GODFREY BUILDS AIR-CASTLES.
“Them hound dogs needn’t worry you none,” said Dan. “I’ll take keer of
them!”
“What be ye goin’ to do?” asked his father.
“I’m goin’ to make them two fellers what owns ’em promise to let my
things they finds in the woods alone, or----”
Here Dan glanced hastily at his brother. David was looking intently at
his plate, but the expression on his face told that he was listening
with all his ears. So Dan did not finish the sentence, but raised his
hand to his face and shut one eye as if he were glancing along the
barrel of a rifle.
“Goin’ to shoot ’em, be ye?” exclaimed his father. “Wal, say so then,
and don’t be afraid. Nobody ain’t agoin’ to harm ye fur it.”
“Yes,” said Dan doggedly, seeing that his secret was out. “I’m goin’ to
shoot ’em!”
“You hadn’t better stay about here after you do it,” said David. “The
general will have the law on you.”
“How’ll he find out who done it, I’d like to know?” snapped his
brother. “An’, ’sides, hain’t I got jest as much right to spile his
things as his boys have to spile mine? Didn’t I meet ’em one day last
spring as they were ridin’ out of the woods on them circus hosses of
their’n, an’ didn’t they tell me that they’d pulled down more’n a dozen
turkey traps they’d found among the hills, kase it was agin the law,
or, if it wasn’t it had oughter be, to ketch turkeys at that time of
the year? An’ didn’t I go straight to the woods when I left them, an’
didn’t I find that it was my own traps they had pulled down? You’re
right I did; an’ I said then that I’d get even with ’em some day fur
that same piece of work. You want to keep a close eye on that pinter
pup,” he added shaking a warning finger at his brother.
“I believe you,” answered David. “A fellow who will take revenge on
a dumb brute for something his owner did to him, is mean enough for
anything, and perhaps I had better take good care of myself, too. If
you intend to hurt the dog say so, and I will take him back where he
belongs.”
“Wal, seein’ it’s you, I wont tech him,” said Dan, with more eagerness
and haste than the circumstances seemed to warrant. “But arter his
owner gets him in his hands, he wants to watch out. Now, pop,” added
Dan, seeing that his father was about to speak, “don’t you go to
raisin’ a row. Let Dave break the dog, if he wants to. It don’t cost
you nothing. What did you mean when you said a little while ago that
things is a goin’ to change with us?”
Godfrey’s face lost its angry scowl and brightened at once.
“I meant something that’ll extonish ye when ye hear it--the hul on ye,”
he replied, with a cheerful wink at his hopeful son, “an’ it won’t take
me long to tell it, nuther. You remember that when the war fust broke
out, Gen’ral Gordon, knowin’ which side of his bread had the butter
onto it, got all his money changed into gold and silver, and brought it
here to his house an’ hid it, don’t ye?”
Of course the family all remembered it. The incident had offered gossip
for the neighborhood for months after it happened.
“Wal,” continued Godfrey, “when the Yanks come in here, them gold and
silver dollars, an’ all the watches belongin’ to the family, an’ all
the silver an’ chiny dishes, an’ them gold things Mrs. Gordon an’ her
gals wore around their wrists, was done took an’ hid. They was buried
in the ground, some in one place an’ some in another, so’t the Yanks
couldn’t find ’em. Mrs. Gordon an’ her gals buried some of ’em with
their own hands, among the flower-beds in front of the place whar the
house then stood, an’ one of the niggers, ole Jordan--ye remember him,
I reckon--done buried the rest. I know, kase Jordan told me so hisself.
Jordan, ye know, was raised by the gen’ral’s father from the time he
was a picaninny, an’ bein’ as honest as a nigger ever gets to be, his
missus she sot a heap of store by him, an’ said thar wasn’t no better
servant a goin’.
“Wal, when the gen’ral’s wife, she heared that the Yanks was a comin’
with them gunboats of their’n, she sent fur Jordan an’ she says to
him: ‘Jordan, you see that thar bar’l? Thar’s eighty thousand dollars
in gold an’ silver into it. Now, Jordan, you take that thar bar’l,
an’ tote it off as quick as you can, an’ hide it in the ground, an’
remember an’ don’t let nobody see ye, an’ don’t say nothin’ to nobody,
nuther.’ So Jordan he done tuk the bar’l an’ rolled it down to the
tater patch, and digged a hole as quick as he could an’ kivered it up,
an’ nobody, not even the missus, don’t know whar he put it!”
Here Godfrey paused to take breath, and leaning his elbows on the
table, looked from one to the other of the little group before him to
see what they thought about it.
“Wal, what of it?” said Dan, who was the first to speak.
“What of it?” repeated his father. “Thar’s a heap of it, the fust thing
you know--a hul bar’l full; an’ what’s to hinder us from gettin’ it fur
our own, I’d like to know?”
A gleam of intelligence shot across Dan’s swarthy face, and even David
and his mother looked up and began to take some interest in what
Godfrey was saying.
