CHAPTER XXV
WHEN CARL CAME HOME--CONCLUSION
Amasa Culpepper had taken advantage of the absence of Carl to drop around that afternoon to see the widow. He fully believed that by this time Dock Phillips had either destroyed or lost the paper he claimed to have found; or else Amasa felt that he could secure possession of it at any time by paying the sum the boy demanded.
When Carl drew near his home he saw the well-known rig of the old lawyer and grocer at the gate. Somehow, the sight gave Carl an unpleasant feeling. Then, as his hand unconsciously went up to the pocket where he had that precious paper, he felt a sensation of savage joy.
They would get rid of this nuisance at last. Mr. Culpepper would have to produce the certificate for the oil shares that had become so valuable, now that the receipt he had given for it could be produced, and after that an era of prosperity would come to the Oskamp"s, with grim poverty banished forever.
Carl entered by the gate, and pa.s.sed around the side of the house instead of using the front door as usual.
The boy knew that the windows of the little sitting room must be open, and of course the afternoon caller would be in there. Carl was anxious to hear what had caused the rich old man to don his best clothes and drop in to see his mother of an afternoon, though he strongly suspected the reason back of it.
It did not strike the boy that he was playing the part of an eavesdropper, for in his mind just then the end justified the means.
And he knew that Amasa Culpepper had to be fought with his own weapons.
Evidently he must have again asked Mrs. Oskamp to marry him, and as before met with a laughing refusal, for Carl could hear him walking nervously up and down in the little sitting room.
Having exhausted his stock of arguments as to why she should think seriously of his proposal, Mr. Culpepper seemed to be getting angry. He had been courting the widow for a long time without making any impression on her heart. It was time to change his tactics. Perhaps since entreaties had failed something in the way of half-veiled threats would become more successful.
"You tell me that with the burning of the tenement building more than half of your little property has been lost," Carl heard him saying as he crouched there under the open window.
"Yes, that is the sad truth, Mr. Culpepper," the widow admitted.
"But with a family of children to bring up how are you going to live from now on, when before this happened you had barely enough? If you would seriously consider the proposition I make you, and become Mrs.
Culpepper, your children would have a good home."
"That is very generous of you, Mr. Culpepper," Carl heard his mother say, while he fairly held his breath in suspense for fear she might agree to what the other asked; "but I cannot change my mind. I never expect to marry again."
"But how can you get along, I want to know?" he demanded, angrily. "It takes money to live, and you will see the children you love suffer."
"There is one resource still left," she told him, as though urged to put him to the test. "It lies in those shares of oil stock which you are holding for me. They have become very valuable, and when I dispose of them I hope to have enough and to spare for all future needs."
There was a brief and awkward silence.
"But what evidence is there," he finally asked icily, "that you ever placed any shares of stock in my hand, or even so, that they were not delivered to you again? Of course you can show my name at the bottom of a receipt if that is the fact?"
"Is that absolutely necessary, Mr. Culpepper?" she asked, helplessly.
"It is strictly business, madam," the visitor went on, in his cold, cutting tones that were like the rasping of a file. "I could not think of handing over anything of value that was in my possession without receiving in return a receipt."
"But you would not be so cruel as to deprive my children of their bread simply because of a little technicality, sir? I will do anything the law demands to insure that you are not held liable whether the lost receipt is ever found again or not."
"There is only one thing you can do," continued Mr. Culpepper, eagerly, "that will cause me to waive my rights, and you know what that is.
Those are my only terms of surrender."
"That"s just where you"re a whole lot mistaken Mr. Culpepper!" cried Carl, unable to hold in any longer, and thrusting his head and shoulders through the open window as he spoke.
The widow gave a slight shriek, while Mr. Culpepper said something half under his breath that no doubt expressed his feelings.
"What do you mean by saying that?" he asked, in a voice that was unsteady.
"You made a statement that you"ll have to take water on," Carl told him with a broad smile on his face. "Listen! My mother will be down at your office to-morrow morning with Judge Beatty and myself, and she"ll demand that you deliver the paper that this receipt calls for!"
With that he held up the precious little paper so that those in the sitting room could see it. Mrs. Oskamp gave a bubbling cry of joy, while Amasa Culpepper, seizing his hat and stick, hurried out of the door, entered his buggy and whipped his horse savagely, as though glad to vent his ill humor on some animate object.
Carl was not another moment in climbing through the open window and gathering his mother in his strong arms. The whole story was told that evening with the younger children gathered around. Mrs. Oskamp sat there and felt her mother heart glow with pride as she heard how Carl had played his part in the exciting drama connected with the hike of the Boy Scouts.
"It seems as though some power over which you had no control must have led you on to the glorious success that came in the end," she told the happy Carl, after everything had been narrated. "With that paper in our hands we can have no further trouble in securing our property. But I shall feel that we owe something to Dock Phillips, and that it can only be repaid through kindness to his mother."
On the following day they took Judge Beatty, who was an old friend of Carl"s father, into their confidence, and the certificate of stock was promptly though grudgingly delivered to them on demand.
Amasa Culpepper knew that he had been fairly beaten in the game, and he annoyed Mrs. Oskamp no longer.
The oil shares turned out to be worth a large sum of money, and it placed the Oskamps beyond the reach of want.
Tom Chesney wrote his account of their great trip over big Bear Mountain, and, sure enough it did take the prize when submitted in compet.i.tion with numerous others to the magazine that had made the offer. Tom remembered his promise and sent copies of the story to Mr.
Clark, as well as to Mr. Henderson.
The last heard from Lenox the Boy Scouts were thriving famously. They expected to enjoy many an outing under the charge of the good-hearted scout master, Mr. Witherspoon, but some of the boys were of the opinion that there never could be just such a wonderful series of exciting adventures befall them as had accompanied the hike over Big Bear Mountain.
BOOKS FOR BOYS
By FRANK V. WEBSTER
ONLY A FARM BOY TOM, THE TELEPHONE BOY THE BOY FROM THE RANCH THE YOUNG TREASURER HUNTER BOB, THE CASTAWAY THE YOUNG FIREMEN OF LAKEVILLE THE NEWSBOY PARTNERS THE BOY PILOT OF THE LAKES THE TWO BOY GOLD MINERS JACK, THE RUNAWAY COMRADES OF THE SADDLE THE BOYS OF BELLWOOD SCHOOL THE HIGH SCHOOL RIVALS BOB CHESTER"S GRIT AIRSHIP ANDY DARRY, THE LIFE SAVER d.i.c.k, THE BANK BOY BEN HARDY"S FLYING MACHINE THE BOYS OF THE WIRELESS HARRY WATSON"S HIGH SCHOOL DAYS THE BOY SCOUTS OF LENOX TOM TAYLOR AT WEST POINT COWBOY DAVE THE BOYS OF THE BATTLESHIP JACK OF THE PONY EXPRESS
Cupples & Leon Co., Publishers, New York