Oh, Money! Money!
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.