Chapter XX: The Deacon Surrenders

When Mrs. Nocker said this, both the boys fastened their eyes on the old deacon, knowing what a severe shock the news must be to him. He stared hard at the young woman as though the staggering truth found some difficulty in penetrating his mind.

“Billy--you, his mother, belonging to my son Amos. I surely must be dreaming, girl! Why, that would give the child to me--his grandfather!”

Mr. Nocker jerked these fragments of sentences out as though trying hard to comprehend it all. His gaze wandered from the eager and pretty face of Tilly to the little fellow held in her arms.

“No, sir, Billy belongs to _me_, and nothing can separate him from his own mother,” she told him plainly. “Where I go he goes too; where Amos’ wife is not welcome, Billy can never find a home, sir. That would be as Amos must have wished if he had lived.”

The deacon saw the point. He knew that he had been worsted in the game, and perhaps, to tell the truth, the old man was not sorry, because he had been engaged in a losing fight for a long while, struggling against his better nature.

“That was a clincher!” muttered Dick, exultantly.

“You just bet it was,” said Leslie, under his breath. “Look at the way he fixes his eyes on Billy, will you? There, the little chap is holding out both hands to his grandfather. Can he resist that, do you think? Well, I guess nixey.”

Indeed, a grim smile was spreading over the strong features of Deacon Nocker. He was a man who had seldom been beaten in any business enterprise that had engaged his attention, so that the sensation of losing was no doubt rather novel to him. Strange to say, he acted as if he rather enjoyed it. To yield to such an antagonist as little Billy brought pleasure in its train.

He opened wide his arms, and gathered both mother and child in his embrace. And some of the good people of Cliffwood, standing respectfully near by, including Mr. Holwell, the minister, believed they saw Deacon Nocker shedding tears for the first time on record; but they were tears of joy.

Dick heaved a great sigh of relief.

“It’s all over but the shouting,” said Leslie, with one hand shielding his eyes from the dazzling light of the burning house; though Dick knew very well there was another reason for his doing this, because Leslie had a tender heart.

“And,” said a voice close to the two boys, “I want to congratulate you both on the splendid success of your grand scheme. I was telling Mrs. Holwell this very evening, as we sat in my study after supper, that I really began to see a great change coming over our old friend here. The secret is plainly revealed; his love for little Billy has worked wonders in his heart.”

In fact, Mr. Nocker looked supremely happy as he stood there with his new-found treasures held tight in his arms. He even deigned to kiss Tilly several times, as though already he had found out his mistake in refusing to see her at the time he wrote that cruel letter.

“You will never be separated from Billy while I live,” he was telling her. “My house is big and contains many costly things but when this manly little chap comes to bring sunshine into my lonely life it will hold the greatest treasure of all.”

“Those words do you credit, Deacon Nocker,” said Mr. Holwell, unable to resist letting the old man know how he appreciated his change of heart.

“Ah! are you there, sir?” exclaimed the other, reaching out a hand to the good man. “Then let me publicly say this: I made one terrible mistake in my life in trying to raise my boy by rod and rule alone. Please Heaven, with this dear grandchild, love is going to enter into the scheme. This confession is the only poor expiation I can make to poor Amos.”

He suddenly seemed to remember the two boys, for turning to Dick he went on to say:

“What do I not owe you, Dick Horner, and Leslie Capes, for your gallant conduct in saving these dear ones from a cruel death? After this hour I shall see boys in a different light from the past. Oh! I have been blind and foolish, wilfully so, but the boys of Cliffwood will never have occasion to look upon Jed Nocker as their enemy after this. I am a changed man.”

He shook their hands almost fiercely. Indeed, Leslie writhed under the pressure of those, bony digits of the excited deacon, and rubbed his crushed fingers for several minutes afterwards. This was the more singular because hitherto Mr. Nocker had been one of those cold men whose hand was apt to feel flabby when extended in greeting. He was certainly a changed man.

“I wonder what he’ll say,” remarked Leslie, a little later, as they stood and watched the fire laddies work like troopers in trying to save a part of the burning structure, “when they tell him what a big deal you engineered, Dick.”

