The Cash Boy

Mr. Chase was an inoffensive man, but Mrs. Chase had a violent temper. She was at work in the kitchen when Deacon Pinkerton drove up. Hearing the sound of wheels, she came to the door.

“Mrs. Chase,” said the deacon, “I’ve brought you a little girl, to be placed under your care.”

“What’s her name?” inquired the lady.

“Grace Fowler.”

“Grace, humph! Why didn’t she have a decent name?”

“You can call her anything you like,” said the deacon.

“Little girl, you must behave well,” said Deacon Pinkerton, by way of parting admonition. “The town expects it. I expect it. You must never cease to be grateful for the good home which it provides you free of expense.”

Grace did not reply. Looking in the face of her future task-mistress was scarcely calculated to awaken a very deep feeling of gratitude.

“Now,” said Mrs. Chase, addressing her new boarder, “just take off your things, Betsy, and make yourself useful.”

“My name isn’t Betsy, ma’am.”

“It isn’t, isn’t it?”

“No; it is Grace.”

“You don’t say so! I’ll tell you one thing, I shan’t allow anybody to contradict me here, and your name’s got to be Betsy while you’re in this house. Now take off your things and hang them up on that peg. I’m going to set you right to work.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Grace, alarmed.

“There’s some dishes I want washed, Betsy, and I won’t have you loitering over your work, neither.”

“Very well, ma’am.”

Such was the new home for which poor Grace was expected to be grateful.

CHAPTER XIX

WHAT FRANK HEARD THROUGH THE CREVICE

Frank looked with some surprise at the woman who was looking through the slide of his door. He had expected to see Nathan Graves. She also regarded him with interest.

“I have brought you some supper,” she said.

Frank reached out and drew in a small waiter, containing a cup of tea and a plate of toast.

“Thank you,” he said. “Where is the man who brought me here?”

“He has gone out.”

“Do you know why he keeps me here in confinement?”

“No,” said the woman, hastily. “I know nothing. I see much, but I know nothing.”

“Are many prisoners brought here as I have been?” asked our hero, in spite of the woman’s refusal to speak.

“No.”

“I can’t understand what object they can have in detaining me. If I were rich, I might guess, but I am poor. I am compelled to work for my daily bread, and have been out of a place for two weeks.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, in a low voice, rather to herself than to him. “But I cannot wait. I must not stand here. I will come up in fifteen minutes, and if you wish another cup of tea, or some toast, I will bring them.”

His confinement did not affect his appetite, for he enjoyed his tea and toast; and when, as she had promised, the woman came up, he told her he would like another cup of tea, and some more toast.

“Will you answer one question?” asked our hero.

“I don’t know,” answered the woman in a flurried tone.

“You look like a good woman. Why do you stay in such a house as this?”

“I will tell you, though I should do better to be silent. But you won’t betray me?”

“On no account.”

“I was poor, starving, when I had an application to come here. The man who engaged me told me that it was to be a housekeeper, and I had no suspicion of the character of the house—that it was a den of—”

She stopped short, but Frank understood what she would have said.

“When I discovered the character of the house, I would have left but for two reasons. First, I had no other home; next, I had become acquainted with the secrets of the house, and they would have feared that I would reveal them. I should incur great risk. So I stayed.”

Here there was a sound below. The woman started.

“Some one has come,” she said. “I must go down I will come up as soon as I can with the rest of your supper.”

“Thank you. You need not hurry.”

Our hero was left to ponder over what he had heard. There was evidently a mystery connected with this lonely house a mystery which he very much desired to solve. But there was one chance. Through the aperture in the closet he might both see and hear something, provided any should meet there that evening.

The remainder of his supper was brought him by the same woman, but she was in haste, and he obtained no opportunity of exchanging another word with her.

Frank did not learn who it was that had arrived. Listening intently, he thought he heard some sounds in the next room. Opening the closet door, and applying his eye to the aperture, he saw two men seated in the room, one of whom was the man who had brought him there.

He applied his ear to the opening, and heard the following conversation:

“I hear you’ve brought a boy here, Nathan,” said the other, who was a stout, low-browed man, with an evil look.

“Yes,” said Graves, with a smile; “I am going to board him here a while.”

“What’s it all about? What are you going to gain by it?”

“I’ll tell you all I know. I’ve known something of the family for a long time. John Wade employed me long ago. The old millionaire had a son who went abroad and died there. His cousin, John Wade, brought home his son—a mere baby—the old man’s grandson, of course, and sole heir, or likely to be, to the old man’s wealth, if he had lived. In that case, John Wade would have been left out in the cold, or put off with a small bequest.”