him cordially or not. He even indulged now and then in a bout of his own with the gentleman, chuckling inordinately when results showed that he had pitched his remark at just the right note of contrariety to get what he wanted.

For the most part, however, Mr. Smith, at least nominally, spent his time at his legitimate task of studying and copying the Blaisdell family records, of which he was finding a great number. Rufus Blaisdell apparently had done no little “digging” himself in his own day, and Mr. Smith told Miss Maggie that it was all a great “find” for him.

Miss Maggie seemed pleased. She said that she was glad if she could be of any help to him, and she told him to come whenever he liked. She arranged the Bible and the big box of papers on a little table in the corner, and told him to make himself quite at home; and she showed so plainly that she regarded him as quite one of the family, that Mr. Smith might be pardoned for soon considering himself so.

It was while at work in this corner that he came to learn so much of Miss Maggie’s daily life, and of her visitors.

Although many of these visitors were strangers to him, some of them he knew.

One day it was Mrs. Hattie Blaisdell, with a countenance even more florid than usual. She was breathless and excited, and her eyes were worried. She was going to give a luncheon, she said. She wanted Miss Maggie’s silver spoons, and her forks, and her hand painted sugar-and-creamer, and Mother Blaisdell’s cut-glass dish.

Mr. Smith, supposing that Miss Maggie herself was to be at the luncheon, was just rejoicing within him that she was to have this pleasant little outing, when he heard Mrs. Blaisdell telling her to be sure to come at eleven to be in the kitchen, and asking where could she get a maid to serve in the dining-room, and what should she do with Benny. He’d have to be put somewhere, or else he’d be sure to upset everything.

Mr. Smith did not hear Miss Maggie’s answer to all this, for she hurried her visitor to the kitchen at once to look up the spoons, she said. But indirectly he obtained a very conclusive reply; for he found Miss Maggie gone one day when he came; and Benny, who was in her place, told him all about it, even to the dandy frosted cake Aunt Maggie had made for the company to eat.

Another day it was Mrs. Jane Blaisdell who came. Mrs. Jane had a tired frown between her brows and a despairing droop to her lips. She carried a large bundle which she dropped unceremoniously into Miss Maggie’s lap.

“There, I’m dead beat out, and I’ve brought it to you. You’ve just got to help me,” she finished, sinking into a chair.

“Why, of course, if I can. But what is it?” Miss Maggie’s deft fingers were already untying the knot.

“It’s my old black silk. I’m making it over.”

“Again? But I thought the last time it couldn’t ever be done again.”

“Yes, I know; but there’s lots of good in it yet,” interposed Mrs. Jane decidedly; “and I’ve bought new velvet and new lace, and some buttons and a new lining. I thought I could do it alone, but I’ve reached a point where I just have got to have help. So I came right over.”

“Yes, of course, but”—Miss Maggie was lifting a half-finished sleeve doubtfully—“why didn’t you go to Flora? She’d know exactly—”

Mrs. Jane stiffened.

“Because I can’t afford to go to Flora,” she interrupted coldly. “I have to pay Flora, and you know it. If I had the money I should be glad to do it, of course. But I haven’t, and charity begins at home I think. Besides, I do go to her for new dresses. But this old thing—! Of course, if you don’t want to help me—”

“Oh, but I do,” plunged in Miss Maggie hurriedly. “Come out into the kitchen where we’ll have more room,” she exclaimed, gathering the bundle into her arms and springing to her feet.

“I’ve got some other lace at home—yards and yards. I got a lot, it was so cheap,” recounted Mrs. Jane, rising with alacrity. “But I’m afraid it won’t do for this, and I don’t know as it will do for anything, it’s so—”

The kitchen door slammed sharply, and Mr. Smith heard no more. Half an hour later, however, he saw Mrs. Jane go down the walk. The frown was gone from her face and the droop from the corners of her mouth. Her step was alert and confident. She carried no bundle.

The next day it was Miss Flora. Miss Flora’s thin little face looked more pinched than ever, and her eyes more anxious, Mr. Smith thought. Even her smile, as she acknowledged Mr. Smith’s greeting, was so wan he wished she had not tried to give it.

She sat down then, by the window, and began to chat with Miss Maggie; and very soon Mr. Smith heard her say this:—

“No, Maggie, I don’t know, really, what I am going to do—truly I don’t. Business is so turrible dull! Why, I don’t earn enough to pay my rent, hardly, now, ter say nothin’ of my feed.”

Miss Maggie frowned.

“But I thought that Hattie—ISN’T Hattie having some new dresses—and Bessie, too?”

A sigh passed Miss Flora’s lips.

“Yes, oh, yes; they are having three or four. But they don’t come to me any more. They’ve gone to that French woman that makes the Pennocks’ things, you know, with the queer name. And of course it’s all right, and you can’t blame ’em, livin’ on the West Side, as they do now. And, of course, I ain’t so up ter date as she is. And just her name counts.”

“Nonsense! Up to date, indeed!” (Miss Maggie laughed merrily, but Mr. Smith, copying dates at the table, detected a note in the laugh that was not merriment.) “You’re up to date enough for me. I’ve got just the job for you, too. Come out into the kitchen.” She was already almost at the door. “Why, Maggie, you haven’t, either!” (In spite of the incredulity of voice and manner, Miss Flora sprang joyfully to her feet.) “You never had me make you a—” Again the kitchen door slammed shut, and Mr. Smith was left to finish the sentence for himself.

But Mr. Smith was not finishing sentences. Neither was his face expressing just then the sympathy which might be supposed to be showing, after so sorry a tale as Miss Flora had been telling. On the contrary, Mr. Smith, with an actual elation of countenance, was scribbling on the edge of his notebook words that certainly he had never found in the Blaisdell records before him: “Two months more, then—a hundred thousand dollars. And may I be there to see it!”

Half an hour later, as on the previous day, Mr. Smith saw a metamorphosed woman hurrying down the little path to the street. But the woman to-day was carrying a bundle—and it was the same bundle that the woman the day before had brought.

But not always, as Mr. Smith soon learned, were Miss Maggie’s visitors women. Besides Benny, with his grievances, young Fred Blaisdell came sometimes, and poured into Miss Maggie’s sympathetic ears the story of Gussie Pennock’s really remarkable personality, or of what he was going to do when he went to college—and afterwards.

Mr. Jim Blaisdell drifted in quite frequently Sunday afternoons, though apparently all he came for was to smoke and read in one of the big comfortable chairs. Mr. Smith himself had fallen into the way of strolling down to Miss Maggie’s almost every Sunday after dinner.

One Saturday afternoon Mr. Frank Blaisdell rattled up to the door in his grocery wagon. His face was very red, and his mutton-chop whiskers were standing straight out at each side.

Jane had collapsed, he said, utterly collapsed. All the week she had been house-cleaning and doing up curtains; and now this morning, expressly against his wishes, to save hiring a man, she had put down the parlor carpet herself. Now she was flat on her back, and supper to be got for the boarder, and the Saturday baking yet to be done. And could Maggie come and help them out?

Before Miss Maggie could answer, Mr. Smith hurried out from his corner and insisted that “the boarder” did not want any supper anyway—and could they not live on crackers and milk for the coming few days?

But Miss Maggie laughed and said, “Nonsense!” And in an incredibly short time she was ready to drive back in the grocery wagon. Later, when he went home, Mr. Smith found her there, presiding over one of the best suppers he had eaten since his arrival in Hillerton. She came every day after that, for a week, for Mrs. Jane remained “flat on her back” seven days, with a doctor in daily attendance, supplemented by a trained nurse peremptorily ordered by that same doctor from the nearest city.

Miss Maggie, with the assistance of Mellicent, attended to the housework. But in spite of the excellence of the cuisine, meal time was a most unhappy period to everybody concerned, owing to the sarcastic comments of Mr. Frank Blaisdell as to how much his wife had “saved” by not having a man to put down that carpet.

