Oh, Money! Money! | Page 9

if I could
make my home with one of the Blaisdell family."
With a sudden exclamation the little dressmaker sat erect.
"Say, Harriet, how funny we never thought! He's just the one for poor
Maggie! Why not send him there?"
"Poor Maggie?" It was the mild voice of Mr. Smith.
"Our sister--yes. She lives--"

"Your SISTER!" Into Mr. Smith's face had come a look of startled
surprise--a look almost of terror. "But there weren't but three--that is, I
thought--I understood from Mr. Chalmers that there were but three
Blaisdells, two brothers, and one sister--you, yourself."
"Oh, poor Maggie ain't a Blaisdell," explained the little dressmaker,
with a smile. "She's just Maggie Duff, father Duff's daughter by his
first wife, you know. He married our mother years ago, when we
children were little, so we were brought up with Maggie, and always
called her sister; though, of course, she really ain't any relation to us at
all."
"Oh, I see. Yes, to be sure. Of course!" Mr. Smith seemed oddly
thoughtful. He appeared to be settling something in his mind. "She isn't
a Blaisdell, then."
"No, but she's so near like one, and she's a splendid cook, and---"
"Well, I shan't send him to Maggie," cut in Mrs. James D. Blaisdell
with emphasis. "Poor Maggie's got quite enough on her hands, as it is,
with that father of hers. Besides, she isn't a Blaisdell at all."
"And she couldn't come and cook and take care of us near so much,
either, could she," plunged in Benny, "if she took this man ter feed?"
"That will do, Benny," admonished his mother, with nettled dignity.
"You forget that children should be seen and not heard."
"Yes'm. But, please, can't I be heard just a minute for this? Why don't
ye send the man ter Uncle Frank an' Aunt Jane? Maybe they'd take
him."
"The very thing!" cried Miss Flora Blaisdell. "I wouldn't wonder a mite
if they did."
"Yes, I was thinking of them," nodded her sister-in-law. "And they're
always glad of a little help,--especially Jane."

"Anybody should be," observed Mr. James Blaisdell quietly.
Only the heightened color in his wife's cheeks showed that she had
heard--and understood.
"Here, Benny," she directed, "go and show the gentleman where Uncle
Frank lives."
"All right!" With a spring the boy leaped to the lawn and pranced to the
sidewalk, dancing there on his toes. "I'll show ye, Mr. Smith."
The gentleman addressed rose to his feet.
"I thank you, Mr. Blaisdell," he said, "and you, ladies. I shall hope to
see you again soon. I am sure you can help me, if you will, in my work.
I shall want to ask--some questions."
"Certainly, sir, certainly! We shall be glad to see you," promised his
host. "Come any time, and ask all the questions you want to."
"And we shall be so interested," fluttered Miss Flora. "I've always
wanted to know about father's folks. And are you a Blaisdell, too?"
There was the briefest of pauses. Mr. Smith coughed again twice
behind his hand.
"Er--ah--oh, yes, I may say that I am. Through my mother I am
descended from the original immigrant, Ebenezer Blaisdell."
"Immigrant!" exclaimed Miss Flora.
"An IMMIGRANT!" Mrs. James Blaisdell spoke the word as if her
tongue were a pair of tongs that had picked up a noxious viper.
"Yes, but not exactly as we commonly regard the term nowadays,"
smiled Mr. Smith. "Mr. Ebenezer Blaisdell was a man of means and
distinction. He was the founder of the family in this country. He came
over in 1647."

"My, how interesting!" murmured the little dressmaker, as the visitor
descended the steps.
"Good-night--good-night! And thank you again," bowed Mr. John
Smith to the assembled group on the veranda. "And now, young man,
I'm at your service," he smiled, as he joined Benny, still prancing on
the sidewalk.
"Now he's what I call a real nice pleasant-spoken gentleman," avowed
Miss Flora, when she thought speech was safe. "I do hope Jane'll take
him."
"Oh, yes, he's well enough," condescended Mrs. Hattie Blaisdell, with a
yawn.
"Hattie, why wouldn't you take him in?" reproached her husband. "Just
think how the pay would help! And it wouldn't be a bit of work, hardly,
for you. Certainly it would be a lot easier than the way we are doing."
The woman frowned impatiently.
"Jim, don't, please! Do you suppose I got over here on the West Side to
open a boarding-house? I guess not--yet!"
"But what shall we do?"
"Oh, we'll get along somehow. Don't worry!"
"Perhaps if you'd worry a little more, I wouldn't worry so much,"
sighed the man deeply.
"Well, mercy me, I must be going," interposed the little dressmaker,
springing to her feet with a nervous glance at her brother and his wife.
"I'm forgetting it