The Daring Twins

“Is old Miss Halliday any relation to us?” asked Don.

“No; she was an old servant of grandmother’s, before she died – her housekeeper, I believe; and afterward, when gran’pa became paralyzed, she took care of him.”

“She seems to run everything around this place as if she owned it,” muttered the boy.

“She’s a very faithful woman,” observed Phil; “and a very disagreeable one. I don’t know what gran’pa would have done without her. She gets his meals and waits on him night and day.”

“Somehow,” said Becky, “I sort o’ hate her. She won’t let us into any of the back rooms upstairs, though she and gran’pa can’t use all of ’em; and she never comes near us unless she wants to jaw about something we’ve done. I run a clothesline through the grass yesterday, and tripped old Halliday up when she went to feed the chickens, and she was as mad as anything.”

“I think she doesn’t care much for young people,” admitted Phœbe; “and as none of us cares for her it’s just as well that we should live apart – even if we occupy the same house. After all, my dears, we should be grateful for being allowed so much room in this comfortable old shack. We had no other place to go after our own home was sold.”

There was silence in the little group for a moment. Then Becky asked, curiously:

“Where do we get the money to live on? We have to pay our own grocery bills, don’t we?”

Phil started and looked upon his younger sister wonderingly, as if she had suggested a new thought to him. Then he turned to Phœbe.

“There must have been a little money left,” he said. “It never occurred to me before. I must ask Mr. Ferguson about it.”

Phœbe flushed a trifle, but looked down instead of meeting her twin’s earnest gaze.

“I’ve thought of it, Phil,” she replied, softly. “Whatever was left after paying papa’s debts must have been little enough, and can’t last forever. And then – ”

Phil was regarding her with serious eyes. He glanced at the younger ones and said quickly:

“Never mind. We haven’t suffered from poverty so far, have we? And we won’t. We’ve Daring blood in our veins, and that means we can accomplish anything we set out to do.”

Phœbe smiled and turned to reënter the house.

“Saturday is my busy day,” she remarked brightly. “I suppose you’re going to practice for the baseball match, Phil?”

“Yes,” he said, “I promised the boys – ” Then he stopped and shook his head. “I don’t know yet what I’ll do, Phœbe,” he added. “Just now I’ve an errand down town.”

He caught up his cap, kissed his twin and strode down the walk to the gate. Phœbe cautioned the younger ones not to raise a racket under Gran’pa Eliot’s window, but to keep in the front yard if they were going to play. Then she stole softly away to her own little room upstairs and locked herself in so as not to be disturbed.

CHAPTER II

PHIL INTERVIEWS THE LAWYER

Phil Daring walked toward the village with uneasy, nervous strides. There was an anxious expression upon his usually placid face.

“Queer,” he muttered to himself, “that I never thought to ask how we’re able to live. It costs money to feed five hungry youngsters; and where does it come from, I wonder?”

The Eliot house was on the brow of a knoll and the street sloped downward to the little village where the “business center” clustered around the railway station. The river was just beyond, flowing sleepily on its way to the gulf, and at Riverdale a long wooden bridge spanned the murky water. It was a quiet, pretty little town, but had such a limited population that every resident knew nearly everyone else who lived there and kept fairly well posted on the private affairs of each member of the community.

Wallace Daring, the father of the twins, had been the big man of Riverdale before he died a few months ago. He had come to the town many years before, when he was a young man, and built the great beet sugar factory that had made all the farmers around so prosperous, growing crops to supply it. Mr. Daring must have made money from the business, for he married Jonathan Eliot’s daughter and established a cosy home where Phil and Phœbe, and Donald and Becky were born. Afterward he erected a splendid mansion that was the wonder and admiration of all Riverdale. But no one envied Wallace Daring his success, for the kindly, energetic man was everybody’s friend and very popular with his neighbors.

Then began reverses. His well-beloved wife, the mother of his children, was taken away from him and left him a lonely and changed man. He tried to seek consolation in the society of his little ones; but in a brief four years he himself met a sudden death in a railway wreck. Then, to the amazement of all who knew him, it was discovered that his vast fortune had been swept away and he was heavily in debt.

Judge Ferguson, his lawyer, was made his executor by the court and proceeded to settle the estate as advantageously as he could; but the fine mansion had to be sold. The five orphaned children lived in their old home, cared for by honest, faithful Aunt Hyacinth, until two months before the time this story begins, when a man from the East named Randolph bought the place and the Darings moved over to their grandfather’s old-fashioned but roomy and comfortable house across the way.

Phil walked more slowly as he approached the business district. The task he had set himself was an unpleasant one, but he felt that he must face it courageously.

