Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - Janet D. Wheeler
"Oh, boys, do be careful!" Billie begged, really afraid that their love
of adventure would get them into trouble. "I didn't like the looks of
those men. And they had clubs."
"Maybe--" said Violet in an awed voice. "Maybe they're--what do you call
them--the fellows that make whiskey--"
"Moonshiners?" Teddy helped her out, and the boys shouted with laughter.
"All the more reason why we should find them out," said Ferd, as they
started from the room. "It's our duty," he turned in the doorway to make
them a bow, "to turn them over to justice."
"It must be a disease," laughed Billie, as the girls ascended the old
staircase together.
"Well, I hope they live through it," added Laura, with a chuckle.
"I found a funny old closet yesterday," said Billie, as they came out
into the musty attic. "I was just going to open it and see what was
inside when you girls called me for something. Here it is," indicating a
small door, the top of which was only on a level with their shoulders.
"I never saw so many queer things in one place in my life," said
Laura, peering down as Billie opened the door. "I didn't know they
grew that way."
"We'll have to stoop down to get in here," said Billie, poking her head
into the stuffy dark hole disclosed. "And look, girls!" she exclaimed
excitedly, as her eyes became accustomed to the gloom. "The closet runs
away back an awfully long way, and there seems to be something bulky at
the other end of it."
"Well, let's go in," said Laura, giving Billie an impatient little push.
"We can't find anything by standing here. Billie, what's the matter?" for
Billie had started back so suddenly that she had almost thrown Laura off
her balance.
"It's another of those horrid old bats," she gasped, bending down as an
indistinct little shape fluttered past her. "I shouldn't think they could
live in the closet without air or anything to eat."
"It probably flew in when you opened the door the other day," Violet
suggested.
Once more Billie bent down and felt her way into the narrow closet.
"Don't try to stand up, girls," she cautioned. "You're apt to get an
awful bump on the head."
"I've already had one," said Violet, rubbing the bumped spot tenderly.
"Goodness, it smells musty in here."
"Girls, it's a trunk!" cried Billie, leaning down to examine the bulky
object she had seen at the other end. "A pretty big one, too, and oh," as
she attempted to lift one end, "awfully heavy."
"A trunk," Laura repeated excitedly. "That sounds interesting. Can't you
pull it out, Billie?"
"I'll try," replied Billie, adding with a chuckle: "But I
shouldn't wonder if you girls would have to help by pulling me.
My, but it's heavy!"
However, after much hauling and pulling, Billie finally succeeded in
backing out of the closet, pulling the trunk after her. Then standing up
and brushing the hair out of her eyes, she regarded it gleefully.
"Everything in the house is mine," she reminded them, as she stooped down
again to examine the lock, "so I have a perfect right to look in
anything I find."
"Well, nobody's arguing about that," said Laura, sitting down on the
floor, regardless of a fine coating of dust, and helping Billie in her
examination.
"Hasn't it any key?" asked Violet eagerly.
"Of course not, silly," Laura answered. "What would be the use of a
locked trunk if you kept the key around where everybody could see it?"
"Well, I didn't even know it was locked," Violet said, rather
heatedly for her.
Billie jumped to her feet and gave the trunk a sudden jerk.
"Girls!" she cried, "did you hear that?"
"Hear what?" they chorused eagerly.
"But, didn't you hear it rattle when we pulled it out of the closet? I
thought so then. Now I'm sure. Oh, girls!"
"What is the matter, Billie?"
"I jerked the trunk," explained Billie, while the color tinged her face,
"and it jingled! Yes it did, it actually jingled!"
"Billie!" cried Laura looking wide-eyed and awed, "do you mean it sounded
like _money_?"
For answer Billie reached down and gave the trunk another jerk. Sure
enough, there was the unmistakable jingle of metal against metal as
though the trunk were filled with coins.
Their hearts beating fast, hardly able to speak with excitement, the
girls stood and stared down at this new discovery.
"I--I feel like Captain Kidd!" gasped Billie, her cheeks crimson now.
"Like Captain Kidd when he found the treasure. Girls, do you really think
it _is_ money?"
"It certainly sounds like it," said Violet in a voice tremulous with
excitement, as she reached down and gave the trunk another jerk just for
the fun of hearing its contents jingle.
"Well, let's get it downstairs," suggested Laura, wildly impatient to see
the treasure, if treasure it were. "We certainly can't open it ourselves
without a key. Oh, if the boys were only at home!" she added with an
impatient little stamp of her foot "It seems to me they're never around
when you want them."
