IN WHICH JACK COUNTS HIS CHICKENS.
PETERNOT and his nephew took their departure, after making a short call.
Then the family sat down to the supper-table, and the merits and
prospects of the candidate for the winter’s school were discussed in a
manner that ought to have made his ears tingle. Then, while the boys
harnessed the mare and brought her to the door, the deacon changed his
clothes, and at last started for the Basin.
“Don’t forget to ask about that half-dollar!” said Jack, as he held the
gate open for the buggy to pass through.
“Glad you reminded me of it,—I _should_ have forgotten it,” replied the
notoriously absent-minded deacon.
Jack wished he could have found some excuse for going with him, but he
could not think of any.
“How can I wait till he gets back, to know about it?” thought he, as he
stood at the gate and watched the buggy and Mr. Chatford’s black hat
disappear over the brow of the hill.
His revery was interrupted by Moses, who, noticing the boy’s unusual
conduct,—for Jack was ordinarily no dreamer when there was work to be
done,—called out to him from the stable-door, “Say, Jack! you’ve got to
go and fetch the cows to-night; Phin says he won’t.”
“It’s Phin’s turn,—but I don’t care, I’ll go.” And Jack set off for the
pasture, glad of this opportunity to be alone, and to muse upon his
wonderful discovery.
It was a beautiful evening. The air was fresh and cool, and perfectly
delicious after the shower. The sky overhead was silver-clear, but all
down the gorgeous west, banks and cliffs and floating bars of cloud
burned with the hues of sunset. Jack’s heart expanded, as he walked up
the lane; and there, in that lovely atmosphere, he built his airy
castles.
“If I _am_ a rich man,” thought he, “what shall I do with my money? I’ll
put it out at interest for a year or two,—I wonder how much there is!
That’ll help me get an education. Then I’ll go into business, or buy a
little place somewhere, and I’ll have my horses and wagons and hired
men, and—” O, what a vision of happiness floated before his eyes!
riches, honors, friendships, and in the midst of all the sweetest face
in the world,—the face of his dearest friend, Mrs. Chatford’s niece,
Annie Felton.
Then he looked back wonderingly upon his past life. “I can hardly
believe that I was nothing but a mean, ragged, swearing little
canal-driver only a few months ago. Over yonder are the woods where the
charcoal-burners were, that I wanted to hire out to, after I had run
away from the scow,—the idea of my hiring out to them! Now here I am,
treated like one of Mr. Chatford’s own boys, and—with all that money, if
it is money,” he added, his heart swelling again with misgivings. “Go,
Lion! go for the cows,” he said; and he himself began to run, calling by
the way, “Co’, boss! co’, boss!” as if bringing the cows would also
bring Mr. Chatford home, with his report concerning the half-dollar.
“He won’t be there, though, for an hour or two yet,” he reflected.
“What’s the use of hurrying? I shall only have the longer to wait. I
wonder if that log is just as I left it!” For Jack had still a secret
dread lest the unknown person who had hidden the treasure so many years
ago should now suddenly return and carry it away. “I’ll cut over there
and take just one peep,” he said.
So, having started the cattle upon their homeward track, with Lion
barking after the laggards, Jack leaped a fence, ran across the lot
where he had been at work that afternoon with Mr. Pipkin and Phin when
the shower surprised them, and was soon standing alone by the log in the
darkening woods. The sticks which he had stuffed into the end of the
hollow trunk were all in their place. And yet it seemed a dream to Jack,
that he had actually found a box of money in that old tree,—that it was
there now! He wanted to pull out the sticks and go in and make sure of
his prize, but forbore to do so foolish a thing.
“Of course it’s there,” thought he. “And I’m going to take care that
nobody knows where it is, till I’ve got it safe in my own possession;
then who can say whether I found it on Mr. Chatford’s, or Squire
Peternot’s, or Aunt Patsy’s land, if I don’t tell? Let Squire Peternot
claim it if he can!”
Yet Jack longed to tell somebody of his discovery. “O, if I could only
tell Annie Felton, and get her advice about it!” But Annie, who taught
the summer school, and “boarded around,” was just then boarding in a
distant part of the district. The next day, however, was Saturday; then
she would come home to her aunt’s to spend the Sunday, and he could
impart to her his burning secret.
Jack stayed but a minute in the woods, then, hurrying back, rejoined
Lion, who was driving the cows into the lane. Arrived at the barn-yard,
he took one of three or four pails which Mr. Pipkin had brought out from
the pantry, and a stool from the shed, and sat down to do his share of
the milking. He had always liked that part of the day’s work well enough
before; but now with a secret feeling of pride and hope he said to
himself, “Maybe I sha’n’t always be obliged to do this for a living!”
And he wondered how it would seem to be a gentleman and live without
work.
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