Two Boys and a Fortune | Page 8

Mrs. Pell could speak. "I couldn't get a word out of him before he went to sleep last night. One would think he'd had a trouble like mine to bear," and Rex sighed with the air of a martyr.
Roy glanced over at him quickly. What would this luxury loving brother of his say if he only knew! But Roy did not dare tell yet. Mr. Tyler might live for years, and have ample opportunity to change his mind about his will. Yes, it was better to keep the matter to himself as long as he could.
"What's queer about me?" he said now.
"Why, you're giving such short answers to our questions about the old miser," returned Jess promptly. "As a rule you'd tell us all we wanted to know without our having to draw it out as if we were pulling teeth."
"Well, what is it you want to know?"
"Oh, all about your experience over at Mr. Tyler's. The people up in the town will hear about your being there and will expect us to know all the details. It is quite an event for a queer old character like the Burdock miser to make a will."
"But people when they make their wills don't usually tell everybody in the house what they put into them. It's a sort of confidential matter, don't you understand?"
"I'll wager you know all about it, Roy," broke in Rex suddenly, dropping the biscuit he was buttering and staring at his brother fixedly for a moment "I shouldn't be surprised if the old fellow had made you his heir for what you did for him."
"Well, if he did, "answered Roy with a smile, "it wouldn't enable you to take that trip to Canada, as he isn't dead yet and may live to be ninety."
"He's just the kind that do hang on," remarked Jess. "People that nobody seems to care about generally do."
"That reminds me, mother," added Rex, "if I don't go on this trip there'll be a lot of money saved. Can't I have some of it spent for a new tennis suit? I need one badly."
Mrs. Pell smiled, a little sadly though.
"My dear boy," she rejoined, "there is your patent method of manufacturing money again. You conceive a desire for something very expensive, then when you give that up and select something much cheaper, you imagine that you have saved more than enough to pay for it."
"It's a thundering grind to be decently poor any way." Rex pushed back his chair suddenly, his brow clouded with a frown as it had been the afternoon before down on the log.
"'Decently poor!' What do you mean by that, Rex?" asked Eva.
"Oh, to have the taste and wish for nice things and the privilege of going with nice people who own them, and yet not be able to have them yourself. I sometimes wish I was like black Pete. He doesn't know any better than to be contented if he makes a dollar or two a week."
"Oh, Reggie, Reggie!" murmured Mrs. Pell sadly.
This one of her boys caused her more anxiety than all the other children combined. He was so proud, so aspiring, and yet he had not half the ability of Roy, who was rather overshadowed by the other's dashing, winning manner. For Rex could be charming when he so minded.
He went out on the side piazza now and began to shy strawberries at two of the puppies. The berries had just been picked and left by the cook on the window sill for the girls to hull.
"Rex," exclaimed Roy severely, coming out upon him suddenly. "Aren't you ashamed to use those berries in that way?"
Roy hated waste above all things.
Rex checked the toss he was about to make, and transferred the berry to his mouth instead.
"Has your majesty any objections to that disposition of the fruit?" he asked with an assumption of the courtliness that became him so well.
"Well, it's a legitimate disposition at any rate," returned Roy. Then he went out to the barn to feed the chickens and look after the cow, for the Pells kept no hired man. The boys attended to the kitchen garden-- at least Roy did most of it, and there had been no horses kept by the family since shortly after Mr. Pell's death.
This was another of Rex's trials.
"Think of living in the country without a horse!" he would exclaim. "And then to have the stable on the place into the bargain! It's enough to make the horse we haven't got laugh."
To be sure he had plenty of rides. The Bowmans who came down to Marley for the summer, were very fond of him, and nearly every day during the summer Scott took him out in his cart.
But Rex sighed to return this hospitality. All of his friends were glad to