After that Saturday that we made garden, we tried our best to get out to
Old Salem on Saturdays, but something always happened, except one
Saturday. One time I had to make garden again, one time I had to help
Mitch make garden, another time pa and ma went to Pleasant Plains to a
picnic and I had to stay and take care of Little Billie, for Myrtle
went, because I had gone with pa and ma somewhere, I forget where it
was, and it was Myrtle's time. Somehow Myrtle was always in my way, but
ma said I was selfish and I suppose I was. Finally on the Saturday
before school let out, we went to Old Salem, taking two shovels and two
picks. We didn't do much, just looked around, and found a lot of
foundations where buildings had been when the village was there, and got
the lay of the land. We left our tools with the miller at the mill. He
said all right, but told us to wait for the next rainbow, and then
follow it up and get a bag of gold. "Never you mind," said Mitch.
"Others have found treasure and so can we." He told the miller we were
digging in the woods, because he said to me if it leaks out we're after
these old cellars and places, there'll be a slough of diggers out here
lookin' for treasure, and they'll get it before we do.
But first after school was out something interfered with our goin' on.
It was this: Robbins' Circus had come to town, and his son, who was
awful handsome, was a bareback rider, and had set the town wild, and
Zueline came to Mitch and made him get up a circus. That took time, for
we had to practice.
We went to the real circus, Mitch and me, and earned the money
ourselves. It was this way: Pa said, "You boys spend so much time
foolin' around about treasures, why don't you earn some money?" So
Mitch's pa made up a lot of pop-corn balls and we sold 'em on the street
and got money that way to see the show. It was the most beautiful circus
in the world--such lovely ladies, and a clown who sang "Never Take the
Horseshoe from the Door."
Then we got to work to get up our circus. Zueline had her Ayrdale and we
cooped him up for a lion; we put the cat in a box for a tiger, and the
rooster for an ostrich, and Mitch caught a snake, and I had my pony to
play Robbins' son, and Myrtle was goin' to be the woman who et fire.
Mitch practiced for the trapeze, and he had to practice a lot, for when
he was 4 or 5 years old, he cut his foot in two with an ax and after
that the toes were a little numb and didn't work as well as they did
before.
Mitch said that in Europe they had a royal box for queens and
princesses, so he built a kind of box for Zueline to sit in, and see the
circus, and draped it with rag carpets and put a mirror in it. It was
awful pretty.
Mitch was gate-keeper and manager. We had some bills printed by Onstott,
the printer, which said "Miller & Kirby's Renowned Circus and Menagerie"
and a lot of things, naming the performers and all that. But I must say
we had our troubles. First Kit O'Brien and his gang came down to break
up the show. He tried to come in without payin', but Mitch settled old
scores this time. He hit Kit a punch in the mouth and knocked out his
baby teeth, which were danglin' and needed to be pulled anyway. He bled
like a pig and ran up the hill hollerin', "I'll get even." But that
settled that.
Then Myrtle burned her mouth trying to chew cotton on fire, and Mitch's
toe went back on him while hangin' from the trapeze. He fell, but didn't
hurt himself much; only the audience laughed, even the princess Zueline
in the box. I rode the pony pretty well, but he was too big for the ring
in the barn, and Charley King who tried to sing "Never Take the
Horseshoe from the Door" forgot part of it, and had to back into the
corn crib which was the dressin' room.
Outside of these things, the show was a success--only this was the day
Mitch began to get acquainted with Charley King and George Heigold,
which was a bad thing, as I'll tell later.
So the circus was over and we took up the treasure again. Mitch said--we
mustn't let another thing interfere. And so we went to work at Old
Salem.
As I said, we found a lot of old foundations and we scraped and dug
around in all of 'em, mostly; and I never see so many snakes. Mitch
could take a snake by the tail and crack his head off like a whip; but I
was afraid to see him do it because there was hoop snakes around, and
their tails is pisen. Nigger Dick told me he saw one roll down hill one
time and just as it got to an oak tree, it took its tail out of its
mouth and struck the tree with the stinger of its tail. The next morning
all the leaves on the tree was withered. That is how pisen a hoop snake
is. Well, of course there was lots of black snakes and they can wrap
you. One wrapped Kit O'Brien once; and he waited till it got itself so
tight that you could see through its skin, then he touched it with a
knife and it bust in two and fell off of him.
Well, we didn't find a thing, though once when we struck some tin cans,
I thought sure we'd hit it.
By and by one day when we was diggin', I looked up and saw an old feller
standin' watchin' us. He was awful old, maybe more than eighty, and he
just looked at Mitch and me and finally said, "Lost somethin', boys?"
Mitch said: "I suppose you might say so till we find it." Then the old
feller said: "I hope you'll find it, for you look hot workin' here in
this hot sun, and you are workin', I declare." Mitch's face was red and
he looked earnest, and I suppose I did too.
