Part 2 — CHAPTER XX.
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AN IMPORTANT LETTER.
His visitors turned away.
Rosalie, whose triumph was supreme, could not wholly control herself. She gave an occasional hop as they went.
Trudy's face shone, and her eyes were starry. As for Collin, he felt that silence was best.
"Go and tell your mother, Collin," Trudy whispered. "You won't be afraid to see her now."
"I'm going there," Collin answered—they stood at the corner of his street. "I'll go; and all I can say is, that I shan't ever forget what you've all done for me. You've saved me—that's what. I don't know what would have become of me. And you'll never be sorry for it."
And, choking somewhat, Collin Spencer turned down the street to his mother's home.
It seemed to Trudy that it was the strangest piece of good fortune in the world which had taken place. After all the dark worry her true young heart had known, she could hardly believe it. And yet a stranger thing was to happen then and there.
As they walked on, Trudy's eyes turned down the street and fixed themselves upon a figure coming rapidly towards them, or as rapidly as was possible. The figure, which was small and bent in the shoulders, limped. Rosalie saw it at the same instant.
"See! who is that?" she asked, in wonder.
"It's Ichabod," said Trudy—"why, it's Ichabod! And I left him sick abed. Whatever is the matter?"
Ichabod came hurriedly limping on. It became plain that he had seen them and was hastening to reach them; and Trudy ran forward.
"Why, Ichabod," she cried, in remonstrance, "if you didn't get up! Were you able? No; see how tired you are!"
Certainly Ichabod was. He leaned against the fence a minute, and then, giving it up, sat down on the grass beside it, pulling off his old hat and fanning himself.
Something else dawned upon Trudy. Ichabod was excited. That indeed seemed to be the greater cause of his exhaustion, for he sat blinking up at Trudy in a peculiar manner and tried vainly to speak.
Mrs. Scott and Rosalie had come up, and paused. Too courteous to smile, they looked their perplexity.
"What is the matter, Ichabod?" said Trudy, again. She began to feel some alarm. "What made you get up? What have you been doing?"
Ichabod, slowly and painfully, rose to his feet.
"I was calc'lating to git up. Didn't I say to ye I was? Didn't I say I was goin' to git up soon as ever I could? And what fer did I say? Why, I was goin' to ask a favor o' Mr. Doolittle—jest a leetle favor."
"Oh!" said Trudy, remembering.
She had forgotten the old man's queer talk about the box in the closet, and the papers in the box, and his odd eagerness concerning them.
"Seein' you—" continued the old man. "Well, I couldn't stan' it another minute arter that. I jest got up. I was kind o' weak in my legs to the fust, but I got thar. I got to Mr. Doolittle's office, and thar he was settin'. He knows me, Mr. Doolittle does, and I wan't afraid to ask that leetle favor of him."
Ichabod had got back his breath and his composure now. He covered his bald head with his hat, planted himself against the fence, his little, twinkling eyes fixed on Trudy with an intense gaze, and continued his story:
"Thar he set. And I walked in and I says to him, 'Air ye willin' to do sump'n fer me, Mr. Doolittle?' And says he, 'Yes I be, Ichabod.' And says I, 'It ain't goin' to take but jest a minute, Mr. Doolittle.' And says he, 'Go ahead, Ichabod.'
"Says I, 'I was lookin' in the closet of the garret bed-room up to Mrs. Spencer's house, whar I've been stayin', and I found a leetle box, shoved 'way back, as though it wan't no use, anyhow. And, kind o' hankerin' to know what 'twas, I broke it open. And thar was papers in it,' says I— 'and letters.
"'I can't read none myself,' says I— 'only jest a leetle; but I looked over them letters, and I worked and I figured, and I studied out a leetle here and a leetle thar, till I begun to suspicion sump'n. Sump'n awful quare—awful quare! And this here one,' says I, 'I've fetched down to ye, fer ye to jest look at. And if there ain't nothin' in it,' says I, 'why, all right, and thank ye fer yer trouble. And if thar is sump'n—' says I.
"And I handed him over that thar ole letter, and then I set still, and I had my ole eyes glued right onto his face, and I ketched my breath and I waited.
"'Well, I'll see, Ichabod,' says he. 'Ole letters are quare things, Ichabod,' says he; 'but I'll look at it.'
"And he looked. He looked it up and down two er three times, and then he read it clean through two er three times more. And then he took up his spectacles off'n the table, and he read it ag'in, and he looked jest as astonished as if he'd seen a ghost.
"Says he, 'I can't make it out. Reuben Wallace has been dead a year, and this is the fust breath o' evidence that he left any money, although everybody in this town has been clean up a stump about his not leavin' any. But this letter—dated two months afore he died,' says he, 'is from a coal merchant in New York, findin' that in the printin' up top o' the letter. And it makes reference to the sum o' forty thousand dollars invested by Reuben Wallace in his business. There's more in it,' says he; 'but that's the principal thing.'
"And he got up and stood thar, shakin' his head and lookin' as if a feather'd knock him down. And, says he, 'if this means anything at all, Ichabod, it means an awful lot! It means that Reuben Wallace was worth forty thousand dollars at the time of his death, and that that forty thousand dollars was invested with this New York coal merchant. Thar's one thing fer us to do, Ichabod,' says he, 'and that's to write to this man in New York and see what's the meanin' of all this 'ere! That's a simple thing, and I'll do it,' says he. 'I'll do it, this minute.' And down he sot and begun to write; and when he'd got done with that air old letter, I put it back into my pocket ag'in.
"And," pursued Ichabod, whose voice had grown shrill as ever, in excitement, "I come away and I set to lookin' ye up, to tell ye every word Mr. Doolittle said—every word. And I've been pretty nigh all over the town, and was jest thinkin' o' startin' up thar to the Browns, when I see ye."
Ichabod mopped his face and head with his handkerchief.
Trudy stood still, in a dazed condition, which allowed her neither to move nor speak; but Mrs. Scott, who had listened with close attention, though finding it hard to understand a tale which, for her, had begun in the middle, asked, with practical interest:
"And what is the name of the coal merchant in whose hands this money is placed?"
"Angus Pritchard," replied Ichabod, nodding his head several times.
He drew the letter from his pocket.
"Here 'tis, down to the bottom. Angus Pritchard, that's what 'tis."
"Angus Pritchard!" Mrs. Scott repeated, in a voice of utter amazement; and Rosalie stood now as stock still as Trudy. "Angus Pritchard is my husband's uncle—yes, and a coal merchant in New York. And he is at the Bellevue Hotel at this moment!"