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[Illustration: THE ADVENTURE WITH THE BASKET OF COIN.]
A
CHANCE FOR HIMSELF;
OR,
JACK HAZARD AND HIS TREASURE.
BY
J. T. TROWBRIDGE,
AUTHOR OF “JACK HAZARD AND HIS FORTUNES,” “LAWRENCE’S ADVENTURES,”
“COUPON BONDS,” ETC.
[Illustration: Publisher’s Logo]
BOSTON:
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,
LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.
1872.
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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872,
BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & CO., CAMBRIDGE.
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CONTENTS.
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CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE THUNDER-SQUALL 7
II. WHAT JACK FOUND IN THE LOG 13
III. “TREASURE-TROVE” 19
IV. IN WHICH JACK COUNTS HIS CHICKENS 28
V. WAITING FOR THE DEACON 32
VI. “ABOUT THAT HALF-DOLLAR” 36
VII. HOW JACK WENT FOR HIS TREASURE 41
VIII. JACK AND THE SQUIRE 49
IX. THE SQUIRE’S PERPLEXITY AND JACK’S STRATAGEM 58
X. “THE HUSWICK TRIBE” 65
XI. THE “COURT” AND THE “VERDICT” 70
XII. HOW HOD’S TROUSERS WENT TO THE SQUIRE’S HOUSE 78
XIII. HOW JACK RESCUED LION, BUT MISSED THE TREASURE 82
XIV. SQUIRE PETERNOT AT HOME 89
XV. JACK AND THE HUSWICK BOYS 96
XVI. HOW JACK CALLED AT THE SQUIRE’S 104
XVII. HOW JACK TOOK TO HIS HEELS 111
XVIII. HOW THE HEELS WENT HOME WITHOUT SHOES AND STOCKINGS 116
XIX. HOW JACK WAS INVITED TO RIDE 122
XX. HOW THE SHOES AND STOCKINGS CAME HOME 128
XXI. JACK IN DISGRACE 135
XXII. JACK AND THE JOLLY CONSTABLE 143
XXIII. BEFORE JUDGE GARTY 150
XXIV. THE PRISONER’S CUP OF MILK 157
XXV. JACK’S PRISONERS 160
XXVI. THE OWNER OF THE POTATO PATCH, AND HIS DOG 167
XXVII. THE RACE, AND HOW IT ENDED 174
XXVIII. THE SEARCH, AND HOW IT ENDED 179
XXIX. THE CULVERT AND THE CORNFIELD 187
XXX. JACK BREAKFASTS AND RECEIVES A VISITOR 194
XXXI. TEA WITH AUNT PATSY 201
XXXII. A STARLIGHT WALK WITH ANNIE FELTON 208
XXXIII. A STRANGE CALL AT A STRANGE HOUR OF THE NIGHT 216
XXXIV. HOW JACK WON A BET, AND RETURNED A FAVOR 221
XXXV. AT MR. CHATFORD’S GATE 227
XXXVI. THE “RIDE” CONTINUED 234
XXXVII. ONE OF THE DEACON’S BLUNDERS 239
XXXVIII. THE DEACON’S DIPLOMACY 246
XXXIX. A TURN OF FORTUNE 251
XL. THE SQUIRE’S TRIUMPH 257
XLI. HOW IT ALL ENDED 264
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A CHANCE FOR HIMSELF.
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CHAPTER I
THE THUNDER-SQUALL.
[Illustration]
ON a high, hilly pasture, occupying the northeast corner of Peach Hill
Farm, a man and two boys were one afternoon clearing the ground of
stones.
The man—noticeable for his round shoulders, round puckered mouth, and
two large, shining front teeth—wielded a stout iron bar called a “crow,”
with which he pried up the turf-bound rocks, and helped to tumble them
over upon a drag, called in that region a “stun-boat.” The larger of the
boys—a bright, active lad of about fourteen years—lent a hand at the
heavy rocks, and also gathered up and cast upon the drag the smaller
stones, on his own account. The second lad—nearly as tall, and perhaps
quite as old as the other—helped a little about the stones, but divided
his attention chiefly between the horse that drew the drag, and a shaggy
black dog that accompanied the party.
“Come, boy!” said the man,—enunciating the _m_ and _b_ by closing the
said front teeth upon his nether lip,—“ye better quit fool’n’, an’ ketch
holt and help. ’S go’n’ to rain.”
“Ain’t I helping?” retorted the smaller boy. “Don’t I drive the horse?”
“A great sight,—long’s the reins are on his back, an’ I haf to holler to
him half the time to git up an’ whoa. Git up, Maje! there! whoa!—Jack’s
wuth jest about six of ye.”
“O, Jack’s dreadful smart! Beats everything! And so are you, Phi
Pipkin!” said the boy, sneeringly. “You feel mighty big since you got
married, don’t ye?—I bet ye Lion’s got a squirrel under that big rock!
I’m going to see!” And away he ran.
“That ’ere Phin Chatford ain’t wuth the salt in his porridge,—if I do
say it!” remarked Mr. Pipkin. “I never did see sich a shirk; though when
he comes to tell what’s been done, you’d think he was boss of all
creation. Feel as if I’d like to take the gad to him sometimes, by
hokey!”
“O Jack!” cried Phin, who had mounted a boulder much too large for Mr.
Pipkin’s crow-bar, “you can see Lake Ontario from here,—’way over the
trees there! Come and get up here; it’s grand!”
