Chester Rand | Page 7

despondently. "I came to Wyncombe to see my uncle Silas, but he will have nothing to say to me."
Chester and his mother exchanged looks. The same thought was in the mind of each.
"Stay with us a day or two," said Mrs. Rand. "You are not fit to travel. You need rest and care."
"But I shall be giving you a great deal of trouble."
"We shall not consider it such," said Mrs. Rand.
"Then I will accept your kind offer, for indeed I am very unwell."
Before the end of the day the young man was obliged to go to bed, and a doctor was summoned. Bruce was pronounced to have a low fever, and to be quite unfit to travel.
Mrs. Rand and Chester began to feel anxious. Their hearts were filled with pity for the young man, but how could they bear the expense which this sickness would entail upon them?
"Silas Tripp is his uncle," said Mrs. Rand. "He ought to contribute the expense of his sickness."
"I will go and see him," said Chester. So he selected a time when business would be slack in the store, and called in. He found Mr. Trip in a peevish mood.
"How are you, Chester?" he said. "I wish you was back."
"Why, Mr. Tripp? You've got Abel Wood in my place."
"He ain't of much account," grumbled Silas. "What do you think he done this mornin'?"
"I don't know, sir."
"He smashed two dozen eggs, and eggs twenty-two cents a dozen. But I'll take it out of his salary. He's dreadful awkward, that boy!"
"Poor Abel!" thought Chester. "I am afraid he won't have much salary coming to him at the end of the week."
"You never broke no eggs while you was here, Chester."
"No; I don't think I did."
"You'd ought to have stayed."
"I couldn't stay on the salary you offered. But, Mr. Tripp, I've come here on business."
"Hey? What about?"
"Your nephew, Walter Bruce, is staying at our house."
"Is he?" returned Silas Tripp, indifferently.
"And he is sick."
"I don't feel no interest in him," said Silas, doggedly.
"Are you willing to pay his expenses? He has no money."
"No, I ain't," snarled Silas. "Ef you take him you take him at your own risk."
"You wouldn't have us turn him into the street?" said Chester, indignantly.
"You can do as you like. It ain't no affair of mine. I s'pose he sent you here."
"No, he didn't; and I wouldn't have come if we had been better fixed. But we haven't enough money to live on ourselves."
"Then tell him to go away. I never wanted him to come to Wyncombe."
"It seems to me you ought to do something for your own nephew."
"I can't support all my relations, and I won't," said Silas, testily. "It ain't no use talkin'. Walter Bruce is shif'less and lazy, or he'd take care of himself. I ain't no call to keep him."
"Then you won't do anything for him? Even two dollars a week would help him very much."
"Two dollars a week!" ejaculated Silas. "You must think I am made of money. Why, two dollars a week would make a hundred and four dollars a year."
"That wouldn't be much for a man of your means, Mr. Tripp."
"You talk foolish, Chester. I have to work hard for a livin'. If I helped all my shif'less relations I'd end my days in the poorhouse."
"I don't think you'll go there from that cause," Chester could not help saying.
"I guess not. I ain't a fool. Let every tub stand on its own bottom, I say. But I won't be too hard. Here's twenty-five cents," and Silas took a battered quarter from the money drawer.
"Take it and use it careful."
"I think we will try to get along without it," said Chester, with a curl of the lip. "I'm afraid you can't afford it."
"Do just as you like," said Silas, putting back the money with a sigh of relief, "but don't say I didn't offer to do something for Walter."
"No; I will tell him how much you offered to give."
"That's a queer boy," said Mr. Tripp, as Chester left the store. "Seems to want me to pay all Walter Bruce's expenses. What made him come to Wyncombe to get sick? He'd better have stayed where he lived, and then he'd have had a claim to go to the poorhouse. He can't live on me, I tell him that. Them Rands are foolish to take him in. They're as poor as poverty themselves, and now they've taken in a man who ain't no claim on them. I expect they thought they'd get a good sum out of me for boardin' him. There's a great many onrasonable people in the world."
"I will go and see Mr. Morris, the minister," decided the perplexed Chester. "He will tell me what to do."
Accordingly he called on the minister and unfolded the story to sympathetic ears.
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