The $$30,000 Bequest | Page 6

hence all four of its members had pet names,
Saladin's was a curious and unsexing one--Sally; and so was
Electra's--Aleck. All day long Sally was a good and diligent
book-keeper and salesman; all day long Aleck was a good and faithful
mother and housewife, and thoughtful and calculating business woman;
but in the cozy living-room at night they put the plodding world away,
and lived in another and a fairer, reading romances to each other,
dreaming dreams, comrading with kings and princes and stately lords
and ladies in the flash and stir and splendor of noble palaces and grim
and ancient castles.

CHAPTER II
Now came great news! Stunning news--joyous news, in fact. It came
from a neighboring state, where the family's only surviving relative
lived. It was Sally's relative--a sort of vague and indefinite uncle or
second or third cousin by the name of Tilbury Foster, seventy and a
bachelor, reputed well off and corresponding sour and crusty. Sally had
tried to make up to him once, by letter, in a bygone time, and had not
made that mistake again. Tilbury now wrote to Sally, saying he should
shortly die, and should leave him thirty thousand dollars, cash; not for
love, but because money had given him most of his troubles and
exasperations, and he wished to place it where there was good hope that
it would continue its malignant work. The bequest would be found in
his will, and would be paid over. PROVIDED, that Sally should be able
to prove to the executors that he had TAKEN NO NOTICE OF THE
GIFT BY SPOKEN WORD OR BY LETTER, HAD MADE NO
INQUIRIES CONCERNING THE MORIBUND'S PROGRESS
TOWARD THE EVERLASTING TROPICS, AND HAD NOT
ATTENDED THE FUNERAL.
As soon as Aleck had partially recovered from the tremendous
emotions created by the letter, she sent to the relative's habitat and
subscribed for the local paper.
Man and wife entered into a solemn compact, now, to never mention
the great news to any one while the relative lived, lest some ignorant
person carry the fact to the death-bed and distort it and make it appear
that they were disobediently thankful for the bequest, and just the same
as confessing it and publishing it, right in the face of the prohibition.
For the rest of the day Sally made havoc and confusion with his books,
and Aleck could not keep her mind on her affairs, not even take up a
flower-pot or book or a stick of wood without forgetting what she had
intended to do with it. For both were dreaming.
"Thir-ty thousand dollars!"

All day long the music of those inspiring words sang through those
people's heads.
From his marriage-day forth, Aleck's grip had been upon the purse, and
Sally had seldom known what it was to be privileged to squander a
dime on non-necessities.
"Thir-ty thousand dollars!" the song went on and on. A vast sum, an
unthinkable sum!
All day long Aleck was absorbed in planning how to invest it, Sally in
planning how to spend it.
There was no romance-reading that night. The children took themselves
away early, for their parents were silent, distraught, and strangely
unentertaining. The good-night kisses might as well have been
impressed upon vacancy, for all the response they got; the parents were
not aware of the kisses, and the children had been gone an hour before
their absence was noticed. Two pencils had been busy during that
hour--note-making; in the way of plans. It was Sally who broke the
stillness at last. He said, with exultation:
"Ah, it'll be grand, Aleck! Out of the first thousand we'll have a horse
and a buggy for summer, and a cutter and a skin lap-robe for winter."
Aleck responded with decision and composure--
"Out of the CAPITAL? Nothing of the kind. Not if it was a million!"
Sally was deeply disappointed; the glow went out of his face.
"Oh, Aleck!" he said, reproachfully. "We've always worked so hard and
been so scrimped: and now that we are rich, it does seem--"
He did not finish, for he saw her eye soften; his supplication had
touched her. She said, with gentle persuasiveness:
"We must not spend the capital, dear, it would not be wise. Out of the
income from it--"

"That will answer, that will answer, Aleck! How dear and good you are!
There will be a noble income and if we can spend that--"
"Not ALL of it, dear, not all of it, but you can spend a part of it. That is,
a reasonable part. But the whole of the capital-- every penny of it--must
be put right to work, and kept at it. You see the reasonableness of that,
don't you?"
"Why, ye-s. Yes, of course. But we'll have to wait so long. Six months