Two Boys and a Fortune | Page 4

made up my mind suddenly to go to town," was the answer. "There wasn't time to go around by the turnpike. I thought I could get across before the train came. I've seen boys go over it."
"But you're not a boy," rejoined Roy, with a smile.
"No. I'm not a boy," and Roy could feel a shudder pass through the arm that was resting on his shoulder.
Mr. Tyler lived in a house not far from the Burdock station. An old woman did the cooking for him and went home at night. For the rest he dwelt almost like a hermit, and so far as any one knew he had not a relative in the world. But the report had gone out as it always does in such cases, that he was very rich, and now his desire to see a lawyer and make a will convinced Roy that for once rumor must be right.
"I wonder how much he's got and to whom he'll leave it?" he asked himself, but now they were within sight of the little house and the old man leaned so heavily upon him, that all his attention was centered on getting him safely to the end of their journey.
By the time this was accomplished Mr. Tyler was so completely exhausted that he dropped down on the first chair they reached.
"After you are rested a bit," said Roy, "I'll help you to get to bed."
"No, no," protested the old man; "so many people die in their beds. Go and tell Ann to get a little more for dinner to-night. You and Sydney must stay and eat it with me. It will take quite a time to have my will drawn up. You'll find her in the kitchen."
The woman was not much surprised when Roy told her of the condition in which her master had come home.
"It's what I've been expecting every day," she said. "He doesn't eat enough to keep a bird alive. I'm amazed to think he should ask you to stop to dinner. It's little enough you'll get, Master Roy, but I'll do my best."
The house was a bare looking place, furnished only with the merest necessities. No pictures were on the walls, no books on the tables; Roy wondered what the old man did to pass the time here by himself. There was not even a sofa for him to lie upon. He asked about this when he returned to the front room.
"Then you'd better come in and lie on the outside of your bed if you won't get in it," he suggested.
To this the older man acceded and allowed Roy to assist him to the adjoining apartment where he slept.
"No," he murmured, "I haven't wasted much on myself, you see. That will leave still more for those who come after me. What would you do with $500,000 if you had it, Roy Pell?"
The question came so suddenly and in such contrasted tones to the mumble in which the miser had heretofore been speaking that for the moment Roy was too startled to make reply.
"No, I'm not raving, Roy Pell," went on the old man. "There's a possibility--" he checked himself quickly-- "what would you do with all that money if you had it?"
"I'd give it to my mother," answered Roy.
"Good boy, of course. I didn't think of that. You're a minor, and you're not selfish. You'd rather she would have it, eh, than that it should be held by her in trust for you? But if you got it, you'd promise to see that it was spent, and not hoarded as I have hoarded mine? You'd promise that wouldn't you?"
Roy by this time began to think that the partial sunstroke had completely unhinged Mr. Tyler's brain, already a little out of plumb.
"Oh, yes," he laughed. "There's no danger of our hoarding money. There are too many things to spend it on for that."
"Then you're squeezed a little down at your place, eh?"
"Oh, we can get along," returned Roy hastily; "but we can't do much branching out. My mother has only the income from father's insurance, and then there's the place which we own, with the taxes to pay."
The old man now relapsed into silence. He seemed to be thinking, deeply. Suddenly he started up and exclaimed:
"It must be nearly time for Sydney to be here. Won't you go outside and watch for him?"
Roy was very glad to leave the miser. He realized that perhaps it was wrong for him to feel that way, but then, believing him to be a little unbalanced, it was but natural that he should be sensible of some constraint in his presence.
"I wonder if be has got $500,000 put away somewhere?" he asked himself when he reached the little portico. "He talked exactly as if he was going to