Chapter V: Setting the Fox Trap

“That’s a queer thing you’re telling me, Dick!” was what Leslie Capes finally observed, scanning the face of his chum closely.

“After all it isn’t so very strange,” explained the other. “My mother once knew a Matilda Smith, and corresponded with her for some years. She married and was Tilly’s mother, it turned out, and Tilly is the girl Amos Nocker married. So among her mother’s letters Tilly found the address of our folks, and seeing it was Cliffwood, where her unforgiving father-in-law lived, she wrote on.”

“Oh! Then your mother had her come here and to her house, did she, Dick?”

“Just what happened, though I didn’t get wind of the secret till she arrived today,” Dick hastened to explain.

“But what’s the game?” questioned Leslie, eagerly. “Your mother and Grandpop Horner must have something up their sleeves.”

“Just what they have,” admitted Frank, with flashing eyes. “And say, after seeing what a dandy little darling that Billy is I reckon it might have a ghost of a chance of succeeding; though lots of people would laugh at the idea of a child breaking through into the flinty old heart of Jed Nocker.”

“Go on and tell me what’s up,” urged Leslie, almost consumed with curiosity.

“Listen, then,” Dick continued, mysteriously. “My mother hasn’t made up her mind that Mr. Nocker is hopeless. She really believes that in secret he has suffered a whole lot for his hardness to poor Amos.”

“Huh! I guess she’s about the only person in town then that believes so,” grumbled Leslie. “Everybody else thinks he’s got no heart at all, but a frozen turnip in its place. What makes your mother believe that, Dick?”

“Well,” said the other, “for one thing, she had occasion to go into his private office a week or so ago. She thought he called out ‘come in’ when she knocked, but when she opened the door Jed was standing there looking at a picture of poor Amos that he had on top of his rolltop desk; and he blew his nose a whole lot when he saw her. Mother says she felt sure his eyes looked watery.”

Leslie gave a mocking laugh at that.

“It never could have happened, Dick, believe me!” he exclaimed. “Chances were he only had a bad cold in the head; lots of it around town at this time of the year, and among older people especially. But you hinted at some sort of a plan that our folks had been making up.”

“My mother has a strong notion, which has become a positive conviction since seeing the fine little chap, that if Old Jed could become interested in Billy, not knowing that it was his own grandchild he was beginning to care for, he might in the end consent to accepting Tilly as his daughter, and provide for them.”

“H’m! sounds pretty nice, but knowing Mr. Nocker as well as I do I’m pretty shaky about the scheme working. But how could we go about it, Dick?”

“We’d have to get somebody interested who could afford to put a little money in the plan,” explained Dick, hesitatingly.

“How about my Uncle Henry?” demanded the other, instantly. “He’s just the one to plunge into anything of that kind, recklessly.”

“I’m sure he would be glad of the chance to help,” Dick went on to say, “after he had met Tilly and little Billy. And Leslie, you know the old saying, ‘speak of an angel and you’ll hear his wings?’ Well, there comes your uncle right now.”

“I’ll hold him up, Dick, and you can explain the whole thing to him. Then, if you say the word, we’ll all go to your house and meet Tilly Nocker and Billy. Hello! Uncle Henry, we were just talking about you. Are you in a big hurry, or could you spare a little time to listen to something my chum Dick here wants to say?”

The gentleman spoken to was a middle-aged, pleasant-faced man, and Leslie had for years come to look upon him as his good fairy. He supplied the lad with funds, perhaps too generously, but Uncle Henry’s faith in boys was deep-rooted, so that he believed they would come through all right. He looked upon them as certain to exhibit a certain number of prank-loving propensities, even as they caught the measles.

“It happens that I’ve got plenty of time on my hands just now, boys,” he told them. “What is the trouble at present? Been getting in some farmer’s orchard, and he threatens to make trouble for you if you don’t pay for the damage done?”

Leslie laughed at hearing this.

“A bad guess that time, Uncle Henry,” he told the gentleman, much to his relief. “We’re going to cut out most of that sort of business, now that Mr. Holwell has started to organize a Boys’ Department of the Y. M. C. A. Dick here wants to enlist your co-operation in a little scheme that his mother is engineering; and Uncle, I’ve as good as said I knew you’d jump at the chance to help.”

“Thanks for your good opinion, Nephew,” laughed the other. “But suppose you tell me what it’s all about before I make any promises.”

“Of course you know all about Amos Nocker, sir,” began Dick; “and how when he died away out West, his widow wrote asking the old deacon for help, which he refused to give unless she handed over her little son to him, with a promise never to even try to see him?”

“Yes,” replied Uncle Henry, gruffly, “I’ve heard about that, and thought it just about as mean and cold-blooded a proposition as ever was made. To think of making the poor young widow give up her child unless she wanted to starve! But then what more could you expect from Old Jed Nocker, the Icicle of Cliffwood?”

