_Nat Sees a Friend._
“There’s just this much about it,” said Nat, when Mr. Nickerson had
been laid away in a little grove of evergreens behind the barn, and the
neighbors had gone home one after the other and the family had returned
to the house, “it is going to be something of a job for me to go down
there and get that money. In the first place there is Jonas, who will
be furious when he finds that I have run away from home, especially if
he thinks I am going to make something by it. He will follow me night
and day, and I can’t make a move of any sort without he will see it.
Then he will bring me home and won’t I ketch it, though?”
This bothered Nat more than any thing else. He wanted some little time
to think seriously about the way to beat Jonas at his own game, and
went into the barn, drew a milk-stool to the threshold so that he could
see anybody that approached him from the house and sat down to go over
the points again.
“I have got to have help,” thought Nat, “and there is only one boy in
the settlement that I can trust; and when it comes to that, I can’t
trust him, either. He is a lazy, good-for-nothing fellow, and worse
than all, I dare not tell him what I am looking after. I must go it
alone if I can; but if I find that I can’t do it, I must see Peleg
Graves about it.”
Come to look at the matter Nat was in bad straits, and that was a fact.
Of course there were plenty of boys he could have got to assist him,
but the trouble was he did not know any of them. He and Caleb were much
alike in this respect. The families around them were a little better
off than they were, nobody liked Jonas on account of his shiftless
ways, and his boys, Nat and Caleb, had been brought up to follow very
much in his footsteps, and his bad example had a deteriorating effect
on their character--they were like dogs without a master. That was the
way Nat looked at it, and it was the source of infinite annoyance to
him.
“Whenever I go down town I can just go alone,” Nat had often said
to himself. “All the boys there have their friends who are glad to
see them. It is ‘Hello, Jim!’ or ‘Hello, Tom!’ here and there and
everywhere; but if any one looks at me he seems to say: ‘What you doing
here, Nat? You have not any business to come to town.’ And I have more
money to spend than any of them. But Peleg has never been that way. He
has always seemed glad to see me, but I think the candy I was eating
had something to do with it.”
After long reflection Nat finally made up his mind that he would call
upon Peleg and see what he had to say about it; but there was one thing
on which he was fully resolved: He would not let Peleg know what they
were searching for until they found the money. He was not going to
stay about Jonas’s house any longer--that was another thing that he
had decided upon; and something happened just then to make him adhere
to this decision. The door of the house opened at this point in his
meditations and Caleb came out. Of course he was very solemn, almost
any body would be if one had died so near him, but he came along toward
Nat as if he had something on his mind.
“Well, Nat, your friend has gone at last,” said he, by way of beginning
the conversation.
“That is a fact. He was the only friend I had about the house.”
“You will not have any more money to buy tobacco for him, will you?”
asked Caleb. “What are you going to do?”
“How did I get any money to buy any tobacco for him?” inquired Nat.
That was just what Nat had been doing for a number of years, but how
did Caleb find it out?
“Oh, you can’t fool me,” said Caleb, with a laugh. “I saw him go into
the fence corner the day before he died and take a plug of tobacco out
of there. I did not say any thing to pap about it, for I did not know
but it was some secret business that you and old man Nickerson had. I
did not want to go back on you--”
“If he found any tobacco there he must have got it himself,” said Nat,
for he did not care to listen any more to the falsehoods Caleb was
about to utter. “I don’t know any thing about it.”
“Aw, now, what is the use of fooling in that way? I would like to know
how Mr. Nickerson could have got any tobacco for himself. He has not
been to town in two years to my certain knowledge. You got it the last
time you were there and stowed it away where he could find it.”
Nat was amazed at this revelation. In spite of all his cunning Caleb
had succeeded in getting upon his secret at last. If the latter told
his father of it he would feel the switch sure enough; that is if he
stayed about the premises. Without making any reply he picked up his
stool, moved it back where it belonged and made ready to walk out of
the barn.
“You see I am on to those little tricks of yours,” said Caleb. “Don’t
go yet for I have something to say to you. Now I will tell you this to
begin with, Nat Wood: You know where Mr. Nickerson had the rest of that
money hidden.”
“What money?” asked Nat, innocently.
“The money he had hidden when he came here,” Caleb almost shouted,
doubling up his fists as though he had more than half a mind to strike
Nat for professing so much ignorance. “Pap says you know where it is
and he is going to have it out of you, too.”
“I will bet you he don’t,” said Nat to himself. “That money is mine and
if I don’t have it, it can stay there until it rots.”