"Maybe we can call them back. They haven't had time to go far," said
Billie, stirred to instant action by the thought. "Come on Laura, you
take one end, Vi can steady it at the side, and we'll at least get the
trunk downstairs. That's the way! Now then!"
After a good deal of pushing and lugging, and a spasm of fright when the
trunk almost fell on Laura, they finally succeeded in getting their
burden down to the second floor.
There the girls left it and started hastily down the stairs in pursuit of
the boys. They had gone only half the way, however, when they were
startled by a tremendous crash and explosion outside and stood still,
their hearts in their mouths.
"Oh, now what has happened?" cried Violet as they rushed down the rest of
the steps and started for the front door.
Half way to the door Mrs. Gilligan met them, holding a rat trap in her
hand from which hung, suspended, a dead rat.
"Where did you get that?" the girls cried in chorus.
"It's Mr. Rat, the piano player," said Mrs. Gilligan, adding as she
pushed past them and ran to the door: "Did you hear that awful noise
outside, girls?"
"Did we hear it?" they cried, following her.
"Oh, Mrs. Gilligan, what do you suppose it was?" asked Violet, pressing
close to her.
"Somebody is probably hurt," answered the woman, adding as though to
herself: "Terribly hurt! Hope it ain't the boys!"
CHAPTER XXIII
THE WRECKED AEROPLANE
The girls never remembered very clearly what happened after that. They
had a vague and confused recollection of seeing the boys gathered around
something in the bushes at the brook that groaned a little and made queer
sputtering noises.
Then the boys bent down and began extricating the groaning thing from the
wreck of something.
"Chet, what is it?" cried Billie, with an impression that she was living
a dream. She tried to push past him, but her brother stopped her.
"Stay away, Sis," he ordered. "The poor fellow's hurt--we don't know how
badly--and I'd rather you would go back to the house."
"But if he's hurt, there's all the more need for us," insisted Billie,
sudden decision in her voice. "We know first aid. Let us past, boys."
Not exactly knowing why they obeyed her, the boys drew aside and she ran
to the side of the prostrate figure on the ground, the other girls
following half reluctantly.
The boys had succeeded in removing the man from the wreckage--one
glance about them told the girls that the wreck had once been an
aeroplane--and the man, who was elderly, lay quite still, looking up at
them with sick eyes.
"Oh, can't we get him up to the house?" cried Billie, clasping her hands
in pity and looking appealingly at Mrs. Gilligan. "Then we can send for
a doctor--"
But it was the hurt man himself who interrupted.
"I--I'm all in," he said, speaking with great effort. "It won't do any
good to move me--"
"But it might," cried Violet, coming down and leaning compassionately
over him while her eyes filled with tears. "Do you think--it would
hurt--too much--"
"Come on. Let's try it, fellows," said Teddy, speaking with sudden
decision. "We can't leave him here to die, perhaps," he added softly. "We
can at least make an attempt to save his life."
He bent down, and, putting a hand under each of the man's arms, lifted
him slightly, eliciting a moan of pain.
"You take his feet, Chet, and, Ferd, you support his back," he directed.
"Now then--"
The boys started to obey, but at the first touch the man cried out in
such pain that they were forced to put him down again.
"It's something in here," said the old fellow, while the girls and boys
stood looking helplessly at him, not knowing what to do. He put a hand
over his left side. "Something's broken. I--I was trying to--invent a new
kind of aeroplane," he went on jerkily, and in spite of the tragic
circumstances the young folks felt a thrill of excitement as they
realized that here perhaps was the secret of that strange humming noise
that had so badly frightened and bewildered them.
"The second ghost," murmured Teddy softly, as though to himself, but
Billie, standing close beside him, heard.
"A new kind of aeroplane," Chet prompted, gently but with an unusual
light in his eye.
"Yes. And this was its--trial flight," the old man said with a world of
bitterness in his voice. "The engine exploded. I guess it shows that I'm
pretty much of a failure--in every way."
"I don't see why," cried Billie, her warm heart eager to give him
comfort. "There may have been just some little thing the matter that
you--What's that?"
"That" was the sound of running feet and a crackling of bushes, and the
next minute two men burst out into the clearing. They were red of face
and breathless, and when they saw the old man and the wrecked machine
they stood stock still and stared in consternation.
With a start the girls and boys recognized the men as those whom they
had met in the woods that other day not so long ago--the men who had so
curtly ordered them to "go the other way."
So the corn story was a fish story after all, and the old inventor's
vain attempt to make a new kind of flying machine was the key to all
the mystery!