Mellicent had little time now to go walking or auto-riding with Carl Pennock. Her daily life was, indeed, more pleasure-starved than ever—all of which was not lost on Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith and Mellicent were fast friends now. Given a man with a sympathetic understanding on one side, and a girl hungry for that same sympathy and understanding, and it could hardly be otherwise. From Mellicent’s own lips Mr. Smith knew now just how hungry a young girl can be for fun and furbelows.

“Of course I’ve got my board and clothes, and I ought to be thankful for them,” she stormed hotly to him one day. “And I am thankful for them. But sometimes it seems as if I’d actually be willing to go hungry for meat and potato, if for once—just once—I could buy a five-pound box of candy, and eat it up all at once, if I wanted to! But now, why now I can’t even treat a friend to an ice-cream soda without seeing mother’s shocked, reproachful eyes over the rim of the glass!”

It was not easy then (nor many times subsequently) for Mr. Smith to keep from asking Mellicent the utterly absurd question of how many five-pound boxes of candy she supposed one hundred thousand dollars would buy. But he did keep from it—by heroic self-sacrifice and the comforting recollection that she would know some day, if she cared to take the trouble to reckon it up.

In Mellicent’s love affair with young Pennock Mr. Smith was enormously interested. Not that he regarded it as really serious, but because it appeared to bring into Mellicent’s life something of the youth and gayety to which he thought she was entitled. He was almost as concerned as was Miss Maggie, therefore, when one afternoon, soon after Mrs. Jane Blaisdell’s complete recovery from her “carpet tax” (as Frank Blaisdell termed his wife’s recent illness), Mellicent rushed into the Duff living-room with rose-red cheeks and blazing eyes, and an explosive:—“Aunt Maggie, Aunt Maggie, can’t you get mother to let me go away somewhere—anywhere, right off?”

[Illustration caption: “I CAN’T HELP IT, AUNT MAGGIE. I’VE JUST GOT TO BE AWAY!”]

“Why, Mellicent! Away? And just to-morrow the Pennocks’ dance?”

“But that’s it—that’s why I want to go,” flashed Mellicent. “I don’t want to be at the dance—and I don’t want to be in town, and not at the dance.”

Mr. Smith, at his table in the corner, glanced nervously toward the door, then bent assiduously over his work, as being less conspicuous than the flight he had been tempted for a moment to essay. But even this was not to be, for the next moment, to his surprise, the girl appealed directly to him.

“Mr. Smith, please, won’t you take me somewhere to-morrow?”

“Mellicent!” Even Miss Maggie was shocked now, and showed it.

“I can’t help it, Aunt Maggie. I’ve just got to be away!” Mellicent’s voice was tragic.

“But, my dear, to ask a gentleman—” reproved Miss Maggie. She came to an indeterminate pause. Mr. Smith had crossed the room and dropped into a chair near them.

“See here, little girl, suppose you tell us just what is behind—all this,” he began gently.

Mellicent shook her head stubbornly.

“I can’t. It’s too—silly. Please let it go that I want to be away. That’s all.”

“Mellicent, we can’t do that.” Miss Maggie’s voice was quietly firm. “We can’t do—anything, until you tell us what it is.”

There was a brief pause. Mellicent’s eyes, still mutinous, sought first the kindly questioning face of the man, then the no less kindly but rather grave face of the woman. Then in a little breathless burst it came.

“It’s just something they’re all saying Mrs. Pennock said—about me.”

“What was it?” Two little red spots had come into Miss Maggie’s cheeks.

“Yes, what was it?” Mr. Smith was looking actually belligerent.

“It was just that—that they weren’t going to let Carl Pennock go with me any more—anywhere, or come to see me, because I—I didn’t belong to their set.”

“Their set!” exploded Mr. Smith.

Miss Maggie said nothing, but the red spots deepened.

“Yes. It’s just—that we aren’t rich like them. I haven’t got—money enough.”

“That you haven’t got—got—Oh, ye gods!” For no apparent reason whatever Mr. Smith threw back his head suddenly and laughed. Almost instantly, however, he sobered: he had caught the expression of the two faces opposite.

“I beg your pardon,” he apologized promptly. “It was only that to me—there was something very funny about that.”

“But, Mellicent, are you sure? I don’t believe she ever said it,” doubted Miss Maggie.

“He hasn’t been near me—for a week. Not that I care!” Mellicent turned with flashing eyes. “I don’t care a bit—not a bit—about that!”

“Of course you don’t! It’s not worth even thinking of either. What does it matter if she did say it, dear? Forget it!”

“But I can’t bear to have them all talk—and notice,” choked Mellicent. “And we were together such a lot before; and now—I tell you I can’t go to that dance to-morrow night!”

“And you shan’t, if you don’t want to,” Mr. Smith assured her. “Right here and now I invite you and your Aunt Maggie to drive with me to-morrow to Hubbardville. There are some records there that I want to look up. We’ll get dinner at the hotel. It will take all day, and we shan’t be home till late in the evening. You’ll go?”

“Oh, Mr. Smith, you—you dear! Of course we’ll go! I’ll go straight now and telephone to somebody—everybody—that I shan’t be there; that I’m going to be out of town!” She sprang joyously to her feet—but Miss Maggie held out a restraining hand.

“Just a minute, dear. You don’t care—you said you didn’t care—that Carl Pennock doesn’t come to see you any more?”

“Indeed I don’t!”

“Then you wouldn’t want others to think you did, would you?”

“Of course not!” The red dyed Mellicent’s forehead.

“You have said that you’d go to this party, haven’t you? That is, you accepted the invitation, didn’t you, and people know that you did, don’t they?”

“Why, yes, of course! But that was before—Mrs. Pennock said what she did.”

“Of course. But—just what do you think these people are going to say to-morrow night, when you aren’t there?”

“Why, that I—I—” The color drained from her face and left it white. “They wouldn’t expect me to go after that—insult.”

“Then they’ll understand that you—care, won’t they?”

“Why, I—I—They—I can’t—” She turned sharply and walked to the window. For a long minute she stood, her back toward the two watching her. Then, with equal abruptness, she turned and came back. Her cheeks were very pink now, her eyes very bright. She carried her head with a proud little lift.

“I think, Mr. Smith, that I won’t go with you to-morrow, after all,” she said steadily. “I’ve decided to go—to that dance.”

The next moment the door shut crisply behind her.

CHAPTER VIII
A SANTA CLAUS HELD UP

It was about five months after the multi-millionaire, Mr. Stanley G. Fulton, had started for South America, that Edward D. Norton, Esq., received the following letter:—

Dear Ned:—I’m glad there’s only one more month to wait. I feel like Santa Claus with a box of toys, held up by a snowdrift, and I just can’t wait to see the children dance—when they get them.

And let me say right here and now how glad I am that I did this thing. Oh, yes, I’ll admit I still feel like the small boy at the keyhole, at times, perhaps; but I’ll forget that—when the children begin to dance.

And, really, never have I seen a bunch of people whom I thought a little money would do more good to than the Blaisdells here in Hillerton. My only regret is that I didn’t know about Miss Maggie Duff, so that she could have had some, too. (Oh, yes, I’ve found out all about “Poor Maggie” now, and she’s a dear—the typical self-sacrificing, self-effacing bearer of everybody’s burdens, including a huge share of her own!) However, she isn’t a Blaisdell, of course, so I couldn’t have worked her into my scheme very well, I suppose, even if I had known about her. They are all fond of her—though they impose on her time and her sympathies abominably. But I reckon she’ll get some of the benefits of the others’ thousands. Mrs. Jane, in particular, is always wishing she could do something for “Poor Maggie,” so I dare say she’ll be looked out for all right.

As to who will prove to be the wisest handler of the hundred thousand, and thus my eventual heir, I haven’t the least idea. As I said before, they all need money, and need it badly—need it to be comfortable and happy, I mean. They aren’t really poor, any of them, except, perhaps, Miss Flora. She is a little hard up, poor soul. Bless her heart! I wonder what she’ll get first, Niagara, the phonograph, or something to eat without looking at the price. Did I ever write you about those “three wishes” of hers?

