Chapter XVII All About Uncle Issachar's Visit

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The next morning’s stage carried seven passengers to Windy Creek, as Miss Frayne with a big roll of “copy” also took her departure.

Diogenes had been quite docile and amenable to my rule since the licking I gave him, so we had a pleasant and comfortable return journey on the following day.

“I hope, Lucien,” said Silvia, “you won’t refuse to cash this check for a good amount. The Polydore parents may never 231 show up, and it’s only right we should be reimbursed for their keep.”

“I will cash it,” I assured her, “and use it for a housekeeper or else send the boys off to a school. I should like very much to have it out with Felix Polydore, but, as you suggest, I may never have the opportunity to see him at close range.”

Beth, Rob, and Ptolemy met us at the station.

“Where are ‘Them Three’?” I asked hopefully.

“Huldah is feeding them little pies hot from the kettle––the kind she cooks like doughnuts, you know.”

“Huldah cooking for ‘Them Three’!” I exclaimed. “She must have passed into her second childhood. She grudged them even an apple to piece on.”

“She has pampered them ever since our return,” said Rob.

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“Poor Huldah! She must indeed be afflicted with softening of the brain,” I decided.

“She has probably been so lonely, shut in here by herself,” said Silvia, “that even ‘Them Three’ looked good to her.”

In the hallway Huldah met us. She was beaming with pleasure, but except in her bearing toward the children, she was quite normal.

“We’ve all had a real good rest,” she observed, “and you do look so well, Mrs. Wade. My! but this place has been lonesome. I’m glad we’re all together again.”

“Now, Silvia, shut your eyes,” directed Beth, “and come into the library. Ptolemy has bought you a present with the check his father gave him.”

“Beth helped me pick it out,” said Ptolemy.

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Beth led the way into the library, and we followed.

“Open your eyes.”

Silvia gave a little cry of pleasure, and looking over her shoulder, I beheld a baby grand piano.

“Oh, Ptolemy!” she cried, giving him a fervent kiss and fond hug, “I can never let you do so much.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, flushing a little under the endearments which were doubtless the first ever bestowed upon him. “Father’s got a whole lot of money grandpa left him and it’s fixed so he can’t draw out only so much each year. He said the board and bother of us was worth more than this and we’ll all enjoy the music. But Thag and Em and Dem ain’t to touch it. I’ll knock tar out of the first one that comes near it.”

I was disconsolate. I didn’t see how we 234 could return it and I didn’t want the Polydore web woven any tighter. To think of Silvia’s receiving from them what it had been my longing to give her! But as I was to learn later, she was to acquire much more than a piano from the eminent family.

After dinner Silvia asked Huldah to come in and hear the music, and when Silvia’s repertoire was exhausted, we gave our faithful servant all the little details of our trip which Beth had not supplied.

“Now tell us, Huldah, how things went along here,” said Silvia.

“Well, you think some wonderful things happened to you all on your trip mebby––ghosts and proposals,” looking at Beth and Rob, “and fires and Polydores, but back here in this quiet house something happened that has your ghosts and things skinned by a mile.”

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“Oh, dear!” cried Silvia apprehensively, “what is it?”

“Break it very gently, Huldah,” I cautioned. “You know we’ve borne a good deal.”

“Your uncle Issachar was here for a couple of days.”

She certainly had made a sensation.

“Not Uncle Issachar! Not here?” exclaimed Silvia incredulously.

“Yes, ma’am. He came the next day after Beth and Mr. Rossiter and Polly left. I told him you’d gone away for a little vacation and rest. I didn’t let on that I knew where you had gone, because I didn’t want him straggling up there, too, or sending for you to come back. He said your absence would make no difference to his plans; that he never let nothing do that. He come to pay a visit and he should pay one.”

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“Yes,” said Silvia feebly. “That sounds like Uncle Issachar.”

