Chapter XXVIII: Uncle Silas, the Wizard

“Hello! there! Merry Christmas to you, Dick, old chum!” exclaimed Leslie, as he pushed in through the door as soon as it was opened. “Here’s a little something I know you’ve been wanting this long while.”

“Oh, my stars! a pair of dandy hockey skates!” gasped the astonished Dick, as he tore the paper from the package that had been thrust into his hands. “You’ve just about knocked me silly, Leslie, for a fact. And my present to you is such a little one, too.”

“Little!” echoed the other, holding up the book he had taken from its wrappings. “Why, I’ve been meaning to get this for over half a year. And the best of it is you earned every cent it cost, while I had most of my money from my folks. It’s worth ten times as much as what I paid for the skates, every time, and don’t you forget it.”

“The finest skates I ever saw,” said Dick, joyously, as he again examined his present. “I can see what bully times I’ll have this winter--that is of nights, after I get home from work.”

“Oh! rats! don’t say that as if you meant it, Dick. If you leave school I’ll never have the heart to keep on to graduation time. You know how we planned to stick together through thick and thin. I’ll ask dad to let me start working, too, see if I don’t.”

“That would be silly of you,” Dick told him. “But let’s try to forget it all, for one more day. Time enough to bother when tomorrow comes.”

“What’s this I see!” exclaimed Leslie, humorously. “Five stockings hung up in a row; and here’s little Susie beginning to look into hers, after she’s done staring at the gay tree. What luck did you have, Dick?”

“Oh! I hadn’t thought to look yet,” admitted the other. “In fact, I overslept, and had just gone into the kitchen to see if I could help mother with breakfast when you knocked on the door.”

He stepped over to the mantel, gave the fire some attention to start it to burning briskly again, and was about to take hold of the stocking that had been hung up for him when he stopped short.

Something was peeping above the one his mother had hung up for herself, and into which Dick had managed to cram the present he had purchased for her. It looked like a formidable document to Dick too, and somehow the sight of it gave him a cold shiver, as though he feared new developments that might mean more trouble.

“I wonder what it is,” he muttered, uneasily; and then overcome by curiosity, he reached forth his hand, and boldly drew the document out.

Leslie too leaned forward as Dick gazed at the paper which he now knew Uncle Silas must have placed there after all the rest had retired.

“Oh, my stars!” ejaculated Leslie, shrilly. “It’s a real Government bond, don’t you see, Dick, with your mother’s full name on it, and for--why, I must be dreaming--_ten thousand dollars_!”

Dick uttered a loud cry that seemed to come from the depths of his overcharged heart. As if the shout had been a signal to draw them, the little mother came hurrying in from the kitchen, while grandpop made his appearance, cane in hand, his room being close at hand.

“What’s the matter, Dick?” questioned Mrs. Horner, looking deeply interested.

“Leslie fetched you a present, did he?” demanded the veteran as his eyes fell upon the glistening hockey skates lying neglected now on the table.

Dick could not say a word, but he thrust the wonderful paper into the hands of his mother. Her eyes drank in the printed form on the outside, with her name plainly inscribed as the owner of the bond.

“What does it mean, Son?” she asked, weakly. “I don’t seem able to understand.”

“Why, it’s a Christmas present for you, Mrs. Horner, from Uncle Silas,” explained Leslie, only too desirous of making immediate amends for all his base suspicions of the past. “He’s waited his time, and sprung the greatest surprise I ever heard of on you all. Bully for Uncle Silas, I say; _he’s_ all right!”

“What’s this you’re saying about me?” asked a voice, and the wanderer appeared in view, his weather-beaten face wreathed in a broad smile of happiness and contentment. “They say listeners never hear any good of themselves. Tell me to my face if you dare.”

Polly looked at him almost helplessly. Then she raised the precious Government bond, with the magic figures printed upon it.

“What--where--how--oh! Silas, how could you deceive us so, and let us believe you poor and homeless, when you were a rich man all the while?”

