"And you don"t think of starving yet, eh, Andy?"
"I"ll wait a bit. But why didn"t I know before?"
"Sit down, and I"ll tell you all about it."
So Andy heard the account, which need not be repeated.
"Now," continued the doctor, "I"ll tell you what plan I have for you.
Mr. Graves wants to take a boy into his store who will buy an interest in the business and become his partner. He thinks well of you, and is willing to take you. What do you say?"
"I"ll do whatever you think best, doctor."
"Then I think this is a good opening for you. Mr. Graves wants to retire from business before long. Probably by the time you are twenty-one he will leave everything in your hands. You will be paid weekly wages and perhaps be ent.i.tled to a portion of the profits--more than enough to support you all comfortably. What do you say? Shall we have a new firm in the village?
"GRAVES & BURKE."
Andy"s eyes sparkled with proud antic.i.p.ation. It was so far above any dream he had ever formed.
"It"s what I"d like above all things," he said. "Oh, what will mother say? I must go and tell her."
"Go, by all means, Andy, and when you have told her, come back, and I"ll go over with you to Mr. Graves" store, and we"ll talk over the arrangements with him."
Mrs. Burke"s delight at her own success and that of Andy may be imagined. She, too, had been getting despondent, and it seemed almost like a fairy tale to find herself the owner of a house, and her boy likely to be taken into partnership with the princ.i.p.al trader in the village. She invoked blessings on the memory of Colonel Preston, through whose large-hearted generosity this had come to pa.s.s, but could not help speculating on what Mrs. Preston would say. She understood very well that she would be very angry.
Mrs. Preston did not dispute the will. She might have done so, but for her fear that her own criminal act would be brought to light. G.o.dfrey, who was even more disturbed than she was at the success of "that low Irish boy," begged her to do it, but in this case she did not yield to his entreaties. She had never dared to take him into confidence respecting her destruction of the other will.
While we are upon this subject, we may as well trace out the future career of Mrs. Preston. Some years later she was induced, by the expectation of aiding her social standing, to marry an adventurer who appeared to be doing a flourishing business as a State Street broker.
By spurious representations, he managed to get hold of her property, and to be appointed G.o.dfrey"s guardian. The result may be foreseen. He managed to spend or waste the whole and when G.o.dfrey was twenty-one, he and his mother were penniless. Andy, who was now sole representative of the firm of Graves & Burke, and in receipt of an excellent income, heard of the misfortunes of his old enemy, and out of regard to the memory of his old benefactor voluntarily offered Mrs.
Preston an allowance of five hundred dollars. It cost her pride a great deal to accept this favor from the boy she had looked down upon as "only an Irish boy," but her necessity was greater than her pride, and she saw no other way of escaping the poorhouse. So she ungraciously accepted. But Andy did not care for thanks. He felt that he was doing his duty, and he asked no other reward than that consciousness. Mrs. Preston was allowed to make her home, rent free, in Mrs. Burke"s old house, Andy having built a better and more commodious one, in which he had installed his mother as mistress. Mrs.
Preston grew old fast, in appearance, and fretted without ceasing for the fortune and position which she had lost. Her husband left her, and has not since been heard of. As for G.o.dfrey, Andy secured him a pa.s.sage to California, where he led a disreputable life. There is a rumor that he was killed in a drunken brawl at Sacramento not long since, but I have not been able to learn whether this is true or not.
His loss of fortune had something to do with his going to the bad, but I am afraid, with his character and tendencies, that neither in prosperity nor in adversity would he have built up a good character, or led an honorable career. His course had been, in all respects, far different from that of our hero, who, already prosperous, seems likely to go on adding to his wealth, and growing in the esteem of the best portion of the community. His success, aided, indeed, by good fortune, has served to demonstrate the favorable effects of honesty, industry, and good principles, upon individual success. He is not the first, nor will he be the last, to achieve prosperity and the respect of the community, though beginning life as "only an Irish boy."
THE END