A Struggle for a Fortune

CHAPTER VI.

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.

CHAPTER VII.

Mr. Graves Is Astonished

There were two very badly disappointed boys in Peleg Graves’s barn that day, and each one thought that he had good grounds for it.

“The little fule!” said Peleg, spitefully snatching up an ear of com which happened to be nearest to him. “Here he is, almost rolling in wealth, and he won’t go halvers with me on that money. A dollar a day! Well, that is more than I could get for shucking corn or digging potatoes these times, and now Peleg, I want to ask you a question: Did you make a mistake there? I reckon you did. Suppose he makes a go of it and finds the papers – ‘Shaw! I can see through a ladder as plain as he can. The papers are the money; that’s what’s the matter. And suppose he finds it with my help, what is there to hinder me from getting up some dark night and taking the money – Whoop-pee! Why did not I think of that?”

“I reckon I may as well go home, and I am sorry that I ever came up here,” said Nat to himself, as he walked listlessly about the barn floor. “I have put Peleg on his guard now, and he will make another one that I will have to fight in order to get that money. Peleg would go halvers with me on that money! I will give him a dollar a day and that is every cent I will give him.”

“Are you off, Nat?” inquired Peleg, facing around on his stool again.

“Yes, I might as well,” replied Nat, who had started for home. “You want altogether too much for helping me.”

“Well, now, hold on. Don’t go yet. Maybe you and I can come to some understanding. You don’t think it is worth while to watch Jonas and Caleb, but I tell you – ”

“Yes, I do. But supposing I don’t find the money? Then I can’t pay you a thing.”

“That’s so,” said Peleg, for the thought was new to him. “I did not think of that. Now see here; I will tell you how we will fix this thing. You want me to stay with you until you find the money, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” said Nat.

“Well, you give me a dollar a day – But hold on. Have you got any money at all? I had better know that before we start.”

“Oh, yes, I have as much as – as ten dollars, and I will give you your pay every night.”

“Where did you get ten dollars?” asked Peleg, who was very much surprised. “Why don’t you buy a new pair of overalls?”

“I have my reasons. They are good ones, too. Are you going with me or ain’t you? We have some other little matters to decide, and it is getting along toward dark.”

“If you say so we will go tonight,” replied Peleg, getting upon his feet again.

“What will you say to your folks?”

“I will tell them that I am going out after the cows, or any thing else that I think of. My folks won’t trouble us, I will bet on that. But we have got to have something to eat.”

“I have thought of that, and I can buy everything we want in Manchester – every thing except the meat. You have a gun – ”

“Yes; but we must get some powder and shot for that. I am all out.”

“We can do that, too. Now I will tell you what I have decided upon.”

The two boys drew closer together and for fifteen minutes there was some whispering done between them. At the end of that time it was all over and the boys departed satisfied – at least one of them was.

“I am afraid I made a mistake in coming here at all,” was what Nat said to himself. “I ought to have gone on and done the best I could by myself. Peleg is up to something and he will bear watching. Do you suppose he means to run down and tell Jonas about my running away?”

This thought created consternation in Nat’s mind and he faced about and looked at the barn in which he had left Peleg. But if the truth must be told, Peleg had no intention of going near Jonas. He was too sharp to throw away the easy means he had of making a fortune by doing that. When Nat went away he leaned against the hay-mow, or rather the place where it would have been if there had been any hay there, and broke into a silent but hearty fit of merriment.

“Peleg, the thing you have often wanted has come to you at last,” he whispered, walking to the door and peeping slyly out to see if Nat had really gone. “Your fortune has come to you at last. Now what be I going to do; for I must get away from here as soon as it comes dark. In the first place I will go in and tell pap about it.”

Peleg hurried to the house without taking pains to shut the barn door, and broke into the living room where his father and mother were sitting engaged in smoking. This was the way in which they always passed their time when they could find nothing better to do, and that happened very frequently.

“Have you got that corn all shucked?” inquired his father.

“Naw; and what’s more, I ain’t a-going to shuck no more to-night,” replied Peleg.

“What’s to do now?”

“Well I will tell you,” said Peleg, drawing a chair without any back close in front of the fire. “I have got a chance to make a fortune; but if I tell you what it is you must go halvers with me, or I shan’t tell you a thing.”

Mr. Graves and his wife were both amazed. They took their pipes from their mouths, straightened up and looked hard at Peleg to see if he were in earnest.

“You remember old man Nickerson, I reckon, don’t you?” continued Peleg. “Well, he’s gone dead, you know, and he has willed a whole pile of money, or papers and such things which shows where the money is, and Nat wants me to go down to Manchester with him and help dig it up.”

“Who teld you about this?” demanded Mr. Graves.

“Nat was here not two minutes ago and he told me himself. He’s going as soon as it comes dark.”

“Now the best thing you can do is to run over and tell Jonas about it,” said Mr. Graves, knocking the ashes from his pipe and getting upon his feet. “The idea of that little snipe having a whole pile of money – it is not to be thought of.”

“Well, I just ain’t a-going to say a word to Jonas about it,” said Peleg. “They isn’t any body knows about that money excepting you and me. I am going to have it all.”

Mr. Graves looked hard at his son again and finally took his chair once more. He saw in a moment what Peleg was up to, but he wanted to hear the whole plan.

“What you going to do? How be I going to help you?”

It did not take Peleg many minutes to make his father understand what he had decided to do, and in fact there was not much for him to explain. He was going to get his gun and go over to Nat’s house and wait until he was ready. When he came out he was going to join him, and together they would go to Manchester and camp out until they found the papers which would tell them where the money was concealed. After that was done he would be ready to begin operations. Mr. Graves might blacken up his face to resemble a negro, come up and overpower them and take the money, or he might watch his opportunity and approach the camp while the two boys were away buying provisions.

“Who told you about this?” said Mr. Graves, who was lost in admiration of Peleg’s cunning. It sounded like some novel that he used to read in his schoolboy days.

“Nobody didn’t tell me of it,” said Peleg. “I got it all up out of my own head. Don’t you think it will work?”

“Of course it will. How long are you going to stay down to Manchester?”

“I didn’t ask him about that; probably not more’n three or four days.”

“But you have got to live while you are looking for the papers. Have you got any thing cooked, S’manthy?”

“That’s taken care of, for Nat is going to support us. He has as much as ten dollars that he is going – ”

“Where did he get ten dollars? It looks to me as though that boy has been stealing.”

“Couldn’t old man Nickerson have given him that sum while he was alive? That boy has come honestly by his money, and, look here, pap, don’t you fool yourself. If Nat has got ten dollars he has got twenty dollars; and don’t you forget it.”