I don't know whether the old feller had talked to the miller or what,
but finally he said, "'Tain't likely you'll find any treasure here. It's
all been taken away long ago. Every place is like a mine, it produces a
certain amount and that's all. This place produced great riches, boys,
but it's a worked out place now. It's a dead mine." Then he stopped a
minute and talked to himself a little and looked around and said: "Yep,
this is the foundation of the Rutledge Tavern where Linkern lived. Yep,
I know because right over there is where Dr. Allen lived; and over this
a way was preacher Cameron's house, and here was the road, and down
yonder was Linkern and Berry's store, and back thar was Offets store.
Yep, it all comes back to me now. There was more'n twenty houses here,
shops, stores, schoolhouses, and this tavern; and here Linkern lived,
and I've seen him many a time around here. And I'm glad to see you boys
diggin' here for you might find treasure. Peter Lukins, the shoemaker
had his place just three houses over, right there, and he was a miser,
and they thought he hid his money sommers around here."
"Well," said Mitch, under his breath, "no more cheating to the county.
Law or no law, if we find it there, your pa will never know it. We've
had one experience and that's enough." So he said out loud to the old
feller--"Where is Peter Lukins' place?" And the old feller said: "Climb
out of thar and I'll show you."
We walked over about a hundred yards maybe, and here was another
foundation all full of dead weeds and new weeds, and so grown up you
could hardly see the stones at first, and not a stick of timber left,
except a log lying outside the foundation. The older feller sat down and
began to talk.
"I left this country in '65," he said, "for California, and now I'm back
to Menard County, Illinois, to die and be buried with my people over at
Rock Creek. And I'm goin' about seein' the old places onct again. You
see, there ain't anything left of the village of Salem, but it all comes
back to me, and I can close my eyes and see the people that used to walk
around here, and see Linkern. And I'll tell you a story of a man who
found treasure here."
Mitch looked awful eager and bright-eyed, and the old feller twisted off
some tobacco and began to chew and get the thread of his story.
"It was this a way," he began. "There was a man here who was clerkin' in
one of the stores; and one day a feller drove up and said 'hallow' and
this clerk came out of the store and says, 'What is it?' The traveler
says, 'Here's a barl I have no use for and don't want to carry on my
wagon any furder, and I'll sell it to you.' And the clerk says, 'I ain't
got no use for the barl.' 'Well,' says the traveler, 'you can have it
for fifty cents, and it will accommodate me; and besides I don't want to
just throw it away.' So the clerk says all right, and gave him fifty
cents and took the barl in the store and put it in the corner. It was
kind of heavy too--had somethin' in it--had treasure in it, as you'll
see. And after a few days this here clerk took the barl and turned it
upside down and there was treasure."
"How much?" said Mitch. "Gee, but that was wonderful."
"Well," said the old feller, "you can believe it or not, it was treasure
too much to count. You've heard of a man bein' suddenly rich and not
realizin' it, or havin' somethin' given to him that he didn't know the
value of, and findin' out afterwards. It was just this way."
"Well," said Mitch, "why didn't he count it, right away, or was it
diamonds or rubies?"
"He couldn't count it all right there. It couldn't be done, because it
had to be weighed and tested and tried out, and put on the market; for
you might say some of it was rubies, and to know what rubies are worth
takes experience and time and a lot of things."
Mitch got more and more interested and I did too. Then the old feller
went on.
"But that ain't sayin' that this clerk didn't know it was treasure--he
did--but it was treasure that he had to put work on to bring out all its
value."
"Melt it up," said Mitch, "or polish it maybe."
"Yes," said the old feller, "melt it up and polish it, and put his elbow
grease on it. And nobody but him could do it. He couldn't hire it done.
For if he had, he'd a lost the treasure--the cost of doin' that would
have wasted all the treasure. And this the clerk knew. That's why he
didn't know what it was worth, though he knew it was worth a lot and he
was a happy man."
"Well," said Mitch, "what was it--tell me--I can't wait."
"Books," said the old feller--"two law books. Blackstone's
Commentaries."
"Oh, shucks," said Mitch.
"Shucks," said the old man. "Listen to me. Here you boys dig in the sun
like niggers for treasure, and you'll never find it that a way. It ain't
to be found. And if you did, it wouldn't amount to nothin'. But suppose
you get a couple of books into your head like Abe Linkern did, and
become a great lawyer, and a president, and a benefactor to your
fellows, then you have found treasure and given it too. And it was out
of that barl that Linkern became what he was. He found his treasure
there. He might have found it sommers else; but at least he found it
there. And you can't get treasure that's good that the good of you
wasn't put into it in getting it. Remember that. If you dug up treasure
here, what have you put into the getting of that treasure? Just your
work with the shovel and the pick--that's all--and you haven't got rich
doin' that. The money will go and you'll be where you was before. But if
there's good in you, and you put the good into what you find and make it
all it can be made, then you have found real treasure like Linkern did."
