And any one who has ever been connected with a small museum, or has ever
been acquainted with those who are connected with a valuable institution
like that, will easily understand the value of articles like these,
exhumed direct from the cellar of an old Acadian house.
The boys felt no doubt whatever as to the value of their treasure. In
fact, they grew so excited over it that they began at last to think
what they had found far better than what they hoped to find; and so it
resulted that those who had gone out to find gold came back rejoicing in
rusty iron.
On reaching the Academy they went at once to Dr. Porter’s house. They
found the doctor at home, and were ushered up at once to his study.
The boys said nothing, but gravely, and in impressive silence, laid down
their treasures on the doctor’s study table. It was covered with books
and papers; but they were too oblivious of every thing, and too much
absorbed in the contemplation of their own things, to think of that.
So Bruce entered first, and placed on the doctor’s table, right over
some handsome volumes of Euripides, just received from London, the
rusty, dirty old ploughshare.
“Hallo!” cried the doctor. “Why! what!--”
But before he could finish his sentence, Tom came up, and laid down a
dozen old spikes and nails. Both of them turned and looked proudly at
the doctor.
“Look here, boys,” cried the doctor, standing up; “what--”
He was interrupted by Phil, who came forward between him and the first
boys, carrying an iron pot, which he triumphantly placed on a handsomely
bound Hebrew Lexicon.
“What in the world--” began the doctor again, but was again interrupted
by Arthur, who solemnly placed the colter on a new edition of Longinus,
and then put the chain on some late English Quarterly Reviews. Just as
the doctor was about to burst forth, Bart came immediately before him,
and, with a face radiant with delight, laid down, right on the doctors
blotting pad, that horrible, discolored, and disintegrated old bone.
[Illustration: 0173]
For a moment it seemed that the doctor would burst forth in a fury. To
him this behavior was the sublimity of unparalleled impudence; the act
was so absolutely unequalled in its quiet audacity, that it actually
made him dumb with amazement. The ploughshare, the colter, the iron
pot, the rusty spikes and bolts, the old chain,--all these were so
many stages up which his astonishment went to a climax which was fully
attained when Bart put down the abominable old bone.
This was too much.
Then the doctor burst forth.
But not in fierce and furious indignation, and vehement and violent
denunciation. It struck him in another way. It was his sense of the
ridiculous that was affected. He forgot the ruin done to his precious
editions of the classics, and his mind could only grasp the innocent,
smiling faces of these five young rascals who had come into the awful
seclusion of his own study to pile up his inviolable study table with
old iron and old bones.
And so it was that the doctor burst forth into an uncontrollable fit
of laughter,--not a common laugh, but one which was sent forth from
the very depths of his nature,--all absorbing, overwhelming. Peal after
peal, irrepressible. It was contagious, too. The boys caught it. They
tried to restrain themselves at first. They tittered. They began to see
themselves the absurdity of their act. The thought overcame them, and
they all burst forth, too. The whole company thus went off into fearful
explosions--cataclysms, in fact, of laughter.
It roused the house.
The family came running up to see the cause.
The doctor could not utter a word. Tears were running from his eyes; he
could only point in silence to the old iron and old bone. The contagion
seized upon the family also, and they all went off into the general
laughter.
At length the boys took the things off the table, and put them on the
floor. Gradually the doctor recovered his self-control, and asked the
boys what it all meant. They told him all about it. He listened to them
with a serious face, which, however, was occasionally disturbed by a
tendency to another outburst, as again and again the thought of the past
scene forced itself back. Finally, he managed to get the whole story,
and by that time his laughter passed, and was succeeded by a new
sensation.
It was one of intense delight at such discoveries. Now they appeared
before him, not as old iron and old bone, but in their true character.
He was an enthusiastic antiquarian, and all connected with the Acadian
French excited his passionate interest. He looked affectionately at the
ploughshare. He handled the colter tenderly. He examined one by one,
with minute inspection, the spikes and the bolt. He scanned narrowly and
admiringly the iron pot. He passed every link of the rusty chain through
his fingers. He lingered long and lovingly over the coins, closely
examining every one of them. He looked at the bone with an intense
curiosity, mingled with deep sympathy for the unfortunate race of which
it was the reminder.
He threw himself into his admiration over these with the same
abandonment of feeling that had characterized his laughing fit. It was
a proud and a delightful moment for the boys when they found that their
discoveries were so highly prized. The doctor declared that there was
nothing in the Museum to be compared with them, and finally sent for
Messrs. Simmons and Long. These gentlemen soon appeared, and exhibited
an interest in these Acadian relics which was fully equal to that of the
doctor.
But the wonder was, to all of them, how in the world the boys had
happened to think of digging in that particular place. They questioned
them closely, though good humoredly, about this; and Bart, after vain
efforts at eluding the questions, finally told the whole story.
Bart told that story in such a whimsical way, and with such an eye to
effective representation, that in five minutes he had all his audience
in another roar of laughter, worse than the first. He mimicked Captain
Corbet with his mineral rod. He told about the lights and the magic
ceremonies. He took off Solomon capitally, and finally spoke of the
donkey’s bray, and its result, concealing nothing of their own terror.
Bart went on, interrupted all the time by the laughter of his hearers,
and at last succeeded in bringing his story down to the moment in which
he was speaking.