BEYOND FORBIDDEN PORTALS
“Uncle Billie, has the whipsawed house an attic?”
Florence asked the question eagerly as she met her venerable friend on
the creek road next day.
“Sure enough! Now has it? I most forgit.” The old man scratched his head.
“It hasn’t a stairway, nor an opening for a ladder, but there must be
space up there, and if there’s space there must be something there.”
“Shore there are. Cobwebs, dust, an’—an’” the old man, startled with a
sudden thought, almost lost his balance and fell over, “an’ of course
that ar Confederate gold. Shore enough. Whar else could it be?”
“You come over at five this afternoon and we’ll explore that place,”
smiled Florence. “That is, if Mrs. McAlpin will permit us.”
“I’ll shore be thar at the apinted hour—sun time,” Uncle Billie beamed
like an excited child.
“Plum quare gold it were,” he added as Florence hurried away to school.
At sight of the old log schoolhouse, all thoughts of the fabled gold were
driven from her mind. The responsibilities of the day came flooding in
upon her. What had been the results of yesterday’s affair? She had asked
Marion to visit Ballard Skidmore in his home and get his story of the
quarrel with Bud Wax. She did not doubt but that Bud had been entirely in
the wrong, and hoped Ballard would return to school. Bud, of course, she
would never see in her school room again. Somewhat to her surprise, she
found herself regretting this. There was much good in the boy. She had
grown rather fond of the sight of his restless blue eyes.
“If only he did not belong, body and soul, to Black Blevens,” she told
herself, “one might make something of him.”
Again her mind went to work on the problems directly before her. How had
Black Blevens taken the affair yesterday? Had he been the silent watcher
on Lookout Rock? What had this setting of a watch meant? What would his
next move be?
And what of the coming election? Would there be enough voters to enable
them to win? Ransom Turner had promised to make a canvas of the community
and tell her how matters stood.
Her trial? Her heart sank at thought of it! To be tried by a jury with
all the mountain people looking on!
“But it’s all for them, for the little ones,” she whispered, and was
comforted.
Imagine her surprise when, upon entering the school yard, she saw Bud Wax
with the larger boys, pitching rocks at a stump.
“I—I didn’t think he’d come back,” she whispered to Marion.
“Neither did I.”
“Is Ballard coming back?”
“Yes.”
“Will they fight again?” Florence’s heart was in her throat. She felt
that another day such as yesterday would prove her undoing.
“Ballard said he’d do his best. Bud had been teasing him for a long time.
He called him a name that no mountain man or boy will allow himself to be
called. Then Ballard struck him in the face.”
For a time Florence pondered the problem of further punishment for Bud.
In the end she concluded that any punishment after the destruction of his
pistol would be anticlimax.
“We’ll let bygones be bygones,” she told Marion. “But keep your eyes open
for further trouble. Why did he come back anyway?”
“Who knows?”
That day Bud was a model pupil. Quiet, far too quiet for comfort, he
studied hard and recited perfectly. The day passed as a model in the
history of the school. Florence went home more puzzled than ever. On the
doorstep of the whipsawed house she found Uncle Billie Gibson. He was
smiling his brightest smile and glancing up at the eaves as if he
expected a shower of gold to come rattling down from the shingles.
A moment later two breathless young ladies were eagerly begging Mrs.
McAlpin for permission to remove a board from the ceiling of their room
that they might explore the attic of that venerable house.
Consent of the good lady was readily obtained and in a twinkle, armed
with a wood chisel and hammer, they were at the job.
Have you never entered an old house whose attic has remained unexplored
for years? Then you have never enjoyed the exciting dreams that come with
thoughts of treasures that may be found there. Chests filled with curios
from many lands; ancient trunks packed with rare old laces; a
grandfather’s clock; rare old books worth a fortune; period furniture
that a millionaire might covet. Indeed, who knows what rare treasures may
be hidden there?
As for the two girls and Uncle Billie, they were looking for but one
treasure—a stack of yellow gold.
As Florence inserted the chisel in a crack and gave it a pull there came
such a screech from the ancient hand-hammered nails as brought a scream
of fright from Marion. The next moment the board gave way with a
suddenness that all but knocked Florence from the chair upon which she
was perched and showered her with an accumulation of aged dust. With a
shrill cry she leaped to the floor.
Over their heads, as they regained composure, they saw a broad, black,
gaping hole.
“Dark up there,” said Marion with a little shudder.
“Have to use a flashlight.” Florence dug down into her trunk. “Here it
is.”
“But it won’t work.”
“Battery’s dead. Have to use a candle.”