I can’t see that any of the family are really extravagant unless, perhaps, it’s Mrs. James—“Hattie.” She is ambitious, and is inclined to live on a scale a little beyond her means, I judge. But that will be all right, of course, when she has the money to gratify her tastes. Jim—poor fellow, I shall be glad to see him take it easy, for once. He reminds me of the old horse I saw the other day running one of those infernal treadmill threshing machines—always going, but never getting there. He works, and works hard, and then he gets a job nights and works harder; but he never quite catches up with his bills, I fancy. What a world of solid comfort he’ll take with that hundred thousand! I can hear him draw the long breath now—for once every bill paid!

Of course, the Frank Blaisdells are the most thrifty of the bunch—at least, Mrs. Frank, “Jane,” is—and I dare say they would be the most conservative handlers of my millions. But time will tell. Anyhow, I shall be glad to see them enjoy themselves meanwhile with the hundred thousand. Maybe Mrs. Jane will be constrained to clear my room of a few of the mats and covers and tidies! I have hopes. At least, I shall surely have a vacation from her everlasting “We can’t afford it,” and her equally everlasting “Of course, if I had the money I’d do it.” Praise be for that!—and it’ll be worth a hundred thousand to me, believe me, Ned.

As for her husband—I’m not sure how he will take it. It isn’t corn or peas or flour or sugar, you see, and I’m not posted as to his opinion of much of anything else. He’ll spend some of it, though,—I’m sure of that. I don’t think he always thoroughly appreciates his wife’s thrifty ideas of economy. I haven’t forgotten the night I came home to find Mrs. Jane out calling, and Mr. Frank rampaging around the house with every gas jet at full blast. It seems he was packing his bag to go on a hurried business trip. He laughed a little sheepishly—I suppose he saw my blinking amazement at the illumination—and said something about being tired of always feeling his way through pitch-dark rooms. So, as I say, I’m not quite sure of Mr. Frank when he comes into possession of the hundred thousand. He’s been cooped up in the dark so long he may want to blow in the whole hundred thousand in one grand blare of light. However, I reckon I needn’t worry—he’ll still have Mrs. Jane—to turn some of the gas jets down!

As for the younger generation—they’re fine, every one of them; and just think what this money will mean to them in education and advantages! Jim’s son, Fred, eighteen, is a fine, manly boy. He’s got his mother’s ambitions, and he’s keen for college—even talks of working his way (much to his mother’s horror) if his father can’t find the money to send him. Of course, that part will be all right now—in a month.

The daughter, Bessie (almost seventeen), is an exceedingly pretty girl. She, too, is ambitious—almost too much so, perhaps, for her happiness, in the present state of their pocketbook. But of course that, too, will be all right, after next month. Benny, the nine-year-old, will be concerned as little as any one over that hundred thousand dollars, I imagine. The real value of the gift he will not appreciate, of course; in fact, I doubt if he even approves of it—lest his privileges as to meals and manners be still further curtailed. Poor Benny! Now, Mellicent—

Perhaps in no one do I expect to so thoroughly rejoice as I do in poor little pleasure-starved Mellicent. I realize, of course, that it will mean to her the solid advantages of college, music-culture, and travel; but I must confess that in my dearest vision, the child is reveling in one grand whirl of pink dresses and chocolate bonbons. Bless her dear heart! I gave her one five-pound box of candy, but I never repeated the mistake. Besides enduring the manifestly suspicious disapproval of her mother because I had made the gift, I have had the added torment of seeing that box of chocolates doled out to that poor child at the rate of two pieces a day. They aren’t gone yet, but I’ll warrant they’re as hard as bullets—those wretched bonbons. I picked the box up yesterday. You should have heard it rattle!

But there is yet another phase of the money business in connection with Mellicent that pleases me mightily. A certain youth by the name of Carl Pennock has been beauing her around a good deal, since I came. The Pennocks have some money—fifty thousand, or so, I believe—and it is reported that Mrs. Pennock has put her foot down on the budding romance—because the Blaisdells have not got money enough! (Begin to see where my chuckles come in?) However true this report may be, the fact remains that the youth has not been near the house for a month past, nor taken Mellicent anywhere. Of course, it shows him and his family up—for just what they are; but it has been mortifying for poor Mellicent. She’s showing her pluck like a little trump, however, and goes serenely on her way with her head just enough in the air—but not too much.

I don’t think Mellicent’s real heart is affected in the least—she’s only eighteen, remember—but her pride is. And her mother—! Mrs. Jane is thoroughly angry as well as mortified. She says Mellicent is every whit as good as those Pennocks, and that the woman who would let a paltry thing like money stand in the way of her son’s affections is a pretty small specimen. For her part, she never did have any use for rich folks, anyway, and she is proud and glad that she’s poor! I’m afraid Mrs. Jane was very angry when she said that. However, so much for her—and she may change her opinion one of these days.

My private suspicion is that young Pennock is already repentant, and is pulling hard at his mother’s leading-strings; for I was with Mellicent the other day when we met the lad face to face on the street. Mellicent smiled and nodded casually, but Pennock—he turned all colors of the rainbow with terror, pleading, apology, and assumed indifference all racing each other across his face. Dear, dear, but he was a sight!

There is, too, another feature in the case. It seems that a new family by the name of Gaylord have come to town and opened up the old Gaylord mansion. Gaylord is a son of old Peter Gaylord, and is a millionaire. They are making quite a splurge in the way of balls and liveried servants, and motor cars, and the town is agog with it all. There are young people in the family, and especially there is a girl, Miss Pearl, whom, report says, the Pennocks have selected as being a suitable mate for Carl. At all events the Pennocks and the Gaylords have struck up a furious friendship, and the young people of both families are in the forefront of innumerable social affairs—in most of which Mellicent is left out.

So now you have it—the whole story. And next month comes to Mellicent’s father one hundred thousand dollars. Do you wonder I say the plot thickens?

As for myself—you should see me! I eat whatever I like. (The man who says health biscuit to me now gets knocked down—and I’ve got the strength to do it, too!) I can walk miles and not know it. I’ve gained twenty pounds, and I’m having the time of my life. I’m even enjoying being a genealogist—a little. I’ve about exhausted the resources of Hillerton, and have begun to make trips to the neighboring towns. I can even spend an afternoon in an old cemetery copying dates from moss-grown gravestones, and not entirely lose my appetite for dinner—I mean, supper. I was even congratulating myself that I was really quite a genealogist when, the other day, I met the real thing. Heavens, Ned, that man had fourteen thousand four hundred and seventy-two dates at his tongue’s end, and he said them all over to me. He knows the name of every Blake (he was a Blake) back to the year one, how many children they had (and they had some families then, let me tell you!), and when they all died, and why. I met him one morning in a cemetery. I was hunting for a certain stone and I asked him a question. Heavens! It was like setting a match to one of those Fourth-of-July flower-pot sky-rocket affairs. That question was the match that set him going, and thereafter he was a gushing geyser of names and dates. I never heard anything like it.

He began at the Blaisdells, but skipped almost at once to the Blakes—there were a lot of them near us. In five minutes he had me dumb from sheer stupefaction. In ten minutes he had made a century run, and by noon he had got to the Crusades. We went through the Dark Ages very appropriately, waiting in an open tomb for a thunderstorm to pass. We had got to the year one when I had to leave to drive back to Hillerton. I’ve invited him to come to see Father Duff. I thought I’d like to have them meet. He knows a lot about the Duffs—a Blake married one, ’way back somewhere. I’d like to hear him and Father Duff talk—or, rather, I’d like to hear him try to talk to Father Duff. Did I ever write you Father Duff’s opinion of genealogists? I believe I did.

I’m not seeing so much of Father Duff these days. Now that it’s grown a little cooler he spends most of his time in his favorite chair before the cook stove in the kitchen.

