and, approaching the old man from behind, fairly lifted him up to a sitting position on her head. Mechanically he grasped her horns, and in this position was carried rapidly round the yard, much to his own dismay and Andy’s amusement.
“Take her off, Andy!” exclaimed the frightened and bewildered old man. “She’ll kill me!”
“If I touch her, she’ll throw you on the ground,” said Andy, between paroxysms of laughter.
“Do somethin’ to help me, or I’m a dead man!” shrieked Joshua, clinging tighter to the cow’s horns. “If you’ll help me, I’ll take off a dollar from the note.”
Andy knew that the old man was in no real danger, and stood still, while the triumphant cow ran about the yard with her terrified master between her horns.
“Oh, dear! Will nobody help me?” howled Joshua. “Is the cow crazy?”
“I think she must be, Mr. Starr,” said Andy, gravely.
“I shall be killed, and I’m only sixty-nine!” wailed the old man, who by this time had lost his hat.
“Shall I shoot her?” asked Andy, displaying a toy pistol, which was quite harmless.
“No, don’t!” exclaimed the old man, turning pale. “You might hit me! Besides, I gave thirty dollars for her. Oh, I never expected to die this way,” he added, dismally.
But the cow was by this time tired of her burden, and, with a jerk of her head, dislodged her proprietor, who fell prostrate in a pile of manure.
Andy ran to pick him up, and helped him into the house.
“Do you think any of my bones is broken?” asked Joshua, anxiously.
“I don’t see how they can be. You fell in a soft place,” said Andy, wanting to laugh.
“I’ll sell that cow as quick as I get a chance,” said Joshua. “Don’t you tell anybody what’s happened, or you may spile the sale.”
Andy tried to introduce the subject of the note again, but Joshua was too full of the accident to talk about it. Finally, discouraged by his poor success, he went home.
On the way he met Louis Schick, a schoolfellow, of German extraction, who hailed him.
“You’d better go to the post office, Andy. There’s a big parcel there for your mother.”
“A parcel?”
“Yes; it’s too big for a letter.”
Wondering what it could be, Andy went to the post office.
The parcel he found there was of great importance.
CHAPTER IX.
A GIFT FROM THE DEAD
The village post office was located in a drug store, and the druggist had plenty of time to attend to the duties of the office, as well as the calls of his regular customers.
Hamilton was so healthy a village that it hardly furnished a sufficient demand for drugs and medicines to support a man of the most moderate tastes. But, with the addition of his salary as postmaster, Mr. Bolus was able to maintain a small family in comfort.
“I suppose you want some pills, Andy?” said Mr. Bolus, as our hero entered the office.
“No, sir,” answered Andy. “I hope I shan’t want any of them for a long time to come. Louis Schick told me there was something in the office for mother.”
“So there is – and a large parcel, too.”
He went into the post-office corner and produced a large, thick parcel, wrapped in a long, yellow envelope.
“Here it is, Andy,” said Mr. Bolus. “I hope it’s something valuable.”
Andy took the package and looked eagerly at the address.
His mother’s name and address were on the envelope, and it seemed to be postmarked at some town in Pennsylvania.
“Do you know anybody in the place where the package comes from?” asked the postmaster.
“No,” answered Andy. “That is, I don’t – perhaps mother may. It feels like a wallet,” added Andy, thoughtfully.
“So it does. I hope, for your mother’s sake, the wallet is full of money.”
“I am afraid there isn’t much chance of that,” replied Andy. “Well, I’ll go home and carry it to mother.”
Andy put the parcel in his inside coat pocket and took the nearest way home.
As he entered the house he did not immediately speak of the parcel, his thoughts being diverted by his mother’s question:
“Well, Andy, did you see Mr. Starr?”
“Yes, mother, I saw him,” answered Andy, soberly.
“Well, what does he say?” Mrs. Gordon inquired, anxiously.
“Nothing that’s encouraging. Mother, I believe he is one of the meanest men I ever knew.”
“He must know that your father paid that note.”
“Of course he knows it. A man doesn’t often forget such a thing as that. At any rate, Mr. Starr isn’t that kind of man.”
“What did he say when you told him the note had been paid?”
“That, of course, we could show the receipt.”
“It was a cunningly laid plot,” said Mrs. Gordon, indignantly. “He kept back the note, in the hope that your father would mislay the receipt. Perhaps he was even wicked enough to hope that he would be killed, and so clear the way for carrying out his fraudulent scheme.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if it were so, mother. I believe the old man would sell himself for money.”
Then, chancing to think of Mr. Starr’s involuntary ride on one of his own cows, Andy began to laugh heartily, considerably to the surprise of his mother.
“I can’t see anything to laugh at, Andy,” she said, wonderingly.
“You would have laughed if you had seen what happened while I was talking to Mr. Starr.”
And Andy proceeded to give an account of the scene.
Mrs. Gordon smiled, but she was too much impressed by the serious position in which they were placed to feel as much amusement as Andy.
“I am afraid, Andy,” she said, “that Mr. Starr will deprive us of our furniture, unless something unexpected turns up in our favor.”
This recalled to Andy’s mind the packet which he had just brought from the post office.
“That reminds me, mother,” he said, quickly. “I got a letter, or package, from the post office just now, for you. Perhaps there is something in it that may help us.”
He drew from his pocket the package and handed it to his mother.
Mrs. Gordon received it with undisguised amazement.
“Erie, Pennsylvania,” she read, looking at the postmark. “I don’t know anybody there.”
“Open it, mother. Here are the scissors.”
Mrs. Gordon cut the string which helped confine the parcel, and then cut open the envelope.
“It is your father’s wallet, Andy,” she said, in a voice of strong emotion, removing the contents.
“Father’s wallet? How can it be sent you from Erie at this late day?” asked Andy, in surprise equal to his mother’s.
“Here is a note. Perhaps that will tell,” said his mother, drawing from the envelope a folded sheet of note paper. “I will read it.”
The note was as follows:
“Dear Madam: I have to apologize to you for retaining so long in my possession an article which properly belongs to you, and ought long ago to have been sent to you. Before explaining the delay, let