Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/214

194. I wish Phil had been doing this job."

But Ken's topics didn't stay arranged. As the train rumbled on toward Bayside, the tale was drawn from him piecemeal; what he tried to conceal, his mother soon enough discovered by a little questioning. Her son dissimulated very poorly, she found to her amusement. And, after all, she must know the whole, sooner or later. It was only his wish to spare her any sudden shock which made him hold back now.

"And you mean to tell me that you poor dears have been scraping along on next to nothing, while selfish Mother has been spending the remnant of the fortune at Hilltop?"

"Oh, pshaw, Mother!" Ken muttered, "there was plenty. And look at you, all nice and well for us. It would have been a pretty sight to see us flourishing around with the money while you perished forlorn, wouldn't it?"

"Think of all the wealth we'll have now," Mrs. Sturgis suggested, "all the hundreds and hundreds that Hilltop has been gobbling."

"I'd forgotten that," whistled Ken. "Hi-ya! We'll be bloated aristocrats, we will! We'll have a steak for dinner!"

"Oh, you poor chicks!" said his mother.