A CURIOUS OLD JOURNAL
"OH, here's a bundle of letters, ever and ever so old!" called Grace.
Hers was the first find of interest, "Wouldn't it be splendid if I had
unearthed an old romance?"
"Give them to Olive," suggested Bab. "We have no right to read them."
Grace promptly handed the packet to Olive, who turned them over
reflectively.
"The writers of these have been dead for many, many years. There can be
no harm in our reading the letters. However, let's defer that pleasure
until another time. Here, Tom, you might carry out those old clothes.
They are so moth-eaten that they are likely to fall apart before you can
get them outside." Tom reluctantly gathered up an armful and went
stamping down the garret stairs.
Old clothes, trinkets, some of them of value, recipes for cooking,
written on the fly leaves of books and on scraps of paper, a varied
assortment of everything, including early photographs of forgotten
persons, were discovered. Everything was assorted and placed in piles
for future disposal. The girls' faces and hands were covered with dust
long before they had gone through the contents of the first few trunks.
Nothing of unusual interest had been discovered after something more
than an hour's rummaging. Tom had made so many trips to the back yard
with rubbish that he was tired. Finally he rebelled, declaring that he
wouldn't tramp up and down those stairs again for the whole of
Treasureholme.
Ruth found a chest of books in very old bindings. She called Bab over.
"Here, dear. You are simply crazy over old books. Here are some that
will keep you busy for the rest of the morning."
Bab ran over, and with a little chuckle of delight dropped down on her
knees in front of the open chest. She lifted out the ancient bindings
almost reverently, ran the pages through her fingers, pausing here and
there to read a line or a page, or a faded notation in pencil, then
carefully piled the books by the side of the chest. She was so wholly
absorbed in the contents of the chest that she failed to hear the lively
chatter going on about her.
About half way down in the chest she found a thin, leather-covered
volume, showing indications of long usage and much thumbing. On the
front page she read, "Journal of T. W. P."
"Olive, who was 'T. W. P.'?"
"'T. W. P.'? Why that's Tom's initials. Wait! Did you find that in one
of those old books?"
Bab nodded.
"Then it must refer to Thomas Warrington Presby. He is the gentleman who
is supposed to have been scalped by the Indians, the man who buried the
treasure that we have had all the fuss and excitement about. What is the
book?"
"It is his journal. His diary, I think we would call it. May I read it?"
"Of course. I hope you may find something interesting in it."
The reading of the diary was not easy. The ink was faded and the writing
was so peculiar that Bab deciphered it with some difficulty. Bab curled
up on a pile of old clothes under a window and buried her nose in the
old diary. She found it fascinating to read the diary of the man who
actually buried the treasure that had made the name of Treasureholme
well known in all that part of the country.
The entries in the diary dealt with the routine affairs of the life of
the owner. Then there were other and more absorbing passages. One that
made the girl's pulses quicken was the following:
"Rumors of Indian troubles are afloat. Jake was wounded by an arrow
to-day, shot from somewhere in the forest back of the house. But no
Indians were seen. We shall soon have to seek safety in the fort, I
fear. What to do with my worldly goods when we go is the question that
is troubling me now."
"Oh!" breathed Barbara.
"Does it blow hot or cold?" questioned Olive.
"It seems to be getting warm," replied Bab. "He is talking about the
treasure."
"What?" The girls were on their feet in an instant. Barbara read the
entry to them.
"Oh, fiddle!" sniffed Mollie. "That doesn't amount to anything. Don't
arouse my curiosity again unless you have something worth while."
Barbara considered that she had found something worth while, but she
made no comment on Mollie's remark. Instead, the girl returned to her
perusal of the old diary, reading each page carefully, not knowing when
a word or a sentence might give a clue to the mystery all were seeking
to solve. The girls went on with their rummaging and their lively
chatter. Tom had gone to sleep on a heap of bed spreads that were yellow
with age. The ghosts of the past did not trouble this healthy young
country boy. Mollie crouched down beside him, gently tickling his ear
with a feather that she had found in a trunk. Mollie nearly exploded
with merriment to see Tommy fight an imaginary fly in his sleep. The
other girls were soon attracted to the game, though Barbara was entirely
oblivious of what was going on. The girls gathered noiselessly about
Mollie and Tom, shaking with silent laughter, taking care not to awaken
the sleeping boy.
