up so strongly in Tom's breast. He felt as though some wonderful thing
was about to happen to them. "To be sure, to be sure!" he called out in
a great big voice. "And then they measured out 427 foot west by south,
and then they drove another peg, and then they buried the box six foot
to the west of it. Why, Tom--why, Tom Chist! if we've read this aright,
thy fortune is made."
Tom Chist stood staring straight at the old gentleman's excited face,
and seeing nothing but it in all the bright infinity of sunshine. Were
they indeed about to find the treasure-chest? He felt the sun very hot
upon his shoulders, and he heard the harsh, insistent jarring of a tern
that hovered and circled with forked tail and sharp white wings in the
sunlight just above their heads; but all the time he stood staring into
the good old gentleman's face.
It was Parson Jones who first spoke. "But what do all these figures
mean?" And Tom observed how the paper shook and rustled in the tremor of
excitement that shook his hand. He raised the paper to the focus of his
spectacles and began to read again. "'Mark. 40, 72, 91--'"
"Mark?" cried out Tom, almost screaming. "Why, that must mean the stake
yonder; that must be the mark." And he pointed to the oaken stick with
its red tip blazing: against the white shimmer of sand behind it.
"And the 40 and 72 and 91," cried the old gentleman, in a voice equally
shrill; "why, that must mean the number of steps the pirate was counting
when you heard him."
"To be sure that's what they mean!" cried Tom Chist. "That is it, and it
can be nothing else. Oh, come, sir--come, sir; let us make haste and
find it!"
"Stay! stay!" said the good gentleman, holding up his hand; and again
Tom Chist noticed how it trembled and shook. His voice was steady
enough, though very hoarse, but his hand shook and trembled as though
with a palsy. "Stay! stay! First of all, we must follow these
measurements. And 'tis a marvellous thing," he croaked, after a little
pause, "how this paper ever came to be here."
"Maybe it was blown here by the storm," suggested Tom Chist.
"Like enough; like enough," said Parson Jones. "Like enough, after the
wretches had buried the chest and killed the poor black man, they were
so buffeted and bowsed about by the storm that it was shook out of the
man's pocket, and thus blew away from him without his knowing aught of
it."
"But let us find the box!" cried out Tom Chist, squirming in his
excitement.
"Ay, ay," said the good man; "only stay a little, my boy, until we make
sure what we're about. I've got my pocket-compass here, but we must have
something to measure off the feet when we have found the peg. You run
across to Tom Brooke's house and fetch that measuring-rod he used to lay
out his new byre. While you're gone I'll pace off the distance marked on
the paper with my pocket-compass here."
VI.
Tom Chist was gone for almost an hour, though he ran nearly all the way
and back, upborne on the wings of his exuberant excitement. When he
returned, panting, Parson Jones was nowhere to be seen, but Tom saw his
footsteps leading away inland, and he followed the scuffling marks in
the smooth surface across the sand humps and down into the hollows, and
by-and-by found the good gentleman in a spot he at once knew as soon as
he laid his eyes upon it.
It was the open space where the pirates had driven their first peg, and
where Tom Chist had afterwards seen them kill the poor black man. Tom
Chist gazed around as though expecting to see some sign of the tragedy,
but the space was as smooth and as undisturbed as a floor, excepting
where, midway across it, Parson Jones, who was now stooping over
something on the ground, had trampled it all around about.
When Tom Chist saw him, he was still bending over, scraping the sand
away from something he had found.
It was the first peg!
Inside of half an hour they had found the second and third pegs, and Tom
Chist stripped off his coat, and began digging like mad down into the
sand, Parson Jones standing over him watching him. The sun was sloping
more than half-way toward the west when the blade of Tom Chist's spade
struck upon something hard.
If it had been his own heart that he had hit in the sand his breast
could hardly have thrilled more sharply.
It was the treasure-box!
Parson Jones himself leaped down into the hole, and began scraping away
the sand with his hands as though he had gone crazy. At last, with some
difficulty, they tugged and hauled the chest up out of the sand to the
surface, where it lay covered all over with the grit that clung to it.
It was securely locked and fastened with a padlock, and it took a good
many blows with the blade of the spade to burst the bolt. Parson Jones
himself lifted the lid.
Tom Chist leaned forward and gazed down into the open box. He would not
have been surprised to have seen it filled full of yellow gold and
bright jewels. It was filled half full of books and papers, and half
full of canvas bags tied safely and securely around and around with
cords of string.