A candle was brought. Then while Marion sat on the chair, Florence
climbed the back of it and thrust her head and shoulders through the
hole.
“See anything?” Marion asked breathlessly.
“No, not a—yes, there’s something, a black bulk over there in the corner.
It’s a—”
“A chest, of course!” Marion was quite beside herself with excitement.
Without thinking she sprang to her feet. The next instant the chair
toppled over and Florence, lighted candle and all, came crashing down
upon it.
“Wha—what did you do that for?” she demanded, once she had regained the
breath that had been knocked from her by the fall.
“I—I forgot!” said Marion. “Truly I’m sorry. Let’s try again.”
“Not that way,” said Florence, rubbing her bruises. “The bed will be
better. Come on, let’s push it over.”
The bed was soon under the hole and a moment later the two girls, closely
followed by an agile old man, were creeping from beam to beam toward the
bulk in the dark.
“I know it’s the chest of gold,” whispered Marion.
“I—I—someway it don’t look right.”
“Phoo-ee!” chuckled Uncle Billie. “That ain’t no chest. That’s a poundin’
mill. What hit’s doin’ stored up here is more’n I know.”
“A pounding mill? What’s that?” demanded Florence as she held her candle
above a great cylindrical block of wood on which there rested a similar
block of smaller dimensions.
“A poundin’ mill’s used for poundin’ out corn meal. They ain’t used now
on account o’ water wheels, but they was a powerful help in their day.
You all never seed ’em work? Well, hit’s this way.”
Uncle Billie lifted the smaller cylinder and dropped it into a hole in
the larger block, which was some three feet high and four feet across.
“You put your corn in that there holler, then you tie this block to a
saplin’ to help you teeter hit up an’ down, an’ you pound your corn until
it are meal. That’s all there are to hit.”
“That’s a powerful heavy block!” he exclaimed, trying to tip it. “Must be
made out o’ first growth hickory, as sizeable as hit is.”
“But where’s our gold?” asked Marion. Her voice dropped off into a little
disappointed wail.
“Peers to me like we’d been barkin’ up the wrong tree,” said Uncle Billie
with a sad shake of his head.
“Might be hidden around somewhere among the rafters,” said Florence.
“Let’s have a good look.”
They explored the attic thoroughly. Not a pile of dust but was disturbed
that day. Their only reward was a rusty Civil War canteen that, as Uncle
Billie expressed it, was “as empty as a bear after a winter’s sleep.”
Just as they were preparing to descend, Marion made an interesting find.
Having noticed a circular spot on the dust covered boards that might have
been a knot, she put out a hand to pick up a circular disk.
“What’s this?” she exclaimed excitedly. “How heavy it is! It—why, it must
be gold!”
“Hit shore are!” exclaimed Uncle Billie, taking it from her and rubbing
it clean on his ragged trousers’ leg. “Hit sure are. Hit’s one of them
are pieces of Confederate gold.”
“But it doesn’t say Confederate,” whispered Florence after examining it
closely. “It says on one side ‘Georgia gold’, and on the other—let’s
see.” With a trembling finger she rubbed away the last vestige of dust.
“It says: ‘T-e-m-p-l-e R-e-i-d. Temple Reid, Ten Dollars’.”
“Georgia Gold. Temple Reid. Ten Dollars!” exclaimed Marion. “What
nonsense! How could a man coin money? Money is made by nations, not by
men.”
“But that’s what it says,” insisted Florence.
“Well, anyway, it isn’t Confederate gold,” said Marion, disappointment
creeping into her tone. There had been a glamor of romance in her hope of
finding some coins struck by that long since dissolved government.
“You can’t most always tell,” said Uncle Billie with a wise shake of his
head. “That ar’s Georgia gold. But hit’s jest one. There were a hundred,
mebby four-five hundred. Stands to reason some was Confederate, fer
hadn’t Jeff Middelton come from right down thar whar that sort of money
were made?”
Uncle Billie’s logic seemed weak, but, that they might not hurt the
feelings of the good old man, the girls let it pass. They all adjourned
to the rooms below. Dust and dirt were scrubbed off, the hole was nailed
up, and there the matter stood, closed for the time being.
One thing was decided upon. The strange gold piece was to be sent to a
curator of Field Museum, who was a friend of Marion. He would be able to
tell them the origin of the piece, and its value.
“That one coin may be of considerable value,” said Marion. “There are
coins worth hundreds of dollars.”
“Yes, and it may be worth just exactly its weight in gold,” laughed
Florence. “But send it along. It will do no harm.”
That night the bit of gold went North in the registered mail pouch, and
the girls, forgetting their disappointment as quickly as possible, set
about two important tasks that lay just before them; the winning of the
school election and preparation for Florence’s trial.
