The Amazing Inheritance Part 7

"We have a corking day!" he exclaimed, with an approving glance at the cloudless sky. "And we'll have a corking ride. I'm glad your people were married sixty miles from Waloo. This is just a formality, you know, Miss Gilfooly. We all know that you really are the Queen of the Suns.h.i.+ne Islands. We don't need any certificates." And he laughed joyously. It was so strange and unbelievable and delightful that he was to drive a young queen to Mifflin and back.

"It's so wonderful that I can't believe it," Tessie told him earnestly, and her voice quivered with the wonder of it. She looked speculatively at the tonneau of the big car. There was no one in it. "Could we take my grandmother, Mr. Douglas?" She raised her big blue eyes appealingly.

"She would enjoy the ride. And my brother Johnny? He's a Boy Scout."

"Sure, we can take all the royal family," chuckled Bert. "There's plenty of room, and we'll feel safer to have a Scout with us." He laughed again as he hospitably opened the tonneau door.

Mrs. Scanlon stood at her window and watched Granny and Johnny settle themselves proudly in the car. She saw Tessie take the seat next to the wheel, and she was green with envy from her red hair to her patched black shoes. She had heard the news, and in her heart she wished that she had had a son to run away to sea and be a king. "My Lil would make a better-looking queen than that washed-out Tessie Gilfooly," she thought, as she watched them from behind the skimpy curtain. "Lil's suit was new this spring, and that blue dud Tessie has on is a year old if it's a day. I don't believe it's really true! Such things don't happen! Queen, indeed!" And she sniffed loudly and elevated her long thin nose because little Tessie Gilfooly had come home with some ridiculous story about being a queen.

Jonah, Johnny's dog--a mongrel with a most rakish brown spot on his white face--jumped wistfully around the car. Jonah wanted to drive to Mifflin too. He saw no reason why he should be left at home alone.

"Could we take him?" asked Granny, eager for the family to enjoy the ride as a family. "He'd enjoy it."

And Jonah joined the two in the tonneau.

"Just as well he's going," muttered Mrs. Scanlon. "I wouldn't have no time to feed anybody's dog to-day!" And to show how little she cared about the good fortune which had come to her neighbors, she took her chairs and tables out of the parlor and gave the room a thorough cleaning.

Bert was right. It was a wonderful day--a blue and gold day. There was not a cloud in the sky, nor a care in the car. The road to Mifflin was velvet smooth, so that the drive, as Bert had prophesied, was delightful. It was no time at all before they were in front of the red brick building which was Mifflin's new Court House. But when they went in and demanded a copy of the record of the marriage of John Gilfooly and Teresa Andrews, which had been solemnized in Mifflin twenty years ago, the clerk could not find the record.

"That's funny!" he exclaimed. "It was here yesterday, but it isn't here to-day!" He looked puzzled.

"Did you see it yesterday?" demanded Bert, with all the importance of a six-months lawyer.

"Sure I saw it yesterday. A man came in and asked for a copy. Funny thing! In all the time I've been here, no one has ever asked about that license. And now yesterday a man wanted it and to-day you want it." The coincidence impressed him as so strange that he blinked.

"Was he a black man and did he have a tattooed nose?" asked Tessie eagerly.

The clerk shook his head. "No, he had light hair and a big nose with freckles all over it. He was what you would call a blond. With a big nose," he insisted almost as if he thought it was quite unusual for a blond to have a nose at all.

Tessie looked at Bert, and at Granny and Johnny. But not one of them could tell her anything about a blond with a big nose. Granny could only shake her head.

"He must have sneaked the record when I went out to look at the fire,"

the clerk said indignantly. "Ferguson's store had a little blaze yesterday, and when I heard the fire engine I naturally went to the door. But I can't have this sort of thing," he added querulously. "I can't have my records stolen!"

"No, I shouldn't think you could," agreed Bert. "And you had better find out who stole this record."

"I shall!" The clerk was quite offended because Bert had thought it necessary to tell him what to do. "I'll call the sheriff right away."

And he bustled over to the telephone.

"But--but why should any one steal my father's and mother's marriage license?" Tessie could not imagine why any one would steal a piece of paper. Money or a jewel--the Tear of G.o.d even--could be used, but a piece of paper----

Bert smiled at her puzzled face. "Some one might want to make it impossible for you to prove that you are John Gilfooly's eldest child,"

he explained carefully.

Tessie gasped. "The idea! But whoever would?" She could not imagine.

Granny bristled indignantly. "Well, they can't do that!" she declared.

"Not while I have breath in my body to say she is! I guess I know!"

"Sure you do!" And Bert grinned at her.

But Granny wanted more than smiles. She wanted action--immediate action.

"What are we going to do now?" she demanded. "Can't Tessie be a queen unless she has her ma's and pa's wedding license?"