Parson Jones lifted out one of the bags, and it jingled as he did so. It
was full of money.
He cut the string, and with trembling, shaking hands, handed the bag to
Tom, who, in an ecstasy of wonder and dizzy delight, poured out with
swimming sight upon the coat spread on the ground a cataract of shining
silver money that rang and twinkled and jingled as it fell in a shining
heap upon the coarse cloth.
Parson Jones held up both hands into the air, and Tom stared at what he
saw, wondering whether it was all so, and whether he was really awake.
It seemed to him as though he was in a dream.
* * * * *
There were two and twenty bags in all in the chest; ten of them full of
silver money, eight of them full of gold money, three of them full of
gold dust, and one small bag with jewels wrapped up in wad cotton and
paper.
[Illustration: "'TIS ENOUGH TO MAKE US BOTH RICH MEN."]
"'Tis enough," cried out Parson Jones, "to make us both rich men as long
as we live."
The burning summer sun, though sloping in the sky, beat down upon them
as hot as fire; but neither of them noticed it. Neither did they notice
hunger nor thirst nor fatigue, but sat there as though in a trance, with
the bags of money piled up on the sand all around them, a great pile of
money heaped upon the coat, and the open chest beside them. It was an
hour of sundown before Parson Jones had begun fairly to examine the
books and papers in the chest.
Of the three books, two were evidently log-books of the pirates who had
been lying off the mouth of the Delaware Bay all this time. The other
book was written in Spanish, and was evidently the log-book of some
captured prize.
It was then, sitting there upon the sand, the good old gentleman reading
in his high cracking voice, that they first learned from the bloody
records in those two books who it was who had been lying inside the Cape
all this time, and that it was the famous Captain Kidd. Every now and
then the reverend gentleman would stop to exclaim, "Oh, the bloody
wretch!" or, "Oh, the desperate, cruel villains!" and then would go on
reading again a scrap here and a scrap there.
And all the while Tom Chist sat and listened, every now and then
reaching out furtively and touching the heap of money still lying upon
the coat.
One might be inclined to wonder why Captain Kidd had kept those bloody
records. He had probably laid them away because they so incriminated
many of the great people of the Colony of New York that, with the books
in evidence, it would have been impossible to bring the pirate to
justice without dragging a dozen or more fine rich gentlemen into the
dock along with him. If he could have kept them in his own possession,
they would doubtless have been a great weapon of defence to protect him
from the gallows. Indeed, when Captain Kidd was finally brought to
conviction and hung, he was not accused of his piracies, but of striking
a mutinous seaman upon the head with a bucket and accidentally killing
him. They did not dare to accuse him of his piracies. He was really hung
because he was a pirate, and we know that it was the log-books that Tom
Chist brought to New York that did the business for him; but what he was
accused and convicted of was the killing of his own ship-carpenter with
a bucket.
So Parson Jones, as he and Tom Chist sat there in the slanting light,
skimmed through these terrible records of piracy, and Tom, with the pile
of gold and silver money beside him, sat and listened to him.
What a spectacle, if any one had come upon them! But they were alone,
with only the vast arch of sky above them and the wide white stretch of
sand around them. The sun sank lower and lower, until it slanted so far
in the sky that there was only time to glance through the other papers
in the chest.
They were nearly all goldsmiths' bills of exchange drawn in favor of
certain of the more prominent merchants of New York. Parson Jones, as he
read over the names, knew of nearly all the gentlemen by hearsay. Ay,
here was this gentleman; he thought that name would be among 'em. What?
Here is Mr. So-and-so. Well, if all they say is true, the villain has
robbed one of his own best friends. "I wonder," he said, "why the wretch
should have hidden these papers so carefully away with the other
treasures, for they could do him no good?" Then, answering his own
question: "Like enough because these will give him a hold over the
gentlemen to whom they are drawn so that he can make a good bargain for
his own neck before he gives the bills back to their owners. I tell you
what it is, Tom," he continued; "it is you yourself shall go to New York
and bargain for the return of these papers. 'Twill be as good as another
fortune to you."
The majority of the bills were drawn in favor of one Richard
Chillingsworth, Esq. "And he is," said Parson Jones, "one of the richest
men in the Province of New York. You shall go to him with the news of
what we have found."
