The Blue Jar.
IT was some minutes before either spoke. All they knew was that they
were once more in the air and light. Then, with a start, Reube sat up
and looked about him. He looked, of course, for the _Dido_. To his
inexpressible relief the cherished craft was there in plain sight,
riding safely at her anchor, some fifty yards from shore. And there,
farther out, rode the pinkie. Reube blessed his comrade’s foresight.
“Will, where would the boats be now?” said he, “if you hadn’t insisted
on anchoring them?”
Will sat up and surveyed the situation, thoughtfully clearing the mud
from his eyes with little bunches of grass.
“It was just as well we anchored them,” he assented. “And now that I’ve
got my wind, I think I had better swim out to the _Dido_ and bring her
in for you. I feel as if I wanted a bath anyway; don’t you?”
“I’ll be with you in half a minute,” said Reube. “But first I want to
explore the cave a little more. It seems to me we came away in something
of a hurry!”
He let himself cautiously down in the hole, feet first.
Will stopped his undressing and stared at him in amazement.
“Are you crazy?” he cried. “Do come out of that beastly hole! The idea
of it makes me quite ill!”
“O, I’m not going far,” said Reube, “and I won’t be gone long, either.
Don’t be alarmed.”
As his head disappeared Will ran to the hole and looked down, anxiously
and curiously. He saw Reube groping in a crevice filled with soft earth,
about three feet below the surface.
“What in the world are you after, Reube?” he inquired.
“That!” replied Reube the next instant, holding aloft triumphantly a
small blue jar of earthenware. “Take it, and give me a lift out of
this!”
Will deposited the old jar reverentially on the turf, and turned to help
Reube up. He half expected that the jar would vanish while his back was
toward it; but no, there it was, plain and palpable enough. It had a
cover set into the rim, and sealed around the edges with melted rosin;
and it was heavy.
Thrilling with suppressed excitement, Reube and Will sat down with the
jar between them, and Reube proceeded to chip away the rosin with his
knife. Will gazed at the operation intently.
“Probably some good old Evangeline’s pet jar of apple sauce!” said he.
Reube ignored this levity, and chipped away with irritating
deliberation. At last off came the cover. As it did so there was a most
thrilling jingling within, and the boys leaned forward with such
eagerness that their heads bumped violently together. They saw stars,
but heeded them not, for in the mouth of the jar they saw the yellow
glint of a number of gold coins.
“Well, dreams do sometimes come true!” remarked Will. And Reube,
spreading out Will’s coat, which lay close at hand, emptied upon it the
whole contents of the jar.
It was coin—all coin! There were a few golden Louis, a number of
Spanish pieces, with silver crowns and _livres Tourtnois_, amounting,
according to such hasty estimate as the boys could make, to some five or
six hundred dollars.
[Illustration: It was coin—all coin!]
“That’ll be three hundred dollars apiece,” said Reube, with eyes
sparkling; “and I’ll be able to take mother to Boston and go to college
too!”
“Three hundred dollars apiece!” said Will. “Indeed, I don’t see what I
had to do with it. You found it. You had nerve enough to take notice of
it when you were more than three quarters dead. And you went back and
got it. I’ve no earthly claim upon it, old man.”
Reube set his jaw obstinately.
“Will,” said he, “we were exploring the cave in partnership. If you had
found the stuff, I’d have expected my share. Now, you’ve got to go
shares with me in this, or I give you my word our friendship ends!”
“O, don’t get on your dignity that way, Reube,” said Will. “If I must,
why, I suppose I must! And if I can’t take a present from you, I don’t
see whom I could take one from. But I won’t take half, because I didn’t
do half toward getting it, and because you need it enough sight more
than I do. A couple of years ago I’d have spoken differently. But I’ll
divide with you, and as to the proportions, we’ll settle that on the way
home. Now I’m off for the _Dido_!” And having thrown off his clothes as
he talked, he ran down the bank and plunged into the sea.
“I’ll let you off with one third,” shouted Reube after him, as he sat on
the bank and watched. “Not one penny less!”