“Well, both Tilly and her child, little Billy, are over at our house right now,” continued Dick, eagerly. “Of course, it’s a dead secret, and you two are the only ones who know it. She’s meaning to go under the name of Mrs. Smith, you see.”

Uncle Henry looked decidedly interested.

“Tell me what’s in the wind, Dick, for I believe you said your mother had some sort of scheme.”

“It’s just this way, sir,” explained Dick. “You know the Brandon place next door to the deacon’s is empty, and for rent, furnished or empty. My mother thought that if Tilly took that house, and just by accident, you see, little Billy managed to creep through a hole in the fence between the places, and Mr. Nocker happened to run across him, he might become interested in the child.”

“Whew! that’s the game, is it?” exclaimed Leslie.

Uncle Henry seemed to ponder over it for a full minute or so.

“There’s a chance it might work,” he finally admitted; “though a whole lot would depend on the lad himself, as well as the state Old Jed has reached. Some profess to believe he’s beginning to break under the strain. For myself I must confess I’ve seen no signs of it so far; he’s just as hard as ever.”

“Well, it might turn out that he’s trying to keep up a brave face even when he’s near breaking down,” said Dick, quickly. “My mother surprised him looking at a picture of Amos one day, and she is sure his eyes were wet. And as far as little Billy is concerned, sir, if you come over to our house and meet him, I think you’ll say he can turn the trick, if anything can.”

“Is he such a darling, then?” asked Uncle Henry, who, although an old bachelor himself, had a fondness for children.

“Wait till you see him, and then tell me, sir,” replied Dick, confidently.

“All right, we’ll go over with you now if you say so, Dick,” the generous gentleman hastened to say.

“And after you’ve met Tilly and her little boy, sir,” continued Dick, anxious to strike while the iron was hot, “if you think well of the scheme will you go and secure the Brandon house for a month, so they can move in tomorrow?”

“I’ll be only too glad to do that, my boy,” replied Uncle Henry, laying a hand affectionately on a shoulder of each of the chums, while he beamed down upon the flushed face of Dick through his glasses. “It would be well worth a month’s rent to me, or ten months for that matter, if I could have a hand in breaking up that iron will of Old Jed Nocker, and making him a little bit human.”

“How about your errand, Leslie, can it wait?” asked Dick.

“Shucks! It’ll have to,” laughed the other; “because you see I was only going to have a haircut, and what are a few stray locks between friends. Come on, let’s get a move on. I’m wild to see that little Billy and his mother.”

They were not long in reaching the white cottage near the bank of the murmuring river where Dick, his small sister Sue, his mother, and the old pensioner lived.

When Dick threw open the door and ushered his two companions into the room they stood there and stared. A handsome little curly-haired boy of about three was playing horse with a chair which he straddled like a trooper. Leslie thought he had never set eyes on a more winning little chap, and stock in Dick’s plan immediately sprang up far above par in his mind.

Tilly Nocker jumped to her feet as they entered. She was a pretty young woman, perhaps too sad for one of her tender years. Uncle Henry became interested in her immediately, for he saw that she had suffered.

Dick’s mother and grandfather were also present. The former was worthy of any boy’s love, for her whole disposition was that of a gentle, trusting woman. As for the veteran of the Civil War, with his shock of white hair coming down almost to his shoulders, and his clean-cut features, he made a striking picture.

“Mother, I’ve brought Leslie and Uncle Henry over to meet them!” burst out Dick. “They know what we plan to do, and Uncle Henry seems to be pretty much in favor of it already.”

“Without saying another word,” remarked the gentleman, quickly, “I want to tell you I think it well worth trying. If Mr. Nocker can resist that winsome little chap then he’s got a lump of ice in place of a heart. I’m glad to meet you, Mrs. Nocker, and let me tell you that in all Cliffwood you couldn’t have found a better haven of rest than right here in Mrs. Horner’s cottage.”

He shook hands with Tilly, and then hurried over to make the acquaintance of little Billy. While Uncle Henry had always been deeply interested in children, he could not remember the time he had ever been so drawn to a bright-faced little chap as he was now.

Deep down in his heart he was saying something like this:

“If the old skinflint doesn’t come to time I’ve got a good notion to adopt them both myself, and perhaps I will yet. One thing sure, they must never come to want. Why, it would be worth all it cost just to have that manly little chap around all the time.”

Before Dick and his uncle were ready to go it had all been settled.

“I’ll take a short lease on the Brandon place inside of half an hour,” announced Uncle Henry, positively, which showed that he was a man who never allowed the grass to grow under his feet when he had an object in view. “You can get settled tomorrow. We’ll keep the secret sacredly, and the town will only know you as Mrs. Smith. Then some time next week start the machinery moving.”

After Uncle Henry had hurried away to fulfill his part in the contract, Dick and Leslie stood outside the door to exchange a few words ere the latter walked off.

“The trap is set,” Leslie said, “and now we’ll see if the cunning old fox can be tempted to take the bait.”