Only an Irish Boy; Or, Andy Burke's Fortunes, Jr. Horatio Alger [best ebook reader for surface pro txt] 📗
- Author: Jr. Horatio Alger
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"Now, I'll tell you what I think it only right to do, Andy," pursued the colonel.
Andy listened attentively.
"I am going to make you a present of some money, as an acknowledgment of the service you have done me."
"I don't want anything, Colonel Preston," said Andy. "I didn't help you for the money."
"I know you didn't, my lad," said the colonel, "but I mean to give it to you all the same."
He took out his pocketbook, but Andy made one more remonstrance.
"I don't think I ought to take it, sir, thankin' you all the same."
"Then I will give you one hundred dollars for your mother. You can't refuse it for her."
Andy's eyes danced with delight. He knew how much good this money would do his mother, and relieve her from the necessity of working so hard as she was now compelled to do.
"Thank you, sir," he said. "It'll make my mother's heart glad, and save her from the hard work."
"Here is the money, Andy," said the colonel, handing his young companion a roll of bills.
Again Andy poured out warm protestations of gratitude for the munificent gift, with which Colonel Preston was well pleased.
"I believe you are a good boy, Andy," he said. "It is a good sign when a boy thinks so much of his mother."
"I'd be ashamed not to, sir," said Andy.
They soon reached the village. Andy got down at the Misses Grant's gate, and was soon astonishing the simple ladies by a narrative of his encounter with the highwayman.
"Do you think he'll come here?" asked Sophia, in alarm. "If he should come when Andy was away——"
"You could fire the gun yourself, Sophia."
"I should be frightened to death."
"Then he couldn't kill you afterward."
"Just so," answered Sophia, a little bewildered.
"Were you shot, Andrew?" she asked, a minute afterward.
"If I was, I didn't feel it," said Andy, jocosely.
Andy's heroic achievement made him still more valued by the Misses Grant, and they rejoiced in the handsome gift he had received from the colonel, and readily gave him permission to carry it to his mother after supper.
CHAPTER XX — HOW THE NEWS WAS RECEIVED
It is always pleasant to carry good news, and Andy hastened with joyful feet to his mother's humble dwelling.
"Why, Andy, you're out of breath. What's happened?" asked Mrs. Burke.
"I was afraid of bein' robbed," said Andy.
"The robber wouldn't get much that would steal from you, Andy."
"I don't know that, mother. I ain't so poor as you think. Look there, now!"
Here he displayed the roll of bills. There were twenty fives, which made quite a thick roll.
"Where did you get so much, Andy?" asked his sister Mary.
"How much is it?" asked his mother.
"A hundred dollars," answered Andy, proudly.
"A hundred dollars!" repeated his mother, with apprehension. "Oh, Andy, I hope you haven't been stealing?"
"Did you ever know me to stale, mother?" said Andy.
"No, but I thought you might be tempted. Whose money is it?"
"It's yours, mother."
"Mine!" exclaimed Mrs. Burke, in astonishment. "You're joking now, Andy."
"No, I'm not. It's yours."
"Where did it come from, then?"
"Colonel Preston sent it to you as a present."
"I am afraid you are not tellin' me the truth, Andy," said his mother, doubtfully. "Why should he send me so much money?"
"Listen, and I'll tell you, mother, and you'll see it's the truth I've been tellin'."
Thereupon he told the story of his adventure with the highwayman and how he had saved Colonel Preston from being robbed.
His mother listened with pride, for though Andy spoke modestly, she could see that he had acted in a brave and manly way, and it made her proud of him.
"So the colonel," Andy concluded, "wanted to give me a hundred dollars, but I didn't like to take it myself. But when he said he would give it to you, I couldn't say anything ag'inst that. So here it is, mother, and I hope you'll spend some of it on yourself."
"I don't feel as if it belonged to me, Andy. It was you that he meant it for."
"Keep it, mother, and it'll do to use when we nade it."
"I don't like to keep so much money in the house, Andy. We might be robbed."
"You can put part of it in the savings bank, mother."
This course was adopted, and Andy himself carried eighty dollars, and deposited it in a savings bank in Melville, a few days afterward.
Meanwhile Colonel Preston told the story of Andy's prowess, at home. But Mrs. Preston was prejudiced against Andy, and listened coldly.
"It seems to me, Colonel Preston," she said, "you are making altogether too much of that Irish boy. He puts on enough airs to make one sick already."
"I never observed it, my dear," said the colonel, mildly.
"Everyone else does. He thought himself on a level with our Godfrey."
"He is Godfrey's superior in some respects."
"Oh, well, if you are going to exalt him above your own flesh and blood, I won't stay and listen to you."
"You disturb yourself unnecessarily, my dear. I have no intention of adopting him in place of my son. But he has done me a great service this after-noon, and displayed a coolness and courage very unusual in a boy of his age. But for him, I should be eight hundred dollars poorer."
"Oh, well, you can give him fifty cents, and he will be well paid for his services, as you call them."
"Fifty cents!" repeated her husband.
"Well, a dollar, if you
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