Read Ebook: The Girl's Own Paper Vol. XX No. 1030 September 23 1899 by Various

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 383 lines and 25719 words, and 8 pages

"I have no private sitting-room," she said, "but perhaps I might take you into the bureau."

"Thank you, ma'am, I will not detain you long." When they were seated in the bureau, which the lady of the house had willingly vacated on hearing Ada's reason, he said, "I have come to tell you a piece of news which I think will greatly astonish you. I came here this morning and learnt the information from your little sisters which identifies you in my mind with the young lady I was seeking."

Ada was turning from hot to cold and her hands were tightly clasped together.

"My dear young lady," he continued, "I am Mr. Riggs of the firm of Jefferson Riggs & Co., lawyers, No. 10054, Broadway. Perhaps you have read in the papers of the death of an eccentric old gentleman who was a well-known figure in the Fifth stage-coach, and in Madison Square Gardens?"

Ada nodded her head. Her heart was beating too quickly to allow her brain to seize the points of the lawyer's story.

"I was his lawyer," he said, "and for many years transacted all his business matters, but I had no idea of his personal wealth. He had altered his will many times during the last few years, leaving his money first to one charitable institution and then to another; but in his last will, which he made as far back as eight months ago, he has left you his entire fortune."

"Me?" Ada gasped. "Me? What do you mean? He didn't even know my name."

"Yes, he did. He found it out quite easily. Yes, my dear young lady. You will now be almost as wealthy as if your father had never failed."

"Oh, stop a minute," Ada cried, "till I can really understand it. Am I the milliner's girl that was mentioned in the papers? Oh, I'm quite, quite certain you have made some mistake. Do have pity on me, sir; I have suffered so much," and she put up her hand to her head and swayed a little backwards and forwards.

"Oh, please don't faint, my dear young lady. I am no ladies' man, and I don't know what to do."

"No, I will not faint," replied Ada. "It is really wonderful what a girl can bear. But I hope you are not deceiving me."

"I am quite sure I am not, if you are not deceiving me, and personating Ada Nicoli. I wish I could have broken it to you more gently; but I am no ladies' man."

"You have done it very kindly," the girl said, with a great sob of joy in her throat, "only I wish the old man was alive, that I could thank him, and love him a little. He was very lonely, I think."

"Yes, he was very lonely," the lawyer said, "and it is strange what an impression you made upon him."

"I don't see how I could," Ada replied simply. "I never did anything."

"I think I can understand," the lawyer said with a touch of gallantry which showed that he was not such a poor ladies' man as he had asserted, bringing a pretty flush to her cheek.

After they had talked a few minutes, Ada said--

"May I call the children down to tell them?"

"Certainly," the lawyer replied. "The affair is no secret."

When Ada told the children that they were no longer poor, and that they need not live in the top attic-room in a boarding-house, they took the news more complacently than their sister had done.

"I'm glad we can go to a decent school," Marjory said, little knowing how her words hurt Ada, who had worked her fingers to the bone to pay for her middle-class schooling.

"I wish we had been left a new poppa, instead of some money," Sadie said regretfully. "If we're rich again, you'll drive about with mumma, I suppose, and we won't have any fun. I like being poor."

"And living in a hen-roost?" Ada asked laughingly.

Sadie had always called their low-roofed attic a hen-roost.

"Yes, 'cause I like sleeping with you better than with a cross nurse."

The old lawyer got up. He had to take his spectacles off and rub them before he could see his way across the room.

"My dear young lady," he said, "you have made their poverty so attractive that the old gentleman's fortune is scarcely appreciated."

"I must spend it very wisely," the girl said, "as it was so carefully hoarded together. It is all so wonderful that I cannot believe it is true."

"I should like the old man to have had the pleasure that has been mine in bringing you the good news," the lawyer said, bowing himself out. "We shall have many business matters to discuss later on, but I will leave you now to enjoy the new good fortune with your sisters." He came back and said rather nervously, "Remember, my dear, that you can draw on me for any ready money you may require. I will leave you a hundred dollars now just to pay for immediate expenses, and to-morrow you can have ten hundred more if you like."

When Ada Nicoli was going upstairs, as if floating on wings rather than walking, she met the fat lady boarder coming down.

"Well, I declare, Ada Nicoli, you look as if the world wasn't good enough for you to-night. There's enough happiness in your eyes to light a whole street. Has your strange visitor brought you good news?"

"Yes," Ada replied, "wonderful news. He has just told me that I am the little milliner's girl whom the eccentric old gentleman thought deserved some money."