"Are you very much hurt, Dad?" cried the younger of the two men, leaning
anxiously over the old man. Again the young folks were startled. So one
of the bearded men was the old man's son!
"All in, Son, I guess," answered the old man. With a sigh he laid his
hand over his left side and whispered: "I'm all smashed to pieces. The
engine exploded."
"Well, let's see about that," said the second of the two men, pushing the
younger aside and beginning to rip open the old man's shirt.
Up to that time neither of the men had thrown a glance in the direction
of the wondering boys and girls--in fact they gave every impression of
not having seen them at all.
The older of the two men was working feverishly--he seemed to be a
doctor, judging from the skill with which he tapped here and pressed
there, evidently trying to find out what bones were broken, if any.
And all the time the old inventor kept up a feeble moaning.
"He must be very much hurt indeed, or very, very old," thought Billie
as, with one hand clasped tightly in Laura's and the other gripping
Violet's arm, she watched intently.
"Why, this isn't so bad after all," announced the man at last, looking up
from his patient with a light in his eyes that made him look very boyish
in spite of the beard on his face. "Your father's terribly bruised and
battered up, Stanton," he said, addressing the old man's son, who had
been looking on with strained attention, "but as far as I can see the
only bones broken are a rib or two. We'll soon fix you up as good as
new," he went on, turning again to the old man.
The latter looked surprised and left off moaning.
"You mean I'm going to live?" he asked incredulously, adding with a faint
little attempt at a smile: "Why--why, I was sure I was--done for!"
"No indeed," said the "doctor-person"--as Billie had already dubbed him,
rising briskly to his feet. "You'll live to fly many another aeroplane,
Mr. Parsons. Now will you let your son and me take you home?"
Such is the power of mind over matter, the inventor hardly made any
outcry at all when his son and the "doctor-person" lifted him between
them and started off through the woods.
As he turned about, the doctor's eyes rested on the boys and girls and he
stopped short, apparently really seeing them for the first time.
"Hello," he said. "I beg your pardon, but I scarcely noticed you,"
adding, more by way of explanation than excuse: "You see I was very much
occupied."
"Oh, we don't mind," said Billie truthfully, adding as the doctor turned
toward her: "Is there anything we can do to help the--the inventor?"
"Oh, so he told you then," said the doctor, with a vexed frown. "No,
thanks, there's nothing you can do. We'll be back for the pieces of the
aeroplane later."
And without another glance the strange trio disappeared into the woods.
For a long minute the boys and girls stood staring after the strange men
dazedly, then they turned to each other with a sigh.
"Well!" said Laura explosively, "if everything isn't happening to us at
once, then my name isn't Laura Jordon. To think that our ghost turned out
to be an inventor after all!"
"You look as if you were disappointed," gibed Ferd, beginning to recover
from his bewilderment. "We'll manufacture a brand new ghost if you say
so, but it may take time--"
"Goodness, you needn't bother," said Violet, going over to the wrecked
machine and regarding it wonderingly. "We've had enough of ghosts to last
us a lifetime. My, that poor old inventor must have had a terrible fall."
"It's a miracle," said Teddy, who had joined her and was looking down at
the wreck soberly, "that he ever came out alive. I agreed with him at
first, that he was all in."
"Well, let it be a lesson to you," said Chet with mock gravity, "never to
let your ambitions soar to aeroplane inventing."
"If that's meant to be a joke," said Laura bitingly, "I must say it's as
much of a failure as our old inventor himself. Well, girls," she added,
turning back to them, "I don't suppose there's any use staying around
here any longer. Let's go back to the house."
It was not till they were entering the grim old door of the grim old
house that they thought again of Billie's new discovery--the trunk
that jingled.
"Goodness! how could we ever have forgotten it?" cried Billie as she,
with Violet and Laura, fairly flew up the stairs, leaving the bewildered
boys to follow them.
"Now what's up?" asked Teddy, as he came into the room where the girls
had left their treasure. "So many things are happening all at once that
it's enough to make a fellow's brain reel."
"It all depends on the brain," said Billie, looking up at him with a
twinkle in her eye. And all Teddy did was to look sad and reproachful.
"Say, what shall I be doin' with this?" asked Mrs. Gilligan, and they
turned to see her great bulk looming in the doorway. In her hand she
held the rat trap with the dangling rat.
"Gee, where did you get it?" cried Chet, jumping to his feet from where
he had been kneeling with Billie, examining the shabby trunk.
Mrs. Gilligan paused a moment and a gleam of humor shot into her eyes.
"You've been askin' to see ghosts, Mr. Chet," she said, with a chuckle,
"and you sure have got your wish this day. That airman was the first.
