Wizard Will, the Wonder Worker

"What was that, my son?"

"Well, you know that I am pretty well acquainted with New York, and I said I would like to form a league of 'Boy Detectives,' for I feel that I could do a great deal of good with them, and he said he thought so too, and I should be captain."

"Ah! my son, I fear you are taking a very heavy weight upon your young shoulders."

"I can stand it, mother."

"You've always said, mother, that brother had an old head on young shoulders; but he's got broad shoulders, too, and can stand it," Pearl remarked in her quaint way, for she would wager her life upon her brother being able to do anything that a man could accomplish.

"Well, Will, you are the bread-winner of our home now, and the head, young as you are, and I will not be the one to put a straw in your way against success, for you seem to have a real talent for detective work."

"Thank you, mother, and they have dubbed me, on the force, Wizard Will, as they say I have done wonders as a Boy Detective."

"You have, indeed, my son, and in a few days I'll be able to move out to the cottage, and you can then devote yourself wholly to your new career;" and, with the firm resolve to bury her bitter past at once, and forgetting self, to live wholly for her children, the noble, though sorrow-haunted woman, improved steadily each day, and one pleasant morning Captain Ryan Daly, the good-hearted officer, called for the trio in a carriage and drove them out to the cottage, which he playfully called Wizard Hall.

It was a charming little cottage, with large trees upon one side, a lawn sloping down to an inlet of the Long Island Sound, a vegetable garden, a stable, a meadow lot, in which an Alderney cow was grazing, a henery, with a large number of choice fowls, and beds of flowers that at once caught the eye of Pearl.

The place was in perfect condition, the garden flourishing, the house well and completely furnished, and the store-room and cellar well stocked, while the coal-bin and wood-shed were filled, the captain remarking that his brother had been a most liberal provider, and telling the story without a flush on his honest face, for he had placed all there himself.

"I shall soon get well here, Captain Daly, and I know not how to thank you for all your kindness," said Mrs. Raymond, the tears coming into her beautiful eyes.

"It is a kindness for me, madam, to have the place occupied by good tenants, and I must tell you that in yonder little cabin on the hill lives an old negro and his wife, who will do odds and ends for you when you need them for very small pay."

"Now, Wizard Will, I shall give you a week's leave to get settled in your new home, and then you can set to work raising your League of Boy Detectives, whom I shall put great faith in," and, promising to come out and dine some Sunday with them, the noble-hearted police captain – whose daily intercourse was with criminals, who was hourly amid desperate and tragic scenes, whose will was iron, whose nature knew no fear, but who had the heart of a woman for deeds of kindness – took his leave and returned to the city, leaving the mother and her children to make themselves perfectly at home in Wizard Hall.

CHAPTER XXIV. – Conclusion

AFTER a happy week spent at his little home on the Sound, Wizard Will returned to his duties in town. He had made friends with the old negro and negress in the cabin on the hill near the cottage, and had found them most willing to do all in their power to help his mother, and had secretly made an arrangement with them to look after matters in his absence, the old man to look after the horse, and his wife to milk the cow.

He had also ingeniously attached a wire from the cottage to the cabin, with a bell at the latter, so that his mother could call for aid if she needed it.

With country air, pretty scenery, pleasant quarters, fresh milk and vegetables, and no worry about their daily bread, Mrs. Raymond rapidly improved in health, and life became worth the living for her, as she strove hard to shut out the past.

Pearl started to school and made friends, and some kind-hearted neighbours called upon the new-comers, so that the mother and daughter were not wholly alone, while Wizard Will, when at home, gave them many a pleasant drive about the country, and row or sail upon the Sound.

But Will did not neglect his work in the city, and, setting to work with energy and skill, he formed his League of Boy Detectives, and it was but a very short while before the police force recognized their ability and acknowledged it, treating their young captain with as much respect as they did their own commanders.

In due time Ed Ellis the kidnapper and murderer was tried, found guilty upon the testimony of Wizard Will and executed.

Mr. Rossmore came on to the trial, and urged Wizard Will once more to become his adopted son, but Mrs. Raymond would not hear of it, and also declined positively to allow her son to bring the kind-hearted gentleman out to see her, as he wished to do.

Will felt hurt at this, especially as his mother gave no other reason for her strange conduct than that she would not see any strangers.

With deep regret at Will's refusal to go with him Mr. Rossmore returned to his home in Maryland, and the boy settled himself to hard work to win greater fame in the career which he had drifted into by accident.

Though he had several times seen Colonel Ivey in the street he had avoided him, as his mother had earnestly requested him to do, and the gallant soldier little dreamed that the name his eyes fell upon now and then in the papers as Wizard Will, was the one whose three-dollar gold-piece he had found on Thanksgiving morning, and still wore as a charm upon his watch-chain, while he deeply mourned for the woman he had learned to love, and the children who had crept into his heart as though they were his own flesh and blood.

One of the first duties that the brave young officer set for himself to accomplish with his juvenile band of Secret Service scouts was the running to earth of the "Land Sharks," and how he accomplished the giant task is written in the Police History of New York City, wherein no name stands out in bolder relief than that of Wizard Will, the Boy Ferret of New York.

Those who wish to know how he accomplished his task, must read "Wizard Will's Street Scouts," the next number of the Tip Top Tales.

THE END