Tom's face twitched nervously. After a little one eye opened ever so
little then closed warily. The girls did not observe the movement of the
eyelid. Then all of a sudden things began to happen. Tom, with
incredible quickness, leaped to his feet, and began laying about him
with a folded bed spread. Mollie was the first to go down under the
attack. The others tried to get away from that sturdily wielded spread,
but were not quick enough, however. Tom did considerable execution with
his unwieldly weapon before the girls finally threw themselves upon him.
Then Tom went down and out. The girls dragged him to the stairway and
started him sliding down the stairs, feet first. With faces flushed,
eyes sparkling, brushing truant wisps of hair from their foreheads, the
girls returned to their exploration of the old chests. First Olive
closed and locked the door that opened onto the staircase.
"There! I think we shall have peace now," she announced.
Suddenly Barbara uttered a sharp little cry.
"Girls! Girls! Come here! Oh, come here!"
The girls with one accord rushed pell-mell across the garret. Excitement
reigned for a few seconds.
"I've found it! I've found it!" shouted Barbara.
"Found the treasure?" cried a chorus of voices.
"It's here, here!" she exclaimed, waving the little leather-bound
journal above her head.
"What have you found?" demanded Olive, showing less excitement than her
companions.
"This entry. It means something. I don't know just what, but I know it
means something."
"Read it, read it!" demanded the girls.
"The item is a month later than the one I found in the journal in which
they were afraid the Indians were going to make trouble. Listen to this.
If you don't think I have found something you are not half so smart as I
had thought." Barbara hitched a little closer to the window and with her
back to the light read from the journal the following entry:
"'To My Heirs: I am fleeing with my family, to the fort. The future
looks dark. Should I not return, others of my family one day will come
here and take possession, provided the savages do not destroy the old
place, which is not probable, as the spirit of a long dead Indian chief
is said to make his home here.'"
"I knew all the time there were ghosts here," interrupted Mollie.
"Wearing false faces," added Grace under her breath.
"There are further directions. 'Search and you shall find. I cannot be
more explicit save to say that what is here is well worth years of
endeavor,'" Barbara read on. "'I have a feeling that I shall see the old
place no more. Remember, that to every people its own dead are sacred
and be governed accordingly.'"
Barbara glanced slowly up at the solemn faces above her.
"Is that all?" asked Olive.
"Yes. That is the last entry in the journal, showing that the former Mr.
Presby did not return, as you already have told us that he did not."
"What do you make of it, dear?" questioned Olive thoughtfully.
"It is a clue and a direction to the buried treasure. There can be no
doubt of that."
"Yes, but we don't understand it," spoke up Ruth. "I doubt if we ever
shall."
"It's my opinion that Mr. T. W. P. wasn't in his right mind when he
wrote that," declared Mollie with emphasis. "I think the Indians must
have gone to his head."
"This is no joking matter, Mollie," rebuked Barbara. "Can't you be
serious for once in your life? We must study this."
"What do you say if I send for Mr. Stevens, girls?" cried Olive. "He has
studied this mystery more thoroughly than anyone else and he will no
doubt understand the veiled allusion to the treasure. Suppose we copy it
so we can read it more easily. Wait! I'll get a pencil."
Olive ran downstairs to her room, now not a little excited.
"I've sent Tom after Bob Stevens," she called, as she burst into the
attic on her return. "Now read it to me and I will put it down."
"Perhaps I had better do that," answered Bab, reaching for the pencil.
"I know the writing better than you do and I want to make the copy
exactly like the original. There," she added, after having carefully
copied the extract from the journal.
Olive regarded it perplexedly, Grace, Mollie and Ruth bending over her
shoulder as she read and reread the extract from the old Presby diary.
"I must show this to father and mother," exclaimed Olive suddenly, as
she whisked out of the room with Ruth, Mollie and Grace racing after
her. Barbara, once more absorbed in the journal over which she was
bending with wrinkled forehead, did not seem to realize that she had
been left alone.
"Oh, if it should be true! If it should lead us to the treasure! If we
could save Treasureholme for the Presbys it would be glorious." Barbara
got up and began pacing back and forth. She saw nothing of the dingy
garret room. Her imagination was traveling at express-train speed. Bab
stood leaning back against the heavy wainscoting, with her eyes fixed on
the ceiling, thinking.
"Oh, Barbara!" called Ruth's voice from the foot of the stairway.
"Yes?"
"Come down. Mercy! What was that?" A mighty crash shook the old house to
its foundations. The shock seemed to come from above. Ruth sped up the
stairs on winged feet. Those below stairs heard her utter a frightened
scream.
"Come! Oh, come quickly!" cried Ruth Stuart in a voice of terror.