"I don't see why you need any old paper," put in Johnny. "If you want to know about the wedding of father and mother, all you have to do is to ask Granny. She was at the wedding, weren't you, Granny?"

Granny turned to gaze at him with pride. "Bless the boy!" she exclaimed in honest admiration. "Of course I was there! And I can tell the lawyers all about it! That was a bright thought, Johnny, but I'm glad it didn't come to you before. If you'd had it in Waloo we'd have missed a pleasant ride. I can tell you all about the wedding," she said to Bert, and there was much triumph in her voice, "all about the bride's dress and the refreshments and everything!"

"I don't believe that your evidence will be enough, Mrs. Gilfooly," Bert said reluctantly and regretfully, for he would have preferred to tell Granny that her story of the Gilfooly-Andrews wedding would be sufficient to place Tessie on any throne. "You are too near a relative to be disinterested. That's what the court would say," he explained hastily as Granny snorted.

"My soul and body!" She stared at him. "As if I'd lie about my own son or my own granddaughter! But there were other folks at the wedding,"

she, remembered joyously. "The Hortons, who live over on Olive street, were there. Sophie Horton was Tessie's mother's bridesmaid, and Sam Horton knocked over a piano lamp the night of the wedding and came near burning up the bride. He'll remember and be glad to tell you that my son John married Teresa Andrews right and proper. And that ain't all,"

went on Granny, who could accomplish great things when she began little things, "the man who married John and Teresa and baptized Tessie is alive to this day and living in this very town. We've only got to go to the Reverend Townshend's house to hear all about it. I suppose the law would believe a regular minister if it wouldn't believe a loving grandmother," she said to Bert, with a decided tinge of resentment in her hearty voice.

Bert laughed apologetically. "That's fine! But you understand, Mrs.

Gilfooly, it is because you are so close to Miss Gilfooly that your evidence wouldn't be sufficient. The court might suspect such a near relative, but the word of the minister who married Miss Gilfooly's parents should be enough for any court."

"I should think so!" snorted Granny, who had nothing but contempt for a court which would not believe a grandmother.

They drove through the pretty streets of Mifflin to the home of Mr.

Townshend, which was almost hidden by shrubbery and vines, and the Boy Scout rang the bell loudly. But Mr. Townshend was in Waloo visiting his sister, and the young granddaughter, who answered the bell, had never heard of the Gilfoolys.

"Never mind!" exclaimed Granny cheerfully, for Tessie looked as if she did mind. "We know where to go now for what we want, and that's everything, no matter what you're looking for. You say Reverend Townshend's sister lives on Tenth Avenue South?" she asked the young granddaughter. "Mr. Douglas will just drive us there and hear with his own ears what Reverend Townshend has to say."

"Sure I'll drive you!" Bert said. "That's my job!" And he looked as if he liked his job enormously.

But black luck preceded them, for when they returned to Waloo and drove to Tenth Avenue South, they learned that the Reverend Townshend had been knocked down by an automobile as he was crossing a street that afternoon, and was lying in the hospital with concussion of the brain.

And they found, on driving to Olive street, that the Hortons had gone to Vermont for the summer.

"I don't believe I ever was born!" Tessie was almost in tears. Her lips quivered. So did her voice.

"Tut, tut!" rebuked her grandmother. "There were fifty-six folks, as I remember, at that wedding, and it will be funny if I can't find some of them. You don't want to get discouraged at the beginning of anything, Tessie, not if you ever want to see the end of it."

"Why don't you drop it, Tess?" advised Joe Cary, when he heard about the blond man with a big nose, the stolen marriage record, and about the Reverend Townshend who was in the hospital with concussion of the brain.

"The Fates seem to be against you! So are some people, I should judge.

There is evidently some one who doesn't want you to be the Queen of the Suns.h.i.+ne Islands. Look at last night! Look at to-day! Why do you want to be a queen, anyway?" He asked the question as he would have asked why she wanted to be a salesgirl, or why she did not want to be a stenographer.

Tessie stared at him. The idea of asking such a question! Joe Cary was crazy! And she told him so. "You talk as if being a queen was like selling aluminum in the Evergreen!" she exclaimed indignantly.

"It isn't as decent!" cried Joe, and then Tessie knew, beyond a doubt, that he was crazy.

"You can't stop being a queen if you are one!" she flared.

"Why can't you?" demanded Joe. "Can't you abdicate? Seems to me I've read of several kings and queens who were glad to abdicate. You don't have to be a queen unless you please, Tessie Gilfooly!" He actually did seem to think that being a queen was like selling aluminum.

"Joe--Joe Cary--" she began in exasperation, and then she startled him by bursting into tears--"you--you never want me to have any f-fun!" she hiccuped.

"Oh, great Scott, Tess!" he said helplessly, and he would have taken her in his arms and kissed the tears away, she was so little and sweet and unreasonable, but Granny s.n.a.t.c.hed her from him.