"When shall I go?" said Tom Chist.
"You shall go upon the very first boat we can catch," said the parson.
He had turned, still holding the bills in his hand, and was now
fingering over the pile of money that yet lay tumbled out upon the coat.
"I wonder, Tom," said he, "if you could spare me a score or so of these
doubloons?"
"You shall have fifty score, if you choose," said Tom, bursting with
gratitude and with generosity in his newly found treasure.
"You are as fine a lad as ever I saw, Tom," said the parson, "and I'll
thank you to the last day of my life."
Tom scooped up a double handful of silver money. "Take it, sir," he
said, "and you may have as much more as you want of it."
He poured it into the dish that the good man made of his hands, and the
parson made a motion as though to empty it into his pocket. Then he
stopped, as though a sudden doubt had occurred to him. "I don't know
that 'tis fit for me to take this pirate money, after all," he said.
"But you are welcome to it," said Tom.
Still the parson hesitated. "Nay," he burst out, "I'll not take it; 'tis
blood-money." And as he spoke he chucked the whole double handful into
the now empty chest, then arose and dusted the sand from his breeches.
Then, with a great deal of bustling energy, helped to tie the bags
again, and put them all back into the chest.
They reburied the chest in the place whence they had taken it, and then
the parson folded the precious paper of directions, placed it carefully
in his wallet, and his wallet in his pocket. "Tom," he said, for the
twentieth time, "your fortune has been made this day."
And Tom Chist, as he rattled in his breeches pocket the half-dozen
doubloons he had kept out of his treasure, felt that what his friend had
said was true.
* * * * *
As the two went back homeward across the level space of sand, Tom Chist
suddenly stopped stock still and stood looking about him. "'Twas just
here," he said, digging his heel down into the sand, "that they killed
the poor black man."
"And here he lies buried for all time," said Parson Jones; and as he
spoke he dug his cane down into the sand. Tom Chist shuddered. He would
not have been surprised if the ferrule of the cane had struck something
soft beneath that level surface. But it did not do so, nor was any sign
of that tragedy ever seen again. For, whether the pirates had carried
away what they had done and buried it elsewhere, or whether the storm in
blowing the sand had completely levelled off and hidden all sign of that
tragedy where it was enacted, certain it is that it never came to sight
again--at least so far as Tom Chist and the Reverend Hillary Jones ever
knew.
VII.
This is the story of the treasure-box. All that remains now is to wind
up the story of Tom Chist, and to tell of what came of him in the end.
He did not go back again to live with old Matt Abrahamson. Parson Jones
had now taken charge of him and his fortunes, and Tom did not have to go
back to the fisherman's hut.
Old Abrahamson talked a great deal about it, and would come in his cups
and harangue good Parson Jones, making a vast protestation of what he
would do to Tom if he ever caught him for running away. But Tom on all
these occasions kept carefully out of his way, and nothing came of the
old man's threatenings.
Tom used to go over to see his foster-mother now and then, but always
when the old man was from home. And Molly Abrahamson used to warn him to
keep out of her father's way. "He's in as vile a humor as ever I see,
Tom," she said; "he sits sulking all day long, and 'tis my belief he'd
kill ye if he caught ye."
Of course Tom said nothing, even to her, about the treasure, and he and
the reverend gentleman kept it all to themselves. About three weeks
later Parson Jones managed to get him shipped aboard of a vessel bound
for New York town, and a few days later Tom Chist landed at that place.
He had never been in such a town before, and he could not sufficiently
wonder and marvel at the number of brick houses, at the multitude of
people coming and going along the fine hard earthen sidewalk, at the
shops and the stores where goods hung in the windows, and, most of all,
the fortifications and the battery at the point, at the rows of
threatening cannon, and at the scarlet-coated sentries pacing up and
down the ramparts. All this was very wonderful, and so were the boats
clustered riding at anchor in the harbor. It was like a new world, so
different was it from the sand hills and the sedgy levels of Henlopen.
Tom Chist took up his lodgings at a coffee-house down close to the town
wall, and thence he sent by the post-boy a letter written by Parson
Jones to Master Chillingsworth. In a little while the boy returned with
a message, asking Tom to come up to Chillingsworth's house that
afternoon at two o'clock.
Tom accompanied the post-boy with a great deal of trepidation, and his
heart fell away altogether when he found himself brought to a fine grand
brick house, three stories high, and with wrought-iron letters across
the front.
