Luck and Pluck

"How's that? I don't understand."

"John was in the way here. You and he could not agree,—not that I blame you for that,—and I did not like him. Therefore I made an arrangement with my brother to have John board with him. I don't suppose you'll miss him much."

"It'll be a lucky miss," said Ben, emphatically. "But John's rather stubborn. How did you get him to go?"

"He doesn't know he is to stay. I told him I wanted him to go back with your uncle, in order to attend to a little business for me. When he gets there he'll find out what it is."

"Won't he rave, though?" exclaimed Ben, laughing heartily. "He'll find it a healthy old boarding-house."

"I wish you wouldn't use such language, Ben," said his mother. "It is my great ambition to see you act and talk like a gentleman."

"So I do, mother. That's just the way they talk."

Mrs. Oakley looked rather incredulous.

"I say, mother, is Uncle Huxter going to prepare John for college?"

Mrs. Oakley laughed—heartily for her.

"Your uncle's shoe-shop will be the only college John will enter," she said.

"Do you mean that he is to peg shoes?"

"Yes."

"His pride will have a pretty hard fall."

"I mean that it shall," said Mrs. Oakley, compressing her thin lips.

"Well, I don't envy John. Every dog has his day, and he has had his. It's our turn now. Another cup of coffee, and not so weak as the last."

"I don't think such strong coffee is good for you, Benjamin."

"Oh bother, don't be a granny," said Ben, rudely. "Anybody'd think I was a baby."

This was the way in which Ben addressed his mother, who deserved his gratitude at least, for she was to him a devoted and self-sacrificing mother, however faulty might be her conduct towards John.

At length Ben's late breakfast was over, and he left the house to resort to his accustomed haunt,—the hotel bar-room and billiard saloon.

"I wish Ben cared more about study, and was more ambitious," thought Mrs. Oakley, with a half sigh. "If I could only make him feel as I do!"

It would have been fortunate for Ben if he had inherited his mother's energy and ambition. The ambition was not a noble one; but at least it would have kept him from low haunts and bad associates, which were all he cared about at present. Though all his mother's worldly plans should succeed, this was the point in which they were likely to fail. Mrs. Oakley's punishment would come in all probability through the son for whom she was willing to sacrifice justice and duty.

When Ben had left the house, Mrs. Oakley began to concentrate her thoughts upon that which had first led her to determine upon John's banishment. This was the hidden will. She could not feel assured of her position until that was found. Until now she had not felt at full liberty to search. She had feared that John might come upon her unexpectedly, and divine her object. Now there was no fear of interruption. She could ransack the house from top to bottom, and no one would understand the motive of her search. She had not communicated her intention to Ben. She trusted in his discretion too little to confide to him any secret of importance, for she was a shrewd and prudent woman.

On this particular morning she had a feeling that she had never had before. There was a confidence that she had never before experienced that success awaited her.

"I must and will find it," she thought. "This is not a large house. Then there are some parts of it that need not be searched. Mr. Oakley would never have hidden his will in the servants' rooms, nor in the kitchen. Everywhere else I will search. Let me go to work systematically and thoroughly. This time it shall not be my fault if it escapes me."

There was a small room on the lower floor, where the late Mr. Oakley used to do the most of his writing. This has already been referred to. Here he kept a desk, and this desk more than once had been searched by Mrs. Oakley. She determined to search it once more, but only for form's sake.

"He did not mean that I should find it," she thought. "Therefore he did not conceal it where I should be certain to look first."

So, though she searched the desk, she was not disappointed when this search, like the preceding, resulted in bringing nothing to light.

"It is as I thought," she said. "Where shall I search next?"

She selected her own bedchamber, though here, for obvious reasons, she had little hopes of finding the missing document.

"He wouldn't place it under my very eyes," she said. "Of course I know that. Still I cannot afford to leave a single place unexplored."

The result justified her anticipations. So room after room was searched, and no clue was obtained.

