Two Boys and a Fortune Part 30

"But why didn't he let us know before where he was?" asked Roy.

"Bless you, he only knew himself yesterday. He's had a hard tug of it, and not a sc.r.a.p or a card could we find about him, only the letters R.

B. P. P, on his linen."

"Then he's been out of his head?"

"Yes; and you must be prepared to find him greatly changed. But he'll come around again all right, the doctor says. I'll go up now and see if he is awake and call you."

The summons to ascend came a few minutes later, and presently Roy found himself standing by his brother's bedside. Mrs. Raynor considerately withdrew and left the two together, warning them that she should be back in ten minutes to prevent her patient from becoming unduly excited.

Rex had changed. There was no longer any plumpness in his cheeks, and his face was very white. But so were his teeth, and his eyes were as l.u.s.trous as ever.

"Roy!" He uttered the one word in a weak voice, and held tightly in both of his the hands that his brother extended to him.

A moment of the precious ten was lost to silence as the two looked at each other, but in that look was that which hours of speech could not have expressed. Roy read in it true repentance, a pleading for forgiveness, and Rex saw that there was no chiding for him from those at home, only love and pity.

"Do you know all, Roy; the very worst?" Rex then whispered.

"Don't think of that now, Reggie. It is all right. I want to talk about yourself-- your sickness."

"But I must think of it. I have been thinking of it ever since I came to my senses yesterday. Did you know that I told you lies, that I acted them, that I took the money I had been saving up for mother's present to pay the expenses of this wretched trip?"

"But you didn't go all the way, Reggie. I found that out. You turned back. What happened to you then?"

Rex told the terrible tale of the robbery, of the awful night he had pa.s.sed riding back and forth across the river, and had got as far as his falling asleep on the train when Mrs. Raynor appeared and smilingly announced that time was up.

"Miles will tell you the rest, Roy," said Rex. "He's the best fellow.

I don't know what would have become of me if it hadn't been for him.

And Mrs. Raynor, too. When I get well they must all come to Philadelphia and we'll give them the very best time."

There was a touch of his old self in the heartiness with which he uttered these words. Roy's coming and comforting words had lifted a heavy burden from his heart.

They left him to try to get to sleep again. Roy went down stairs with Mrs. Raynor.

"I ought to go home at once and tell my mother about Rex," he said.

"Why not send a message and stay with him?" suggested the other. "We should be very glad to have you. There is plenty of room in the house.

Or send word for your mother to come on. I know she must be anxious to see her son."

Roy hesitated. He scarcely knew what to do. Then he remembered Sydney's absence and reflected that the girls could not very well be left alone. He decided to stay himself till Monday, and to send word that Rex was all right now.

He hurried off to the station to write his dispatch and came back as quickly to the Raynors'. He recollected that he had not yet seen the Miles of whom Rex spoke, the fellow who could tell him the continuation of his brother's adventures.

He asked Florence, whom he found on the lawn, where he could find Miles.

"He's out in the field now," she replied, "digging potatoes. But it's almost twelve. He'll be in then for his dinner. He just adores that brother of yours."

"But who is he?" Roy persisted.

"Well, he hasn't told us his story yet. We took him on trust, and he's turned out all right so far. But there he comes now."

"Excuse me," said Roy. "I'll go and see him." And he hurried off around the corner of the house.

The next minute he stood face to face with the youth who is destined to play a highly important part in the remainder of this tale.

CHAPTER XXV

MILES HARDING'S STORY

Miles knew Roy at once.

"This is Miles, isn't it?" said Roy in his pleasant way, and he put out his hand.

"Yes, but wait a minute."

Miles hurried to the pump near the kitchen door. He gave his hands a douse of water, dried them quickly on a roller towel in the woodshed, and then came back to greet the brother of the boy of whom he was so fond.

"You got the telegram all right then?" he said. "Rex was so weak when he told me where to send it, I wasn't sure I'd get it quite right."

"I want to thank you for all you did for him," went on Roy. "He's told me about it, except the details. He said you'd do that-- about what happened to him after he got out of the train. But don't let me keep you from your dinner."

"I'd rather talk to you than eat," said Miles frankly.

Mrs. Raynor appeared at this moment and compromised matters by bringing Miles' dinner to him out on the side porch. Roy sat by and listened to the recital, most modestly given, of the facts with which the reader is already acquainted.

It was time for Miles to return to his work when it was finished, and Florence came to summon Roy to their own dinner.

"Isn't he queer?" she said, referring to Miles. "He seems so quiet and talks so well for a man who was-- well, a tramp. I don't know what else you could call him. You ought to have seen the clothes he had on when he first came. Mamma made him burn them."

"He looks as if he might have an interesting story to tell," commented Roy.

"We'll get him to tell it to-night if your brother is well enough,"

said Mrs. Raynor. "He promised that we should hear it as soon as Rex was able to listen too."

Roy took Rex's dinner up to him, and the twins had an hour to themselves, during which Rex went more into detail concerning his experiences with Harrington and his crowd. They compared notes on Harry Atkins, and then fell to talking of Miles Harding.

"He's something more than a common tramp," Rex insisted. "He can read a little and write some. Isn't it funny how much he thinks of me, when I haven't done a thing for him? Mrs. Raynor lets him come up and sit with me every evening when his work is done. Of course I didn't know this till yesterday, when I came to my senses."

After the doctor's visit about three, Rex went to sleep and Roy played a game of tennis with Florence.

"I don't want to seem glad that your brother is sick," she said, "but it's awfully nice to have company. I get so lonely when Bert is away."

That evening they all a.s.sembled in Rex's room-- Mrs. Raynor was a widow, so the family at home consisted only of herself and Florence-- and Miles, seated at the foot of the bed, told the story of his life.

"I don't know where I was born," he began. "The first thing I can remember is living in a tenement house in New York, where I had to sleep three in a bed with the two Morrisey boys. Mr. Morrisey was a truckman, and there was five children of them, and I made six. I always thought I was a Morrisey, too, till one day Jimmy, he got mad at me, and told me I needn't talk so big because I was only living on charity.

"I went to his mother and asked her about it, and she told me that it was true, that I wasn't really her child, but that she thought as much of me as if I was, and that there wasn't any charity about it. But I wanted to know all about myself, and at last she said that I'd been given to Mr. Morrisey when I was a wee baby by a friend of his who couldn't afford to keep me and who made him vow that he'd never tell where I came from.