The Carter Girls Part 25

"One thing sho," grumbled Susan, who had the customary bad humor of the Sunday morning cook, "th'ain't no use'n a clock up'n in this here camp.

Whin you gits through with breakfast, it's time ter begin dinner."

CHAPTER XX.

THE WALLET.

"Did you sleep?"

"Like a top!"

"Bad dreams?" and Dr. Wright felt the pulse of the healthy looking patient, who, with the help of Gwen, had donned a very becoming boudoir cap and negligee, two articles of clothing that she had brought to camp in spite of the jeerings of her sisters, who did not see how they could be used. Helen had not had an illness since she was a child and had her tonsils out, and certainly a camp was no place to sport a filmy lace cap and a negligee of pale blue silk and lace.

"It is almost worth while having a sn--having a sprained ankle just to prove to my sisters that I was wise in bringing this cap and sacque,"

she had laughingly told Gwen, who was a.s.sisting her. "I bet snake bite is going to come popping out of my mouth, w.i.l.l.y nilly," she said to herself. "I almost gave it away that time."

Gwen, who loved pretty things and scented from afar the admiration Dr.

Wright was beginning to hold for Helen, considered it very wise to have brought the dainty garments. She could not help thinking, with something akin to bitterness, of her own yellow cotton night gowns that Aunt Mandy considered superfluous articles of clothing; and of the coa.r.s.e, gray flannel bed-sacque she had worn the summer before when she had caught the measles from Josh; and of how she must have looked when the old country doctor came to see her.

The tent was tidy and sweet when George Wright entered to see how his patient fared. Gwen had spread the steamer rugs over the cots and had even placed a bunch of honeysuckle on the little table at Helen's bedside. She had had to purloin the table from Miss Somerville's cabin, but that lady was willing to give up more than a table for her favorite young cousin.

Helen blushed a little when the young man asked her if she had had any bad dreams. The fact was she had had very pleasant dreams in which he had largely figured. She had dreamed that Josephus had turned into Pegasus and that, as she flew along on his shapely back, she had met Dr.

Wright floating by on a white cloud and he had wanted to feel her pulse.

She had put out her hand and as he felt her pulse, he had jumped from the white cloud square onto the back of Pegasus, and together they rode through the air, the winged horse looking kindly on them with much the benevolent expression of Josephus.

"No, my dreams were pleasant," she smiled.

Dr. Wright certainly took a long time to feel any one's pulse, but the truth was that he had forgotten to count, so taken up he was with the fact that pale blue was quite as becoming to Helen as gray with a dash of scarlet. I think if he had felt his own pulse, he would have been astonished at how far from normal his heart beats were at that moment.

"I have brought you the wallet from the Devil's Gorge. Here it is for you to open!"

"Oh, Dr. Wright! Is that where you were going when Gwen saw you so early this morning?"

"Yes!"

"I think you are very good to take that tramp for Gwen," she said, taking the bulky wallet in her hand.

"I didn't take it for Gwen, but for you." Gwen had left the tent for a moment.

"But you would have done it for Gwen, I am sure."

"Yes, of course, but perhaps not on an empty stomach," laughed the doctor. "But why don't you open the pocketbook?"

"Because it is Gwen's! She must be the one to open it."

"But you are not sure it is hers. I brought it for you to have the pleasure of opening it."

"Yes, I am sure it is hers, and I'd take more pleasure in seeing her open it than doing it myself."

Just then Gwen returned with a pitcher of fresh water. Helen held up the wallet and said:

"Did you ever see this before?"

Gwen turned pale and her steady little hands, that could usually carry a br.i.m.m.i.n.g cup of coffee safely to its destination without once slopping over, shook so that she spilled the water from the pitcher.

"Oh, Miss Helen! Where did you find it?"

"Never mind now where we found it! You open it and see if you can identify it," said Helen kindly. She realized that Gwen was to have excitement enough in opening this wallet of her father's, lost as it had been for five years, without having to picture, as she would surely do, his death, the fall from the cliff and this pocketbook slipping from his coat and lodging in the tree.

The wallet was evidently an expensive one: alligator skin lined with Russian leather. The silver clasp was rusty and Gwen's trembling hands could hardly force the sliding catch, but Helen motioned for Dr. Wright not to a.s.sist her. She felt, somehow, that the girl would rather do it all herself. They were silent while the little English girl fumbled the lock and finally sprung it. The wallet was stuffed full of papers and letters. In one compartment was some silver, several gold pieces and some English coins. The papers were yellow with age, but so stout was the alligator skin that the many rains that must have fallen during the five years the wallet had been wedged in that scrub oak's branches, had not wet them nor defaced them.

"Be very careful, Gwen, there may be all kinds of precious doc.u.ments in there," exclaimed Helen, as some of the papers floated to the floor of the tent and some fluttered to her own cot.

Gwen had sunk to the floor in a little heap and was sobbing.

"I can remember so well how my father used to open up this pocketbook and pore over these letters. I was never allowed to touch it. He kept his money in it and receipts and things."

"Look, here is a receipt for one thousand dollars in cash payment for land!" exclaimed Helen, as a yellow slip of paper fell on her coverlet.

The paper was written in a bold black hand so that any one might read it:

Received payment from St. John Brownell for 100 acres of land at Greendale, Albemarle County, Va. $1,000 in cash.

(Signed) ABNER DEAN.

The signature was in violet ink and very shaky. Helen recognized it as old Dean's writing, as when he sent up any produce to the camp from his store at Greendale, it had been her duty to go over the bill which invariably accompanied the goods.

"Why, Gwen, Gwen! That old wretch has cheated you out of your land! Do you know, he handed over to Father, for money he owed him, land that did not belong to him, and this minute our camp is built on your property?"

Helen was very much excited, and as for Gwen,--she was pale and trembling. "I'd like to get up out of this bed and go horse-whip him----"

"Please, can I do it for you?" from the doctor. "But wouldn't it be better to get a lawyer to take the matter up and have the thing legally adjusted?"

"We-e-ll, ye-s! Maybe---- But I'd certainly like to make that old man suffer some. Wouldn't you, Gwen?" But the little English girl was so busy sorting the papers that had fallen from her father's old wallet that she did not hear.

"What is that in the back of the pocketbook where the other fastening is?" asked the doctor.

"Money and more money! Why, Gwen, look at the bills!"

Helen was right. In a neat and orderly manner in yet another closed compartment of the wallet were placed greenbacks and yellowbacks of high denominations. The girls feverishly counted out $1,500.

"No wonder it was so fat! We had better not say anything about having all this money in camp. It ought to be in the bank, Gwen, as it might be stolen from you. Dr. Wright will deposit it for you in Richmond and you can draw on it as you need."

Gwen handed over the bills to the young man without a moment's delay.

"Wait now, let's count it again to make sure, and I will give you a receipt for the amount."

"Oh, that's not necessary, is it, Miss Helen?"