Mitch was quiet for a minute and then said: "Don't you 'spose the man
who sold the barl to Linkern knew the books was in there? Of course he
did. And if he did, why didn't he take the books and study and be
president? He couldn't, that's why. If you call books treasure, they
ain't unless they mean something to you. But take money or jewels, who
is there that they don't mean somethin' to? Nobody. Why there're
hundreds of books around our house, that would do things if they meant
anything. And I've found my book. It's 'Tom Sawyer.' And till I find
another I mean to stick by it, as fur as that goes. One book at a time."
I don't know where Mitch got all this talk. He was the wonderfulest boy
that ever lived, but besides he heard his pa talk things all the time,
and his pa could talk Greek and knew everything in the world.
We sat talkin' to this old feller till pretty near sundown, when we said
we must go. We threw the tools into Peter Lukins' cellar and started
off, leavin' the old feller standin'. When we got to the edge of the
hill which led down to the road by the river, we turned around and
looked, and saw the old feller standin' there still, black like against
the light of the sun. Mitch was awful serious.
"It must be awful to be old like that," said Mitch. "Did you hear what
he said--come back to Menard County to be buried with his folks--and all
his folks gone. How does a feller live when he comes to that? Nothin' to
do, nowhere really to go. Skeeters, sometimes I wisht I was dead. Even
this treasure business, as much fun as it is, is just a never endin'
trouble and worry. And I see everybody in the same fix, no matter who
they are, worryin' about somethin'. And while it seems I've lived for
ever and ever, and it looks thousands of miles back to the time I cut my
foot off, just the same, I seem to be close to the beginnin' too, and
sometimes I can just feel myself mixin' into the earth and bein'
nothin'."
"Don't you believe in heaven, Mitch?" says I.
"No," he says, "not very clear."
"And you a preacher's son!"
"That's just it," says Mitch. "A preacher's son is like a circus man's
son, young Robbins who was here. There's no mystery about it. Why, young
Robbins paid no attention to the horses, animals, the band--things we
went crazy about. And I see my father get ready for funerals and dig up
his old sermons for funerals and all that, till it looks just like any
trade to me. But besides, how can heaven be, and what's the use? No,
sir, I don't want to be buried with my folks--I want to be lost, like
your uncle was, and buried by the Indians way off where nobody knows."
Then Mitch switched and began to talk about Tom Sawyer again. He said
we're the age of Tom Sawyer; that Linkern was a grown man when he found
the books; that there was a time for everything, that as far as that's
concerned, Tom might be working on something else now, having found his
treasure. "Why, lookee, don't the book end up with Tom organizing a
robbers' gang to rob the rich--not harm anybody, mind you--but really do
good--take money away from them that got it wrong and don't need it, and
give it to the poor that can't get it and do need it?"
By this time we was clost to town. The road ran under a hill where there
was the old graveyard, where lots of soldiers was buried. "Do you
know," said Mitch, "them pictures your grandma had of soldiers stay in
my mind. They looked old and grown up with beards and everything; but
after all, they're not so old--and they went away and was killed and
lots of 'em are buried up there--some without names. Think of it, Skeet.
Suppose there should be a war again and you'd go, and be blown up so no
one could know you, and they'd put you in a grave with no stone."
"Ain't that what you want, Mitch?"
"Yes, but you're different, Skeet. And besides, it's different dyin'
natural and bein' buried by the Indians in a lovely place, and bein'
killed like an animal and dumped with a lot of others and no stone. If
every boy felt as I do, they'd never be another war. They couldn't get
me into a war except to defend the country, and it would have to be a
real defense. You know, Skeet, we came here from Missouri, where there
was awful times during the war; and my pa thinks the war could have been
avoided. He used to blame Linkern, but he don't no more. Say, did you
think of Linkern while we were diggin' to-day? I did. I could feel him.
The sky spoke about him, the still air spoke about him, the meadow larks
reminded me of him. Onct I thought I saw him."
"No, Mitch."
"Yes, sir--you see I see things, Skeet, sometimes spirits, and I hear
music most of the time, and the fact is, nobody knows me."
"Nor me," says I. "I'm a good deal lonelier than you are, Mitch Miller,
and nobody understands me either; and I have no girl. Girls seem to me
just like anything else--dogs or chickens--I don't mean no
disrespect--but you know."
By this time we'd got to Petersburg, and up to a certain corner, and
we'd been talking about Linkern so much that a lot of things came to me.
And I says: "See this corner, Mitch? I'll tell you somethin' about
it--maybe to-morrow."