“Jordan went off with the Yanks that very night, an’ he hasn’t been
seed since,” Godfrey went on. “That was ten year ago, come next
winter, an’ nobody don’t know whar that bar’l with the eighty thousand
in gold and silver is. I was to hum on a furlong then, ye know, an’
kept hid in the cane while the Yanks was here; but I seed Jordan, an’
he told me that the bar’l was in the tater patch. I jest happened to
think of it this mornin’ while I was a huntin’ in the swamp; an’ then I
axed myself, wasn’t I a dunce to be livin’ in this way, when thar was
eighty thousand dollars to be had fur the diggin’? An’ I told myself
yes, I was. So I come hum right quick, an’ I’m done huntin’ fur a
livin’ now!”
“Are you going to look fur that barrel, father?” asked David.
“I aint a goin’ to do nothing else. I know right whar that tater patch
was, an’ me an’ Dan’ll dig it so full of holes that the folks up to
Gordon’s house will think an army is goin’ to build a fort thar.”
“And what will you do with it if you find it?”
“What’ll I do with it?” cried Godfrey, rising to his feet, spreading
out his arms and turning slowly around so that his son could have a
good view of him. “Can you look at me an’ all of us an’ ax me what I’ll
do with it? I’ll keep it fur myself, an’ spend it like a lord, too!”
“Would you like to have somebody serve you that way?” asked David. “It
wouldn’t be honest.”
“Honest!” Godfrey almost screamed. “Jest listen to him, now! That’s
what makes me ’spise them Gordons so. They can’t keep their big
’ristocratic ideas to their selves, but must tell ’em to my boys,
an’ larn one of ’em to say ‘father’ an’ ‘mother,’ ’stead of callin’
us ‘pop’ an’ ‘mam,’ like he had oughter do. An’ then to talk about
my spendin’ my time a diggin’ an’ a huntin’ fur that thar bar’l, an’
arter findin’ it, to give it up to them as has got more’n their share
already, an’ here’s us as poor as Job’s turkey! No, sir,” said Godfrey,
emphatically. “If I find that thar bar’l I’ll keep it, an’ say nothing
to nobody.”
“But it belongs to the Gordons,” said David, not at all daunted by his
father’s speech, “and you have no right to lay a finger on it.”
“Wal, you’ll see if I don’t lay two whole hands onto it if I can find
it; an’ if I don’t find it, it won’t be kase I don’t do no diggin’,
I bet ye. Jest think of it,” said Godfrey, growing animated over the
prospect of so great and sudden wealth. “Here’s us been a livin’
like the pigs in the gutter all these years, when we might have been
ridin’ our own hosses an’ growin’ fat off the best kind of grub! Eighty
thousand dollars! Enough to fill a hul bar’l! Why, one day, in the
good old times, when I was a talkin’ with the gen’ral, he says to me:
‘Godfrey, how much is you wuth?’ Wal, I didn’t know, kase I hadn’t
never thought of it none; but I told him I had so many niggers, wuth
so much a head; so many cow brutes; so many hoss an’ mule brutes; so
much land; an’ so many pig brutes runnin’ in the swamp. The gen’ral he
figures it up, an’ tells me I wus wuth nigh on to twelve or fifteen
thousand dollars, most likely it was nigher fifteen nor twelve. I tell
you I felt big arter that. I held my head up high, like a steer in
the corn, an’ felt like axin’ every man I met did he know I wus wuth
fifteen thousand dollars, an’ it all made with these yer two hands,
too? But _eighty_ thousand! Whew! Why didn’t I think of that bar’l long
ago? I reckin I’ll go down to the landin’ an’ ax Silas Jones will he
trust me fur some store tobacker. I can tell him that I’ll be able to
buy his hul consarn out next week!”
As Godfrey said this he arose from his barrel, and, taking his rifle
down from its place over the door, went out of the cabin followed by
Dan, who also carried a rifle on his shoulder. David and his mother
watched them in silence until they had passed down the road out of
sight, and then turned and looked at each other.
“Is it true about the barrel?” asked the boy at length.
“I am sure I don’t know,” was his mother’s answer, “and for the sake
of all concerned I hope it is not. It is true that all the gold and
silver, and other valuables belonging to the Gordon family, were buried
on the night the levee was cut, and it is equally true that Jordan
buried some of it. He went down the Pass with the gunboats when they
left, and has never been seen or heard of since. What has become of
him, nobody knows; and whether he went without telling Mrs. Gordon
where he had hidden the valuables, is a question that no one outside
the general’s family is able to answer. It may be possible that he did,
for such things have happened.”
“When and where?” asked David.