The counting-house was in the same building; but Tom, because of Mr.
Jones's letter, was conducted directly into the parlor, where the great
rich man was awaiting his coming. He was sitting in a double-nailed
arm-chair, smoking a pipe of tobacco, and with a bottle of fine old
Madeira close to his elbow.
Tom had not had a chance to buy a new suit of clothes yet, and so he cut
no very fine figure in the rough dress he had brought with him from
Henlopen. Nor did Mr. Chillingsworth seem to think very highly of his
appearance, but sat looking sideways at him as he smoked.
"Well, my lad," he said, "and what is this great thing you have to tell
me that is so mightily wonderful? I got what's-his-name--Mr.
Jones's--letter, and now I am ready to hear what you have to say."
But if he thought but little of his visitor's appearance at first, he
soon changed his sentiments toward him, for Tom had not spoken twenty
words when Mr. Chillingsworth's whole aspect changed. He straightened
himself up in his seat, laid aside his pipe, pushed away his glass of
Madeira, and bade Tom take a chair.
He listened without a word as Tom Chist told of the buried treasure, of
how he had seen the poor negro murdered, and of how he and Parson Jones
had recovered the chest again. Only once did Mr. Chillingsworth
interrupt the narrative. "And to think," he cried, "that the villain
this very day walks about New York town as though he were an honest man,
ruffling it with the best of us! But if we can only get hold of these
log-books you speak of. Go on; tell me more of this."
When Tom Chist's narrative was ended, Mr. Chillingsworth's bearing was
as different as daylight is from dark. He asked a thousand questions,
all in the most polite and gracious tone imaginable, and not only urged
a glass of his fine old Madeira upon Tom, but asked him to stay to
supper. There was nobody to be there, he said, but his wife and
daughter.
Tom, all in a panic at the very thought of the two ladies, sturdily
refused to stay for the dish of tea Mr. Chillingsworth offered him.
He did not know that he was destined to stay there as long as he should
live.
"And now," said Mr. Chillingsworth, "tell me about yourself."
"I have nothing to tell, your honor," said Tom, "except that I was
washed up out of the sea."
"Washed up out of the sea!" exclaimed Mr. Chillingsworth. "Why, how was
that? Come, begin at the beginning, and tell me all."
Thereupon Tom Chist did as he was bidden, beginning at the very
beginning, and telling everything just as Molly Abrahamson had often
told it to him. As he continued, Mr. Chillingsworth's interest changed
into an appearance of stronger and stronger excitement. Suddenly he
jumped up out of his chair and began to walk up and down the room.
"Stop! stop!" he cried out at last, in the midst of something Tom was
saying. "Stop! stop! Tell me; do you know the name of the vessel that
was wrecked, and from which you were washed ashore?"
"I've heard it said," said Tom Chist, "'twas _The Bristol Merchant_."
[Illustration: "I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT!" EXCLAIMED THE GREAT MAN.]
"I knew it! I knew it!" exclaimed the great man, in a loud voice,
flinging his hands up into the air. "I felt it was so the moment you
began the story. But tell me this, was there nothing found with you with
a mark or a name upon it?"
"There was a kerchief," said Tom, "marked with a T and a C."
"Theodosia Chillingsworth!" cried out the merchant. "I knew it! I knew
it! Heavens! to think of anything so wonderful happening as this! Boy!
boy! dost thou know who thou art? Thou art my own brother's son. His
name was Oliver Chillingsworth, and he was my partner in business, and
thou art his son." Then he ran out into the entry-way, shouting and
calling for his wife and daughter to come.
* * * * *
So Tom Chist--or Thomas Chillingsworth, as he was now to be called--did
stay to supper, after all.
* * * * *
This is the story, and I hope you may like it. For Tom Chist became rich
and great, as was to be supposed, and he married his pretty cousin
Theodosia (who had been named for his own mother, drowned in _The
Bristol Merchant_).
He did not forget his friends, but managed so that Parson Jones came to
New York to live.
As to Molly and Matt Abrahamson, they both enjoyed a pension of eighty
pounds a year for as long as they lived; for now that all was well with
him, Tom bore no grudge against the old fisherman for all the drubbings
he had suffered.
The treasure-box was brought on to New York, and if Tom Chist did not
get all the money there was in it (as Parson Jones had opined he would),
he got at least a good big lump of it.