Jove, what a letter this is! It should be shipped by freight and read in sections. But I wanted you to know how things are here. You can appreciate it the more—when you come.

You’re not forgetting, of course, that it’s on the first day of November that Mr. Stanley G. Fulton’s envelope of instructions is to be opened.

As ever yours,
John Smith.

CHAPTER IX
“DEAR COUSIN STANLEY”

It was very early in November that Mr. Smith, coming home one afternoon, became instantly aware that something very extraordinary had happened.

In the living-room were gathered Mr. Frank Blaisdell, his wife, Jane, and their daughter, Mellicent. Mellicent’s cheeks were pink, and her eyes more starlike than ever. Mrs. Jane’s cheeks, too, were pink. Her eyes were excited, but incredulous. Mr. Frank was still in his white work-coat, which he wore behind the counter, but which he never wore upstairs in his home. He held an open letter in his hand.

It was an ecstatic cry from Mellicent that came first to Mr. Smith’s ears.

“Oh, Mr. Smith, Mr. Smith, you can’t guess what’s happened! You couldn’t guess in a million years!”

“No? Something nice, I hope.” Mr. Smith was looking almost as happily excited as Mellicent herself.

“Nice—NICE!” Mellicent clasped her hands before her. “Why, Mr. Smith, we are going to have a hundred thousand—”

“Mellicent, I wouldn’t talk of it—yet,” interfered her mother sharply.

“But, mother, it’s no secret. It can’t be kept secret!”

“Of course not—if it’s true. But it isn’t true,” retorted the woman, with excited emphasis. “No man in his senses would do such a thing.”

“Er—ah—w-what?” stammered Mr. Smith, looking suddenly a little less happy.

“Leave a hundred thousand dollars apiece to three distant relations he never saw.”

“But he was our cousin—you said he was our cousin,” interposed Mellicent, “and when he died—”

“The letter did not say he had died,” corrected her mother. “He just hasn’t been heard from. But he will be heard from—and then where will our hundred thousand dollars be?”

“But the lawyer’s coming to give it to us,” maintained Mr. Frank stoutly. Then abruptly he turned to Mr. Smith. “Here, read this, please, and tell us if we have lost our senses—or if somebody else has.”

Mr. Smith took the letter. A close observer might have noticed that his hand shook a little. The letterhead carried the name of a Chicago law firm, but Mr. Smith did not glance at that. He plunged at once into the text of the letter.

“Aloud, please, Mr. Smith. I want to hear it again,” pleaded Mellicent.

Dear Sir (read Mr. Smith then, after clearing his throat),—I understand that you are a distant kinsman of Mr. Stanley G. Fulton, the Chicago millionaire.

Some six months ago Mr. Fulton left this city on what was reported to be a somewhat extended exploring tour of South America. Before his departure he transferred to me, as trustee, certain securities worth about $300,000. He left with me a sealed envelope, entitled “Terms of Trust,” and instructed me to open such envelope in six months from the date written thereon—if he had not returned—and thereupon to dispose of the securities according to the terms of the trust. I will add that he also left with me a second sealed envelope entitled “Last Will and Testament,” but instructed me not to open such envelope until two years from the date written thereon.

The period of six months has now expired. I have opened the envelope entitled “Terms of Trust,” and find that I am directed to convert the securities into cash with all convenient speed, and forthwith to pay over one third of the net proceeds to his kinsman, Frank G. Blaisdell; one third to his kinsman, James A. Blaisdell; and one third to his kinswoman, Flora B. Blaisdell, all of Hillerton.

I shall, of course, discharge my duty as trustee under this instrument with all possible promptness. Some of the securities have already been converted into cash, and within a few days I shall come to Hillerton to pay over the cash in the form of certified checks; and I shall ask you at that time to be so good as to sign a receipt for your share. Meanwhile this letter is to apprise you of your good fortune and to offer you my congratulations.

Very truly yours,
Edward D. Norton.

“Oh-h!” breathed Mellicent.

“Well, what do you think of it?” demanded Mr. Frank Blaisdell, his arms akimbo.

“Why, it’s fine, of course. I congratulate you,” cried Mr. Smith, handing back the letter.

“Then it’s all straight, you think?”

“Most assuredly!”

“Je-hos-a-phat!” exploded the man.

“But he’ll come back—you see if he don’t!” Mrs. Jane’s voice was still positive.

“What if he does? You’ll still have your hundred thousand,” smiled Mr. Smith.

“He won’t take it back?”

“Of course not! I doubt if he could, if he wanted to.”

“And we’re really going to have a whole hundred thousand dollars?” breathed Mellicent.

“I reckon you are—less the inheritance tax, perhaps.”

“What’s that? What do you mean?” demanded Mrs. Jane. “Do you mean we’ve got to pay because we’ve got that money?”

“Why, y-yes, I suppose so. Isn’t there an inheritance tax in this State?”

“How much does it cost?” Mrs. Jane’s lips were at their most economical pucker. “Do we have to pay a great deal? Isn’t there any way to save doing that?”

“No, there isn’t,” cut in her husband crisply. “And I guess we can pay the inheritance tax—with a hundred thousand to pay it out of. We’re going to spend some of this money, Jane.”

The telephone bell in the hall jangled its peremptory summons, and Mr. Frank answered it. In a minute he returned, a new excitement on his face.

“It’s Hattie. She’s crazy, of course. They’re coming right over.”

“Oh, yes! And they’ve got it, too, haven’t they?” remembered Mellicent. “And Aunt Flora, and—” She stopped suddenly, a growing dismay in her eyes. “Why, he didn’t—he didn’t leave a cent to Aunt Maggie!” she cried.

“Gosh! that’s so. Say, now, that’s too bad!” There was genuine concern in Frank Blaisdell’s voice.

“But why?” almost wept Mellicent.

Her mother sighed sympathetically.

“Poor Maggie! How she is left out—always!”

“But we can give her some of ours, mother,—we can give her some of ours,” urged the girl.

“It isn’t ours to give—yet,” remarked her mother, a bit coldly.

“But, mother, you will do it,” importuned Mellicent. “You’ve always said you would, if you had it to give.”

“And I say it again, Mellicent. I shall never see her suffer, you may be sure,—if I have the money to relieve her. But—” She stopped abruptly at the sound of an excited voice down the hall. Miss Flora, evidently coming in through the kitchen, was hurrying toward them.

“Jane—Mellicent—where are you? Isn’t anybody here? Mercy me!” she panted, as she reached the room and sank into a chair. “Did you ever hear anything like it in all your life? You had one, too, didn’t you?” she cried, her eyes falling on the letter in her brother’s hand. “But ’tain’t true, of course!”

Miss Flora wore no head-covering. She wore one glove (wrong side out), and was carrying the other one. Her dress, evidently donned hastily for the street, was unevenly fastened, showing the topmost button without a buttonhole.

“Mr. Smith says it’s true,” triumphed Mellicent.

“How does he know? Who told him ’twas true?” demanded Miss Flora.

So almost accusing was the look in her eyes that Mr. Smith actually blinked a little. He grew visibly confused.

“Why—er—ah—the letter speaks for itself Miss Flora,” he stammered.

“But it can’t be true,” reiterated Miss Flora. “The idea of a man I never saw giving me a hundred thousand dollars like that!—and Frank and Jim, too!”

“But he’s your cousin—you said he was your cousin,” Mr. Smith reminded her. “And you have his picture in your album. You showed it to me.”

“I know it. But, my sakes! I didn’t know he knew I was his cousin. I don’t s’pose he’s got my picture in his album! But how did he know about us? It’s some other Flora Blaisdell, I tell you.”

“There, I never thought of that,” cried Jane. “It probably is some other Blaisdells. Well, anyhow, if it is, we won’t have to pay that inheritance tax. We can save that much.”

“Save! Well, what do we lose?” demanded her husband apoplectically.

At this moment the rattling of the front-door knob and an imperative knocking brought Mrs. Jane to her feet.

“There’s Hattie, now, and that door’s locked,” she cried, hurrying into the hall.