“I told him to make himself perfectly at home; that every one did that to this place, and he said he would. I’d just slicked up the big front room upstairs and I seen to it that he had everything all right. I cooked the best dinner I knew how, and he said it was the first white man’s meal he had eat since his ma died, so I found out what she used to cook and fed him on it. Them three kids and him eat like they was holler. I guess if Polly hadn’t took them away your grocery bill would ’a looked like Barb’ry Allen’s grave.

“Well, as I was saying, your uncle he eat till he got over his grouches, and like enough he’d be here eating yet, if he hadn’t got a telegraph to hit the line for home, some big business deal, he said, and I 237 guess it was a great deal, for he licked his chops and smacked his lips over it, and he give me a ten dollar bill to get a new dress and each of Them Three one dollar fer candy.”

“The old tightwad!” I exclaimed. “It was your cooking, sure, that made him loosen up that way.”

“Tightwad nothing!” she declared indignantly. “You won’t think he was tight-wadded when you read this here letter he left for you. He told me what was in it, and I’ve just been busting to tell it to Beth, but I waited for you to know it first.”

With great excitement Silvia opened the letter, read it, gasped, re-read it, and then in consternation handed it to me.

“Read it aloud, Lucien,” she bade. “Maybe I can believe it then.”

This was the letter.

“My dear Niece:

“I was sorry not to see you, but glad to learn that, as every wise and good woman should do, you are raising a fine family––a family of sons, which is what our country most needs. Your son Pythagoras informed me that you had taken your oldest child, Ptolemy, and your youngest, Diogenes, with you, I am glad you left three such promising samples for me to see.

“As you have five sons, I have, agreeable to my promise, placed in your name in the First National Bank of your city the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars.

“Your affectionate uncle,
“Issachar Innes.”

“Huldah,” I asked, “did you tell him the Polydores were our children?”

“Me?” she repeated indignantly. “Me tell a lie like that! No; I didn’t get no 239 chance to tell him anything about them. ‘Them Three’ done the telling. The first thing that one”––pointing to Pythagoras––“said was, ‘Mudder went away and took the baby, Diogenes, with her.’ And then that next one”––indicating Emerald––“said: ‘Yes, and our oldest brother, Ptolemy, went on with Beth to see them.’

“The old gent asked them all their names and ages and he was so pleased and said he thought it was just fine for you to raise five sons, so I didn’t have no heart to tell him no different. ‘Twan’t none of my business anyhow. Then ‘Them Three’ kept talking about stepdaddy, and your Uncle Issachar asks ‘Who the devil is he? Did my niece marry again?’ And I told him as how Mr. Wade was all the husband you ever had, and that stepdaddy was nothing but a sort of pet-name the kids had give Mr. Wade.”

“I told him,” said Demetrius, “that 240 stepdaddy was cross to us sometimes and not as nice as mudder, and he said––”

“You shut up,” commanded Huldah quickly, “and let me talk.”

“No,” I intercepted, “I’d really be interested in hearing what he told Uncle Issachar. What was it, Demetrius, that your great-uncle said to you?”

“He said,” stated the imp, darting his tongue out in triumph at his victory over Huldah, “that he always thought you was a stiff.”

“He didn’t say nothing of the kind!” declared Huldah. “He said you was stiff-necked, and that he presumed you would act more like a stepfather than the real thing. Well, as I was saying, he asked their names, and he liked them fine. Said they were so classy.”

“Didn’t he say classic, Huldah?” inquired Rob.

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“Mebby. What’s the difference?” snapped Huldah.

“None,” I assured her quickly, dodging a definition.

“She told him––” began Emerald.

“You shut up,” again adjured Huldah, “or I’ll never bake you one of those small pies no more.”

“Oh, please, Huldah,” I coaxed. “Let us hear everything. I’ve always told you my life’s secrets, and I don’t mind what you or the boys told him.”

“Well, I suppose what he was going to tattle was that I thought the old gent might feel hurt, ’cause none of them was named after him, so I told him Polly’s middle name was Issachar.”

