CHAPTER XXV
HAPPY DAYS
“Ninety thousand dollars!” repeated Bob incredulously. “Why, that is a thousand dollars an acre!”
“He is sure they will drill many paying wells,” said Miss Charity. “To think that this fortune should come in our old age! You can go to school and college, Bob, and Sister and I will never be a burden on you. Isn’t it just wonderful!”
She went off into a happy little day-dream, and presently the conference broke up, and Miss Hope and the two men came out on the porch. Mr. Vernet proved to be a jolly kind of person, intensely interested in oil and oil prospects, and evidently completely satisfied with his purchase.
“Here’s the young man I have to thank,” he commented, shaking hands with Bob. “If those sharpers had got hold of the place, they would have forced me to buy at more than a fair risk, or else sold the land in small holdings and we should have had that abomination, close drilling. I’m grateful to you, my lad, for outwitting those slick schemers.”
Miss Hope persuaded the two men to stay to dinner, and she and Miss Charity fairly outdid themselves in their cooking. Afterward Mr. Gordon took Mr. Vernet back to the oil fields, depositing in the Flame City bank for Miss Hope the check for twenty-five thousand dollars he had given her the day before, and the larger check she had received that morning.
“We’re rich, Sister, rich!” said Miss Charity, drying the dinner dishes and so overcome that she dropped a china cup which crashed into tiny pieces on the floor.
“Well, don’t break all the dishes,” advised Miss Hope, with dry practicality. “You can’t buy a pretty cup in Flame City if you are a millionaire.”