It was five days later. It was evening, but there was no sunset. Dull,
gray clouds had hung low on the mountains all day. Dull clouds of
disappointment and defeat hung heavily on Florence’s spirits. She had
taken a long, long walk up Laurel Branch. Her hopes that this walk would
revive her drooping spirits had proven vain. Each leaden mile had found
her head drooping more and more.
“It’s lost!” she murmured as she marched stolidly on.
It was true; at least Ransom Turner had assured her it was. The school
election was lost. Each side had begun work early. The canvass had been
taken; the line-up, in so far as anyone could tell, was completed, and at
the present Black Blevens and his choice for teacher, Al Finely, were
eight votes ahead.
“Eight votes!” she had said to Ransom. “How can we overcome that?”
“Hit can’t be done,” Ransom had said. “Hit’s a fact. That Black Blevens
is the election fightenest man I most ever seed. We’re jest as good as
licked right now.”
“And yet,” Florence said to herself as, undecided whether to pause for
rest or to wander aimlessly on, she paused beside a great flat rock, “it
does seem that there is a way to win if only we knew it.”
Just as if in answer to her worrying problem, the fog lifted, revealing
before her in startling clearness the natural gateway that led to the
horseshoe valley at the head of Laurel Branch.
“The gate,” she breathed. “The gateway to that mysterious valley where
strange people live without visiting the outside world, the valley from
which men do not return!” Her heart was all a-tremble. Her shaking knees
obliged her to drop suddenly upon an inviting rock.
At once her keen mind was at work. She had come farther than she thought
and she should turn back at once. Then, too, that gateway held for her an
irresistible fascination. Did she hope from this point of vantage to
catch some glimpse of the life of those strange beings who lived beyond
the gate? Was some good angel whispering to her soul some of the hidden
things of the future? Who can say? Enough that she sat there alone while
the dull shadows deepened.
It did not seem strange to her that her thoughts at this moment should
turn to the little girl, Hallie, who had been so mysteriously thrust into
the life that centered in the old whipsawed house. Indeed, she had often
enough associated her with this same stone gateway and had wondered if
after all she had been brought through this very portal to the outside
world.
Wherever she may have come from, Hallie had grown to be the life of that
old brown cabin. She had come to them dressed in a water-soaked scarlet
dress and a mud smeared tam that shone bright even in their terrible
disarray. The bright colors had suited her so well that they had dressed
her so ever since. Closing her eyes, Florence could see her now.
“Like a scarlet bird fluttering from branch to branch of an old tree,”
she mused as she saw her moving from room to room. “How we’d miss her if
someone came for her!”
Imagine her surprise when upon opening her eyes she saw, not twenty yards
before her, down the creek, the very person of whom she had been
thinking.
Suppressing a cry of surprise, she waited and watched. Walking slowly, as
if in a trance, Hallie passed within four feet of her without seeing her,
then marched straight on toward the rocky gateway that lay between her
and the hidden valley.
At once Florence’s mind was in a whirl. Her lips parted to call the child
back, but no sound came forth.
What should she do? Evidently something had happened to the child. She
was in a daze again. Perhaps the old fever that had wiped out her memory
had returned. Had memory accompanied it? Was she now groping her way back
to her own home?
“Home!” Florence spoke the word softly. Home had meant so much to her.
Like a moving panorama she saw before her twilight scenes at home by the
fireplace, bed time and prayer beside her bed with her mother bending
over, joyous mornings and sunny afternoons. Home! Ah, yes, home! And
perhaps this little girl was going home. Could she stop her? And yet,
could she allow her to wander alone in the gathering darkness through
those forbidding portals?
The answer came quickly. She dropped down into the path, turned toward
the stone gateway, then marched steadily forward until both she and the
child were lost to view beyond the rocky pillars.
Had Florence chanced to look behind she might have caught sight of a
person following at a distance. A skulking figure it was that moved by
quick starts and stops from shadow to shadow. And, had her backward
glance been rightly timed, had it come as a sudden last feeble burst of
sunlight illumined his face, she would have seen that this person was Bud
Wax.
Had she seen him her heart would doubtless have been filled with
misgivings and wild questions. Why was the boy following her? Was this a
trap? What did he know about little Hallie? What of the land beyond the
forbidden gateway?
Since she did not look behind her, but walked straight on, she asked
herself no such questions. So the three passed into the mysterious
beyond, the child as in a dream, the teacher sturdily on duty bound, the
boy skulking from shadow to shadow. Hardly had they disappeared when
sudden night came down to close the gate with a curtain of darkness.