“Oh, Andy!” she said, “I can’t consent to your exposing yourself to be injured by such wicked men. You must tell the Peabody girls you can’t go to the bank for them again.”
“I don’t think there’ll be any danger, mother, for we have caught the chief burglar, and the other man has run away.”
“There may be more of them,” said Mrs. Gordon, apprehensively1.
“Bring them along!” replied Andy, smiling. “I am ready for them!”
“I hope we shall never have another of those terrible men visit our village!” said his mother, with a shudder2.
“I don’t know about that, mother. I find it pays me. How much do you think the Peabodys are going to give me for my services?”
“Perhaps two dollars,” said Mrs. Gordon, looking at Andy in an inquiring way.
“Do you think two dollars would be pay enough for what I did, mother?”{136}
“No; but boys are not paid as much as men, even where they are entitled to it.”
“There’s nothing mean about the Peabodys, mother. They have promised me more than that.”
“Five dollars, perhaps.”
“You will have to multiply five by ten!” said Andy, triumphantly3.
“You don’t mean to say you are to have fifty dollars?” ejaculated Mrs. Gordon, quite overpowered by surprise.
“Yes, I do. Toward night I’ll go up and get the money. I didn’t want to take it along to the bank, for I might have had that stolen, too.”
“Certainly you are in luck, Andy,” said his mother. “With what came in your poor father’s wallet, we shall be very well off.”
“Especially as we shall not have old Starr’s note to pay. When do you expect the note to be presented?”
“Mr. Ross gave me a week to find the receipt.”
“And the week will be up to-morrow. Well, mother, we will be ready for him when he comes.”
At this moment Andy espied4 a letter on the mantelpiece. It was inclosed in a yellow envelope, and addressed in an irregular, tremulous handwriting to his mother.
“What letter is that, mother?” he asked.{137}
“I declare, Andy, I forgot to open it! Louis Schick brought it in an hour ago. He saw it at the post office, and knew you were away, so he brought it along.”
“Why didn’t you open it, mother? I thought ladies were always curious.”
“I was mixing bread at the time, and my hands were all over dough5, so I asked Louis to put it on the mantelpiece. When I got through with the bread I had forgotten all about the letter. I don’t know when I should have thought of it again if you hadn’t asked about it.”
“You’d better open it, mother. Of course boys are never curious. Still, I should like to know what is in it. It may be money, you know.”
From her work-basket Mrs. Gordon took a pair of scissors, and with them cut open the envelope. She drew out the letter, when, to the amazement6 of Andy and herself, a bank-note slipped out and fell upon the carpet.
“There is money inside, mother!” exclaimed our young hero, in surprise.
“How much is it?” asked his mother.
Andy stooped over and picked up the bank-note.
“Why, mother, it’s a fifty-dollar bill!” he exclaimed. “It looks genuine, too. There’s no humbug7 about it. Who can have sent us so much money?”{138}
Meanwhile, Mrs. Gordon had been looking to the end of the letter to discover who had written it.
“What’s his name, mother?”
“You never mentioned him to me,” said Andy.
“No; he had almost passed out of my recollection. Uncle Simon never wrote letters, and so it happens that, for twenty-five years, none of us have ever heard anything of him.”
“Read his letter, mother. Let us hear what the fifty dollars are for. Perhaps he wants you to lay it out for him.”
Mrs. Gordon began to read:
“My Dear Niece: It is so long since you have heard from me, that you may have forgotten you had an uncle Simon. I never cared for letter writing—thought, from time to time, I have wished that I could hear something of you and how you were prospering10. It is only with difficulty I have learned your address and gleaned11 a little knowledge of you.
“The way it happened was this: I met, last week, a peddler who had been traveling in your neighborhood. He had visited Hamilton, and I found he knew something about you. He{139} told me that you were poor, and that your good husband was dead, but that you were blessed in having a fine boy to be a help and comfort to you.”
Andy blushed when his mother read these words, and looked rather uncomfortable, as modest boys generally do when they hear themselves praised.
“As for me,” the letter proceeded, “I am getting to be an old man. I am seventy-five years old, and, though my health is good and our family is long-lived—my father lived to be eighty-four—I feel that I have not long to live. I have had the good fortune to accumulate considerable property, besides the farm upon which I am living; but in spite of this, I find myself in a very uncomfortable position. I must explain to you how this happens.
“I had an only daughter—Sarah—who was everything that a daughter should be. She was amiable12 and kind, and, if she were living, I should have no cause to complain.
“She married a man named Brackett, a painter by trade, and for a few years they lived in a small house in the village. But Brackett was a lazy and shiftless man, and every year I had to help him, till at last I thought it would be cheaper taking him into my house and letting him help me look after the farm. My wife had died and I was willing to tolerate him—though I never liked the man—for the sake of my daughter’s presence in{140} the house. Five years afterward13, Sarah died, but Brackett still remained. They had had no child that lived, and I should have liked then to have gotten rid of him, but it wasn’t easy.
“Two years later he married a sharp, ill-tempered woman, from the next town, and brought her to the house. That was ten years ago. I ought to have given him notice to quit, but at the time of the marriage I was sick, and when I got well the new wife seemed to have become the mistress of the establishment.
“I have never been comfortable since. There are four children by this marriage, and they overrun the house. I was weak enough, a few years ago, to make over the place to Brackett, and now he and his wife are persecuting14 me to make a will, bequeathing them the rest of my property. This I will never do. The man has no claim upon me, and I should not have given him the place. My other property amounts to about ten thousand dollars, though he doesn’t suspect it. I find myself watched, as a cat watches a mouse, lest I should dispose of my property away from them. I feel that I have not a friend in the house, and I am so old that I want one.
“Now, my dear niece, will you do me a favor? Send your boy to me, but let him take another name. I don’t want it known or suspected that he is related to me. Though he is young, he can help me to carry out a plan I{141} have in view, and to baffle my persecutors. I will take care that his services are recompensed. I enclose a fifty-dollar bill to pay his expenses out here.
“I am tired, and must close.
“Your old uncle,
Simon Dodge.
“P. S.—It will be a good idea to apply to Mr. Brackett for work—offering to come at very low wages. Brackett wants a boy, but he doesn’t want to pay more than fifty cents a week. Do not answer this letter, if you send your son, as Mr. Brackett would find out that I had received a letter from your neighborhood, and his suspicions would be aroused.”
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1
apprehensively
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| adv.担心地 | |
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2
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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3
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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4
espied
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| v.看到( espy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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5
dough
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| n.生面团；钱，现款 | |
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6
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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7
humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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8
buffalo
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| n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛 | |
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9
dodge
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| v.闪开，躲开，避开；n.妙计，诡计 | |
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10
prospering
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| 成功，兴旺( prosper的现在分词 ) | |
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11
gleaned
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| v.一点点地收集（资料、事实）( glean的过去式和过去分词 )；（收割后）拾穗 | |
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12
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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13
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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14
persecuting
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| （尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的现在分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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