When Charles River was lined with groves and marshes there lived in a
cabin, near Brighton, Massachusetts, an ill-fed rascal named Tom Walker.
There was but one in the commonwealth who was more penurious, and that
was his wife. They squabbled over the spending of a penny and each
grudged food to the other. One day as Tom walked through the pine wood
near his place, by habit watching the ground--for even there a farthing
might be discovered--he prodded his stick into a skull, cloven deep by an
Indian tomahawk. He kicked it, to shake the dirt off, when a gruff voice
spake: "What are you doing in my grounds?" A swarthy fellow, with the
face of a charcoal burner, sat on a stump, and Tom wondered that he had
not seen him as he approached.