“Now I will tell you what we will do, Nat,” continued Caleb, dropping
his threatening manner and laying his hand patronizingly on Nat’s
shoulder. “Me and you will keep this still from pap, and go down to
Manchester and dig up that money. Oh man alive, won’t we live high--”
“You seem to think it, if there is any of it at all, is in the ground,”
interrupted Nat.
“Where else should it be put? If it is in the ground no one can stumble
on it while he is roaming around through the woods. I will go with you
and will start now, if you say so.”
“Well, if you are going down to Manchester to look for that money,
which I don’t believe is there, you can go,” said Nat. “But I will stay
here. I am not going to dig around unless I can make something by it.”
“Oh, come on now, Nat,” said Caleb, coaxingly. “You know where it is
and I will bet on it.”
“If you do bet on it you will lose whatever you bet. But I have already
had my say. I won’t go down to Manchester with you.”
“If you don’t go I will tell pap,” said Caleb, growing angry again.
“You can run and tell him as soon as you please. If I could see the
money sticking up before me this minute I would not give you a cent of
it. It does not belong to you.”
“Then I bet you I am going to tell pap,” said Caleb, who was so nearly
beside himself that he walked up and down the barn swinging his hands
about his head. “You will get that switch over your shoulders before
you go to bed tonight. Whoop-pe! I would not have the licking you will
get for anything.”
Caleb marched away as if he were afraid he would forget his errand
before he got to the house, and Nat leaned against the door-post and
watched him. There was one good reason why Caleb would not tell his
father of the tobacco hidden in the fence corner, and that was the fear
that the switch would be used upon himself. Why had he not told his
father of it when he came from town? Jonas was in just the right mood
to use that switch then, and he would have beaten Nat most unmercifully
until he got at the full history of the tobacco money. But Caleb had
let it go for three days now, and perhaps Jonas felt differently
about it. Nat did not know this. He stood there in the door of the
barn waiting for Jonas to come, but he waited in vain. Nat was doing
some heavy thinking in the meantime, and he finally concluded that he
would go and see Peleg and have the matter settled before he went any
further. With a parting glance at the house he put the bushes that
lined the potato patch between them, broke into a run and in a quarter
of an hour he was at Peleg’s barn. Peleg was there. He was engaged in
getting some corn ready to go to the mill and he was husking it.
“Well, Nat, where are you going to find another friend like Mr.
Nickerson was to you?” was the way he greeted Nat when he came into the
barn.
“I don’t know,” was Nat’s reply. “I am left alone in the world. There
is nobody who cares a cent whether I live or die.”
When Peleg saw what humor Nat was in, how solemn he talked about the
loss of his friend, he faced about on his seat and looked at him. Any
boy who had been in Nat’s place would have been satisfied that Peleg
could not be trusted, and would have turned away from him to look
elsewhere for a friend. He was not a bad looking boy, but he had a kind
of sneaking, hang-dog way with him that did not go far toward making
his friends. But he had friends and that was the worst of it. It was a
sort of policy with Peleg to agree to every thing that any body said
to him. He did that with an object, and Nat always thought that he
listened with the intention of learning something. Perhaps if we follow
him closely we shall see how nearly he drew Nat on to tell him all
about the money and the plans he had laid for obtaining possession of
it.
“‘Shaw! I would not talk that way,” said Peleg, throwing an ear of corn
into the pile. “You have got friends enough here. There is Caleb and
Jonas--”
“I reckon you don’t know what sort of friends they are to me,” Nat
interposed.
“Well, between I and you, I have often thought that they might have
used you a little better,” said Peleg, sinking his voice almost to a
whisper. “Jonas uses that switch on you most too much.”
“Yes, and he has done that for the last time. I am not going to stand
it any longer.”
“What are you going to do--run away from home?”
“I am going to run away from Jonas. I don’t call that my home--I never
had one; but I want to get away and make my own living.”
“That’s right, my boy; that’s right. You will make a better living than
you do there. Look at the clothes you wear!”
“I will have better before long,” said Nat, crossing one leg over the
other when he saw that Peleg was looking steadily at the huge rent in
his overalls.
“Say,” whispered Peleg, getting upon his feet and approaching his face
close to Nat’s. “Did old Nickerson leave you any money? You need not be
afraid to talk to me about that,” he continued, seeing that Nat looked
down at the ground and hesitated. “They say that the old man was, or
had been, powerful rich, and if he was a friend to any body in that
house he ought to be to you.”
“I know he was my friend. He always had something kind to say to me.”