When she returned a moment later Harriet Blaisdell and Bessie were with her.

There was about Mrs. Harriet Blaisdell a new, indescribable air of commanding importance. To Mr. Smith she appeared to have grown inches taller.

“Well, I do hope, Jane, now you’ll live in a decent place,” she was saying, as they entered the room, “and not oblige your friends to climb up over a grocery store.”

“Well, I guess you can stand the grocery store a few more days, Hattie,” observed Frank Blaisdell dryly. “How long do you s’pose we’d live—any of us—if ’twa’n’t for the grocery stores to feed us? Where’s Jim?”

“Isn’t he here? I told him I was coming here, and to come right over himself at once; that the very first thing we must have was a family conclave, just ourselves, you know, so as to plan what to give out to the public.”

“Er—ah—” Mr. Smith was on his feet, looking somewhat embarrassed; “perhaps, then, you would rather I were not present at the—er—family conclave.”

“Nonsense!” shouted Frank Blaisdell.

“Why, you are one of the family, ’seems so,” cried Mellicent.

“No, indeed, Mr. Smith, don’t go,” smiled Mrs. Hattie pleasantly. “Besides, you are interested in what concerns us, I know—for the book; so, of course, you’ll be interested in this legacy of dear Cousin Stanley’s.”

Mr. Smith collapsed suddenly behind his handkerchief, with one of the choking coughs to which he appeared to be somewhat addicted.

“Ain’t you getting a little familiar with ‘dear Cousin Stanley,’ Hattie?” drawled Frank Blaisdell.

Miss Flora leaned forward earnestly.

“But, Hattie, we were just sayin’, ’fore you came, that it couldn’t be true; that it must mean some other Blaisdells somewhere.”

“Absurd!” scoffed Harriet. “There couldn’t be any other Frank and Jim and Flora Blaisdell, in a Hillerton, too. Besides, Jim said over the telephone that that was one of the best law firms in Chicago. Don’t you suppose they know what they’re talking about? I’m sure, I think it’s quite the expected thing that he should leave his money to his own people. Come, don’t let’s waste any more time over that. What we’ve got to decide is what to do. First, of course, we must order expensive mourning all around.”

“Mourning!” ejaculated an amazed chorus.

“Oh, great Scott!” spluttered Mr. Smith, growing suddenly very red. “I never thought—” He stopped abruptly, his face almost purple.

But nobody was noticing Mr. Smith. Bessie Blaisdell had the floor.

“Why, mother, I look perfectly horrid in black, you know I do,” she was wailing. “And there’s the Gaylords’ dance just next week; and if I’m in mourning I can’t go there, nor anywhere. What’s the use in having all that money if we’ve got to shut ourselves up like that, and wear horrid stuffy black, and everything?”

“For shame, Bessie!” spoke up Miss Flora, with unusual sharpness for her. “I think your mother is just right. I’m sure the least we can do in return for this wonderful gift is to show our respect and appreciation by going into the very deepest black we can. I’m sure I’d be glad to.”

“Wait!” Mrs. Harriet had drawn her brows together in deep thought. “I’m not sure, after all, that it would be best. The letter did not say that dear Cousin Stanley had died—he just hadn’t been heard from. In that case, I don’t think we ought to do it. And it would be too bad—that Gaylord dance is going to be the biggest thing of the season, and of course if we were in black—No; on the whole, I think we won’t, Bessie. Of course, in two years from now, when we get the rest, it will be different.”

“When you—what?” It was a rather startled question from Mr. Smith.

“Oh, didn’t you know? There’s another letter to be opened in two years from now, disposing of the rest of the property. And he was worth millions, you know, millions!”

“But maybe he—er—Did it say you were to—to get those millions then?”

“Oh, no, it didn’t say it, Mr. Smith.” Mrs. Harriet Blaisdell’s smile was a bit condescending. “But of course we will. We are his kinsmen. He said we were. He just didn’t give it all now because he wanted to give himself two more years to come back in, I suppose. You know he’s gone exploring. And, of course, if he hadn’t come back by then, he would be dead. Then we’d get it all. Oh, yes, we shall get it, I’m sure.”

“Oh-h!” Mr. Smith settled back in his chair. He looked somewhat nonplused.

“Humph! Well, I wouldn’t spend them millions—till I’d got ’em, Hattie,” advised her brother-in-law dryly.

“I wasn’t intending to, Frank,” she retorted with some dignity. “But that’s neither here nor there. What we’re concerned with now is what to do with what we have got. Even this will make a tremendous sensation in Hillerton. It ought to be written up, of course, for the papers, and by some one who knows. We want it done just right. Why, Frank, do you realize? We shall be rich—RICH—and all in a flash like this! I wonder what the Pennocks will say now about Mellicent’s not having money enough for that precious son of theirs! Oh, I can hardly believe it yet. And it’ll mean—everything to us. Think what we can do for the children. Think—”

“Aunt Jane, Aunt Jane, is ma here?” Wide open banged the front door as Benny bounded down the hall. “Oh, here you are! Say, is it true? Tommy Hooker says our great-grandfather in Africa has died an’ left us a million dollars, an’ that we’re richer’n Mr. Pennock or even the Gaylords, or anybody! Is it true? Is it?”

His mother laughed indulgently.

“Not quite, Benny, though we have been left a nice little fortune by your cousin, Stanley G. Fulton—remember the name, dear, your cousin, Stanley G. Fulton. And it wasn’t Africa, it was South America.”

“And did you all get some, too?” panted Benny, looking eagerly about him.

“We sure did,” nodded his Uncle Frank, “all but poor Mr. Smith here. I guess Mr. Stanley G. Fulton didn’t know he was a cousin, too,” he joked, with a wink in Mr. Smith’s direction.

“But where’s Aunt Maggie? Why ain’t she here? She got some, too, didn’t she?” Benny began to look anxious.

His mother lifted her eyebrows.

“No. You forget, my dear. Your Aunt Maggie is not a Blaisdell at all. She’s a Duff—a very different family.”

“I don’t care, she’s just as good as a Blaisdell,” cut in Mellicent; “and she seems like one of us, anyway.”

“And she didn’t get anything?” bemoaned Benny. “Say,” he turned valiantly to Mr. Smith, “shouldn’t you think he might have given Aunt Maggie a little of that money?”

“I should, indeed!” Mr. Smith spoke with peculiar emphasis.

“I guess he would if he’d known her!”

“I’m sure he would!” Once more the peculiar earnestness vibrated through Mr. Smith’s voice.

“But now he’s dead, an’ he can’t. I guess if he could see Aunt Maggie he’d wish he hadn’t died ’fore he could fix her up just as good as the rest.”

“I’m very sure he would!” Mr. Smith was laughing now, but his voice was just as emphatic, and there was a sudden flame of color in his face.

“Your Cousin Stanley isn’t dead, my dear,—that is, we are not sure he is dead,” spoke up Benny’s mother quickly. “He just has not been heard from for six months.”

“But he must be dead, or he’d have come back,” reasoned Miss Flora, with worried eyes; “and I, for my part, think we ought to go into mourning, too.”

“Of course he’d have come back,” declared Mrs. Jane, “and kept the money himself. Don’t you suppose he knew what he’d written in that letter, and don’t you suppose he’d have saved those three hundred thousand dollars if he could? Well, I guess he would! The man is dead. That’s certain enough.”

“Well, anyhow, we’re not going into mourning till we have to.” Mrs. Harriet’s lips snapped together with firm decision.

“Of course not. I’m sure I don’t see any use in having the money if we’ve got to wear black and not go anywhere,” pouted Bessie.

“Are we rich, then, really, ma?” demanded Benny.

“We certainly are, Benny.”

“Richer ’n the Pennocks?”

“Very much.”

“An’ the Gaylords?”

“Well—hardly that”—her face clouded perceptibly—“that is, not until we get the rest—in two years.” She brightened again.

