THE GOLDEN COIN LOST AGAIN
"Let's look, Tim! Let me see. Say, where'd you find it? Bring it here to
the light."
The crowd of boys, much excited, was jostling Little Tim, plying him
with more questions than he could answer, and each one trying to grasp
at something that he held in his hand.
Proceeding into the main room of the mill, Tim held his prize close to
the light of three lanterns. It was a small box, tied with cords, and
contained apparently something like coin, by the clinking sound that
came from within.
"I found it out in the mill, where the water comes in and where the big
wheels are," said Tim, breathlessly. "Sounds as though there was money
in it, don't it? It was just where one of the shafts goes through part
of a beam. The beam is cut away there, and room enough left for this,
right under the shafting. Nobody'd ever think of going near it when the
mill was running; but I climbed up there and took hold of the shaft, and
I spied it."
He was tearing off the cords as he spoke; and now, as he opened the
cover, sure enough, there was disclosed a handful or two of small coin:
some quarters and dimes and pennies--but nothing of great value. These
were intermingled with some papers, folded small.
John Ellison snatched at these and quickly unfolded them. But they read
disappointment for him. They were nothing more than a lot of receipted
bills, for supplies brought to the miller. Then they counted the coin.
There was a dollar and eighty odd cents in cash.
Tim Reardon was elated enough, and evidently thought the discovery
justified any amount of laborious searching; but the faces of John
Ellison and Henry Burns were eloquent of disappointment.
"Too bad, John," remarked Henry Burns, putting his hand on the other's
shoulder. "I thought we'd struck it at last. Want to hunt any more?"
John Ellison shook his head. "I've got enough," he said. "I give it up.
We've looked everywhere I can think of."
"And who gets the money?" inquired Tim, eagerly.
"I don't know," replied John Ellison, "and I don't care much. But I
don't know as we've got any right to it--though these bills aren't
Witham's, and I suppose the money isn't. The mill is his now, and I
guess we haven't any right to come in here and take this."
"Well," suggested Henry Burns, "why not ask Witham about it?"
"Ask Witham!" exclaimed John Ellison. "I won't. I don't want ever to
speak to him again. You can, though, if you want to."
"All right," said Henry Burns. "I'll ask him. And I'll get the money for
you."
"I don't want it," exclaimed John Ellison, whose disappointment was
evident in his tone of bitterness. "Give it to Tim--if you get it."
"All right," said Henry Burns.
Tim's eyes twinkled.
It was evening of the following day, and Colonel Witham sat on the porch
of the Half Way House, smoking his pipe. It had been a puzzling day for
him, and he was thinking it over. Going through the mill, along in the
afternoon, he had come upon an extraordinary looking object in the
garret--an old wash-boiler, inverted, with a resined cord running from
the bottom of it up to a beam. And near by lay a sort of bow, strung
with horse-hair.
What on earth could that be, and how had it come there? Colonel Witham,
at first, had thought it might be some sort of an infernal machine, put
there to destroy the mill. But he had investigated, cautiously, and
demonstrated its harmlessness. And about the floor were a few half
burned matches. Somebody had been in the mill. A faint perception began
to dawn upon him, as the day passed, that it might have been the boys;
but he couldn't wholly figure it out, and it bothered him not a little.
He thought of notifying the police--but he didn't want them hunting
about the mill--or anybody else. The best thing, he decided, was to keep
quiet, and watch out sharper than ever.
He was not in a friendly mood, therefore, when, gazing down the road, he
espied Henry Burns approaching on a bicycle, followed closely by Jack
Harvey and Tim Reardon. Moreover, his suspicions were aroused. He was
somewhat surprised, however, when the boys dismounted at a little
distance, leaned their wheels against some bushes and approached the
porch.
Greater still was the colonel's surprise--indeed, he was fairly taken
aback--when Henry Burns, having bade him good-evening, broached his
subject abruptly, without any preliminaries.
"Colonel Witham," said Henry Burns, coolly, "we were up in the mill last
night."
The colonel's eyes stuck out, and he glared at Henry Burns with mingled
astonishment and wrath.
"Eh, what's that?" he exclaimed, "you were in my mill! Why, you young
rascals, don't you know I could have you all arrested as burglars?"
"No," replied Henry Burns, "we didn't go to take anything of yours. We
were after some papers that belonged to John Ellison's father. We
weren't going to keep them either, if we found them; just turn them over
to Lawyer Estes."
"Well, then, it was trespass," cried Colonel Witham, wrathfully. "Who
told you there were papers in the mill. Lawyer Estes didn't--he knows
better."
"No," replied Henry Burns, "but you told the fortune-teller so."