“As how?” demanded the other, though doubtless he could give a pretty good guess.

“Why, about setting up Tilly in housekeeping in the old Brandon place, just so Billy could wander over, and get a grip on his granddaddy’s affections,” explained Leslie, with a chuckle.

“Oh! as far as that goes,” said Dick, instantly, with his usual generosity, “it strikes me a fellow named Leslie Capes is about as deep in the mire as I am in the mud.”

“Get out!” scoffed the other, indignantly. “Didn’t your mother send for Tilly to come to her house; and wasn’t this scheme pretty much your invention?”

“Yes,” admitted Dick, “but how about the way you joined in with me? Tell me what I could have done without your help? Didn’t you interest your Uncle Henry in the game, so as to make him put up all the money needed to hire this house for Tilly and her boy, so they could be right next door to Mr. Nocker?”

Leslie laughed. To tell the truth it pleased the boy to know that Dick considered him a worthy partner. And it was just like Dick to want to share and share alike with a chum, no matter if he himself had done most of the work.

Meanwhile, the greedy flames fought hard to eat up the rest of the house, and as there was difficulty in getting a sufficient supply of water for the fire engine, at times it looked as though only a heap of ruins would be left.

Hen Hess, the blacksmith, who acted as foreman to the volunteer department, knew how to go about blocking the progress of the flames, however, and the wind changing helped him considerably.

Inside of half an hour, by furious work, the gallant fire-fighters had managed to head off the flames, and it looked as though the front half of the house might be saved.

“I heard one man say the old rookery was insured for almost its full value, anyway,” Dick told several of the boys who stood there with him; “so the owner isn’t going to lose much.”

“Mebbe he’ll take advantage of the opportunity to put up a decent modern building on the grounds,” suggested Elmer Jones.

“I heard Mr. Nocker say he had a good notion to buy the place in,” remarked Phil Harkness. “He even laughed when he explained that his family was getting so big now he would want more ground; and then Billy had kind of got used to this Brandon place too. Say, I have to rub my eyes when I hear that man laugh as he does now.”

“Sure thing,” echoed Peg Fosdick. “Why, before this it used to make me shiver to hear him chuckle; but now he shakes all over. And would you believe it, he actually turned and grabbed hands with me when I stumbled into him by accident. Whee! the old world must be coming to an end when Jed Nocker’ll do such a thing as that.”

Dick found himself yawning. Now that all the excitement had died down, and the three people in whom he was so deeply interested had gone over to the Nocker house, with the fire also well under control, the boy was feeling a reaction setting in.

“Me for home and my comfy bed!” said Leslie, also gaping in sympathy. “If you feel of the same mind, Dick, let’s be trotting along.”

Accordingly, they turned their backs on the smouldering fire, where the volunteer department still worked industriously. On the way home it was only natural that the two chums should discuss the late occurrence, and its successful ending.

“Tilly looked happy enough,” Leslie was remarking as they stood for a minute on the corner where their roads separated, both somehow a little loath to say good night.

“Well, why shouldn’t she?” laughed Dick, happily. “The future of Billy was made certain, and with old Mr. Nocker as changed as he is, any little mother might be glad to have him for a father-in-law. I’m wild to tell my folks all about it. Mother will be so delighted, I know.”

“And wasn’t Mr. Holwell pleased, too?” continued Leslie, reflectively. “I guess he hardly understands what has happened to crabbed Deacon Nocker.”

“Oh! yes he does,” stoutly asserted Dick. “Mr. Holwell makes a study of human nature. He knows boys from the ground up, and sour old men as well. He told mother that love alone could redeem Jed Nocker.”

“And I reckon it has,” asserted Leslie.

“Well,” said Dick, as the other turned away, “I’m right glad I’ve got that thing out of my system, anyhow.”

“Yes,” Leslie called back over his shoulder, “and now the next job on hand that is going to take up _my_ attention is to investigate a certain gentleman who bears some earmarks of being an impostor. Never mind answering back, Dick. Good night!”