IN WHICH PHIL TAKES CHARGE OF MRS.WHIPPLETON'S EARTHLY TREASURE

I had not seen Mrs. Whippleton for a week, during which time she had been confined to her room, and I was surprised at the change which had taken place in her during that time.  She appeared to have lost one half of her flesh, and her face was very thin and pale.

“I didn’t like to call you up at this time of night, Philip, but I wanted to see you very bad,” said she, in feeble tones.  “I’m a very sick woman.”

“I hope you will get better,” I answered.

“I hope so too, but there’s no knowin’.”

“I didn’t know you were very sick.”

“Perhaps I hain’t been till to-day.  The doctor looked kind o’ anxious to-night when he came; and I’ve been a good deal worried.”

“You must be calm, Mrs. Whippleton.”

“I try to be, but I can’t; and I don’t think anybody could in my situation.  I don’t know but I’m goin’ to die.”

“Let us hope not.  But I trust you are prepared to die,” I added, with due solemnity; for I confess that the dreadful thing about her case was the idea of being hurried into eternity with only the worldly wisdom she had preached to me to sustain her in the trying ordeal.

“No, I’m not prepared to die.  I’ve got thirty thousand dollars-”

“I wouldn’t trouble myself about money, Mrs. Whippleton,” I interposed.

“That’s what I wanted to see you for,” said she, looking at me with apparent astonishment.

“Do not think of business while you are sick, Mrs. Whippleton.”

“But I must think of it.  I have felt so bad today, that I didn’t know as I should get well.”

“So much the more need, then, of thinking of other things than money.”

“I suppose you think I’m a very great sinner,” she added.

“We are all sinners, Mrs. Whippleton; and we are all great sinners.”

“Well, I ain’t any worse’n the rest on ’em.  But I don’t want to talk about them things now.  I’ve got somethin’ else on my mind.  I’ve got thirty thousand dollars-”

“But I would not think of that now.”

“I must think on’t.  It worries me.  I know you are an honest young man, Philip; and I can’t say that I know of another one in the whole world.”

“That’s a harsh judgment; but if I am honest, it is because I believe in God and try to do his will.”

“I suppose you are right, Philip.  I wish I was better than I am; but as I ain’t, ’tain’t no use to cry about it.  I didn’t send for you to preach to me, though I hain’t no kind o’ doubt I need it as bad as any on ’em.  Ever since I fust see you in the steam car I believed you was honest, and meant to do just about what’s right.  Set up a little closer to me, for I don’t want to tell the world what I’m goin’ to say to you.  I believe I can trust you, Philip.”

“I always try to do what is right, and I have no doubt I succeed better than those that don’t try at all,” I replied, finding that it was useless to attempt to talk to her of anything except money and business; though I hoped, when these important topics were disposed of, that she would be reasonable on matters of more consequence.

Certainly her appearance was very much altered, and she spoke of dying.  Young as I was, I had already been in the presence of death, and I thought that matters of the soul’s concern ought to be attended to before anything else.

“You knew that my son Charles has been here to-night?” continued Mrs. Whippleton.

“No, I have not seen him.”

“He was; and he has been here every night for a week, pestering me almost to death, when I’m sick.  He’s fretting what little life there is left to me out of my body.”

“Why, what’s the matter with him?”

“He wants money-all I’ve got in the world, if I’ll give it to him.  He says he shall be ruined if he can’t get it.”

“Indeed!”

“I don’t know nothin’ about it, but he says something’s wrong in the firm.  He wants forty thousand dollars, and must have it, or be ruined and disgraced.  Don’t you tell a soul what I’m saying to you, Philip.”

A flood of light was suddenly cast in upon my perplexed understanding.  Forty thousand dollars!  That was about the amount of the mysterious invoices.  After this revelation I had no difficulty in believing that Mr. Whippleton had been using the money of the firm in his private land speculations.  The invoices were fictitious, and this explanation showed me why the junior partner did not wish me to mention them to any one.  I even thought I comprehended the nature of Mr. Whippleton’s sudden illness when I showed him my trial balance.  Now he was trying to get the money from his mother to make good his accounts with the firm.

I was grieved and amazed at the revelation thus forced upon me.  I understood the old lady’s principles, or rather her want of principles, and granting that she had given him her code of worldly wisdom, as she had to me, it was not strange that he should turn out to be a thief and a swindler.  However hard and disgusting it may seem, there was something like poetic justice in his coming to her upon her sick bed, perhaps her dying bed, to demand the means of repairing his frauds.  I pitied my landlady in her deep distress, but surely worldly wisdom could produce no different result.

“See here, Philip,” she continued, raising her head with difficulty from the pillow, and taking from beneath it a great leather pocket-book, distended by its contents.  “There’s seven thousand dollars, besides notes and bonds for twenty-three thousand more, in it.”

“Why do you keep so much money in the house, Mrs. Whippleton?  It isn’t safe.”

