Two Boys and a Fortune | Page 4

to send the doctor to your house," he reported to Mr. Tyler.
He half expected the latter to raise a protest, but he didn't.
"All right," he said feebly. "He'll do for one of the witnesses. Now."
Roy bent down so that the old man might lean on his shoulder. He put
one arm about his back to steady him, and thus supported he was able
to move slowly along the cinder path beside the track.
"What did you attempt to walk across the trestle for, Mr. Tyler?" asked
Roy.
"I 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