"I didn't say that," bellowed Colonel Witham, rising from his chair. But
it was plain the suggestion of the fortune-teller worried him. "What did
you do in there?" he added. "If you did any harm, you'll suffer for it."
"We didn't," said Henry Burns. "We only played on a horse-fiddle once or
twice. You know there are rats in the mill, colonel. I guess they
scampered when they heard that."
Colonel Witham had been about to burst forth with an angry exclamation;
but the thought of his own ignominious flight made him pause. Rats,
indeed! He knew there wasn't a rat in the whole mill that had been half
so terrified as he.
"Now see here," he said, shaking his fist for emphasis, "I know you
didn't do any harm in the mill. It was one of your crazy pranks. But
don't you ever go in there again, or I'll make trouble for you."
"We're not going to," said Henry Burns.
"There isn't anything in there, anyway," urged Colonel Witham. "I've
heard that talk, around Benton, and it's all nonsense. You couldn't find
anything in there, if you hunted a hundred years."
"But we did find something," said Henry Burns, in a matter-of-fact way.
Colonel Witham's jaw dropped, and he looked at Henry Burns almost
helplessly. He couldn't speak for a moment. Then he asked, huskily,
"What was it you found? None of your pranks now; what did you find?"
"A small box, with some coins in it," replied Henry Burns; and he
described the hiding place. "There was a dollar and eighty-six cents."
Colonel Witham looked relieved. "Give them to me," he cried. "You've got
no right to the stuff."
"Wasn't it Ellison's?" inquired Henry Burns.
"Never you mind whose it was," cried Colonel Witham. "It was in my mill.
Give it to me, or I'll have the law on you."
"There were some papers, too," continued Henry Burns.
Colonel Witham staggered again. The hand that held his pipe shook. Then
his eyes twinkled craftily.
"Well, you're right smart boys," he said. "Keep the money, if you want
it, or give it to John Ellison. Yes, it was Jim Ellison's--the money
was. But the papers are mine. Have you got them? Give me the papers, and
keep the money. I don't claim the money."
"Yes, I've got the papers," replied Henry Burns. "Here they are. There's
all there were."
He handed the package to Colonel Witham, who took it with trembling
hand. Then Henry Burns and his friends made a hurried departure. By the
time the colonel had made an examination of the papers, and had turned,
white with anger, to vent his rage upon them, they were spinning down
the road.
"Tim," said Henry Burns, as they rode along, "you get the money."
It was a day or two later, on a sultry afternoon, and Bess Thornton
stood in the doorway of the old house where she and Granny Thornton
lived, looking forth at the sky. A passing shower was sprinkling the
doorsteps with a few big drops, and the girl drew back with a look of
disappointment on her face.
"It always rains when you don't want it to," she said. "Wish there was
somebody to play with. It's pokey here, with gran' gone to Witham's. I
don't know what to do."
Something suggested itself to her mind, however, for presently she
opened the door leading to the attic and went up the stairs. It was dark
and silent in the attic, but she threw open a window at either end,
unfastened the blinds, and the daylight entered. It disclosed a clutter
of old household stuff: some strings of pop-corn and dried apples and
herbs hanging from the rafters, and a lot of faded garments, suspended
from nails.
She tried on an old-fashioned poke-bonnet, looked at herself in a bit of
cracked mirror that leaned against a wash-stand, and laughed at the odd
picture she made. Then, by turns, she arrayed herself in some of the
antiquated garments. She rummaged here and there, until she came to the
old bureau.
"Gran' always keeps that locked," she said. "I guess nobody'd want to
steal anything from this old place, though. She needn't be so
particular. I wonder where she keeps the key."
There was no great difficulty in finding that, either, once she had set
about it; for soon her hand rested on the key, as she felt along the
tops of the beams, and came to the one where Granny Thornton had laid
it.
"I'm going to have a look," said the girl softly to herself. "Gran's
always telling me to keep out of here." Then, as the thought struck her,
she exclaimed, "I'll bet here's where she put the coin."
The lock of the upper drawer of the bureau yielded readily to the
pressure of the key; she drew the drawer out, and looked within. There
was a mixture of curious odds and ends, from which she picked up a tiny
white dress.
"That's funny," she exclaimed. "It's a baby's dress. I wonder what gran'
keeps it for; perhaps 'twas mine. It's small, though. Wonder if I was
ever as little as that."
She took the tiny garment by the sleeves, and held it up against
herself. Then she laughed merrily. "I wish I could ask gran' about it,"
she said.
A small box attracted her eye and she seized that. She got a surprise
then. She had thought that perhaps it might contain the coin. But it
contained that and more. There, indeed, was the golden coin; but,
strangely enough, it was not as she and Tim Reardon had found it, but
affixed to a small golden chain.