"He wouldn't put it under the carpet," she thought.

Yet the thought seemed worth following up. She got down on her hands and knees, and felt of every square foot of carpeting in the several rooms to see if she could detect beneath the pressure of any paper. In one place there was a rustle, and she eagerly tore up the carpet. But nothing was revealed save a loose piece of newspaper, which by some chance had got underneath. Disappointed, she nailed down the carpet again.

Where else should she look? All at once a luminous idea came to her.

John's room,—his old room, of course! Why had she never thought of that? John, of course, was the one who would be most benefited by the new will. If by any chance it should be discovered by him, no harm would result. His father would trust John, when he would not have trusted her or Ben. Mrs. Oakley could not help acknowledging to herself that in that he was right. What strengthened her in this view was, that among the articles of furniture was an old desk which had belonged to Squire Oakley's father. It was battered and defaced by hard usage, and had been at one time banished to the attic. But John, who was accustomed to study in his room, felt that this old desk would be of use to him, and he had asked to have it transferred to his own chamber. There had been no objection to this, and the transfer took place about a year before Squire Oakley's death. It had stood in John's room ever since.

When the new idea came to Mrs. Oakley, she thought at once of this old desk as the probable repository of the will. Her eyes sparkled with anticipated triumph.

"I was a fool not to think of this before," she said. "If the will is anywhere in the house, it is in John's room, and in that old desk. At last I am on the right track!"

With a hurried step she entered John's room. Her hands trembled with nervous agitation. She felt that she was on the brink of an important discovery.

CHAPTER XX.

MRS. OAKLEY FINDS THE WILL

Mrs. Oakley commenced her examination of the old desk, thoroughly convinced that if the missing will were in existence at all, it was hidden there.

It was one of those old desks and bureaus combined, which were so common in the days of our grandfathers. In the drawers beneath, John had been accustomed to keep his clothing; in the desk above, writing materials, and some small articles of no particular importance. These he had not had time to remove before his unexpected departure.

Mrs. Oakley turned those over impatiently, and explored every drawer hurriedly. But she did not discover what she had expected to find. This first failure, however, did not surprise her. She did not expect to find the will lying loosely in any of the drawers. But she suspected that some one drawer might have a false bottom, beneath which the important document would prove to be concealed. She therefore carefully examined every drawer with a view to the discovery of such a place of concealment. But to her disappointment she obtained no clue. The drawers seemed honestly made. For the first time Mrs. Oakley began to doubt whether the will were really in existence. She had searched everywhere, and it could not be found.

"I wish I could be sure," she said to herself. "I would give five hundred dollars this minute to be sure that there was no will. Then I should feel secure in the possession of my money. But to feel that at any moment a paper may turn up depriving me of forty thousand dollars keeps me in constant anxiety."

She gave up the search for the day, having domestic duties to attend to. She tried to persuade herself that her fears and anxieties were without foundation, but in this she was unsuccessful. She permitted a day to slip by, but on the second day she again visited John's room. The old desk seemed to have a fascination for her.

This time she turned the desk around, and passed her hand slowly over the back. Just when she was about to relinquish the attempt in despair, success came.

Suddenly beneath her finger a concealed spring was unconsciously touched, and a thin drawer sprang from the recesses of the desk. Mrs. Oakley's eyes sparkled with the sense of approaching triumph, as she perceived carefully laid away therein a paper compactly folded.

With fingers trembling with nervous agitation she opened it. She had not been deceived. The missing will lay outspread before her! Mrs. Oakley read it carefully.

It was drawn up with the usual formalities, as might have been expected, being the work of a careful lawyer. It revoked all other wills of a previous date, and bequeathed in express terms two-thirds of the entire estate left by the testator to his only son, John. Squire Selwyn was appointed executor, and guardian of said John, should he be under age at the time of his father's death. The remaining third of the property was willed to Mrs. Jane Oakley, should she survive her husband; otherwise to her son Benjamin in the event of his mother's previous death.