The boy’s father had been so invariably indulgent that Phil, although now sixteen years of age, had never been obliged to think of financial matters in any way. He was full of life and healthful vitality, and his one great ambition was to prepare himself for college. His father’s sudden death stunned him for a time, but he picked up the trend of his studies again, after a little, and applied himself to work harder than ever. Vaguely he realized that he must make a name and a fortune for himself after graduating from college; but so far he had not been called upon to consider the resources of the family. Mr. Ferguson had attended to the settlement of his father’s estate, of which the boy knew nothing whatever, and Aunt Hyacinth had cared for the house, and got the meals and sent her five charges to school each day in ample season. The lives of the young Darings had scarcely been interrupted as yet by the loss of their father; although with him vanished every tangible means of support. A chance word this morning, however, had caused Phil to realize for the first time the fact that they were really poor and dependent; and he knew it was his duty, as the eldest of the family to find out what their exact circumstances were. In reality he was not the eldest, for his twin sister, Phœbe, was five minutes his senior; but Phil was a boy, and in his estimation that more than made up for the five minutes’ difference in age and established him as the natural protector of Phœbe, as well as of the other children.

Down at “The Corners” the main residence street entered the one lying parallel with the river, and around this junction the business center of Riverdale was clustered, extending some two or more blocks either way. The hotel was on one corner and Bennett’s general store on another, while the opposite corners were occupied by the druggist and the hardware store. Bennett’s was a brick structure and all the others were frame, except Spaythe’s Bank, a block up the street. Between them were rambling one story and two story wooden buildings, mostly old and weather-beaten, devoted to those minor businesses that make up a town and are required to supply the wants of the inhabitants, or of the farmers who “came to town” to trade.

Between the post office and the hardware store was a flight of stairs leading to offices on the second floor. These stairs Phil ascended and knocked at a door bearing a small painted sign, the letters of which were almost effaced by time, with the words: “P. Ferguson; Lawyer.”

No one answered the knock, so Phil opened the door and walked softly in.

It was a bare looking room. A few maps and a print of Abraham Lincoln hung upon the cracked and discolored plaster of the walls. At one side was a shelf of sheep-covered law books; in the center stood a big, square table; beyond that, facing the window, was an old-fashioned desk at which sat a man engaged in writing. His back was toward Phil; but from the tousled snow white locks and broad, spreading ears the boy knew he stood in the presence of his father’s old friend and confidant, Judge Ferguson. His title of “Judge” was derived from his having been for some years a Justice of the Peace, and it was, therefore, more complimentary than official.

As Phil closed the door and stood hesitating, a voice said: “Sit down.” The tone was quiet and evenly modulated, but it carried the effect of a command.

Phil sat down. There was a little room connected with the big office, in which sat a tow-headed clerk copying paragraphs from a law book. This boy glanced up and, seeing who his master’s visitor was, rose and carefully closed the door between them. Mr. Ferguson continued writing. He had no idea who had called upon him, for he did not turn around until he had leisurely completed his task, when a deliberate whirl of his revolving office chair brought him face to face with the boy.

“Well, Phil?” said he, shooting from beneath the bushy overhanging eyebrows a keen glance of inquiry.

“I – I wanted to have a little talk with you, sir,” returned Phil, a bit embarrassed. “Are you very busy?”

“No. Fire ahead, my lad.”

“It’s about our – our family affairs,” continued the visitor, haltingly.

“What about them, Phil?”

“Why, I know nothing as to how we stand, sir. No one has told me anything and I’ve been too thoughtless to inquire. But, I ought to know, Mr. Ferguson – oughtn’t I?”

The judge nodded.

“You ought, Phil. I’ve been going to speak of it, myself, but waited to see if you wouldn’t come here of your own accord. You, or Phœbe. In fact, I rather expected Phœbe.”

“Why, sir?”

“You’re not a very practical youth, Phil. They say you’re a student, and are trying for honors at the high school graduation next month. Also, you’re the pitcher of the baseball team, and stroke oar for the river crew. These things occupy all your time, it seems, as well they may.”

Phil flushed red. There was an implied reproach in the old man’s words.

“Now, Phœbe is different,” continued the lawyer, leaning back in his chair with his elbows on the arms and joining the tips of his fingers together – a characteristic attitude. “Phœbe has a shrewd little head, full of worldly common sense and practical, if womanly, ideas. I’d a notion Phœbe would come to me to make these necessary inquiries.”

Phil slowly rose. His face was now white with anger, yet his voice scarcely trembled, as he said:

“Then, I’ll let her come to you. Good morning, sir.”

Mr. Ferguson nodded again.

“Yes,” he remarked, without altering his position, “my judgment of you was correct. You’ll be a man some day, Phil, and a good one; but, just now, you’re merely a stubborn, unformed boy.”