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Page 89
Hughie seized the lamp.
"Hold the lamp, Mr. O'Neill," he begged, crouching. "I've got to look
at them bricks. Careful, sir! You're tipping it."
Huddled in the glare of the lamp they stared in fascination at the
smoky bricks.
"The bricks are loose!" exclaimed Hughie. "Look here!" He rattled one
with his finger.
Kenny emitted a long low whistle of intense amazement.
"Hughie, where's your knife?" he flung out wildly. "I think we're on
the trail!"
"The lamp's shaking!" warned Hannah. "Let me hold it."
"Oh, my God!" gasped Hughie with the dot fever flaring in his honest
eyes. "That ain't mortar. It's only ashes. Look!"
Kenny frantically pulled out a brick and dropped it with a clatter.
Another and another.
"Hold the lamp closer, Hannah!" directed Hughie, reaching within.
"There's something here!"
Shaking violently he pulled forth a battered box and flung back the
lid. It was stuffed to the brim with ragged money.
"Glory be to God!" cried Kenny and proceeded to pull the mantel down.
But he found no more.
"And to think of him burrowin' there in the bricks," marveled Hannah,
"and him that weak a child could push him over."
"Ah!" said Kenny, "but his will was strong."
He counted the money with trembling fingers and a smile, curiously
pleased and tender, and declared his belief that the doctor was right.
The ragged hoarding--he shivered slightly with revulsion as he touched
a tattered bill--represented the rest, residue and remainder of Adam's
wealth wheresoever situate. And thanks to Hughie's inspiration the
executor had found it.
"Four thousand dollars!" he announced at last in a voice of
disappointment.
"And a lucky thing," said Hughie with an air of pride, "that I thought
of the fireplace. For it might have laid there buried for the rest of
time."
"Four thousand dollars!" gasped Hannah in a reverential voice. "Four
thousand dollars! Well, Mr. O'Neill, it may not be much, as you seem
to think after all the dots you and Hughie have been a-diggin', but I
say it's a lot. It ought to buy the child all the frocks and teachers
in New York."
"It will see her through the year," said Kenny.
Joan's eyes widened.
"It would see me through a decade!" she exclaimed.
Kenny smiled.
CHAPTER XXVIII
KENNY'S WARD
Peace came mercifully to Craig farm with the finding of Adam's money.
"Toby," Joan whispered to the cat, her soft cheek pressed against his
fur, "I'm going away. And I can't believe it! I can't! I can't! I
can't!"
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