“All right,” spluttered Will, breasting a white-crested, yellow wave. In
a few minutes he was on board the _Dido_. Pulling up the anchor and
hoisting the sail, he brought her in beside a jutting plaster rock which
formed a natural quay. Then he resumed his clothes, while Reube took his
place at the helm.
The wind being still down the bay and the tide on the turn, they decided
not to attempt the all-night task of beating up against it. It took
them, indeed, two tacks to reach the pinkie. Will went aboard the latter
craft, leaving Reube in his darling _Dido_. The two boats tacked
patiently back and forth, in and out of the wide cove, till they gained
the shelter of a little creek under the lea of Wood Point. Here they
were secured with anxious care. Then Will and Reube started for home by
the road, pricked on to haste by the thought of how their mothers would
be worrying, by the sharp demands of their empty stomachs, and by the
elating clink of the coins that filled their pockets. When they reached
Mrs. Dare’s cottage Reube rushed in to relieve his mother’s fears, for
she had indeed begun to be anxious. Will hurried on toward Frosty
Hollow, munching a piece of Mrs. Dare’s gingerbread by the way.
As he trudged forward cheerfully, he was overtaken by an express wagon
bound for “the Corners.” The driver offered him a “lift,” as the phrase
goes about Tantramar. It was none other than Jerry Barnes, the master of
the red bull, and the owner of the pinkie which Will and Reube had so
boldly appropriated. Will told him the whole story, omitting only the
discovery of the jar of coin. He and Reube had agreed to keep their
counsel on this point, lest some should envy their good luck and others
doubt their story.
“I hope,” said Will, “you are not put out at our taking the pinkie?”
“I hope,” grinned Barnes, “you’re not put out at old Ramses for bein’ so
oncivil in the pastur’! But as for the pinkie, of course you did quite
right. Only I’ll want you chaps to get her back to the creek by
to-morrow mornin’s tide, as I’m goin’ to drift for shad to-morrow
night!”
“Of course,” said Will; “we’ll go after her the first thing in the
morning. That’s just what we planned on.”
“That there’s a smart boat Reube Dare’s built. And he’s a right smart
lad, is Reube,” remarked Jerry Barnes.
“There’s where your head’s level,” agreed Will, warmly.
“And do you know when he’s goin’ to drift?” asked Barnes.
“He won’t be quite ready for to-morrow night,” said Will. “But we count
on getting out the night following.”
“Well, now, a word in your ear!” went on Barnes, leaning over
confidentially. “I’ve no manner of doubt Mart Gandy cut the _Dido_
loose. And now Reube had better keep his eye on his nets after the boats
get away to-morrow night. I shouldn’t wonder a mite if Gandy’d try
slashing ’em, so as to give Reube an unpleasant surprise when he starts
out for the _Dido’s_ first fishing.”
“I say,” said Will, “I never thought of that! We’ll ‘lay’ for him, so to
speak, and give him a lesson if he tries it on.”
“A nod’s as good as a wink,” remarked Jerry Barnes, mysteriously, as he
set Will down at Mrs. Carter’s door.
Mrs. Carter had not been at all anxious. Ever since Will’s reclamation
of the new marsh she had had an implicit faith in his ability and
judgment. She had imagined that he was spending the day with Reube. She
rather lost her dignified self-control over Will’s story of the
adventure in the cave, and she was filled with girlish excitement over
the finding of the old blue jar.
“Of course, dearest boy,” said Mrs. Carter, “you did quite right to want
Reuben to take all the treasure, since he alone found it. But where
would he have been but for you? Reuben is a fine boy, if his grandfather
didn’t amount to much. He takes after his mother’s family the most. I’m
glad he made you take a share of these lovely old coins.”
“We’ll be able to have some sort of a jolly lark on the strength of it
when Ted comes home,” said Will.
“We might take a run to Boston!” suggested his mother. “I want you boys
to see the city; I want to see it myself. And I might—Mrs. Dare, you
know, might want a friend near her if the operation proves at all
serious, which I hope it won’t.”
“You dear, that’s just like your thoughtfulness!” cried Will, jumping up
and kissing her. And so it was agreed upon, subject, in a measure, to
Ted’s assent.