“I’ve been up there before,” replied Jack. “Haven’t time now. We shall
have that shower here before we get half across the lot.”
“Come, Phin!” called out Mr. Pipkin, “there’s reason in all things!
We’ll onhitch soon’s we git this load, an’ dodge a wettin’.”
“Seems to me you’re all-fired ’fraid of a wetting, both of ye,” cried
Phin. “’T won’t hurt me! Let it come, and be darned to it, I say!”
This last exclamation sounded so much like blasphemy to the boy’s own
ears, and it was followed immediately by so vivid a flash of lightning
and so terrific a peal of thunder, from a black cloud rolling up
overhead, that he jumped down from the rock and crouched beside it,
looking ludicrously pale and scared; while the dog, dropping ears and
tail, and whining and trembling with fear, ran first for Jack’s legs,
then for Mr. Pipkin’s, and finally crouched by the boulder with Phin.
“You’re a perty pictur’ there!” cried Mr. Pipkin, with a loud, hoarse
laugh. “Who’s afraid now?”
“Lion, I guess,—I ain’t,” said Phin, with an unnatural grin. “Only
thought I’d sit down a spell.”
“It’s as cheap settin’ as standin’,—as the old hen remarked, arter she’d
sot a month on rotten eggs, an’ nary chicken,” said Mr. Pipkin, whose
spirits rose with the excitement of the occasion.
“There’s a good reason for the dog’s skulking,” said Jack. “He’s afraid
of thunder, ever since Squire Peternot fired the old musket in his face
and eyes. Hello! another crack!”
“I never see sich thunder!” exclaimed Mr. Pipkin. “Look a’ them
rain-drops! big as bullets!”
“It’s coming!” cried Jack; and instantly the heavy thunder-gust swept
over them.
“Onhitch!” roared out Mr. Pipkin, in the sudden tumult of rain and wind
and thunder. “I must look out for my rheumatiz! Put for the house!”
“We shall get drenched before we are half-way to the house,” replied
Jack, dropping the trace-chains. “I go for the woods!”
“I’ll take Old Maje, then,” said Mr. Pipkin.
But before he could mount, Phin, darting from the imperfect shelter of
the rock, ran and leaped across the horse’s back. As he was scrambling
to a seat, holding on by mane and harness, kicking, and calling out,
“Give me a boost, Phi!” Mr. Pipkin gave him a boost, and lost his hat by
the operation. That was quickly recovered; but before the owner,
clapping it on his head, could get back to the horse’s side, the
youthful rider, using the gathered-up reins for a whip, had started for
the barn.
“Whoa! hold on! take me!” bellowed Mr. Pipkin.
“He won’t carry double—ask Jack!”
Flinging these parting words over his shoulder, the treacherous Phin
went off at a gallop, leaving Mr. Pipkin to follow, at a heavy
“dog-trot,” over the darkened hill, through the rushing, blinding storm.
Jack was already leaping a wall which separated the pasture from a
neighboring wood-lot. Plunging in among the reeling and clashing trees,
he first sought shelter by placing himself close under the lee of a
large basswood; but the rain dashed through the surging mass of foliage
above, and trickled down upon him from trunk and limbs.
Looking hastily about to see if he could better his situation, he cast
his eye upon a prostrate tree, which some former gale had broken and
overthrown, and from which the branches had mostly rotted and fallen
away. It appeared to be hollow at the butt, and Jack ran to it, laughing
at the thought of crawling in out of the rain. He put in his head, but
took it out again immediately. The cavity was dark, and a disagreeable
odor of rotten wood, suggestive of bugs and “thousand-legged worms,”
repelled him.
“Never mind!” thought he. “I can clap my clothes in the hole, and have
’em dry to put on after the shower is over.”
He stripped himself in a moment, rolled up his garments in a neat
bundle, and placed them, with his hat and shoes, within the hollow log.
“Now for a jolly shower-bath!” And, seeing an opening in the woods a
little farther on, he capered towards it, laughing at the oddness of his
situation, and at the feeling of the rain trickling down his bare back.
A few more lightning flashes and tremendous claps of thunder, then a
steady, pouring rain for about five minutes, in which Jack danced and
screamed in great glee,—and the storm was over.
“What a soaking Phi and Phin must have got!” thought he. “And now won’t
they be surprised to see me come home in dry clothes!”
The wind had gone down before; and now a flood of silver light, like a
more ethereal shower, broke upon the still woods, brightening through
its arched vistas, glancing from the leaves, and glistening in countless
drops from the dripping boughs. A light wind passed, and every tree
seemed to shake down laughingly from its shining locks a shower of
pearls. Jack was filled with a sense of wonder and joy as he walked back
through the beautiful, fresh, wet woods to his hollow log. He waited
only a minute or two for his skin to dry, and for the boughs to cease
dripping; then put in his hand where he had left his clothes. His
clothes were not there!
Jack was startled: in place of the anticipated triumph of going home in
dry garments, here was a chance of his going home in no garments at all!
Yet who could have taken them? how was it possible that they could have
been removed during his brief absence? “Maybe this isn’t the log!” He
looked around. “Yes, it is, though!”
No other fallen trunk at all resembling it was to be seen in the woods.
Then he stooped again, and thrust his hand as far as he could into the
opening. He touched something,—not what he sought, but a mass of hair,
and the leg of some large animal. He recoiled instinctively, with—it
must be confessed—a start of fear.
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