“Then, if we’re rich we can have everything we want, can’t we?” Benny’s eyes were beginning to sparkle.

“Well—” hesitated his mother.

“I guess there’ll be enough to satisfy your wants, Benny,” laughed his Uncle Frank.

Benny gave a whoop of delight.

“Then we can go back to the East Side and live just as we’ve a mind to, without carin’ what other folks do, can’t we?” he crowed. “Cause if we are rich we won’t have ter keep tryin’ ter make folks think we are. They’ll know it without our tryin’.”

“Benny!” The rest were laughing; but Benny’s mother had raised shocked hands of protest. “You are incorrigible, child. The East Side, indeed! We shall live in a house of our own, now, of course—but it won’t be on the East Side.”

“And Fred’ll go to college,” put in Miss Flora eagerly.

“Yes; and I shall send Bessie to a fashionable finishing school,” bowed Mrs. Harriet, with a shade of importance.

“Hey, Bess, you’ve got ter be finished,” chuckled Benny.

“What’s Mell going to do?” pouted Bessie, looking not altogether pleased. “Hasn’t she got to be finished, too?”

“Mellicent hasn’t got the money to be finished—yet,” observed Mrs. Jane tersely.

“Oh, I don’t know what I’m going to do,” breathed Mellicent, drawing an ecstatic sigh. “But I hope I’m going to do—just what I want to, for once!”

“And I’ll make you some pretty dresses that you can wear right off, while they’re in style,” beamed Miss Flora.

Frank Blaisdell gave a sudden laugh.

“But what are you going to do, Flo? Here you’ve been telling what everybody else is going to do with the money.”

A blissful sigh, very like Mellicent’s own, passed Miss Flora’s lips.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she breathed in an awe-struck voice. “It don’t seem yet—that it’s really mine.”

“Well, ’tisn’t,” declared Mrs. Jane tartly, getting to her feet. “And I, for one, am going back to work—in the kitchen, where I belong. And—Well, if here ain’t Jim at last,” she broke off, as her younger brother-in-law appeared in the doorway.

“You’re too late, pa, you’re too late! It’s all done,” clamored Benny. “They’ve got everything all settled.”

The man in the doorway smiled.

“I knew they would have, Benny; and I haven’t been needed, I’m sure,—your mother’s here.”

Mrs. Harriet bridled, but did not look unpleased.

“But, say, Jim,” breathed Miss Flora, “ain’t it wonderful—ain’t it perfectly wonderful?”

“It is, indeed,—very wonderful,” replied Mr. Jim

A Babel of eager voices arose then, but Mr. Smith was not listening now. He was watching Mr. Jim’s face, and trying to fathom its expression.

A little later, when the women had gone into the kitchen and Mr. Frank had clattered back to his work downstairs, Mr. Smith thought he had the explanation of that look on Mr. Jim’s face. Mr. Jim and Benny were standing over by the fireplace together. “Pa, ain’t you glad—about the money?” asked Benny.

“I should be, shouldn’t I, my son?”

“But you look—so funny, and you didn’t say anything, hardly.”

There was a moment’s pause. The man, with his eyes fixed on the glowing coals in the grate, appeared not to have heard. But in a moment he said:—

“Benny, if a poor old horse had been climbing a long, long hill all day with the hot sun on his back, and a load that dragged and dragged at his heels, and if he couldn’t see a thing but the dust of the road that blinded and choked him, and if he just felt that he couldn’t go another step, in spite of the whip that snapped ‘Get there—get there!’ all day in his ears—how do you suppose that poor old horse would feel if suddenly the load, and the whip, and the hill, and the dust disappeared, and he found himself in a green pasture with the cool gurgle of water under green trees in his ears—how do you suppose that poor old horse would feel?”

“Say, he’d like it great, wouldn’t he? But, pa, you didn’t tell me yet if you liked the money.”

The man stirred, as if waking from a trance. He threw his arm around Benny’s shoulders.

“Like it? Why, of course, I like it, Benny, my boy! Why, I’m going to have time now—to get acquainted with my children!”

Across the room Mr. Smith, with a sudden tightening of his throat, slipped softly into the hall and thence to his own room. Mr. Smith, just then, did not wish to be seen.

CHAPTER X
WHAT DOES IT MATTER?

The days immediately following the receipt of three remarkable letters by the Blaisdell family were nerve-racking for all concerned. Held by Mrs. Jane’s insistence that they weren’t sure yet that the thing was true, the family steadfastly refused to give out any definite information. Even the eager Harriet yielded to Jane on this point, acknowledging that it would be mortifying, of course, if they should talk, and nothing came of it.

Their enigmatic answers to questions, and their expressive shrugs and smiles, however, were almost as exciting as the rumors themselves; and the Blaisdells became at once a veritable storm center of surmises and gossip—a state of affairs not at all unpleasing to some of them, Mrs. Harriet in particular.

Miss Maggie Duff, however, was not so well pleased. To Mr. Smith, one day, she freed her mind—and Miss Maggie so seldom freed her mind that Mr. Smith was not a little surprised.

“I wish,” she began, “I do wish that if that Chicago lawyer is coming, he’d come, and get done with it! Certainly the present state of affairs is almost unbearable.”

“It does make it all the harder for you, to have it drag along like this, doesn’t it?” murmured Mr. Smith uneasily.

“For—ME?”

“That you are not included in the bequest, I mean.”

She gave an impatient gesture.

“I didn’t mean that. I wasn’t thinking of myself. Besides, as I’ve told you before, there is no earthly reason why I should have been included. It’s the delay, I mean, for the Blaisdells—for the whole town, for that matter. This eternal ‘Did you know?’ and ‘They say’ is getting on my nerves!”

“Why, Miss Maggie, I didn’t suppose you had any nerves,” bantered the man.

She threw him an expressive glance.

“Haven’t I!” she retorted. Then again she gave the impatient gesture. “But even the gossip and the questioning aren’t the worst. It’s the family themselves. Between Hattie’s pulling one way and Jane the other, I feel like a bone between two quarrelsome puppies. Hattie is already house-hunting, on the sly, and she’s bought Bessie an expensive watch and a string of gold beads. Jane, on the other hand, insists that Mr. Fulton will come back and claim the money, so she’s running her house now on the principle that she’s lost a hundred thousand dollars, and so must economize in every possible way. You can imagine it!”

“I don’t have to—imagine it,” murmured the man.

Miss Maggie laughed.

“I forgot. Of course you don’t. You do live there, don’t you? But that isn’t all. Flora, poor soul, went into a restaurant the other day and ordered roast turkey, and now she’s worrying for fear the money won’t come and justify her extravagance. Mellicent, with implicit faith that the hundred thousand is coming wants to wear her best frocks every day. And, as if she were not already quite excited enough, young Pennock has very obviously begun to sit up and take notice.”

“You don’t mean he is trying to come back—so soon!” disbelieved Mr. Smith.

“Well, he’s evidently caught the glitter of the gold from afar,” smiled Miss Maggie. “At all events, he’s taking notice.”

“And—Miss Mellicent?” There was a note of anxiety in Mr. Smith’s voice.

“Doesn’t see him, apparently. But she comes and tells me his every last move (and he’s making quite a number of them just now!), so I think she does see—a little.”

“The young rascal! But she doesn’t—care?”

“I think not—really. She’s just excited now, as any young girl would be; and I’m afraid she’s taking a little wicked pleasure in—not seeing him.”

“Humph! I can imagine it,” chuckled Mr. Smith.

“But it’s all bad—this delay,” chafed Miss Maggie again. “Don’t you see? It’s neither one thing nor another. That’s why I do wish that lawyer would come, if he’s coming.”

“I reckon he’ll be here before long,” murmured Mr. Smith, with an elaborately casual air. “But—I wish you were coming in on the deal.” His kindly eyes were gazing straight into her face now.

She shook her head.

“I’m a Duff, not a Blaisdell—except when they want—” She bit her lip. A confused red suffused her face. “I mean, I’m not a Blaisdell at all,” she finished hastily.