“Right here in this neighborhood. After the war was over, and the
soldiers began to return, there came to this landing a man named Brown,
who had been a sailor on one of the Union gunboats. He did not look
like a person who had more money than he wanted, but he said he had,
and that his object in coming here was to rent a plantation and go to
raising cotton. As almost everybody was ready to sell or rent, several
plantations were offered him, but the only one he would look at was
Colonel Cisco’s--an old worn-out place that no one else would have as a
gift. The widow--the colonel was killed in the army, you know--was glad
to get the hundred dollars Mr. Brown offered her to bind the bargain,
and let him have the place at once. He said he could do nothing until
his partner came from Memphis with the mules, provisions and other
things needed to carry on plantations; but he took possession of the
house, and lived there two months all by himself. He was never seen
during the daytime. He visited none of the neighbors, and didn’t seem
to want to have anybody call on him; but people went all the same, and
one day somebody found out that the flower-beds in the back yard, on
which Mrs. Cisco had spent so much time, had all been dug up, and that
there was a hole there that one could bury a house in. The man didn’t
like it at all because it had been found out, and said he was digging
a cellar. It was discovered afterward, however, that all this work had
been done in the night, and that Mr. Brown never thought of putting a
cellar there.”
“What did he intend to put there then?” asked David, when his mother
paused.
“Nothing. He hoped to take something out; but he was taken sick, and
that was the end of his scheme. He had such a hard time getting well,
that when he was able to be about again, he made up his mind that he
had seen enough of the South, and that he would go home at once and
stay there. He wanted to do something for the people who had been so
kind to him during his sickness, so he took the man who had done the
most for him into his secret, and told him what had brought him there.
In the first place he had no partner, no money--only just enough to pay
his railroad and steamboat fare to the place where he wanted to go--and
no intention of cultivating the plantation. There was money buried
somewhere near the house--he wanted it, and this was the way he found
out about it:
“Attached to the same gunboat to which Mr. Brown belonged was a negro,
who had once been Colonel Cisco’s house servant. During the war the
colonel’s family hid all their valuables in the ground, just as all our
people did who had anything to hide, and this servant helped them bury
money and silver, to the amount of thirty thousand dollars and over.
After he ran away and got on the gunboat, he told about it, and boasted
that when the war closed he would soon make a rich man of himself; but
he was taken sick, and this Mr. Brown, who was the doctor’s steward,
took care of him. Before he died he told the steward about the buried
money, and described the place where it was hidden so accurately that
Mr. Brown could have found it in the darkest of nights. That was what
made him hire the Cisco plantation.”
“Well, did he get the money?” asked David, who was deeply interested.
“People think not. If he had found it, he would not have been likely to
say anything about it; and besides he would have had more than enough
to take him home.”
“Didn’t Mrs. Cisco ever say anything about it?”
“Yes, and laughed at the man for his pains. Her husband had money once,
she said, and buried some of it a dozen different times; but it was dug
up again as soon as the danger of losing it had passed, and what they
didn’t use was stolen from them by the guerillas. She’s now almost as
poor as ourselves, Mrs. Cisco is. Her house was not burned, and in that
respect only is she better off than we are.”
“We were rich once, were we not, mother?”
“No, we were not rich, but we had enough. Your father owned a mile
square of land that was all paid for--he’s got that yet, but it don’t
seem to do him any good, for the clearings have all grown up to
briers--and we had a good house and plenty to eat and wear. He was a
hard-working, saving man then, and so different from what he is now,
that I sometimes think that somebody else has come to me from the
southern army, and is passing himself off for Godfrey. We were happy
in those days,” said Mrs. Evans, gazing earnestly into the little pile
of coals on the hearth, as if the scenes she so well remembered were
clearly pictured there. “I can remember when our cotton gin was kept
running night and day; and I have seen eight four-horse teams going up
the road toward the landing loaded with your father’s cotton. You can’t
remember anything about it, for you were too young at the time.”
“No,” said David, “but I can remember when we lived in that brush
shantee that had a fire burning in front of it night and day; and I can
remember of seeing you cry, and father walking up and down and swinging
his arms as if he were crazy.”
“That was just after we were burned out. You were four years old then.
Until that time we never thought we should feel much of the war.
Although we were only eight miles from the river, we used to feel
perfectly safe, so far as the Federals were concerned. We used to see
Redburn’s guerillas about once a week, but they belonged to our own
side, and at first we did not stand in any fear of them, although we
soon learned to dread them more than we did the Yankees. We never
were afraid that they would hurt us, but they stole everything they
could lay their hands on, and finally got so bad that General Imboden
sent them word that if they didn’t do better he would come in with a
regiment and wipe them off the face of the earth. We never thought that
the Federals would get in here, and you don’t know how frightened we
were when we found that in a few days their gunboats would be at our
very doors. One day in February--that was in ’63--the Union soldiers
came down from Helena and cut the levee. The water was high in the
river, and it ran down through the pass and into Diamond lake here, and
overflowed the bottoms until we thought it would drown us all. Then the
gunboats came--two big iron-clads, a lot of tin-clads, and six thousand
soldiers. They stopped here long enough to burn every dwelling-house
and cotton-gin in the country for miles around, and then went on down
the pass. Your father was at home then on a furlough, and I tell you
they came pretty near catching him!”
“How was it?” asked David, who never grew weary of listening to the
story, although he had heard it probably a score of times.