“Why, Huldah,” remonstrated Silvia.

“Well, he’s always wanted a middle name, and he’s never been baptized, so you can stick it in and have him ducked 242 next Sunday and then that will square that. ‘Them Three’ stuck to him like a hive of bees, and I was scairt for fear they’d let the cat out of the bag, and so long as they had put it in, I thought it might just as well stay in, but they were just as slick as grease in all they said. They’ll hang in that rogues’ gallery yet.”

“I suppose they were pretty––strenuous,” said Silvia with a sigh.

“They was more than that. The first afternoon right after dinner when he was sitting on the front porch, sleeping peaceful and snoring, that there one––” pointing to Pythagoras––

“Tattle-tale!” he began, but I administered a cuff and he subsided into surprised silence.

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“He went to the front window and dropped a young kitten down on the old gent’s head.”

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“He,” said Huldah, looking pleased at this little attention to the boy, “went to the front window and dropped a young kitten down on the old gent’s head. It clawed something fierce. We had just got things going smooth again when Emmy got one of his earaches. I roasted an onion and put in his ear, and what did he do but take it out of his ear and slip it down your poor uncle’s back.”

“Why didn’t you beat them?” I asked indignantly.

“Because the old gent did that. He put ’em across his knee, and believe me, it was some licking they caught. They didn’t let out a whimper and that pleased him.”

“Huh!” said Emerald. “Thag don’t know how to cry. He hasn’t got any tears, and old Uncle Iz didn’t hurt me, because, you see, when I heard Thag getting his, I went and stuffed the Declaration of Independence, that book of stepdaddy’s that Demetrius tore the pictures out of, in my pants.”

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“Go on!” urged Rob delightedly. “What else did you all do? Uncle must have had some time. It would make a fine scenario. ‘The first visit of the rich uncle.’”

“Well,” resumed Huldah. “One of ’em put red pepper in the old man’s bed, and he like to sneeze his head off, but he said as how sneezing was healthy, and showed you’d got rid of a cold.”

“He never got on to the pepper,” said Demetrius gleefully.

“In the morning, that second one put a toad in his new uncle’s pocket, and Emmy broke his specs. Then Meetie he dropped his watch. They used his razor to cut the lawn with. And then they took him down to the creek to go fishing, and they put the fish in Uncle’s silk hat, and and–––”

“Stop!” implored Silvia, who was now in tears. “Uncle Issachar believes them 247 mine! Ours! And that I brought them up! Oh, why did we ever go away?”

“Oh, pshaw,” exclaimed Huldah comfortingly, “he said you had brung them up fine; that they were no mollycoddles or Lizzie boys, and he didn’t suppose you had so much sense as to leave them natural.”

“A left-handed one for mudder,” laughed Beth.

“He must be a very peculiar man––ready for the asylum, I should say,” commented Rob.

“He would have been if he’d stayed any longer, or else I would have been,” declared Huldah.

“Couldn’t you make them behave, someway?” asked Silvia.

“Well, at first I tried to, and every time I pinched one of ’em when the old gent wasn’t looking, or knocked ’em down when I got ’em alone, they would threaten to tell 248 who they was, and then when I seen how your uncle liked the way they acted, I just let ’em go it, head on. And seeing as how they each brung you five thousand, I’ve treated ’em best I know how. They’re worth it, now. They done one thing more that was awful. Could you stand it to hear?” turning to Silvia.

“Please, Silvia,” implored Rob.

“Well,” argued Silvia faintly. “I suppose we might as well know the worst.”

“You see the old gent didn’t always get up to breakfast with the kids and one morning when I brought in the cakes Emmy looked up and grinned. I nearly dropped the plate. He had both sets of the old man’s false teeth in his mouth. I got ’em back in his room without his waking, but I’d have liked a picture of Emmy.”