"Sakes alive!" the fat boarder exclaimed. "Let me look at you,"--and she took the girl by her shoulders and scanned her face.

"Are you the girl he left all the money to?"

"Yes," answered Ada; "isn't it extraordinary? I can't quite believe it is true! It's just like a fairy story."

In another moment the girl was clasped in the arms of the good-natured woman, and was so cried over and petted that all the boarders came out to hear the news, which Ada could not tell them for the fulness of her heart, and the fat boarder did it but badly, for she was laughing and crying at one and the same time.

FOOTNOTES:

CHRONICLES OF AN ANGLO-CALIFORNIAN RANCH.

BY MARGARET INNES.

THE RESERVOIR--CHINESE MEDICINES--DUST--ADVANTAGES OF THE LIFE--THE RAINS--FLOODS.

That summer, our first on the ranch, we made a large reservoir to hold 200,000 gallons. There was a convenient gulch or dip, which drained a fair stretch of hill slope, and which lent itself well for the purpose. We meant also to run our share of the flume water into this reservoir whenever it was not being used on the ranch.

Many waggon loads of sand from the Silvero Valley had to be hauled up by the little grey team, and endless barrels of cement from the station at El Barco five miles away. It was a long tiresome job. There was plenty of rock, with which to build the dam, lying about on the hills, but to lift these pieces on to the sledge, improvised for this purpose, and bring them over hill and dale to the reservoir site and there unload them, was both very hard work and at times a little dangerous, for the rocks were often so large that they were not easily controlled, and were always threatening to roll over on to the feet or hands of the "master builder" and his men.

There were some bad bruises before all the names of the workers were written on the cement top of the wall as an artistic finish to the dam.

That was a very dry year, the summer extending till December 5th, and after a dry winter too. For this reason the breaking up of the ground was all the harder, especially that part which had been trodden hard by cattle grazing for many years.

Again the ranchers went to work to manufacture some implement that would help in this difficulty, and a "clod masher" was made out of some of the furniture cases, and it did very good work.

We planted cypress trees too, all along the windswept side of the ranch, as these grow very fast, and we wanted to break the face of the wind.

The rabbits, squirrels, and gophers gave us some anxiety that first year by nibbling at the bark of the young lemon trees. This had to be stopped at once, for if the bark is badly peeled off right round the stem of a young tree, the tree will probably die. The approved remedy is to paint the bark with blood, a most disagreeable job, especially in glaring hot weather. However, the trees were not touched after that, for the rabbits are dainty people.

A good store of firewood had to be hauled from the Silvero Valley before the rains should come, and some months earlier we had stored away our winter supply of hay in the barn. In the winter we also planted an orchard of all varieties of fruit for our own use--pears, apples, prunes, figs, apricots, peaches, vines, strawberries, and raspberries. Altogether we were very busy and worked very hard, though we took our pleasures too, sandwiched in between. We did a great deal of driving and riding about among the different mountain paths, and we still enjoy this distraction as much as ever.

To take our lunch with us and stay away all day, the boys riding ahead, with the dogs following them, darting in among the brush, wildly happy over every pretence of a scent, leaping high over every obstacle, and adding so much to our enjoyment by their evident delight, is a pleasure without flaw. I must not forget also a gun or two, stowed away in the bottom of the carriage, for something worth killing may cross our path. Jack-rabbits are not good eating but are good sport, and as they injure the trees, every rancher shoots them when he gets the chance. The dainty elegant road-runner must never be hurt, and woe be to the "tenderfoot" who is tempted to shoot that pretty, impudent-looking little fellow, the skunk, who flourishes his handsome black and white tail in your very face. If you were a Chinaman, you would secure him on any terms, even his own. All Celestial medicines and cordials seem to be compounded of the most offensive abominations that can be discovered; it follows, of course, that the skunk is a highly-prized treasure in their pharmacopoeia. What deceits we have practised and what lies we have told during Wing's reign in the kitchen! He was for ever wanting to doctor us, and had always just the right remedy by him for whatever complaint was to the fore. We soon became very wary indeed of showing any sign of physical trouble before him, for we were at once pounced upon with hot drinks of villainous compounds and rank smell, and we had to be very diplomatic so as to escape drinking them there and then, and thus get the chance of pouring them down the bath sink when his back was turned.

We always felt this to be a very dangerous business, for the smell threatened to betray us.

For rheumatic pains he eagerly recommended a sort of rattlesnake jam, which is made with chunks of that attractive reptile cooked in whisky, and potted for seven years, when it is ready for use, and, according to Wing, is an infallible cure.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet