The Old Rifle Gives Up Its Secret
Out of that game with forbidden playmates, grew events which changed the
lives of several people. It began by Richard's deciding that a real gun
was necessary for his equipment if he was to play the part of Leather-
Stocking properly. Also, he argued, it would be a valuable addition to
their stock of fire-arms. The broken old horse-pistols were good enough
to play at pirating with, but something which would really shoot was
needed when they started out in earnest on a sure-enough adventure.
Georgina suggested that he go to Fishburn Court and borrow a rifle that
she had seen up in Uncle Darcy's attic. She would go with him and do the
asking, she added, but Belle had promised to take her with her the next
time she went to see the net-mender, and the next time would be the
following afternoon, if Tippy was well enough to be up and around.
Georgina couldn't miss the chance to see inside the cottage that had been
the home of a hero and Belle's drowned lover. She wanted to see the
newspaper which Mr. Potter showed everybody who went to the house. It had
an account of the wreck and the rescue in it, with Emmett's picture on
the front page, and black headlines under it that said, "Died like a
hero."
Tippy was well enough to be up next day, so Richard went alone to
Fishburn Court, and Georgina trudged along the sandy road with Belle to
the weather-beaten cottage on the edge of the cranberry bog. Belle told
her more about the old man as they walked along.
"Seems as if he just lives on that memory. He can't get out in the boats
any more, being so crippled up, and he can't see to read much, so there's
lots of time for him to sit and think on the past. If it wasn't for the
nets he'd about lose his mind. I wouldn't say it out, and you needn't
repeat it, but sometimes I think it's already touched a mite. You see the
two of them lived there together so long alone, that Emmett was all in
all to his father. I suppose that's why Emmett is all he can talk about
now."
When they reached the cottage Mr. Potter was sitting out in front as
usual, busy with his work. Georgina was glad that he did not offer to
shake hands. His were so dirty and black with tar she felt she could not
bear to touch them. He was a swarthy old man with skin like wrinkled
leather, and a bushy, grizzled beard which grew up nearly to his eyes.
Again Georgina wondered, looking at Belle in her crisp, white dress and
white shoes. How could she care for this unkempt old creature enough to
call him Father?
As she followed Belle around inside the dreary three-room cottage she
wanted to ask if this would have been her home if Emmett had not been
drowned, but she felt a delicacy about asking such a question. She
couldn't imagine Belle in such a setting, but after she had followed her
around a while longer she realized that the house wouldn't stay dreary
with such a mistress. In almost no time the place was put to rights, and
there was a pan of cookies ready to slip into the oven.
When the smell of their browning stole out to the front door the old man
left his bench and came in to get a handful of the hot cakes. Then, just
as Belle said he would, he told Georgina all that had happened the night
of the wreck.
"That's the very chair he was sittin' in, when Luke Jones come in with
the word that men were needed. He started right off with Luke soon as he
could get into his oil-skins, for 'twas stormin' to beat the band. But he
didn't go fur. Almost no time it seemed like, he was comin' into the
house agin, and he went into that bedroom there, and shet the door behind
him. That of itself ought to 'uv made me know something out of the usual
was beginnin' to happen, for he never done such a thing before. A few
minutes later he came out with an old rifle that him and Dan Darcy used
to carry around in the dunes for target shootin' and he set it right down
in that corner by the chimney jamb.
"'First time anybody passes this way goin' down ito Fishburn Court,' he
says, 'I wish you'd send this along to Uncle Dan'l. It's his by rights,
and he'd ought a had it long ago.'
"An' them was his last words to me, except as he pulled the door to after
him he called 'Good-bye Pop, if I don't see you agin.'
"I don't know when he'd done such a thing before as to say good-bye when
he went out, and I've often wondered over it sence, could he 'a had any
warnin' that something was goin' to happen to him?"
Georgina gazed at the picture in the newspaper long and curiously. It had
been copied from a faded tin-type, but even making allowances for that
Emmett didn't look as she imagined a hero should, nor did it seem
possible it could be the man Belle had talked about. She wished she
hadn't seen it. It dimmed the glamor of romance which seemed to surround
him like a halo. Hearing about him in the magical moonlight she had
pictured him as looking as Sir Galahad. But if _this_ was what he
really looked like--Again she glanced wonderingly at Belle. How could she
care so hard for ten long years for just an ordinary man like that?
When it was time to go home Belle suggested that they walk around by
Fishburn Court. It would be out of their way, but she had heard that Aunt
Elspeth wasn't as well as usual.
"Emmett always called her Aunt," she explained to Georgina as they walked
along, "so I got into the way of doing it, too. He was so fond of Dan's
mother. She was so good to him after his own went that I feel I want to
be nice to her whenever I can, for his sake."
"You know," she continued, "Aunt Elspeth never would give up but that Dan
was innocent, and since her memory's been failing her this last year, she
talks all the time about his coming home; just lies there in bed half her
time and babbles about him. It almost kills Uncle Dan'l to hear her,
because, of course, he knows the truth of the matter, that Dan _was_
guilty. He as good as confessed it before he ran away, and the running
away itself told the story."
When they reached Fishburn Court they could see two people sitting in
front of the cottage. Uncle Darcy was in an armchair on the grass with
one of the cats in his lap, and Richard sat on one seat of the red,
wooden swing with Captain Kidd on the opposite site one. Richard had a
rifle across his knees, the one Georgina had suggested borrowing. He
passed his hand caressingly along its stock now and then, and at
intervals raised it to sight along the barrel. It was so heavy he could
not keep it from wobbling when he raised it to take aim in various
directions.
At the click of the gate-latch the old man tumbled Yellownose out of his
lap and rose stiffly to welcome his guests.
"Come right in," he said cordially. "Mother'll be glad to see you, Belle.
She's been sort of low in her mind lately, and needs cheering up."
He led the way into a low-ceilinged, inner bedroom with the shades all
pulled down. It was so dark, compared to the glaring road they had been
following, that Georgina blinked at the dim interior. She could scarcely
make out the figure on the high-posted bed, and drew back, whispering to
Belle that she'd stay outside until they were ready to go home. Leaving
them on the threshold, she went back to the shady door-yard to a seat in
the swing beside Captain Kidd.
"It's Uncle Darcy's son's rifle," explained Richard. "He's been telling
me about him. Feel how smooth the stock is."
Georgina reached over and passed her hand lightly along the polished
wood.
"He and a friend of his called Emmett Potter used to carry it on the
dunes sometimes to shoot at a mark with. It wasn't good for much else,
it's so old. Dan got it in a trade once; traded a whole litter of collie
pups for it. Uncle Darcy says he'd forgotten there was such a gun till
somebody brought it to him after Emmett was drowned."
"Oh," interrupted Georgina, her eyes wide with interest. "Emmett's father
has just been telling me about this very rifle. But I didn't dream it was
the one I'd seen up in the attic here. He showed me the corner where
Emmett stood it when he left for the wreck, and told what was to be done
with it. 'Them were his last words,'" she added, quoting Mr. Potter.
She reached out her hand for the clumsy old firearm and almost dropped
it, finding it so much heavier than she expected. She wanted to touch
with her own fingers the weapon that had such an interesting history, and
about which a hero had spoken his last words.
"The hammer's broken," continued Richard. "Whoever brought it home let it
fall. It's all rusty, too, because it was up in the attic so many years
and the roof leaked on it. But Uncle Darcy said lots of museums would be
glad to have it because there aren't many of these old flint-locks left
now. He's going to leave it to the Pilgrim museum up by the monument when
he's dead and gone, but he wants to keep it as long as he lives because
Danny set such store by it."
"There's some numbers or letters or something on it," announced Georgina,
peering at a small brass plate on the stock. "I can't make them out. I
tell you what let's do," she exclaimed in a burst of enthusiasm. "Let's
polish it up so's we can read them. Tippy uses vinegar and wood ashes for
brass. I'll run get some."
Georgina was enough at home here to find what she wanted without asking,
and as full of resources as Robinson Crusoe. She was back in a very few
minutes with a shovel full of ashes from the kitchen stove, and an old
can lid full of vinegar, drawn from a jug in the corner cupboard. With a
scrap of a rag dipped first in vinegar, then in ashes, she began
scrubbing the brass plate diligently. It had corroded until there was an
edge of green entirely around it.
"I love to take an old thing like this and scrub it till it shines like
gold," she said, scouring away with such evident enjoyment of the job
that Richard insisted on having a turn. She surrendered the rag
grudgingly, but continued to direct operations.
"Now dip it in the ashes again. No, not that way, double the rag up and
use more vinegar. Rub around that other corner a while. Here, let me show
you."
She took the rifle away from him again and proceeded to illustrate her
advice. Suddenly she looked up, startled.
"I believe we've rubbed it loose. It moved a little to one side. See?"
He grabbed it back and examined it closely. "I bet it's meant to move,"
he said finally. "It looks like a lid, see! It slides sideways."
"Oh, I remember now," she cried, much excited. "That's the way Leather-
Stocking's rifle was made. There was a hole in the stock with a brass
plate over it, and he kept little pieces of oiled deer-skin inside of it
to wrap bullets in before he loaded 'em in. I remember just as plain, the
place in the story where he stopped to open it and take out a piece of
oiled deer-skin when he started to load."
As she explained she snatched the rifle back into her own hands once
more, and pried at the brass plate until she broke the edge of her thumb
nail. Then Richard took it, and with the aid of a rusty button-hook which
he happened to have in his pocket, having found it on the street that
morning, he pushed the plate entirely back.
"There's something white inside!" he exclaimed. Instantly two heads bent
over with his in an attempt to see, for Captain Kidd's shaggy hair was
side by side with Georgina's curls, his niriosity as great as hers.
"Whatever's in there has been there an awful long time," said Richard as
he poked at the contents with his button-hook, "for Uncle Darcy said the
rifle's never been used since it was brought back to him."
"And it's ten years come Michaelmas since Emmett was drowned," said
Georgina, again quoting the old net-mender.
The piece of paper which they finally succeeded in drawing out had been
folded many times and crumpled into a flat wad. Evidently the message on
it had been scrawled hastily in pencil by someone little used to letter
writing. It was written in an odd hand, and the united efforts of the two
little readers could decipher only parts of it.
"I can read any kind of plain writing like they do in school," said
Richard, "but not this sharp-cornered kind where the m's and u's are
alike, and all the tails are pointed."
Slowly they puzzled out parts of it, halting long over some of the
undecipherable words, but a few words here and there were all they could
recognize. There were long stretches that had no meaning whatever for
them. This much, however, they managed to spell out:
"Dan never took the money.... I did it.... He went away because he knew I
did it and wouldn't tell.... Sorry.... Can't stand it any longer.... Put
an end to it all...."
It was signed "Emmett Potter."
The two children looked at each other with puzzled eyes until into
Georgina's came a sudden and startled understanding. Snatching up the
paper she almost fell out of the swing and ran towards the house
screaming:
"Uncle Darcy! Uncle Darcy! Look what we've found."
She tripped over a piece of loose carpet spread just inside the front
door as a rug and fell full length, but too excited to know that she had
skinned her elbow she scrambled up, still calling:
"Uncle Darcy, _Dan never took the money. It was Emmett Potter. He said
so himself!"_