Ted and the Telephone | Page 2

was not an altogether joyous prospect. Would there be any chestnut, walnut, or apple trees at Freeman's Falls, he wondered.
Alas, the question was soon answered. Within the village there were almost no trees at all except a few sickly elms and maples whose foliage was pale for want of sunshine and grimy with smoke. In fact, there was not much of anything in the town save the long dingy factories that bordered the river; the group of cheap and gaudy shops on the main street; and rows upon rows of wooden houses, all identical in design, walling in the highway. It was not a spot where green things flourished. There was not room for anything to grow and if there had been the soot from the towering chimneys would soon have settled upon any venturesome leaf or flower and quickly shrivelled it beneath a cloak of cinders. Even the river was coated with a scum of oil and refuse that poured from the waste pipes of the factories into the stream and washed up along the shores which might otherwise have been fair and verdant.
Of course, if one could get far enough away there was beauty in plenty for in the outlying country stretched vistas of splendid pines, fields lush with ferns and flowers, and the unsullied span of the river, where in all its mountain-born purity it rushed gaily down toward the village. Here, well distant from the manufacturing atmosphere, were the homes of the Fernalds who owned the mills, the great estates of Mr. Lawrence Fernald and Mr. Clarence Fernald who every day rolled to their offices in giant limousines. Everybody in Freeman's Falls knew them by sight,--the big boss, as he was called, and his married son; and everybody thought how lucky they were to own the mills and take the money instead of doing the work. At least, that was what gossip said they did.
Unquestionably it was much nicer to live at Aldercliffe, the stately colonial mansion of Mr. Lawrence Fernald; or at Pine Lea, the home of Mr. Clarence Fernald, where sweeping lawns, bright awnings, gardens, conservatories, and flashing fountains made a wonderland of the place. Troupes of laughing guests seemed always to be going and coming at both houses and there were horses and motor-cars, tennis courts, a golf course, and canoes and launches moored at the edge of the river. Freeman's Falls was a very stupid spot when contrasted with all this jollity. It must be far pleasanter, too, when winter came to hurry off to New York for the holidays or to Florida or California, as Mr. Clarence Fernald frequently did.
With money enough to do whatever one pleased, how could a person help being happy? And yet there were those who declared that both Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Clarence Fernald would have bartered their fortunes to have had the crippled heir to the Fernald millions strong like other boys. Occasionally Ted had caught a glimpse of this Laurie Fernald, a fourteen-year-old lad with thin, colorless face and eyes that were haunting with sadness. In the village he passed as "the poor little chap" or as "poor Master Laurie" and the employees always doffed their caps to him because they pitied him. Whether one liked Mr. Fernald or Mr. Clarence or did not, every one united in being sorry for Mr. Laurie. Perhaps the invalid realized this; at any rate, he never failed to return the greetings accorded him with a smile so gentle and sweet that it became a pleasure in the day of whomsoever received it.
It was said at the factories that the reason the Fernalds went to New York and Florida and California was because of Mr. Laurie; that was the reason, too, why so many celebrated doctors kept coming to Pine Lea, and why both Mr. Fernald and Mr. Clarence were often so sharp and unreasonable. In fact, almost everything the Fernalds did or did not do, said or did not say, could be traced back to Mr. Laurie. From the moment the boy was born--nay, long before--both Mr. Lawrence Fernald for whom he was named, and his father, Mr. Clarence Fernald, had planned how he should inherit the great mills and carry on the business they had founded. For years they had talked and talked of what should happen when Mr. Laurie grew up. And then had come the sudden and terrible illness, and after weeks of anxiety everybody realized that if Mr. Laurie lived he would be fortunate, and that he would never be able to carry on any business at all.
In what hushed tones the townspeople talked of the tragedy and how they speculated on what the Fernalds would do now. And how surprised the superintendent of one of the mills (who, by the way, had