“I know that; I had it in the bank till Charles began to pester me, and then I drew it all out the very day I was taken sick.”

“But it was safe in the bank.”

“No, ’twan’t.  I was afraid Charles would forge a check and draw it.”

“He wouldn’t do such a thing as that.”

“I hope he wouldn’t, but I was afraid he would.  This pocket-book was in that bureau drawer till Charles came to-night.  He went there and tried to get it.  I don’t know but he would have got it if my nuss hadn’t come in.  He said he was coming again to-morrow morning, and would have the money; so I got up, and put the pocket-book under my pillow.”

“Certainly he wouldn’t take it away from you,” I added, shocked at the old lady’s story.

“I don’t know’s he would, but I was afraid on’t.”

“But you haven’t forty thousand dollars here.”

“There’s the bonds, which will sell for all they cost me, and more too, besides the interest on ’em; and it would all come to over thirty thousand.  Charles offers to give me a mortgage on his lands worth three times the amount, and pay me ten per cent. interest besides.”

“Why don’t you do it, then?”

“I don’t believe in his lands.  Because folks say he’s got bit in his lands, and can’t sell for what he gin for ’em, though he says they will fetch three times what they cost him.  If they’d fetch what he gin for ’em he’d sell ’em.  I almost know he’s got bit on ’em.  But he can’t have my money; he owes me ten thousand dollars now.  I’ve worked hard for what little I’ve got, and I ain’t a goin’ to have it fooled away in no land speculation.”

It seemed to me that the old lady understood her son’s case perfectly; and my own observation fully confirmed her statement.  The junior partner was certainly in a tight place.

“My two married daughters, that need the money more’n Charles does, would never get a cent of my property if I should let him have it.  I ain’t a goin’ to do it, not if I should die afore mornin’.”

“I don’t think you are in any immediate danger, Mrs. Whippleton,” I replied; and I did not believe that one who could talk as fast as she did was in any present peril.

“But Charles will pester the life out of me to get this money and these papers.  I’m afraid he’s been doin’ something that’s wrong.”

“What do you wish me to do for you?”

“I’ll tell you, Philip.  I know you’re honest, and I will trust you just as far as any human bein’ can be trusted,” she continued; but she paused again, and I concluded that she was not quite satisfied to trust even me.

“You believe I can trust you-don’t you?” she added, taking the valuable package from under the bed-clothes.

“You must be your own judge, Mrs. Whippleton.”

“I know I can!” she exclaimed, suddenly.  “You would not rob a poor woman who is on her dying bed.”

“I certainly would not.”

“At any rate, I know Charles would rob me of every dollar I have in the world, and think he was smart to do it; but I don’t believe you would,” said she, extending the package towards me.

“What do you wish me to do with it?” I replied, taking her treasure-her only treasure, it seemed to me, either in earth or in heaven.

It was only the treasure where thieves break through and steal; and the thief was at hand-one whom she had trained up in the ways of worldly wisdom.

“I don’t know; only put it where Charles can’t get it; that’s all.”

“But I have no safe place for it.”

“You can put it somewhere.  I feel better now it is out of my hands,” she added, with a deep sigh.

“Really, Mrs. Whippleton, I can’t take charge of this.  I am afraid it would make me as miserable as it has you.”

“You must take it, Philip.  You are the only honest man I know of.  Keep it safe, and when I’m gone,-if I’m goin’ this time,-don’t give it to anybody but my administrator.”

“I don’t like to take it, Mrs. Whippleton.”

“That’s the very reason why I want you to take it.  If you was more willing, I shouldn’t be so anxious to give it to you.  I know you’ll be careful of it.”

“I will tell you what I will do with it, if you are willing.  I want to go to St. Louis to see my father.  If Mr. Whippleton will let me off to-morrow, for a few days, I will go then.  I will seal up the package, and my father will keep it in his safe.”

“Is your father honest?”

“He is.”

“He must be if he is your father.  Do as you think best.  If he can put the money out at interest for me, I should like it all the better.”

“Very well.  I will give you my receipt for this package, and that will at least be evidence that I took it, and at your request.”

I put the treasure in my pocket, and then led the conversation into another channel.  I tried to awaken in her mind an interest in that other treasure, where thieves do not break through nor steal; but she was tired, and said she wanted to rest.  She had talked so much that she was all worn out.  She was a sad spectacle to me, and though she had gathered together a considerable fortune, it seemed to me that her life was a failure; she had not realized the true success.

I went to my room, opened the package, and made out a list of all the valuable papers which it contained.  I wrote a receipt for them and for the money, and then, with the treasure under my pillow, I went to sleep.  The next morning I called upon the old lady, and gave her the receipt.  The nurse thought she was better, and said she had slept very well after I left her.  Mrs. Whippleton told me she was willing to pay my expenses to St. Louis, and I might take the money for the purpose from the package.