Phoebe Daring: A Story for Young Folk

by L. Frank Baum

The banker excused himself a moment and went into the counting room, in the rear of which stood a large safe. From a drawer which he unlocked he took a paper and with it returned to his private office.

“Although this document has been for years in Judge Ferguson’s keeping,” began Mr. Spaythe, “its character and contents were unknown to him, for before she placed it in her box Mrs. Ritchie enclosed it in a heavy yellow envelope which she sealed and marked ‘private.’ The girl who took the box tore open the envelope, perhaps thinking it contained money, and so enabled me to make a discovery that otherwise might never have come to light. The moment I saw this paper I became interested, for it is a will, properly probated and attested, and on the outside it is docketed: ‘Last Will and Testament of Alonzo Clark.’”

“Alonzo Clark?” echoed Phoebe; “why, who was he, sir?”

“The father of Toby Clark. I knew him very slightly during the years preceding his death, when he lived at Riverdale. He once attempted to borrow some money from the bank on some mining stock which I considered worthless; so I refused him. He was a relative of Mrs. Ritchie.”

“I never knew that!” cried Phoebe, surprised.

“Nor I, until recently,” replied the banker. “This document which I now hold bequeaths to Alonzo Clark’s only child, Toby Clark, all of his interest in that mining stock, making Mrs. Ritchie the executor and providing that in case the stock becomes valuable and pays dividends it must not be sold or otherwise disposed of, but the proceeds shall be devoted to the education of Toby and the balance reserved until he is of age, when it is all to be turned over to him. During the minority of Toby, Mrs. Ritchie is to properly educate and clothe him and she is authorized to retain ten per cent of the income in payment for her services as trustee.”

“You say the stock is worthless?” asked the governor.

“I thought it was, at the time Alonzo Clark brought it to me; but when first I saw this paper I found that the will had been probated and Mrs. Ritchie duly appointed executor and trustee under its terms. That fact, and the woman’s eagerness to recover the paper, led me to suspect that the stock had become valuable; so I retained the will and began to investigate both the mine and the history of Alonzo Clark. As I told you, the first important report of these investigations reached me to-day. I will briefly relate to you their purport, rather than ask you to wade through the verbose mass of evidence submitted.”

“That will be best, I think,” agreed the governor.

“Alonzo Clark was a mining engineer of education and ability, who was employed by large corporations as an expert, to examine mines and report upon their value. He successfully pursued this vocation for several years and came to be regarded as a reliable judge of both copper and gold mines. Then he met with a misfortune. While in a rough mining camp in Arizona he fell in love with a plump, pretty girl—the daughter of one of the superintendents—and married her. She became Toby’s mother and proved far beneath her husband in both refinement and intellect. At about the same time that he married, Clark conceived what he thought a clever idea to make his fortune. Being sent to examine an outlying mine that had never been developed, he found it to contain the richest deposit of copper he had ever known of—so rich, in fact, that it was destined to become one of the greatest copper mines in America. A company of capitalists would purchase and develop this mine if Clark reported on it favorably. He forwarded them some very ordinary specimens of ore and said he believed the mine would pay a fair profit if worked economically, but he predicted no big things of it. Then he set to work to invest every dollar he had in the world in stock of this very mine, and he was able to secure a large quantity because his discouraging report had failed to inspire the promoters with any degree of enthusiasm. Then the schemer became properly punished, for the men who had formed the company got possession of another mine that promised better, but in which Clark had no interest, and devoted their exclusive attention to working that. Clark dared not argue the matter with them, for he had declared the rich mine to be unimportant, so he was obliged to wait until the company was ready to develop it, when he knew it would speedily make him rich.