CHAPTER XX
TIM'S DISCLOSURE
Two days later Dick received a reply from Mr. Larabee. In the meanwhile Mr. Hamilton had written to Foster, the man he hired to take charge of Sunnyside farm, and had told him to have the place in readiness for twenty-five youngsters.
"Did your Uncle Ezra give you the address of the Fresh-Air Committee?" asked Dick's father.
"Yes, and he sent me a letter of advice along with it."
"What does he say?"
"I'll read it to you," and Dick turned over the pages of the missive. "This is what he says about my plan of trying to give those kids a little fun:
"'I send you the address of the committee, as you requested, but, Nephew Richard, I want to warn you against taking them. In the first place, they will be no better off than they are at home. They will not appreciate what you do for them. Then, too, they might bring some terrible epidemic to this part of the country. Sunnyside is not so far from Dankville but that a disease might carry to my place, and you know my health is not strong.
"'If I had control of you (as I may have some day), I would not let you do this. But it is not for me to say at this time what you should do. I think you are throwing the money away, and you had much better put the amount you intend spending into the church missionary box and so aid the heathens. They need it.'
"As if those poor kids in the hot tenements of New York didn't need it, too," commented Dick. "Well, Uncle Ezra is certainly a queer man. I suppose he'll keep his house filled with disinfectants while the waifs are at Sunnyside, though it's many miles away."