“Humph! That’s exactly it!” Mr. Smith was sitting energetically erect. “You’re not a Blaisdell—except when they want something of you!”

“Oh please, I didn’t mean to say—I didn’t say—that,” cried Miss Maggie, in very genuine distress.

“No, I know you didn’t, but I did,” flared the man. “Miss Maggie, it’s a downright shame—the way they impose on you sometimes.”

“Nonsense! I like to have them—I mean, I like to do what I can for them,” she corrected hastily, laughing in spite of herself.

“You like to get all tired out, I suppose.”

“I get rested—afterward.”

“And it doesn’t matter, anyway, of course,” he gibed.

“Not a bit,” she smiled.

“Yes, I suspected that.” Mr. Smith was still sitting erect, still speaking with grim terseness. “But let me tell you right here and now that I don’t approve of that doctrine of yours.”

“‘Doctrine’?”

“That ‘It-doesn’t-matter’ doctrine of yours. I tell you it’s very pernicious—very! I don’t approve of it at all.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“No?” Miss Maggie said then, demurely. “Oh, well—it doesn’t matter—if you don’t.”

He caught the twinkle in her eyes and threw up his hands despairingly.

“You are incorrigible!”

With a sudden businesslike air of determination Miss Maggie faced him.

“Just what is the matter with that doctrine, please, and what do you mean?” she smiled.

“I mean that things do matter, and that we merely shut our eyes to the real facts in the case when we say that they don’t. War, death, sin, evil—the world is full of them, and they do matter.”

“They do matter, indeed.” Miss Maggie was speaking very gravely now. “They matter—woefully. I never say ‘It doesn’t matter’ to war, or death, or sin, or evil. But there are other things—”

“But the other things matter, too,” interrupted the man irritably. “Right here and now it matters that you don’t share in the money; it matters that you slave half your time for a father who doesn’t anywhere near appreciate you; it matters that you slave the rest of the time for every Tom and Dick and Harry and Jane and Mehitable in Hillerton that has run a sliver under a thumb, either literally or metaphorically. It matters that—”

But Miss Maggie was laughing merrily. “Oh, Mr. Smith, Mr. Smith, you don’t know what you are saying!”

“I do, too. It’s you who don’t know what you are saying!”

“But, pray, what would you have me say?” she smiled.

“I’d have you say it does matter, and I’d have you insist on having your rights, every time.”

“And what if I had?” she retaliated sharply. “My rights, indeed!”

The man fell back, so sudden and so astounding was the change that had come to the woman opposite him. She was leaning forward in her chair, her lips trembling, her eyes a smouldering flame.

“What if I had insisted on my rights, all the way up?” she quivered. “Would I have come home that first time from college? Would I have stepped into Mother Blaisdell’s shoes and kept the house? Would I have swept and baked and washed and ironed, day in and day out, to make a home for father and for Jim and Frank and Flora? Would I have come back again and again, when my beloved books were calling, calling, always calling? Would I have seen other girls love and marry and go to homes of their own, while I—Oh, what am I saying, what am I saying?” she choked, covering her eyes with the back of her hand, and turning her face away. “Please, if you can, forget what I said. Indeed, I never—broke out like that—before. I am so—ashamed!”

“Ashamed! Well, you needn’t be.” Mr. Smith, on his feet, was trying to work off his agitation by tramping up and down the small room.

“But I am ashamed,” moaned Miss Maggie, her face still averted. “And I can’t think why I should have been so—so wild. It was just something that you said—about my rights, I think. You see—all my life I’ve just had to learn to say ‘It doesn’t matter,’ when there were so many things I wanted to do, and couldn’t. And—don’t you see?—I found out, after a while, that it didn’t really matter, half so much—college and my own little wants and wishes as that I should do—what I had to do, willingly and pleasantly at home.”

“But, good Heavens, how could you keep from tearing ’round and throwing things?”

“I couldn’t—all the time. I—I smashed a bowl once, and two cups.” She laughed shamefacedly, and met his eyes now. “But I soon found—that it didn’t make me or anybody else—any happier, and that it didn’t help things at all. So I tried—to do the other way. And now, please, please say you’ll forget all this—what I’ve been saying. Indeed, Mr. Smith I am very much ashamed.”

“Forget it!” Mr. Smith turned on his heel and marched up and down the room again. “Confound that man!”

“What man?”

“Mr. Stanley G. Fulton, if you must know, for not giving you any of that money.”

“Money, money, money!” Miss Maggie threw out both her hands with a gesture of repulsion. “If I’ve heard that word once, I’ve heard it a hundred times in the last week. Sometimes I wish I might never hear it again.”

“You don’t want to be deaf, do you? Well, you’d have to be, to escape hearing that word.”

“I suppose so. But—” again she threw out her hands.

“You don’t mean—” Mr. Smith was regarding her with curious interest. “Don’t you want—money, really?”

She hesitated; then she sighed.

“Oh, yes, of course. We all want money. We have to have money, too; but I don’t think it’s—everything in the world, by any means.”

“You don’t think it brings happiness, then?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes not.”

“Most of—er—us would be willing to take the risk.”

“Most of us would.”

“Now, in the case of the Blaisdells here—don’t you think this money is going to bring happiness to them?”

There was no answer. Miss Maggie seemed to be thinking.

“Miss Maggie,” exclaimed Mr. Smith, with a concern all out of proportion to his supposed interest in the matter, “you don’t mean to say you don’t think this money is going to bring them happiness!”

Miss Maggie laughed a little.

“Oh, no! This money’ll bring them happiness all right, of course,—particularly to some of them. But I was just wondering; if you don’t know how to spend five dollars so as to get the most out of it, how will you spend five hundred, or five hundred thousand—and get the most out of that?” “What do you mean?”

But Miss Maggie shook her head.

“Nothing. I was just thinking,” she said.

CHAPTER XI
SANTA CLAUS ARRIVES

It was not long after this that Mr. Smith found a tall, gray-haired man, with keen gray eyes, talking with Mrs. Jane Blaisdell and Mellicent in the front room over the grocery store.

“Well—” began Mr. Smith, a joyful light of recognition in his eyes. Then suddenly he stooped and picked up something from the floor. When he came upright his face was very red. He did not look at the tall, gray-haired man again as he advanced into the room.

Mellicent turned to him eagerly.

“Oh, Mr. Smith, it’s the lawyer—he’s come. And it’s true. It is true!”

“This is Mr. Smith, Mr. Norton,” murmured Mrs. Jane Blaisdell to the keen-eyed man, who, also, for no apparent reason, had grown very red. “Mr. Smith’s a Blaisdell, too,—distant, you know. He’s doing a Blaisdell book.”

“Indeed! How interesting! How are you, Mr.—Smith?” The lawyer smiled and held out his hand, but there was an odd constraint in his manner. “So you’re a Blaisdell, too, are you?”

“Er—yes,” said Mr. Smith, smiling straight into the lawyer’s eyes.

“But not near enough to come in on the money, of course,” explained Mrs. Jane. “He isn’t a Hiller-Blaisdell. He’s just boarding here, while he writes his book.”

“Oh I see. So he isn’t near enough to come in—on the money.” This time it was the lawyer who was smiling straight into Mr. Smith’s eyes.

But he did not smile for long. A sudden question from Mellicent seemed to freeze the smile on his lips.

“Mr. Norton, please, what was Mr. Stanley G. Fulton like?” she begged.

“Why—er—you must have seen his pictures in the papers,” stammered the lawyer.

“Yes, what was he like? Do tell us,” urged Mr. Smith with a bland smile, as he seated himself.

“Why—er—” The lawyer came to a still more unhappy pause.

“Of course, we’ve seen his pictures,” broke in Mellicent, “but those don’t tell us anything. And you knew him. So won’t you tell us what he was like, please, while we’re waiting for father to come up? Was he nice and jolly, or was he stiff and haughty? What was he like?”

