The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove Part 13

The Rushton boys, left alone, got out pen and paper and prepared to send the momentous news to their family at Oldtown.

Up to now, letters to their Uncle Aaron had been rather hard to write.

Sometimes they had been little notes of thanks for presents sent to them at Christmas or on birthdays. Often--much too often--they had been apologies that their parents had forced them to write for some piece of mischief that had offended their uncle. He had usually been so crusty and had so obviously resented the fact that they had ever been born to cause him trouble, that they had usually approached the task of writing with the feeling of martyrs.

This time it was different. Mr. Aaron Rushton, though by no means a miser, was sufficiently fond of money, and took great care to get all that was rightfully his. Therefore the boys knew that the letter, telling of the bare possibility of getting back such a large sum, would be very welcome.

"I'd like to see his face when he reads it," chuckled Teddy. "By the way, Fred, who shall write it, you or I?"

"You do it," said Fred. "He's always been sorer at you than he has at me, and this will help square you with him. While you're doing that, I'll write a line to mother."

"Think of me writing a letter to him that really pleases him!" laughed Teddy. "It will be the first time in my life."

"We really have an awful lot to thank Uncle Aaron for, although he didn't think he was doing us a favor," replied his brother. "If it hadn't been for his insisting on it, we wouldn't have gone to Rally Hall, we wouldn't have met Bill and Lester, and we wouldn't have had the glorious times we've had so far this summer."

"And you wouldn't have thrashed Andy Shanks," grinned Teddy. "Don't forget that when you're counting up the advantages."

"It was a satisfaction," grinned Fred. "But go ahead now with that letter, or we won't get through by the time Bill and Lester come back."

Thus adjured, Teddy set to work. He wrote at first of ordinary matters, keeping the tidbit till the last. When he came to that he wrote exultingly, telling in glowing terms all they had found out and all that they hoped to find in the future.

"Don't forget to tell him how Ross and his mother appreciate the way he's acted toward them," suggested Fred, himself busy on the letter to his mother.

"I'm glad you reminded me of that," said Teddy, making the addition. "I was so wrapped up in the rest of it that I'd have surely forgotten that."

At last both letters were finished and stamped ready for mailing.

"There!" remarked Teddy, with a sigh of relief, "I'll wager there'll be some little excitement at home when they read that letter."

"If only we can follow it up with another one later on, telling that we have actually found the chest of gold!" said Fred.

"If we do, you'll have the pleasure of writing it," declared Teddy.

"Turn about is fair play."

It was late on the following day when the letters reached the Rushton home. The head of the house had not yet returned from his office in the city, and the only people in the house, besides Martha, the colored cook, were Mrs. Rushton and Mr. Aaron Rushton.

The latter had been detained at home by an attack of neuralgia, and was in a bad temper. At his best, he could never be called a congenial companion, but when to his naturally surly disposition neuralgia was added, he became simply intolerable. Mrs. Rushton's nerves had been worn to a frazzle by having him around, and it was almost with a hysterical feeling of relief that she pounced upon the letters that Martha brought in. There were several, but that from Fred was on top.

"A letter from Fred!" she exclaimed delightedly, as she recognized the writing. "I wonder what the dear boys are doing."

"Doing everybody, probably," said her brother-in-law gloomily.

"Especially that boy Teddy. He's either in mischief or he's sick."

"Now, Aaron, you oughtn't to talk that way about Teddy," protested Mrs.

Rushton, bridling in defence of her offspring. "There are plenty of worse boys than Teddy in the world."

"Maybe, but I never met them," retorted Aaron Rushton.

"He has a great, big heart," went on Teddy's mother.

"His gall has impressed me more than any other bodily organ he owns,"

was the reply. Evidently Mr. Aaron Rushton's temper had a razor edge that day.

"You forgot how he got back your watch and papers," Mrs. Rushton indignantly reminded him.

"I don't forget that if it hadn't been for him I wouldn't have lost them," snapped Aaron. "Who was it that hit the horse with a ball and caused the runaway that might have cost me my life? Who was it that painted Jed Muggs' team red, white and blue on the Fourth of July? Who was it that nearly caused a panic on the common, when he set those mice loose among the women?"

Mrs. Rushton knew only too well who it was, and she took refuge in generalities.

"He's just the dearest boy, anyway," she declared defiantly. "He's fond of mischief like all boys of his age, but he never did a mean or dishonorable thing in his life. And didn't I hear you tell Mr. Barrett once, just after you got your papers back, that your nephews were the finest boys in Oldtown?"

"If I did, I must have been out of my mind," growled Aaron, as a twinge of neuralgia made him wince. "But I'll admit that the boys are angels.

Heaven forgive me for lying. Go ahead and read your letter."

But Mrs. Rushton had already torn the envelope open and was deep in the reading of its contents.

"Why," she remarked, after a paragraph or two, "Fred says here that Teddy was writing a letter to you at the same time. I wonder if it's among these," and she turned over the other letters in her lap. "Oh, here it is, sure enough," she added as she saw Teddy's scrawling writing.

Aaron Rushton himself was somewhat startled at the unusual occurrence.

"For me?" he growled, reaching for it. "What has he been doing to me now that he has to apologize for?"

"That's not a nice thing to say," protested Mrs. Rushton. "Can't a boy write to his own uncle without having an apology to make?"

"Not Teddy," said Aaron with conviction.

He took the letter and tore the envelope with studied indifference, to conceal his real curiosity.

The first few paragraphs dealt with ordinary topics, and he pa.s.sed them over quickly. Then the letter seemed to grip him. He read with ever increasing excitement, while Mrs. Rushton watched him wonderingly. He finished it at last and leaped to his feet with an exulting exclamation.

"Eureka!" he shouted. "Those boys are wonders!"

CHAPTER XIII

AN EXCITING CONFERENCE

Mrs. Rushton gasped with astonishment. It was an unusual thing for Aaron Rushton to let himself go in this manner.

"Why, what on earth is the matter?" she asked.

"Matter enough!" replied Aaron, beginning to pace the floor. "The best news I've heard for years!"

"Has any one left you a legacy?" she queried, not knowing of anything else that could cause him such joyous emotion.

"No such luck as that," he replied, "but it may amount to the same thing in the long run."