Here is the second one!"
CHAPTER XXIV
COINS AND POSTAGE STAMPS
Chet looked bewildered for a minute--then disgusted, an expression that
was faithfully reflected on the faces of the other boys.
"A ghost! That?" he said, pointing scornfully at the dead rat. "What do
you mean?"
"Oh, Chet!" cried Billie, springing to her feet in her turn. "That's
another thing we forgot. This is Mr. Rat, the piano player."
"Have you all gone crazy, or have I?" cried poor Chet, looking still more
bewildered. But suddenly Teddy saw light.
"You mean the musical ghost," he cried, laughter in his voice. "The one
that has had us chasing down flights of stairs on dark nights?"
"With the chills running up and down our spines and our hair standing on
end?" added Ferd, following his lead.
"The very same," responded Mrs. Gilligan, the gleam deepening in her
eyes.
"But how did you catch it?" asked Violet, for the girls, all
except Billie, who had originated the idea, were as much in the
dark as the boys.
"With a trap," said Billie, her own eyes beginning to sparkle.
"But who thought of it?" Violet insisted, ignoring the sarcasm.
"You see before you the girl who invented it," said Billie with a
chuckle.
"Great pumpkins, another inventor!" groaned Ferd, and sent them off into
a spasm of laughter.
"Oh, tell us about it, Billie," Laura entreated. "You can be the most
aggravating thing!"
"Stop calling me names or I'll never tell you," threatened Billie, at
which Laura looked as meek as Laura could ever look.
Thereupon Billie recounted to an interested audience the events that had
led to her idea that it might be a rat that was making a joke of them all
and how she had decided to put her idea to the test.
"Say, think of getting excited about a mouse!" cried Ferd incredulously,
when she had finished.
"It wasn't a mouse--it was a rat," corrected Billie.
"But it might have been a mouse," Ferd protested, but Billie broke in
again.
"No it mightn't," she said decidedly. "A mouse could never have made
noise enough for us to hear when we were upstairs in bed."
"Right you are," said Ferd, taking off an imaginary cap to Billie. "I
have to hand it to you, Billie--you're right there."
"You said it that time, old man," murmured Teddy very softly, but Billie
heard him and looked up at him with laughing eyes.
"Come help us open our trunk," she said, turning away suddenly.
"Whose trunk is it?"
"Where did you get it?"
"Looks as if it had come out of Noah's ark."
These and many more comments piled one on top of the other as the boys
looked at the old trunk, which did indeed appear old enough to have
satisfied the most ardent collector of antiques.
"Why, it's my trunk," said Billie, when she could make herself heard
above the babble. "We found it in the attic. But I don't see what
difference it makes where we got it," she added impatiently, getting down
on her knees once more and shaking the trunk as if it were to blame.
"Won't you please get busy and open it, boys? Aren't you a bit curious to
see what's inside?"
"Is there a key?" asked Ferd, and Billie looked up at him in despair.
"Of course not, silly," she said. "Don't you suppose we'd have had it
open ages ago if there had been a key? You'll have to break it open, or
pick the lock, or something."
"Say, she's insulting us! Thinks we're thugs," murmured Ferd, as he,
with the other boys, got down on the floor and began to examine the
trunk eagerly.
"Yes, where do you suppose we got our experience in picking locks?" added
Chet, looking aggrieved.
"Goodness, I don't care whether you pick the lock or what you do as long
as you get it open," cried Billie, half wild with impatience now that the
fateful moment had arrived. "You can use dynamite for all I care."
"Maybe that's what's in it," suggested Teddy, and the girls screamed.
"Teddy! Of all the wet blankets!"
"Well, you never can tell," said Teddy, adding wickedly, as Ferd started
to set the trunk on end: "Be careful there, Ferd; she may explode, as the
aeroplane did."
"Somebody give me something to throw at him," cried Laura indignantly.
"Anyway," she added triumphantly, "we know there isn't dynamite in it or
we'd have been blown to bits long ago. We dragged it down stairs."
"Yes, and we didn't do it very gently either," added Violet.
"It has a pretty strong lock," said Chet, getting to his feet and
rumpling up his hair thoughtfully. "I'll have to get a hammer and a wedge
of some sort."
"Oh, there are all sorts of tools down in the tool-house," Billie cried
eagerly, and Chet looked at her as though she had said she had discovered
a gold mine in the back yard.
"Tools!" he repeated, his eyes shining. "Are they good ones?"
