Two Boys and a Fortune Part 13

"Yes, but she's so fond of us all, she wants to do what will give us the most pleasure. And of course when we all want different things that's pretty hard to do."

"And the 'different thing' that I want is to stay right here in Marley. I'd graduate at the academy here next June, and then all my friends are here, and I like the country. Now if your hero in a story was in a fix like this what would you do with him?"

"It depends on the sort of story I was writing. If it was one with a motive, a moral, so to speak, I'd have him give up his own desire and say he'd be perfectly willing to do what the rest wanted to do."

"But if the rest wanted to do different things? Here's Rex wanting to live in Philadelphia, and Eva thinking it would be ever so much nicer to live in Boston, and Jess divided half of the time between New York and Europe, and Sydney looking as if he'd drop into the grave right off if we didn't do something quick-- what then?"

Roy spoke very earnestly, and Mr. Keeler did not smile this time. He began to pick at the bark on the tree trunk and did not reply for some little time after Roy had paused.

"I think," he said finally, "that in that case I should have had my hero try to make himself contented with whichever decision was arrived at. Half a million ought to atone for a great many drawbacks."

"Oh, I know a lot of people envy us," broke in Roy. "Charley Minturn says I ought to be the happiest fellow going. But I'm not. That's because I'm going-- to leave Marley. I s'pose you think it's queer for me to tell all this to a stranger. But it's just because you are a stranger that I feel that I can do it. You can understand how that can be, can't you, Mr. Keeler?"

"Yes, perfectly. But I think you attach too much importance to your feeling for Marley. Of course you think now that you will not be contented elsewhere because you do not yet know the attractions of other places. I remember when I was in my teens, living abroad, I thought I could not be happy anywhere but in Paris. I had been there all winter, and when spring came and we were to go to Germany I felt just as you do over leaving Marley. But when we were settled in our German home I grew to like it just as I had Paris. That is the way it is sure to be with you."

"Why, you've done me lots of good," exclaimed Roy. "I should never have thought of looking at things that way. So you've lived in Europe?

Rex only wants to travel there."

"He's your twin brother, you say? Does he look like you?"

"No; only the least bit. He is the good looking member of the family.

There he goes now on his wheel. Would you like to meet him?"

"Indeed I should," replied Mr. Keeler heartily. "It would seem exactly like a character out of a story."

Roy put his fingers between his lips and gave a peculiar whistle, composed of three distinct notes. Rex, who was just pa.s.sing under the trestle, turned around in his saddle, and when he saw some one beside his brother on the tree trunk, he made a half circle in the road and came scudding back on his machine.

He ran this in a little distance among the trees, left it leaning against one of them and then came on foot to the edge of the creek.

His bicycle suit was very becoming to him. Roy watched Mr. Keeler's face and saw that he was favorably impressed at once.

He accomplished the introduction, mentioning the book both boys had read. Rex seemed immensely pleased at meeting the author, and put on his most charming manner.

"Won't you come over to the house, Mr. Keeler?" he said. "We can give you some lemonade and I'd like you to see the view of the trestle from our piazza."

"You are very kind," returned the young man, looking at his watch, "but I am afraid I shall not have time. I had planned to take the next train in to town. I have only about twenty minutes in which to catch it now."

"Stay to tea then and go up some time this evening," went on Rex. "I am sure our mother would be delighted to meet you, and so would the girls. Wouldn't they, Roy?"

"Yes, indeed, please stay, Mr. Keeler."

Roy would not have dared to make this request if he had been left to himself. That was the difference in character of the two brothers. One was impulsive, ready to do anything on the spur of the moment: the other cautious, shrinking sometimes. He was just as anxious as Rex to extend the hospitality of the Pellery to their new acquaintance, but felt that he had not known the other long enough to warrant him in doing so.

Mr. Keeler hesitated. He was in his element now in the society of two boys of such contrasted temperaments, making admirable studies.

"I was going back to New York to-night," he said. "But I suppose I could put it off till morning."

"Do; then you can stay to tea at the Pellery," exclaimed Rex. "That's what we call our house. It makes it seem like a nest, you know. If you don't mind I'll mount my wheel and run on ahead to tell them you are coming, so that we can receive you in proper state."

There was no opportunity given Mr. Keeler to decline. Rex rushed ahead, mounted his wheel and was off before he could answer.

"You will stay, won't you?" asked Roy.

"With pleasure if you think it will not inconvenience your mother.

That is decidedly important. You do not know but I may be some moonshiner from the c.u.mberland, or a bandit from Italy. My complexion certainly answers to the latter description. You see, you have only my word for who I really am."

"I guess that's good enough," laughed Roy, "How do you like Rex?"

"Immensely."

"Everybody does. I suppose we ought to be very proud of him, and we are, but then we are afraid for him at the same time. What a boy he is! See, he's hunted up our big flag and hung it from Syd's window in honor of your coming. You'll have to make a speech now."

CHAPTER XII

AN ALARMING DISCOVERY

Rex come down to the gate to meet them.

"I'm sorry that mother isn't home," he said. "She's just had a telegram from Syd that takes her to town and will keep her there with him all night Some business connected with the new house," he added with a glance at Roy.

"But the girls are home and will be delighted to receive you with fitting honors," he went on. He did not say that he had had quite a time to induce them to appear at all. He had rushed into the house in his impetuous way announcing that Roy was coming along with a young man they had met down at the creek who was a famous author and was so nice, and whom they had invited to tea.

"But we don't know him, Rex," Eva had exclaimed in considerable dismay. "You oughtn't to bring strange people to the house in that way."

"Oh, but it's just the same thing as if we did know him," and Rex went on to explain about the story he had written, which they had all read and admired.

"But is he nice and respectable himself?" Jess inquired. "You know some of these writers are horribly poor and go about with threadbare clothes. He might not be the right sort of man for us to know at all."

"Jess!" Eva exclaimed severely. "The idea of your thinking that because people are poor they can't be respectable! We shall be very glad to meet your friend, Rex," and Jess felt that she was in such disgrace that when Mr. Keeler was presented she tried to redeem herself by being excessively friendly.

And this was not difficult for her to do. He was certainly very different from what she had expected. He had neither long hair like the traditional poet, nor trousers fringed around the bottom like the literary hireling of Grub Street.

Indeed, she found him quite handsome; he dressed almost as well as Rex did, and he was a most interesting talker. And all the while she was sensible of having seen his face somewhere before.

She thought at first it might have been in a portrait painted as a frontispiece to his book. At the first opportunity she slipped off to the boys' room and looked it up. But there was no portrait there.

Finally she decided that she must have pa.s.sed him in the street in the city some time and resolved to think no more about it.

Eva was pleased with the visitor too. They had a very merry supper party. The clash of opinions about what to do with their money was stilled for the time while they all listened to the very entertaining stones told by their guest.

He was, it seemed, on his way home from the oil regions of Pennsylvania whither he had gone to secure the local color for a new story. In fact he had traveled very extensively in his short life, for he was not yet thirty.

At one time he had lived among a tribe of blacks in Africa; at another been a member of a party of exiled Russians, on tramp to the mines of Siberia. He was telling of an exciting adventure he had had among the Arabs when the twinkling lights in a train crossed the trestle caused him to come to a sudden pause.

"I must be thinking of the time," he said taking out his watch, and trying to see the figures on its face by the moonlight. "I don't want to miss the last train in to town."

"Oh, do, please," pleaded Rex. "You can stay here just as well as not.

Syd won't be home and you can have his room. The last train goes in half an hour; you won't nearly have exhausted your stock of stories by then. Please stay."

"We should be very glad to have you do so, Mr. Keeler," said Eva.