A Boy's Fortune. Horatio Alger Jr.
and child."
"Your life hangs on a thread? What do you mean?"
"I mean," said the physician, seriously, "that our family is subject to heart disease. My grandfather died at a minute's notice; so did my father; so, in all probability, shall I. No insurance company, knowing this, would insure me, and, till this windfall came, I was subject at times to great anxiety."
"Does your wife – my sister – know that you have received this money?" asked Walton, slowly.
"No; she merely knows that I received a letter from New York."
"And you are really liable to die suddenly?"
"Yes; I shall probably drop dead some day. My father died at my present age. Any sudden excitement – "
"Good heavens! what is the matter with you?" exclaimed Walton, springing to his feet, excitedly.
"What do you mean?" asked the physician, startled.
"Your face is livid; you look like a corpse. Great heavens! has your time come?"
Doctor Baker rose to his feet in terrible agitation; his face changed; he put his hand on his heart, swayed himself for a moment, and then fell lifeless.
Walton had supplied the sudden excitement, and brought upon him the family doom.
Nicholas Walton, half-terrified, half-triumphant, gazed at his victim. He knelt down, and tearing open the vest of his visitor, placed his hand upon his heart.
It had ceased to beat.
"Now for the securities!" he murmured hoarsely.
They were found. A brief examination showed that they were negotiable by bearer. He carefully locked them up in his desk, and then, ringing the bell hastily, summoned a physician. One came, but could afford no help.
"Now," he said to himself, with inward exultation, "this fortune is mine, and I can realize the dream of my life! No one will ever be the wiser."
CHAPTER IV.
The Mock Philanthropist
Nicholas Walton, much sooner than he had anticipated, was able to realize the dream of his life. He engaged a larger store on Broadway, within three months of the death of his brother-in-law. The latter was supposed to have died a poor man. In settling up his estate it was found that he left only the modest cottage in which he had lived. Mrs. Baker's anxiety, however, was alleviated by the following letter from her brother Nicholas:
"My Dear Sister: – I sympathize with you sincerely in your sad and sudden loss. I am afraid my poor brother-in-law has not been able to leave you comfortably provided for. I cannot do as much as I would like, but I will send you a monthly sum of twenty-five dollars, which, as you have no rent to pay, will perhaps keep you comfortable. If I can at any time feel justified in so doing, I will increase this allowance."
"Nicholas is very kind," said Mrs. Baker, to her friends. "He has done this without any appeal from me."
She really felt grateful for his kindness, as she termed it, having no suspicion of the terrible secret that haunted her brother day and night, making him an unhappy man in spite of his outward prosperity. But he had no intention of making restitution; his remorse did not go so far as this.
"As to taking a hundred thousand dollars from my business," he said, in answer to conscience, "it would cripple me seriously. Besides, my sister doesn't want it; it would do her no good. She and her children can live comfortably on what I send her."
He tried to persuade himself that he was liberal in his provision for his sister; but even his effrontery could not go so far as this.
In reality, Mrs. Baker would have found great difficulty in keeping her expenses within three hundred dollars a year if Ben had not managed to pick up a dollar or two a week by working at odd jobs, running errands, or assisting some of the neighboring farmers. But the small town of Sunderland did not satisfy the ambitious boy. There was no kind of business which he could learn at home that offered him a satisfactory career.
"Mother," he said, about three months before my story begins, "don't you think my uncle would give me a place in his store?"
"You don't want to leave home, Ben, do you?"
"I don't want to leave you, mother; but you know how it is. There is nothing to do in Sunderland."
"I am sure you pick up considerable money in the course of a year, Ben."
"But what does it all amount to, mother?"
"It is a great help to me," said Mrs. Baker.
"I don't mean that. It isn't getting me ahead. I can't do any more now than I could a year ago. If I learned my uncle's business I might get ahead, as he has."
"You may be right, Ben; but how could I spare you? I should feel so lonely."
"You have Alice, mother. She is ten years old, and is a good deal of company to you."
So the discussion continued. Finally, as might have been expected, Ben obtained from his mother a reluctant consent to his writing to his uncle. He did not have to wait long for the answer; but when it came, it was cold and unsatisfactory. It read thus:
"Nephew Benjamin: – Your letter has come to hand, asking me to give you a place in my store. I think you are much better off in the country. Besides that, I do not think you ought to leave your mother. You say there is no chance for you in Sunderland; but you are mistaken. You can work for some farmer, and gradually acquire a knowledge of the business, and in time I may help you buy a farm, or at any rate hire one, if I am satisfied with your conduct. As to the city, you had better keep away from it. I am sure your mother will agree with me.
"Your uncle seems to me to write very sensibly," said Mrs. Baker. "The city is full of temptations."
"If I go to the city I shall work too hard to be troubled in that way, mother."
"Your uncle makes a very kind offer, I think."
"It doesn't bind him to much," said Ben. "He says he may help me to buy or hire a farm, if I learn farming."
"That would be a gift worth having, Ben," said his mother, who thought chiefly of keeping Ben at home.
"I shall never make a farmer, mother; I don't like it well enough. It is a very useful and honorable business, I know, but I have a taste for business; and if Uncle Nicholas won't help me to a start, I must see what I can do for myself after a time."
Nicholas Walton congratulated himself when his letter to Ben remained unanswered.
"That will settle the matter," he said to himself. "I would rather keep the boy in the country. I couldn't have him in my establishment. I should never see him without thinking of his father's sudden death before my eyes," and the rich merchant shuddered in spite of himself. "Besides," and a shade of apprehension swept over his face, "I am in constant fear lest he should hear of the large sum of money which came into his father's hands just before his death. While he stays in Sunderland, there is little chance of any such knowledge coming to him; if he is in the city, there is a greater chance of it. Who knows; the man who paid Doctor Baker the money may turn up. It was his intention to go to Europe for five years. That period has nearly passed already. If this discovery should ever be made, I am ruined. I might even be accused of murdering him, though, happily, that could not be proved. But there would be a blot on my name, and my reputation would suffer."
For three months Ben made no sign, and his uncle concluded that he had given up his plan of coming to New York in search of employment.
But one evening – it was the one on which our story commenced – on his way back from a call upon some friends in Brooklyn, Nicholas Walton stepped into Hitchcock's lunch-room, knowing it well by reputation, and was startled by seeing the nephew whose appearance he so much dreaded.
It was his first impulse to speak to him, and harshly demand his reason for disobeying the positive command to remain at home; but this might be followed by an appeal for help (it was clear that Mr. Walton did not understand his nephew) and that might