Diogenes had been quite docile and amenable to my rule since the licking I gave him, so we had a pleasant and comfortable return journey on the following day.

"I hope, Lucien," said Silvia, "you won't refuse to cash this check for a good amount. The Polydore parents may never show up, and it's only right we should be reimbursed for their keep."

"I will cash it," I a.s.sured her, "and use it for a housekeeper or else send the boys off to a school. I should like very much to have it out with Felix Polydore, but, as you suggest, I may never have the opportunity to see him at close range."

Beth, Rob, and Ptolemy met us at the station.

"Where are 'Them Three'?" I asked hopefully.

"Huldah is feeding them little pies hot from the kettle--the kind she cooks like doughnuts, you know."

"Huldah cooking for 'Them Three'!" I exclaimed. "She must have pa.s.sed into her second childhood. She grudged them even an apple to piece on."

"She has pampered them ever since our return," said Rob.

"Poor Huldah! She must indeed be afflicted with softening of the brain," I decided.

"She has probably been so lonely, shut in here by herself," said Silvia, "that even 'Them Three' looked good to her."

In the hallway Huldah met us. She was beaming with pleasure, but except in her bearing toward the children, she was quite normal.

"We've all had a real good rest," she observed, "and you do look so well, Mrs. Wade. My! but this place has been lonesome. I'm glad we're all together again."

"Now, Silvia, shut your eyes," directed Beth, "and come into the library. Ptolemy has bought you a present with the check his father gave him."

"Beth helped me pick it out," said Ptolemy.

Beth led the way into the library, and we followed.

"Open your eyes."

Silvia gave a little cry of pleasure, and looking over her shoulder, I beheld a baby grand piano.

"Oh, Ptolemy!" she cried, giving him a fervent kiss and fond hug, "I can never let you do so much."

"Oh, yes," he said, flushing a little under the endearments which were doubtless the first ever bestowed upon him. "Father's got a whole lot of money grandpa left him and it's fixed so he can't draw out only so much each year. He said the board and bother of us was worth more than this and we'll all enjoy the music. But Thag and Em and Dem ain't to touch it. I'll knock tar out of the first one that comes near it."

I was disconsolate. I didn't see how we could return it and I didn't want the Polydore web woven any tighter. To think of Silvia's receiving from them what it had been my longing to give her! But as I was to learn later, she was to acquire much more than a piano from the eminent family.

After dinner Silvia asked Huldah to come in and hear the music, and when Silvia's repertoire was exhausted, we gave our faithful servant all the little details of our trip which Beth had not supplied.

"Now tell us, Huldah, how things went along here," said Silvia.

"Well, you think some wonderful things happened to you all on your trip mebby--ghosts and proposals," looking at Beth and Rob, "and fires and Polydores, but back here in this quiet house something happened that has your ghosts and things skinned by a mile."

"Oh, dear!" cried Silvia apprehensively, "what is it?"

"Break it very gently, Huldah," I cautioned. "You know we've borne a good deal."

"Your uncle Issachar was here for a couple of days."

She certainly had made a sensation.

"Not Uncle Issachar! Not here?" exclaimed Silvia incredulously.

"Yes, ma'am. He came the next day after Beth and Mr. Rossiter and Polly left. I told him you'd gone away for a little vacation and rest.

I didn't let on that I knew where you had gone, because I didn't want him straggling up there, too, or sending for you to come back. He said your absence would make no difference to his plans; that he never let nothing do that. He come to pay a visit and he should pay one."

"Yes," said Silvia feebly. "That sounds like Uncle Issachar."

"I told him to make himself perfectly at home; that every one did that to this place, and he said he would. I'd just slicked up the big front room upstairs and I seen to it that he had everything all right. I cooked the best dinner I knew how, and he said it was the first white man's meal he had eat since his ma died, so I found out what she used to cook and fed him on it. Them three kids and him eat like they was holler. I guess if Polly hadn't took them away your grocery bill would 'a looked like Barb'ry Allen's grave.

"Well, as I was saying, your uncle he eat till he got over his grouches, and like enough he'd be here eating yet, if he hadn't got a telegraph to hit the line for home, some big business deal, he said, and I guess it was a great deal, for he licked his chops and smacked his lips over it, and he give me a ten dollar bill to get a new dress and each of Them Three one dollar fer candy."

"The old tightwad!" I exclaimed. "It was your cooking, sure, that made him loosen up that way."

"Tightwad nothing!" she declared indignantly. "You won't think he was tight-wadded when you read this here letter he left for you. He told me what was in it, and I've just been busting to tell it to Beth, but I waited for you to know it first."

With great excitement Silvia opened the letter, read it, gasped, re-read it, and then in consternation handed it to me.

"Read it aloud, Lucien," she bade. "Maybe I can believe it then."

This was the letter.

"My dear Niece:

"I was sorry not to see you, but glad to learn that, as every wise and good woman should do, you are raising a fine family--a family of _sons_, which is what our country most needs. Your son Pythagoras informed me that you had taken your oldest child, Ptolemy, and your youngest, Diogenes, with you, I am glad you left three such promising samples for me to see.

"As you have five sons, I have, agreeable to my promise, placed in your name in the First National Bank of your city the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars.

"Your affectionate uncle, "Issachar Innes."

"Huldah," I asked, "did you tell him the Polydores were our children?"

"Me?" she repeated indignantly. "Me tell a lie like that! No; I didn't get no chance to tell him anything about them. 'Them Three' done the telling. The first thing that one"--pointing to Pythagoras--"said was, 'Mudder went away and took the baby, Diogenes, with her.' And then that next one"--indicating Emerald--"said: 'Yes, and our oldest brother, Ptolemy, went on with Beth to see them.'

"The old gent asked them all their names and ages and he was so pleased and said he thought it was just fine for you to raise five sons, so I didn't have no heart to tell him no different. 'Twan't none of my business anyhow. Then 'Them Three' kept talking about stepdaddy, and your Uncle Issachar asks 'Who the devil is he? Did my niece marry again?' And I told him as how Mr. Wade was all the husband you ever had, and that stepdaddy was nothing but a sort of pet-name the kids had give Mr. Wade."

"I told him," said Demetrius, "that stepdaddy was cross to us sometimes and not as nice as mudder, and he said--"

"You shut up," commanded Huldah quickly, "and let me talk."

"No," I intercepted, "I'd really be interested in hearing what he told Uncle Issachar. What was it, Demetrius, that your great-uncle said to you?"

"He said," stated the imp, darting his tongue out in triumph at his victory over Huldah, "that he always thought you was a stiff."

"He didn't say nothing of the kind!" declared Huldah. "He said you was stiff-necked, and that he presumed you would act more like a stepfather than the real thing. Well, as I was saying, he asked their names, and he liked them fine. Said they were so cla.s.sy."