"Oh!" she exclaimed; "Gran' was right, then. It did belong to us, after
all. My, it's pretty, too. Gran' ought to let me wear it."
She tried to hang it about her neck, but the chain was too short. She
remedied that, however, by piecing it out with two bits of ribbon which
she found in the drawer. These she knotted in a bow at the back of her
neck, and danced over to the mirror, to note the effect of the chain
with its ornament. It was a rare piece of finery in her eyes, and she
gazed upon it long and wistfully.
"I'm going to wear it awhile," she exclaimed. "It won't hurt it any.
Gran' said I wore it once, when I was little. It's mine, I guess,
anyway."
She continued her rummaging through the drawer, but it yielded nothing
more to her fancy. She shut the drawer and locked it, and went to look
at herself once more in the piece of mirror. The sun came out from
behind the passing clouds, and, as it streamed in at one of the windows,
it shone on the chain and the coin and on the girl's face.
"I just can't take it off yet," she said; and, closing the blinds,
tripped down the stairs. But, as she looked out the door, she espied
Granny Thornton coming in at the gate. She thought of the chain and its
coin; and, realizing it was too late to regain the attic and replace it,
slipped quietly out at the shed door and ran down through the fields to
the brook, before Granny Thornton had espied her.
As she came to the edge of the brook, a small boy, that had been lying
face down on the turf, with an arm deep in the water, rose up and
greeted her.
"Why, hello, Tim," she said, surprised; "what are you doing?"
"Trying to tickle that big trout," replied Tim Reardon. "I've been here
half an hour, without moving, but I can't find him. There's where he
lies, though; I've seen him often. But he won't come near; he's too
smart. I'm going to try the pickerel. See here, look what I've got."
He put a hand into his trousers pocket, and drew forth an object wrapped
in a piece of newspaper. It proved to be a new spoon hook, bright and
shiny, with gleaming red and silver, and a bunch of bright feathers
covering the hooks at the end.
"Isn't that a beauty!" he exclaimed. "Cost a quarter. I bought it. John
Ellison gave me that money I found in the mill."
"It's fine," replied the girl. "Going to try it?"
"Sure," answered Tim. "My rod's hid down by the stream. I wanted to try
to tickle a trout when the shower ruffled the water here. Ever tickle a
trout?"
Bess Thornton laughed. "No," said she; "nor you, either, I guess."
"Honest injun, I have," asserted Tim, warmly. "You just put your hand
down in the water, and keep it still for an awful while; and by and by
perhaps a fish'll brush against it. Then he'll keep doing it, and then
you just move your hand and your fingers easy like, and the trout, he
kind er likes it. Then, when you get a good chance, you just grab quick
and throw him out on shore."
"Hm!" exclaimed the girl; "I'd like to see you do it."
They went along the brook to the road, passed up the road to a point
some way above the dam, when Tim Reardon presently disappeared in a
clump of bushes; from this he soon emerged, with his bamboo fish-pole.
They went down through the field to the shore.
Jointing up the rod and affixing the reel, Tim Reardon ran out his line,
tied on the bright spoon-hook and began trolling. The allurement proved
enticing, and presently he hooked a fish. Tim gallantly handed the rod
to Bess Thornton.
"Pull him in," he said. "I've caught lots of 'em. You can land this
one."
The girl seized the rod, with a little cry of delight, and lifted the
fish out of water. Then she swung it in on shore, where it lay, with its
green body twisting about in the grass, and its great jaws distended,
showing its sharp teeth.
"My, isn't he ugly looking!" she exclaimed. "You take the hook out, will
you, Tim?"
Tim, grasping the squirming fish tightly behind the gills, disengaged
the hook and threw the fish down in the grass again. "That one's yours,"
he said.
The girl still held the pole.
"Let me try just a minute, will you?" she asked. "If I get another, you
can have it."
Tim assented readily, and she swung the pole and cast the hook far out
upon the water. She drew it back and forth past a clump of lily pads,
and then cast again. She was not as skilful with the long rod as the boy
had been, however; and once, as she cast, the line did not have time to
straighten out behind her, and the hook fell in the water close by the
shore. She jerked it out and tried to cast again.
The hook swung in, almost striking her in the face; and both she and Tim
Reardon dodged. The next moment, she made a sweep with the rod, to throw
the hook back toward the water. Something caught, and she felt a slight
tug at her neck. She dropped the rod and uttered a cry of dismay.
"What's the matter?" cried Little Tim. "Did you get hooked?"
But the girl made no answer. She stood, holding the ends of the broken
chain in either hand, anxiously looking all about her.