“Yes, what was he like?” coaxed Mr. Smith again. Mr. Smith, for some reason, seemed to be highly amused.

The lawyer lifted his head suddenly. An odd flash came to his eyes.

“Like? Oh, just an ordinary man, you know,—somewhat conceited, of course.” (A queer little half-gasp came from Mr. Smith, but the lawyer was not looking at Mr. Smith.) “Eccentric—you’ve heard that, probably. And he has done crazy things, and no mistake. Of course, with his money and position, we won’t exactly say he had bats in his belfry—isn’t that what they call it?—but—”

Mr. Smith gave a real gasp this time, and Mrs. Jane Blaisdell ejaculated:—

“There, I told you so! I knew something was wrong. And now he’ll come back and claim the money. You see if he don’t! And if we’ve gone and spent any of it—” A gesture of despair finished her sentence.

“Give yourself no uneasiness on that score, madam,” the lawyer assured her gravely. “I think I can safely guarantee he will not do that.”

“Then you think he’s—dead?”

“I did not say that, madam. I said I was very sure he would not come back and claim this money that is to be paid over to your husband and his brother and sister. Dead or alive, he has no further power over that money now.”

“Oh-h!” breathed Mellicent. “Then it is—ours!”

“It is yours,” bowed the lawyer.

“But Mr. Smith says we’ve probably got to pay a tax on it,” thrust in Mrs. Jane, in a worried voice. “Do you know how much we’ll have to pay? And isn’t there any way we can save doing that?” Before Mr. Norton could answer, a heavy step down the hall heralded Mr. Frank Blaisdell’s advance, and in the ensuing confusion of his arrival, Mr. Smith slipped away. As he passed the lawyer, however, Mellicent thought she heard him mutter, “You rascal!” But afterwards she concluded she must have been mistaken, for the two men appeared to become at once the best of friends. Mr. Norton remained in town several days, and frequently she saw him and Mr. Smith chatting pleasantly together, or starting off apparently for a walk. Mellicent was very sure, therefore, that she must have been mistaken in thinking she had heard Mr. Smith utter so remarkable an exclamation as he left the room that first day.

During the stay of Mr. Norton in Hillerton, and for some days afterward, the Blaisdells were too absorbed in the mere details of acquiring and temporarily investing their wealth to pay attention to anything else. Under the guidance of Mr. Norton, Mr. Robert Chalmers, and the heads of two other Hillerton banks, the three legatees set themselves to the task of “finding a place to put it,” as Miss Flora breathlessly termed it.

Mrs. Hattie said that, for her part, she should like to leave their share all in the bank: then she’d have it to spend whenever she wanted it. She yielded to the shocked protestations of the others, however, and finally consented that her husband should invest a large part of it in the bonds he so wanted, leaving a generous sum in the bank in her own name. She was assured that the bonds were just as good as money, anyway, as they were the kind that were readily convertible into cash.

Mrs. Jane, when she understood the matter, was for investing every cent of theirs where it would draw the largest interest possible. Mrs. Jane had never before known very much about interest, and she was fascinated with its delightful possibilities. She spent whole days joyfully figuring percentages, and was awakened from her happy absorption only by the unpleasant realization that her husband was not in sympathy with her ideas at all. He said that the money was his, not hers, and that, for once in his life, he was going to have his way. “His way” in this case proved to be the prompt buying-out of the competing grocery on the other corner, and the establishing of good-sized bank account. The rest of the money he said Jane might invest for a hundred per cent, if she wanted to.

Jane was pleased to this extent, and asked if it were possible that she could get such a splendid rate as one hundred per cent. She had not figured on that! She was not so pleased later, when Mr. Norton and the bankers told her what she could get—with safety; and she was very angry because they finally appealed to her husband and she was obliged to content herself with a paltry five or six per cent, when there were such lovely mining stocks and oil wells everywhere that would pay so much more.

She told Flora that she ought to thank her stars that she had the money herself in her own name, to do just as she pleased with, without any old-fogy men bossing her.

But Flora only shivered and said “Mercy me!” and that, for her part, she wished she didn’t have to say what to do with it. She was scared of her life of it, anyway, and she was just sure she should lose it, whatever she did with it; and she ’most wished she didn’t have it, only it would be nice, of course, to buy things with it—and she supposed she would buy things with it, after a while, when she got used to it, and was not afraid to spend it.

Miss Flora was, indeed, quite breathless most of the time, these days. She tried very hard to give the kind gentlemen who were helping her no trouble, and she showed herself eager always to take their advice. But she wished they would not ask her opinion; she was always afraid to give it, and she didn’t have one, anyway; only she did worry, of course, and she had to ask them sometimes if they were real sure the places they had put her money were perfectly safe, and just couldn’t blow up. It was so comforting always to see them smile, and hear them say: “Perfectly, my dear Miss Flora, perfectly! Give yourself no uneasiness.” To be sure, one day, the big fat man, not Mr. Chalmers, did snap out: “No, madam; only the Lord Almighty can guarantee a government bond—the whole country may be blown to atoms by a volcano to-morrow morning!”

She was startled, terribly startled; but she saw at once, of course, that it must be just his way of joking, for of course there wasn’t any volcano big enough to blow up the whole United States; and, anyway, she did not think it was nice of him, and it was almost like swearing, to say “the Lord Almighty” in that tone of voice. She never liked that fat man again. After that she always talked to Mr. Chalmers, or to the other man with a wart on his nose.

Miss Flora had never had a check-book before, but she tried very hard to learn how to use it, and to show herself not too stupid. She was glad there were such a lot of checks in the book, but she didn’t believe she’d ever spend them all—such a lot of money! She had had a savings-bank book, to be sure, but she not been able to put anything in the bank for a long time, and she had been worrying a good deal lately for fear she would have to draw some out, business had been so dull. But she would not have to do that now, of course, with all this money that had come to her.

They told her that she could have all the money she wanted by just filling out one of the little slips in her check-book the way they had told her to do it and taking it to Mr. Chalmers’s bank—that there were a good many thousand dollars there waiting for her to spend, just as she liked; and that, when they were gone, Mr. Chalmers would tell her how to sell some of her bonds and get more. It seemed very wonderful!

There were other things, too, that they had told her—too many for her to remember—something about interest, and things called coupons that must be cut off the bonds at certain times. She tried to remember it all; but Mr. Chalmers had been very kind and had told her not to fret. He would help her when the time came. Meanwhile, he had rented her a nice tin box (that pulled out like a drawer) in the safety-deposit vault under the bank, where she could keep her bonds and all the other papers—such a lot of them!—that Mr. Chalmers told her she must keep very carefully.

But it was all so new and complicated, and everybody was always talking at once, so!

No wonder, indeed, that Miss Flora was quite breathless with it all.

By the time the Blaisdells found themselves able to pay attention to Hillerton, or to anything outside their own astounding personal affairs, they became suddenly aware of the attention Hillerton was paying to them.

The whole town was agog. The grocery store, the residence of Frank Blaisdell, and Miss Flora’s humble cottage might be found at nearly any daylight hour with from one to a dozen curious-eyed gazers on the sidewalk before them. The town paper had contained an elaborate account of the bequest and the remarkable circumstances attending it; and Hillerton became the Mecca of wandering automobiles for miles around. Big metropolitan dailies got wind of the affair, recognized the magic name of Stanley G. Fulton, and sent reporters post-haste to Hillerton.

Speculation as to whether the multi-millionaire was really dead was prevalent everywhere, and a search for some clue to his reported South American exploring expedition was undertaken in several quarters. Various rumors concerning the expedition appeared immediately, but none of them seemed to have any really solid foundation. Interviews with the great law firm having the handling of Mr. Fulton’s affairs were printed, but even here little could be learned save the mere fact of the letter of instructions, upon which they had acted according to directions, and the other fact that there still remained one more packet—understood to be the last will and testament—to be opened in two years’ time if Mr. Fulton remained unheard from. The lawyers were bland and courteous, but they really had nothing to say, they declared, beyond the already published facts.