Thereupon Uncle Silas gathered the little woman into his arms, and, kissing her fondly, went on to solve the mystery.

“Well,” he proceeded to explain, seeing that they were all consumed with natural curiosity, “after losing three fortunes through being too greedy, I finally got hold of a claim that I sold for fifty thousand dollars cash. By that time I was in fact broken in health, so I firmly determined to hunt up any relatives I might have left, and if they proved to be the right sort, stay with them the balance of my life, leaving them all I had in return.”

“And you were playing a sly game on us all the while, you rogue!” remarked the old veteran, as he grasped the wanderer’s extended hand, and squeezed it heartily.

“Can you blame me in one way?” demanded Uncle Silas. “I wanted to be very sure that I was being received for myself alone, and not because I was worth that much money. Of course, I soon learned that there were hearts of true gold under this humble roof, and that I would never be allowed to leave it. But it pleased me to persist in my assumed role until this happy morning came.”

“And true enough, as you said, ‘weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning!’” cried Mrs. Horner, with her sisterly arms about his neck. “Surely the clouds did not last long, and the dawn seems all the more beautiful because of that letter yesterday.”

“It’s the greatest Christmas that ever was!” cried Dick, as he too hung on to the hand of Uncle Silas. “How glad I am to know that after all I needn’t give up my schooling yet.”

“You are a fine lad, and I’m proud to have you for my nephew,” said Uncle Silas, heartily. “Please Heaven you shall go to college, and find your true place in a world that needs just such fellows as you. There will be no reason for any of the dear ones under this roof to face want again, for I have enough for all, and what is mine is yours. You offered me a home when you believed me poor and sick. I have proved your hearts by deeds; after this we will find true happiness together here.”

Dick could hardly eat a morsel of breakfast, he was so excited. Several times he even asked Leslie, who stayed to the meal with them, to pinch him, for he felt he really must be dreaming, and that on being aroused the amazing event would prove to be only an illusion.

But the sight of that wonderful Government bond on the mantel always gave him renewed hope and strengthened his wavering faith.

“After all, I guess this has been a glorious day for you, old fellow,” Leslie was saying, as he donned his outer coat, and prepared to run over home so as to carry the delightful news.

“I never saw the sky look so blue before in all my life,” the other boy admitted. “And listen to the church bells ringing, will you? It seems to me they must know all that’s happened here, and are singing just as my heart’s doing right now. I’m the happiest fellow in Cliffwood; and I ought to get out so as to try to make some other chap feel a little the same way by doing him a good turn.”

“My mother will be just tickled half to death,” asserted Leslie. “She’s been doing little save talk about your trouble ever since I told her, trying to figure out how she could help you all without offending you. I just can’t stay any longer because I want to tell her the big news. Hurrah for Uncle Silas, say I! He’s turned out to be a regular trump! And how he did fool me in the bargain!”

With that Leslie hurried away, only turning to wave his hand at his chum, and shout out:

“Everything’s headed your way at last, Dick; and I bet you five cents against a cookey that fine farce of yours is bound to take the prize Mr. Holwell’s offering. Nat may try all he wants, but he can’t fight against such luck as has set in toward the Horners. Mark my words, will you?”

Dick only laughed in reply as he closed the door, and once more went in to make sure the amazing paper still stood there on the mantel in the living room. If he took it in his hands and examined the precious document once that morning, he did a dozen times; though finally Mrs. Horner thought it best to place it securely away in a receptacle where she kept the few little valuables she possessed.

Toward the middle of the morning, Dick, remembering his new hockey skates, managed to tear himself away from the little house where so much happiness was concentrated, and go forth to seek the big pond, with the intention of testing the steel runners.

And during that day the boy sought and found some fellow who had been utterly forgotten by the patron saint of Christmas, upon whom he bestowed his other skates, as well as something in the shape of money. Dick’s heart was overflowing with gratitude for the amazing good fortune that had come to his home; and this, according to his mind, was the only way in which he could pass the good cheer along.