“I knew it; I knew it all the time. Say! Jonas has not used up all that
thousand dollars that the old man gave him?”
“What do you know about that?” asked Nat, in surprise. “Has Jonas been
talking about it?”
“I won’t say that he has or that he hasn’t,” said Peleg, with a knowing
shake of his head. “I don’t mind telling you, for I know it won’t go
any further, that I have heard something about it. You would not expect
me to say more without breaking my word, and that is something I never
do. But I tell you that he has got a heap of that thousand dollars
left.”
“That’s what I have often thought. Where has he got it hidden?”
“That’s another thing I must not tell you, but I know where, or at
least I can come within a thousand miles of it, where he hides it. You
see I know a heap of things that people don’t think I do. If you should
tell me that you know where that money is--”
“But I don’t,” said Nat. “I know where some of it is--that is the most
of his fortune is concealed.”
“Aha!” said Peleg while a smile, a very faint smile which nobody would
have noticed, overspread his face. He did not give utterance to this
expression but said it to himself, while Nat himself, always on the
lookout for some such signs, did not know how extremely delighted
he was by it. Peleg was in a fair way to learn all about it. “If
you should tell me where this money is hidden,” he went on after
controlling himself, “I would die before any one should find out from
me the exact spot. You see the way the thing works with me is this:
If a person tells you a secret, that is yours to keep. Don’t tell any
body of it; and in a very short time people will learn that you can be
trusted.”
“I don’t know just where this money is,” said Nat, and he hesitated a
long while before he said the next words. “I know where the papers are.”
“What papers!”
“The papers that tell where the money is hidden.”
“Where are they?”
“I have got them safe and I should like to see any body find them.”
“That’s right; keep them safe,” said Peleg, although he was much
disappointed because the papers were not instantly produced. “Don’t you
let a living soul into it unless you find some one to tell the secret
to.”
“I am going down to look those papers up now,” said Nat.
“Down where?”
“Down to Manchester,” replied Nat; whereupon that same smile came upon
Peleg’s face once more. He was thinking how he was going to work to get
a sight at those papers.
“It is going to be no easy task to go down there and find the papers
all by myself,” continued Nat, walking back and forth across the floor
and wondering how in the world he was going to propose the matter to
Peleg. “You see the minute I go away Jonas will suspect something, and
if there is any point he will go for it will be Manchester.”
“That’s a fact,” said Peleg, a bright idea striking him. “And if he
found you there your chance of digging up the papers would be up
stump. When do you want to go?”
“I would go now, this very night, if I had some one to go with me.
I would find the money, if there is any, and go away where I am not
known.”
“That is just what I would do,” replied Peleg, with sundry motions of
his head which he thought added emphasis to his words. “Then nobody can
ask you where you got so many stamps.”
“I don’t fear for that,” said Nat, hastily. “I want everybody to know
where I got them. I will get away and put them in the bank; then I
should like to see any body get hold of them.”
“That’s the idea. When you once get it into the bank it is safe. You
say you want somebody to help you. That shows you are wise. If there
is any body on top of this broad earth who will be up to tricks, it is
that Jonas Keeler.”
“There is Caleb,” suggested Nat. “He won’t come out where any body can
see him, but he will sneak around in the bushes. Jonas and Caleb will
go together.”
“Oh, Caleb,” said Peleg, contemptuously. “Caleb is a fellow to
be--Well, I reckon we would best look out for him too,” he added, for
it suddenly occurred to him that the more persons Nat had against him
the greater need he would have for somebody to protect him. “If there
is any body can get away with Caleb, I am the one. There ain’t any
scheme that boy is up to that I can’t see through. I will go halvers
with you on that money, or rather the papers that will tell where it is
hidden, when we get it.”
“Then you and I can’t hitch,” replied Nat, surprised at the
proposition. “I can not pay any such sum as that.”
“What for?” demanded Peleg. “You are going to make as much as three or
four thousand dollars by it.”
“I don’t know what I will make and I don’t care. It will be enough to
take me away from the house in which I now live, and that is all I
want. I might as well go home.”
“Well, what will you give? Maybe you think it is fun to go down there
and beat Jonas and Caleb when they are trying to get the money or the
papers away from you? I shall want good pay for doing that.”
“I will give you good pay; more than double what you can make here.
I will give you a dollar a day, payment to begin when we strike
Manchester.”
It was now Peleg’s turn to be astonished. He stared hard at Nat to see
if he was in earnest, and then went back to his seat and began husking
corn.