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 likeSanta Claus with a box of toys, held up by a snowdrift, and I justcan'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, attimes, 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 alittle money would do more good to than the Blaisdells here inHillerton. 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 allabout "Poor Maggie" now, and she's a dear--the typicalself-sacrificing, self-effacing bearer of everybody's burdens,including a huge share of her own!) However, she isn't a Blaisdell, ofcourse, so I couldn't have worked her into my scheme very well, Isuppose, even if I had known about her. They are all fond ofher--though they impose on her time and her sympathies abominably. ButI reckon she'll get some of the benefits of the others' thousands. Mrs.Jane, in particular, is always wishing she could do something for "PoorMaggie," 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 andhappy, 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! Iwonder what she'll get first, Niagara, the phonograph, or something toeat 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 inclinedto live on a scale a little beyond her means, I judge. But that will beall 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. Hereminds me of the old horse I saw the other day running one of thoseinfernal treadmill threshing machines--always going, but never gettingthere. He works, and works hard, and then he gets a job nights andworks 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! Ican hear him draw the long breath now--for once every bill paid!
Of course, the Frank Blaisdells are the most thrifty of the bunch--atleast, Mrs. Frank, "Jane," is--and I dare say they would be the mostconservative handlers of my millions. But time will tell. Anyhow, Ishall be glad to see them enjoy themselves meanwhile with the hundredthousand. Maybe Mrs. Jane will be constrained to clear my room of a fewof the mats and covers and tidies! I have hopes. At least, I shallsurely have a vacation from her everlasting "We can't afford it," andher 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 orpeas or flour or sugar, you see, and I'm not posted as to his opinionof much of anything else. He'll spend some of it, though,--I'm sure ofthat. I don't think he always thoroughly appreciates his wife's thriftyideas of economy. I haven't forgotten the night I came home to findMrs. Jane out calling, and Mr. Frank rampaging around the house withevery gas jet at full blast. It seems he was packing his bag to go on ahurried business trip. He laughed a little sheepishly--I suppose he sawmy blinking amazement at the illumination--and said something aboutbeing tired of always feeling his way through pitch-dark rooms. So, asI say, I'm not quite sure of Mr. Frank when he comes into possession ofthe hundred thousand. He's been cooped up in the dark so long he maywant 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 turnsome of the gas jets down!
As for the younger generation--they're fine, every one of them; andjust think what this money will mean to them in education andadvantages! Jim's son, Fred, eighteen, is a fine, manly boy. He's gothis mother's ambitions, and he's keen for college--even talks ofworking his way (much to his mother's horror) if his father can't findthe money to send him. Of course, that part will be all right now--in amonth.
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, willbe all right, after next month. Benny, the nine-year-old, will beconcerned as little as any one over that hundred thousand dollars, Iimagine. 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 tomeals 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 poorlittle pleasure-starved Mellicent. I realize, of course, that it willmean to her the solid advantages of college, music-culture, and travel;but I must confess that in my dearest vision, the child is reveling inone grand whirl of pink dresses and chocolate bonbons. Bless her dearheart! I GAVE her one five-pound box of candy, but I never repeated themistake. Besides enduring the manifestly suspicious disapproval of hermother because I had made the gift, I have had the added torment ofseeing that box of chocolates doled out to that poor child at the rateof two pieces a day. They aren't gone yet, but I'll warrant they're ashard 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 withMellicent that pleases me mightily. A certain youth by the name of CarlPennock has been beauing her around a good deal, since I came. ThePennocks have some money--fifty thousand, or so, I believe--and it isreported that Mrs. Pennock has put her foot down on the buddingromance--because the Blaisdells HAVE NOT GOT MONEY ENOUGH! (Begin tosee where my chuckles come in?) However true this report may be, thefact remains that the youth has not been near the house for a monthpast, nor taken Mellicent anywhere. Of course, it shows him and hisfamily up--for just what they are; but it has been mortifying for poorMellicent. She's showing her pluck like a little trump, however, andgoes serenely on her way with her head just enough in the air--but nottoo much.
I don't think Mellicent's real heart is affected in the least--she'sonly eighteen, remember--but her pride IS. And her mother--! Mrs. Janeis thoroughly angry as well as mortified. She says Mellicent is everywhit as good as those Pennocks, and that the woman who would let apaltry thing like money stand in the way of her son's affections is apretty small specimen. For her part, she never did have any use forrich folks, anyway, and she is proud and glad that she's poor! I'mafraid Mrs. Jane was very angry when she said that. However, so muchfor her--and she may change her opinion one of these days.
My private suspicion is that young Pennock is already repentant, and ispulling hard at his mother's leading-strings; for I was with Mellicentthe other day when we met the lad face to face on the street. Mellicentsmiled and nodded casually, but Pennock--he turned all colors of therainbow with terror, pleading, apology, and assumed indifference allracing 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 familyby the name of Gaylord have come to town and opened up the old Gaylordmansion. Gaylord is a son of old Peter Gaylord, and is a millionaire.They are making quite a splurge in the way of balls and liveriedservants, and motor cars, and the town is agog with it all. There areyoung people in the family, and especially there is a girl, Miss Pearl,whom, report says, the Pennocks have selected as being a suitable matefor Carl. At all events the Pennocks and the Gaylords have struck up afurious friendship, and the young people of both families are in theforefront of innumerable social affairs--in most of which Mellicent isleft out.
So now
you have it--the whole story. And next month comes toMellicent's father one hundred thousand dollars. Do you wonder I saythe plot thickens?
As for myself--you should see me! I eat whatever I like. (The man whosays health biscuit to me now gets knocked down--and I've got thestrength to do it, too!) I can walk miles and not know it. I've gainedtwenty pounds, and I'm having the time of my life. I'm even enjoyingbeing a genealogist--a little. I've about exhausted the resources ofHillerton, and have begun to make trips to the neighboring towns. I caneven spend an afternoon in an old cemetery copying dates frommoss-grown gravestones, and not entirely lose my appetite for dinner--Imean, supper. I was even congratulating myself that I was really quitea genealogist when, the other day, I met the REAL THING. Heavens, Ned,that man had fourteen thousand four hundred and seventy-two dates athis tongue's end, and he said them all over to me. He knows the name ofevery Blake (he was a Blake) back to the year one, how many childrenthey had (and they had some families then, let me tell you!), and whenthey all died, and why. I met him one morning in a cemetery. I washunting for a certain stone and I asked him a question. Heavens! It waslike setting a match to one of those Fourth-of-July flower-potsky-rocket affairs. That question was the match that set him going, andthereafter he was a gushing geyser of names and dates. I never heardanything like it.
He began at the Blaisdells, but skipped almost at once to theBlakes--there were a lot of them near us. In five minutes he had medumb 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 Agesvery 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 toHillerton. I've invited him to come to see Father Duff. I thought I'dlike to have them meet. He knows a lot about the Duffs--a Blake marriedone, 'way back somewhere. I'd like to hear him and Father Dufftalk--or, rather, I'd like to hear him TRY to talk to Father Duff. DidI 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 alittle cooler he spends most of his time in his favorite chair beforethe cook stove in the kitchen.
Jove, what a letter this is! It should be shipped by freight and readin sections. But I wanted you to know how things are here. You canappreciate it the more--when you come.
You're not forgetting, of course, that it's on the first day ofNovember that Mr. Stanley G. Fulton's envelope of instructions is to beopened.
As ever yours,
JOHN SMITH.