Neale was turning the leaves carefully and counting. Past the tens, the pages were filled with twenty dollar bills. Then came several pages of fifties. Then hundred dollar notes. In one case—which brought a cry of amazement to Agnes’ lips—a thousand dollar bill faced them from the middle of a page.
“Oh! goodness to gracious, Neale!” cried the Corner House girl. “What does it mean?”
Neale, with the stub of a pencil, was figuring up the “treasure” on the margin of a page.
“My cracky! look here, Aggie,” he cried, as he set down the last figure of the sum. “That’s what it is!”
The sum was indeed a fortune. The boy and girl looked at each other, all but speechless. If this were only good money!
“And it’s only good for the children to play with,” wailed Agnes.
Neale’s face grew very red and his eyes flashed. He closed the book fiercely. “If I had so much money,” he gasped, “I’d never have to take a cent from Uncle Bill Sorber again as long as I lived, I could pay for my own education—and go to college, too!”
“Oh! Neale! couldn’t you? And if it were mine we’d have an auto,” repeated Agnes, “and a man to run it.”
“Pooh! I could learn to run it for you,” proposed Neale. But it was plain by the look on his face that he was not thinking of automobiles.
“Say! don’t let’s give it to the kids to play with—not yet,” he added.