"The coin!" she gasped. "Tim, I've lost the coin. Oh, won't gran' give
it to me if I've lost that again!"
They hunted everywhere about them, parting the tufts of grass carefully
and poking about on hands and knees. But the coin was nowhere to be
seen.
"I tell you what," suggested Tim, "it's gone into the water. Never mind,
though; I can get it. I'll dive for it."
They were at the edge of a little bank, from which the water went off
deep at a sharp angle. They gazed down into the water, but there was not
light enough within its depths, nor was it sufficiently clear to enable
them to see the bottom.
"I'm going in after it, too," exclaimed Bess Thornton; "but I can't in
this dress." She glanced at the sailor-suit she wore. "I'm going back to
the house and put on the old one. You try for it while I'm gone, won't
you, Tim?"
The boy nodded; and Bess Thornton, half in tears, started off on a smart
run to the old house. In her dismay, she had forgotten that Granny
Thornton had returned from the inn; but she was speedily aware of that
fact as she darted in at the kitchen door. There stood Granny Thornton,
with mingled anger and alarm depicted on her countenance.
"Oh," she cried, "I'd just like to shake you, good. Give me back that
chain and the coin. Don't say you didn't take it. I found it gone. What
do you mean by going into that drawer? Don't you ever--"
She stopped abruptly, for Bess Thornton was facing her, the tears
standing in her eyes, and she held in her hand the broken chain.
"Oh, gran'," she cried, "don't scold. I didn't mean any harm. I just
wanted to wear it a little while. But it's--it's gone."
And she told the story of the loss of the coin.
Granny Thornton stared at the girl in amazement. Then she burst forth in
querulous tones, seemingly as though she were addressing the girl and
soliloquizing at the same time.
"It's gone!" she gasped. "Gone again--and sure there's a fate in it.
Plenty of chains like that to be had, but never another coin of the kind
seen about these parts. Oh, but you've gone and done it. Don't you know
that coin meant luck for you, girl? You might have gone to the big house
to live some day; but you'll never go now. You've lost the luck. You're
bad--bad. There's no making you mind. Give me the chain."
Her voice grew more harsh and angry. "Let the coin go," she said.
"You've lost it, and you can suffer for it. You'll not go out of this
house again to-day."
Puzzled at her strange words, and hurt at the scolding, Bess Thornton
sat sullenly. "I'll get it back to-morrow, if I can't to-day," she said.
"I'm going to dive for it."
"You keep away from the water, do you hear?" replied Granny Thornton;
but, a half-hour later, she seemed to have changed her mind. "Go and get
it, if you can," she said, shortly. "Change that dress--and don't get
drowned."
But Little Tim, in the mean time, had not been idle. Hastily throwing
off his clothing, he dived again and again into the deep pool, swimming
to the bottom and groping about there. He brought up handfuls of sticks
and small stones, and the debris of the water's bed. A dozen times he
was unsuccessful--and then, at last, as he clung to the bank and opened
his fist for the water to thin the mud and ooze that he had clutched,
there lay the golden coin, bright and shining in his palm.
He scrambled out, had his clothes on in a twinkling, dropped the coin
into one of his pockets, and started off on a run down the road.
Perhaps old Granny Thornton had been right, however, when she exclaimed
that there was a fate in the mysterious foreign piece; for when Tim
Reardon reached his hand into his pocket presently, to see that the coin
was safe--lo, it had once more disappeared. Little Tim, with a look of
chagrin, turned his pocket inside out. A tell-tale hole in one corner
accounted for the disappearance. Tim, muttering his disgust, slowly
retraced his steps, kicking away the dust with his bare feet.
He was still searching for the coin when Bess Thornton returned. They
were both searching for it an hour later. But the coin was lost.
"I'm awful sorry," said Tim, as they finally relinquished the search.
"I'll tell you what, though. It's my fault, and I've got a dollar and
sixty cents left at home, and I'll give you that."
The girl shook her head sadly. "I wouldn't take it," she replied.
Two hours later, Benny Ellison, strolling homeward, with gun over
shoulder, and two pickerel dangling from a crotched stick, espied
something gleaming in the grass by the roadside. He stooped and picked
up a golden coin.
"What luck!" he exclaimed. He put the coin in his pocket and carried it
home. He had a collection of curiosities there, in an old cabinet, that
he valued highly: coins, stamps, birds' nests, queer bits of stone and
odds and ends of stuff. Seeing that the coin was punched, and foreign,
and not available for spending money, he placed it among his treasures.
He was a curiously unsocial youth; had few pleasures that he shared with
his cousins, but gloated over his own acquisitions quietly like a miser.
He rejoiced silently in this new addition to his hoard, and said nothing
about it.