University of Virginia Library

11. XI.
TADDY'S FINANCIAL OPERATIONS.

“I see! I see!” said Reuben, who had listened with astonishment
and pain to the narrative. “You had kinder
intentions towards me than I gave you credit for. Forgive
me, if I wronged you!” He pressed the hand of his
adopted father, and thanked him from a heart filled with
gratitude and trouble. “But don't feel so bad about it.
You did what you thought best. I can only say, the fates
are against me.”

“Hem!” coughing, Miss Beswick stretched up her long
neck and cleared her throat. “So them bonds you had
bought for Reuben was in the house the very night I
called!”

“Yes, Miss Beswick,” replied Mrs. Ducklow; “and that 's
what made it so uncomfortable to us to have you talk the
way you did.”

“Hem!” the neck was stretched up still farther than
before, and the redoubtable throat cleared again. “'T was
too bad! Ye ought to have told me. You 'd actooally
bought the bonds, — bought 'em for Reuben, had ye?”

“Sartain! sartain!” said Ducklow.

“To be sure!” said Mrs. Ducklow.

“We designed 'em for his benefit, a surprise, when the
right time come,” said both together.

“Hem! well!” (It was evident that the Beswick was
clearing her decks for action.) “When the right time
come! yes! That right time was n't somethin' indefinite,
in the fur futur', of course! Yer losin' the bonds did n't
hurry up yer benevolence the least grain, I s'pose! Hem!
let in them boys, Sophrony!”

Sophronia opened the door, and in walked Master Dick
Atkins (son of the brush-burner), followed, not without reluctance
and concern, by Master Taddy.

“Thaddeus! what you here for?” demanded the adopted
parents.

“Because I said so,” remarked Miss Beswick, arbitrarily.
“Step along, boys, step along. Hold up yer head, Taddy,
for ye' an't goin' to be hurt while I 'm around. Take yer
fists out o' yer eyes, and stop blubberin'. Mr. Ducklow,
that boy knows somethin' about Reuben's cowpon bonds.”

“Thaddeus!” ejaculated both Ducklows at once, “did
you touch them bonds?”

“Did n't know what they was!” whimpered Taddy.

“Did you take them?” And the female Ducklow
grasped his shoulder.

“Hands off, if you please!” remarked Miss Beswick,
with frightfully gleaming courtesy. “I told him, if he 'd
be a good boy, and come along with Richard, and tell the
truth, he should n't be hurt. If you please,” she repeated,
with a majestic nod; and Mrs. Ducklow took her hands off.

“Where are they now? where are they?” cried Ducklow,
rushing headlong to the main question.

“Don't know,” said Taddy.

“Don't know? you villain!” And Ducklow was rising in
wrath. But Miss Beswick put up her hand deprecatingly.

“If you please!” she said, with grim civility; and
Ducklow sank down again.

“What did you do with 'em? what did you want of
'em?” said Mrs. Ducklow, with difficulty restraining an
impulse to wring his neck.

“To cover my kite,” confessed the miserable Taddy.

“Cover your kite! your kite!” A chorus of groans
from the Ducklows. “Did n't you know no better?”

“Did n't think you 'd care,” said Taddy. “I had some

newspapers Dick give me to cover it; but I thought them
things 'u'd be pootier. So I took 'em, and put the newspapers
in the wrapper.”

“Did ye cover yer kite?”

“No. When I found out you cared so much about 'em,
I da's'n't; I was afraid you 'd see 'em.”

“Then what did you do with 'em.”

“When you was away, Dick come over to sleep with
me, and I — I sold 'em to him!”

“Sold 'em to Dick!”

“Yes,” spoke up Dick, stoutly, “for six marbles, and
one was a bull's-eye, and one agate, and two alleys. Then,
when you come home and made such a fuss, he wanted 'em
ag'in. But he would n't give me back but four, and I
wa'n't going to agree to no such nonsense as that.”

“I 'd lost the bull's-eye and one common,” whined
Taddy.

“But the bonds! did you destroy 'em?”

“Likely I 'd do that, after I 'd paid six marbles for
'em!” said Dick. “I wanted 'em to cover my kite with.”

“Cover your — oh! then you 've made a kite of 'em!”
groaned Ducklow.

“Well, I was going to, when Aunt Beswick ketched me
at it. She made me tell where I got 'em, and took me
over to your house jest now; and Taddy said you was over
here, and so she put ahead, and made us foller her.”

Again, in an agony of impatience, Ducklow demanded to
know where the bonds were at that moment.

“If Taddy 'll give me back the marbles —” began Master
Dick.

“That 'll do!” said Miss Beswick, silencing him with a
gesture. “Reuben will give you twenty marbles; for I
believe you said they was Reuben's bonds, Mr. Ducklow?”

“Yes, that is —” stammered the adopted father

“Eventooally,” struck in the adopted mother.

“Now look here! What am I to understand? Be they
Reuben's bonds, or be they not? That 's the question!”
And there was that in Miss Beswick's look which said, “If
they are not Reuben's, then they are nobody's!”

“Of course they are Reuben's!” “We intended all
the while —” “His benefit —” “To do jest what he
pleases with 'em,” chorused Pa and Ma Ducklow.

“Wal! now it 's understood! Here, Reuben, are your
cowpon bonds!”

And Miss Beswick, drawing them from her bosom, placed
the precious documents, with formal politeness, in the glad
soldier's agitated hands.

“Glory!” cried Reuben, assuring himself that they were
genuine and real. “Sophrony, you 've got a home! Ruby,
Carrie, you 've got a home! Miss Beswick! you angel
from the skies! order a bushel of marbles for Dick, and
have the bill sent to me! O Pa Ducklow! you never did
a nobler or more generous thing in your life. These will
lift the mortgage, and leave me a nest-egg besides. Then
when I get my back pay, and my pension, and my health
again, we shall be independent.”

And the soldier, overcome by his feelings, sank back in
the arms of his wife.

“We always told you we 'd do well by ye, you remember?”
said the Ducklows, triumphantly.

The news went abroad. Again congratulations poured
in upon the returned volunteer. Everybody rejoiced in
his good fortune, — especially certain rich ones, who had
been dreading to see Miss Beswick come around with her
proposed subscription-paper.

Among the rest, the Ducklows rejoiced not the least;
for selfishness was with them, as it is with many, rather a
thing of habit than a fault of the heart. The catastrophe

of the bonds broke up that life-long habit, and revealed
good hearts underneath. The consciousness of having
done an act of justice, although by accident, proved very
sweet to them; it was really a fresh sensation; and Reuben
and his dear little family, saved from ruin and distress,
happy, thankful, glad, were a sight to their old eyes
such as they had never witnessed before. Not gold itself,
in any quantity, at the highest premium, could have given
them so much satisfaction; and as for coupon bonds, they
are not to be mentioned in the comparison.

“Won't you do well by me some time, too?” teased
little Taddy, who overheard his adopted parents congratulating
themselves on having acted so generously by Reuben.
“I don't care for no cowpen bonds, but I do want a
new drum!”

“Yes, yes, my son!” said Ducklow, patting the boy's
shoulder.

And the drum was bought.

Taddy was delighted. But he did not know what made
the Ducklows so much happier, so much gentler and
kinder, than formerly. Do you?