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"Riley says that's the stuff for little boys with curvature of the spine and I'll tell you it put several kinks in mine to watch that burn." And so they sat for an hour talking of old times while the fire burned. But Molly Brownwell's mind was not in the performance that John Barclay had staged. She could see nothing but the package lying on her cloak in the girl's room upstairs.
The next day John Barclay, who desired to have his speech on the laying of the corner-stone printed in full, gave Brownwell twenty dollars, and a most glowing account of the event in question appeared in the Banner, and eloquence staggered under the burden of praise which Brownwell's language loaded upon the shoulders of General Ward.
He had finished two pages when General Hendricks came in a-tremble and breathless. The eyes of the two men met, and Hendricks replied: "It's Brownwell the fat's in the fire, John. Brownwell's going!" "Going going where?" asked the man at the desk, blankly. "Going to leave town. He's been in and given notice that he wants his money in gold day after to-morrow."
"Don't scream for God's sake, don't scream," cried Hendricks to the woman in a suppressed voice. Then he commanded her harshly, "Go in the house quick Molly quick." She ran as though hypnotized by the force of the suggestion. Hendricks had his free hand over Brownwell's mouth and around his neck. The little old man was kicking and wriggling, but Hendricks held him. "Not here, you fool, not here.
He did not become an expert in arithmetic, though, by dint of persistent effort, he made creditable progress in the study. In penmanship he excelled, and acquired an easy, attractive style that was of great service to him through life. While Benjamin was attending Mr. Brownwell's school, his "Uncle Benjamin," for whom he was named, came over from England.
But through it all Molly Brownwell's good name was ever before him, and when he thought how twenty years before he had walked through another day planning, scheming, and contriving, all to produce the climax of calamity that was hovering over her to-day, he was sick and faint with horror and self-loathing.
When he discovered that Brownwell's notes were not made for bona fide loans, but that they were made to cover Barclay's overdrafts, he began to find the truth, and then when he found that Colonel Culpepper had lent the money back to the bank that he borrowed from Brownwell, also to save John's overdrafts, Bob Hendricks' soul burned pale with rage.
Brownwell's school any longer?" he asked, instead of replying to his father's question, a Yankee-like way of doing things, truly. "I think the close of this term will complete the education I am able to give you," replied his father. "You will fare, then, better than your brothers, in respect to schooling." "I had rather not go into the shop," said Benjamin.
Hendricks knew from Brownwell's overdraft that things were not going well with him, and he believed that matters must have reached a painful crisis in the Culpepper family if Brownwell had brought suit against the colonel. The next morning Colonel Martin Culpepper came into the bank.
Pay-day on many mortgages was coming due, and of the fifteen thousand dollars he checked out to pay Adrian Brownwell's debt, thirteen thousand dollars was money that belonged to the Eastern creditors of the company men and women who had sent their money to the company for it to lend; and the money checked out represented money paid back by the farmers for the release of their mortgages.
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