And it is my belief that those log-books did more to get Captain Kidd
arrested in Boston town and hanged in London than anything else that was
brought up against him.
EASTER.
Sing, that the winter is over,
Sing for the coming of spring,
For the showers and flowers and beautiful hours,
And the flash of the robin's wing.
Sing, for the gladness of Easter;
Lift up your voices and sing.
Deep in the heart of the forest,
Down at the roots of the trees,
There is stir of the violets coming,
And smile of anemones,
And many a kiss of fragrance
Goes out to the fragrant breeze.
Sing, for the coming of Easter,
And many a rare surprise
Of beauty and bloom awaiting
The looking of happy eyes.
Sing, for the Easter sunshine
And the blue benignant skies.
And carry the tall white lilies,
And the roses brimming sweet,
To the church where aisle and altar
Are sought by hastening feet.
Sing, to the Lord of the Easter,
Who is coming, your songs to meet.
MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
WHAT IS A MILLION?
BY BARNET PHILLIPS.
I must own up I never could wrestle much with figures; they generally
threw me. I am afraid I was born without the power of appreciating what
is called proportion in figures. I do not take that for an excuse. I
ought to have practised more, and it is probable that I should have
improved on an imperfect sense.
How my breath was taken away when I saw with my own eyes and heard with
my own ears a young Irishman, in a great New York dry-goods house,
rattle out marvellous results which had stiff calculations in
multiplication and addition, and he did it all in his head, and had no
slate to figure on! His ability was of use in a practical way. A
salesman would say to this Irishman something like this: "Fourteen cases
of prints, 22 pieces per case, 38 yards to the piece, at 6-7/8 cents per
yard." The salesman had no sooner stopped calling it all out than the
lightning calculator had given him the result. The advantage to the
house was that before the purchaser of the goods had left the building
his bill was handed to him. All day long that living calculating-machine
kept on figuring just in this way, and his work never seemed to tire
him.
I had a friend who possessed this marvellous mental power. He was a
bookkeeper in a large Southern house dealing in cotton, and sometimes
when great lots of thousands of bales of cotton were sold he figured up
the results.
To come back, however, to the conception of figures and the difficulty
in understanding proportions. I know what is meant by 1, or 10, or 100,
or 1000, or 100,000, or 1,000,000, but when I get into a billion, and
try to encompass that, my ideas are vague. When I read that the
Secretary of the Treasury gave, some time ago, this figure as the money
in circulation in the United States, $1,606,139,735, I got lost with
that figure 1 which stood before the other nine figures.
Now who does exactly appreciate what is a million? A young friend of
mine asked me to show him "a million of anything." I might have taken
the grains of sand on the sea-beach, and counted and weighed out an
ounce of them, but that would have been troublesome work. Had I done so,
however, I could have shown him a million of grains of sand. I had,
however, some No. 9 shot, just such shot as are used for snipe-shooting,
and then, as luck would have it, a No. 9 shot is just about the size of
the letter "o" in HARPER'S ROUND TABLE. The manufacturers of shot, who
know exactly what are the diameters of their leaden pellets, tell me
that a No. 9 drop-shot has a diameter of 8/100 of an inch, and that 568
of such shot weigh one ounce. Therefore 1,000,000 of such shot would
weigh 110 pounds, and a trifle of an ounce over.
I wanted, however, to get some idea of bulk. I had a box made one inch
high, one inch deep--in fact, a cubic inch. This I filled with No. 9
shot, and it held just about 2000 pellets. Now a million of these shot
would be, of course, 500 times 2000 pellets, or 500 little boxes would
hold the million. If, then, I had a big box made to contain the million,
this receptacle would have to be about eight inches on all sides. I can
get of this some idea as to the bulk of these small shot by the million.
The more ways I could look at a million, the better I thought I would
understand it. I wrote to the Treasury Department in Washington, and I
put two questions, which one of the leading authorities answered in the
most obliging manner. All I have to do, then, is to copy this
gentleman's letter.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT, OFFICE OF THE TREASURER,
WASHINGTON, D. C., _March_ 16, 1893.
SIR,--You ask me the following questions: 1st. How long does it
take, under the most advantageous circumstances, for an expert to
count 100,000 silver dollars? 2d. How long does it take, under the
most advantageous circumstances, for an expert to count one hundred
thousand notes?