Two Boys and a Fortune Part 6

This was the case. There was a flush in Mrs. Pell's cheeks as she came up, and Rex exclaimed as soon as he was within speaking distance: "Mother knows. Have you told the girls yet, Roy?"

A look of annoyance crossed Mrs. Pell's face, but before either she or Roy could say anything, Jess sprang to her feet, nearly upsetting the bowl of strawberries in the act.

"Told you what? There's been an air of mystery about you ever since you left the creek yesterday afternoon."

"Of course there has," exclaimed Rex exuberantly. "And it's something worth being mysterious about, eh, brub? What should you say, sisters mine, if I should tell you that the magic wand of fortune has been waved over the Pellery, which will transform yonder sober fowls into gallant steeds, these homely pups into expensive hounds of the hunt, and--"

"Reginald."

Rex always knew he had gone too far when his mother spoke like that.

He ceased abruptly and dashed into the house, as if to cut himself off from temptation to transgress further. The next moment they heard him whistling a comic opera air up in his room.

"Mother, you tell me what all this means, won't you?" This from Jess in almost a desperate tone.

"Yes, you may as well all know now," said Mrs. Pell, sinking into a chair. "I find that half of the town seems to be aware of it already."

"It! It! Quick, mother. It isn't something awful, is it?"

"No, not awful for us my dears. It is just this. Your brother Roy touched old Mr. Tyler's heart by what he did for him yesterday, and in the will he made last night he left all his fortune, about half a million, to me."

Both girls sat there as if stricken dumb, staring at their mother as she told them the wonderful news.

CHAPTER VI

REX GOES TO TOWN

"I'm very sorry, indeed, this came out now. It seems unfeeling to talk about it while that poor old man's body is above ground, and then the amount of the fortune he possessed may be grossly exaggerated."

This was Mrs. Pell's summary of the matter, delivered several times during that afternoon. The girls took the thing very quietly.

"I am so glad on Syd's account," Eva said though more than once. "He has always worked so hard for us."

Jess seemed dazed by the possibility of the new order of things, while Roy was disinclined to talk about it at all. Rex, however, made up for the apparent apathy of the others.

At lunch he wanted to know when they were going to move.

"Of course we don't want to go on staying in a bandbox of a place like this, when mother is a millionaire," he said.

"Only half a one," Jess corrected him with a smile.

"Well, no matter about that. I've been figuring up on the income that we could get without touching the princ.i.p.al, and I make it $25,000 a year."

"Oh, Reggie, Reggie, I am afraid you are incorrigible," groaned his mother.

"Why, I don't see anything out of the way in doing a little calculating here in the privacy of our home. I don't go up and proclaim it from the housetops."

"But you may be reckoning without your host, my dear brub," interposed Jess. "What if Mr. Tyler had only a thousand in bank instead of five hundred thousand?"

"Yes; we can't know anything certain till Syd comes home to-night,"

added Roy.

"I can't wait for that," muttered Rex, under his breath.

He subsided for the rest of his meal, however, but as soon as he had finished went up to his room and proceeded to go through all the pockets of his different suits.

"Short by a quarter," he murmured as he finally sat down on the edge of the bed and jingled the small change he had collected, "I'll have to go to mother after all."

He glanced up at a time-table stuck in the mirror, hurriedly changed his knockabout suit for his best one, and then rushed down to the dining room where Mrs. Pell was helping Eva sh.e.l.l peas for dinner.

He went straight up to her and put his arm affectionately about her neck.

"Moms," he said in his winning way, "I want to run up to the city for this afternoon. I'm a quarter short to buy my ticket. Won't you please let me have it? I can pay you back out of my allowance."

"What do you want to go to the city for, Rex?"

"Oh, I can't stay here in uncertainty. I want to see Syd to know for sure about things. Besides, it will keep me from shocking you here if I go."

"But Sydney is sure to be very busy. You will bother him by going to the office."

"No, I won't. He never lets me bother him. Besides, I only want to see him for a minute. You know I haven't been in town since school closed.

The train goes in twenty minutes, and I'll come back with Syd. Please, moms."

"All right, Rex, you may go, but remember I trust you not to annoy Sydney. You will find my purse in my top bureau drawer, left hand corner."

"You are the best mother a boy ever had." With a hasty kiss Rex was off, secured his quarter, and then with a wave of his hand toward the family, struck out across the pasture for the path that led up over the hill in a short cut to the station.

There was n.o.body so easy to get along with as Rex-- as long as you allowed him to have his own way.

"That is a crazy notion of his, wanting to go in to town just because he can't wait till Syd comes out," remarked Roy when he heard of it.

At the same time he felt a sensation of relief to think that his impulsive brother was out of Marley and away from the temptation to disquiet the family by telling his fellow townsmen what he meant to do with their money when they came into it.

Rex meanwhile was enjoying himself hugely. He saw n.o.body he knew at this unusual hour of going to town, but he lay back in his seat while the breeze, created by the swift motion of the cars, rushed refres.h.i.+ngly past him, and built air castles of the most luxurious description.

"It must be so," he told himself, whenever the doubts suggested by Jess arose in his mind to trouble him. "Dr. Martin congratulated Roy.

Everybody has known that Mr. Tyler had lots of money somewhere."

When the train reached Philadelphia, Rex hurried off to the law office where Syd had his desk. It was some distance from the station, but having spent all his money for his excursion ticket, he had none left for car fare.

"This will be the last time I'll be so short," he mused, a smile which he could not repress playing about the corners of his mouth.

Buoyed up by this reflection he did not so much mind the distance, nor the heat, which he found much more oppressive here in the city than it was in Marley. He reached Syd's place at last only to find that his brother was out and that the boy was not just sure when he would be back.

"But he'll be here before he goes to the train, won't he?" asked Rex.

"Oh yes, sure," was the reply. "His satchel is here with the books he always takes."

"I'll come back again then." Rex went out, thinking that now there was no danger of his ever having to step into the shoes of this office boy. Syd had remarked once or twice that he thought he could get him a position in a law office when he was through school.

Rex wandered along the street aimlessly for a while. If it hadn't been midsummer he might have gone over to Spruce and Walnut and called on some of his friends, but they were either at their summer homes in Marley or off traveling.