"I don't know anything about tools," said Billie. "But it looked as if
there were hundreds of them--"
Chet waited to hear no more. Like a streak of lightning he was out of the
room and racing down the stairs.
"Tools!" he was saying gloatingly to himself, "hundreds of them!"
Upstairs Billie turned and looked at Teddy in dismay.
"Now what have I done?" she cried. "If he once gets among those tools we
won't see him for hours. Teddy," and she looked appealing enough even to
melt Teddy's hard heart, "won't you go after him? You will have to just
tear him away--"
However, the two boys were back sooner than the girls expected, for they
were very curious about the contents of the small shabby trunk, which had
so evidently been hidden away in the darkest corner of a dark closet in
the attic.
"Say, those are some tools, Billie," said Chet jubilantly, as he pried
away at the lock. "You could do just about anything with them--anything
from making a house, to breaking into one. I say," he added, stopping
work to look at her entreatingly, "don't you remember mother saying that
Aunt Beatrice left you the house and me--the tools?"
The girls and boys laughed, and Billie patted his shoulder fondly.
"No, I don't remember anything of the sort," she said, imitating his tone
to perfection. "But if you're a good boy and open the trunk in a hurry,
I'll deed them to you, Chet--every last tool in the tool-house."
"Honest to goodness?" cried Chet, his eyes beaming.
"Honest to goodness, brother mine."
Then Chet fell to work with fresh enthusiasm on the lock.
It was a stubborn old lock, and required a good deal of patience--which
the girls had not--and tinkering to make it give way.
But it gave at last, and girls and boys leaned forward with sighs of pure
excitement.
"Open it," cried Laura impatiently, but Billie put her hand on the lid
and faced them with shining eyes.
"We'll each have just one guess," she said, "and see who comes nearest to
guessing right."
"I bet it's money," cried Chet.
"That isn't fair, I was going to bet that too."
"So was I--"
"And I--"
Billie threw up her hands in despair.
"Of course, if you're all going to guess the same thing it's all ruined,"
she said, then added, as she bent forward and started to lift the cover:
"I don't know that I blame you, though, for I was going to guess the very
same thing!"
"Oh, Billie, hurry! You're so slow!" cried Laura, jumping up and down
with excitement. "Do get at it!"
"Shall I do it?" asked Violet, feeling an almost irresistible desire to
push Billie away and fling back the lid. Why was she so slow?
"One--two--three!" cried Billie, and then the lid was off and they were
staring down into the contents of the trunk.
For a minute they stood motionless. Then, as though moved by one impulse,
they dropped to their knees and buried their hands in something that
jingled at their touch!
The trunk was full to the brim with old coins, many quite rare, while
scattered here and there were postage stamps on sheets and loose,
queer, foreign looking things that made Billie's eyes glisten as she
looked at them.
"It must have all belonged to Uncle Henry," she said, in an awed voice.
"Aunt Beatrice once said he had a hobby for collecting postage stamps and
old coins--"
"But it _is_ money," cried Laura, finding her voice at last, her blue
eyes dark with excitement. "Why, Billie, these old coins must be worth a
big lot of money!"
"You bet! It's a treasure," said Teddy soberly. Then with a little smile
he turned to Billie--Billie who was vivid and breathless with the great
discovery. "Allow me to present to you, ladies and gentlemen, our old
friend, Captain Kidd!"
CHAPTER XXV
"LARGE FORTUNES"
"Billie, it's worth a small fortune!"
"I'll bet the stuff is worth several thousand dollars."
"Yes, every bit of it."
"Oh, boys, as much as that?" questioned Billie, half hysterically.
"Of course," came from Teddy. He was on his knees in front of the
treasure box. "See these coins? Gold, every one of 'em--and as big as ten
dollar pieces, too."
"Count 'em," cried Chet.
Then began a hasty move on the part of both girls and boys to count the
gold and silver. Poor Billie's hands trembled so she could scarcely help.
"I make it the gold and silver alone are worth at least three thousand
dollars," declared Teddy.
"And don't forget the copper coins," added Ferd.
"And remember too they are old coins and worth something extra from a
collector's point of view," said Chet.
From the coins the young folks turned to the postage stamps. Chet and
Teddy had done a little stamp collecting once and knew that some of the
stamps were rare.
"I think they are worth at least fifteen hundred dollars more," said
Teddy, "and maybe they are worth twice that. Some stamps are worth a
hundred dollars apiece."
It was not until they were called below by Mrs. Gilligan that they gave
up speculating about the value of the trunk. The boys went off, leaving
the girls to themselves.
"It's too good to be true," murmured Billie, over and over again.