“Pythagoras,” I demanded, when we had recovered from this recital, “why 249 didn’t you tell him who you were, and how you all came to be here with us?”

“Because she is our mudder, and we are going to stay with her, always. We’ve got a snap. So has father and mother. And Ptolemy told us that if you ever got any kids, you’d get five thousand each for them, and I thought we’d just make that much for you. So we played Uncle Iz for it. Easy money, all right, all right.”

“Talk about fine financiering,” quoth Rob. “‘Them Three’ will surely land on Wall Street.”

But poor Silvia had no heart for humor and was weeping silently.

“Why, look here, my dear,” I said in consolation, “this is a very simple matter to adjust. In the morning when you feel better, just write a full explanation of the affair and inclose your check for twenty-five thousand.”

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Silvia quickly wiped away her tears.

“I’ll do it tonight, Lucien. I feel better now. I never thought of writing.”

Huldah and “Them Three” looked most lugubrious.

“The old skinflint won’t miss it as much as I would a penny,” declared our faithful handmaiden. “And I’m sure you’ve earnt that twenty-five thousand if anyone ever did. You’ve had as much care and worry about them brats as you would if they’d been your own.”

“Huldah,” I said severely, “there is a pretty stiff penalty for obtaining money under false pretences.”

“After all the pains we took to make things lively for him, so he wouldn’t get bored and think he was having a poor time!” regretted Pythagoras.

“And us watching every word we spoke so as not to give it away,” wailed Emerald.

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“Cake’s all dough,” muttered Demetrius.

Ptolemy regarded the three disapprovingly. He had the old inscrutable look, the look that foreboded mischief, in his eyes.

“You bungled, you fool kids!” he said in disgust, “and Huldah, what did you want to let on to mudder for that he thought we was hers? You ought to have torn up the note he left and just said he’d put twenty-five thousand in the bank for her.”

“Huh! you’re just jealous because you weren’t in the Uncle Izzy deal yourself,” jeered Pythagoras. “You always think you’re the only one that can do anything right.”

“I wish you had been here, Polly,” said Huldah, “I am sure you could have worked it through somehow.”

“I wish I had stayed and put it across,” he answered. “If you and the kids would only learn not to blab everything you know. 252 It’s the only way to work anything. Minute you tell a thing, it’s all off.”

There was still a great deal of development work to be put on Ptolemy’s moral standard.

“You’ll find, my lad,” remonstrated Rob, “that honesty is the best policy.”

“I’d have been perfectly honest about it,” he defended. “I would have told him the truth, and how our parents had deserted us, and how mudder took us in when we were homeless and was bringing us up like her own because she hadn’t got any, and how stepdaddy wanted to turn us out, and she wouldn’t let him, and then he would have decided against stepdaddy and given mudder the money so she could keep us.”

“Ptolemy,” I said warningly, “there is a way of telling the truth, or rather of coloring white lies with enough truth to make them deceive, that is more dishonorable than an out and out lie.”

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“Tell me, Ptolemy,” asked Silvia, “how did you know about that offer of five thousand dollars for each child?”

“I overheard it,” he said guardedly; “but I can’t remember where.”

“He heard me say so,” confessed Huldah.

“It was when he first come here and he was making us so much trouble, and I told him it was too bad we had to have other folks’ brats around when, if we only had our own, they’d be bringing in something.”

The recital now broke up and Silvia sat down to write a long explanatory letter to Uncle Issachar. The next morning I procured her a check from the First National Bank and she filled it out.

“Oh!” she said with indrawn breath, when she had asked me how to write twenty-five thousand dollars, “I never expected to be able to sign my name to a check for such an amount.”

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“You never will again, I fear,” was my sad prophecy.

“It must feel rich,” said Beth, “just to have a large check pass through your fingers.”

“Them Three” came the nearest to tears that they were able to do.

“We worked so hard for it,” they sighed.

“So did I!” muttered Huldah.

“I couldn’t live a double life,” declared Silvia.


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