A Struggle for a Fortune
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“Naw,” said Jonas; whereupon Caleb, who had gathered up a milk-bucket, turned and looked at him with mouth and eyes wide open. “There ain’t no money there. When Nat gets tired of looking for it he will come back.”
Mr. Graves acted as though he wanted to say something else, but Jonas picked up a fork and began tossing about the fodder and paid no further attention to him. He waited a minute or two, then motioned to Peleg, put his rifle on his shoulder and went out. Jonas continued tossing about the fodder until they were well on their way to the house, and then stood the fork up where it belonged and called to Caleb in a whisper:
“Say; do you believe all that boy said about ghosts?” said he.
“Yes. Don’t you?” said Caleb in surprise.
“No, I don’t. There may be some down there – I ain’t disputing that; but Nat never used words to help him look for that money. Say, I am going down there.”
“Oh, pap!” was all Caleb could say in reply.
“I am, and if there is money there, I will bet you he has found it.”
“But, pap, you said there wasn’t any there.”
“Don’t you see I said that just to keep old man Graves and his boy at home? Hurry up and milk them cows and I will hitch up the horse.”
“Are you going with the wagon?”
“Course. It is easier to ride than it is to walk, and the first thing we know – ”
“Must I go with you?” said Caleb, almost ready to drop.
“Of course you are. I can’t go alone; and think of the money we will have when we come back!”
“Well, pap, you can go and I’ll stay here. It ain’t safe to go. Peleg has been down there and he said he would not go again for no man’s money. I’ve got a heap of work to do – ”
“Now, Caleb, you just shut up about the work you’ve got to do,” said Jonas angrily. “You will have to go with me and that is all about it. If Nat is not afraid of the ghosts, why should you be?”
“Yes; but you know how good Nat was to the old man when he was alive. If I had been that way, I could have gone, too.”
Jonas evidently did not hear this last remark of Caleb’s, for he seized the harness and went in to fix up the horse which did not look able to travel twenty miles to save his life. But then that was the way that Jonas’s stock all looked. In a few minutes he had the harness on and led him out of the barn to hitch him to the wagon. It was just at this time that Mr. Graves and his party were going outside the bars and his wife was coming down the walk to meet him. She was coming with long strides, too, as if she had something on her mind.
“Say, Jonas,” said she, as soon as she was near enough to make him hear.
“Well, say it yourself,” retorted Jonas. “I know all about it. I am going down to old man Nickerson’s woods, me and Caleb are, and we are going to have that money. Have you anything to say against it?”
“Oh, Jonas, don’t you know that there are ghosts down there?” said Mrs. Keeler, almost ready to believe that the man had taken leave of his senses to propose such a thing.
“Then that’s what his wife stopped in the house for,” said Jonas, and he shouted out the words so that Mr. Graves could hear them. “What does she know about ghosts? Now I heard all Peleg’s story, and I listened to it as though I believed it; but if Nat is down there and can stay there all night without the ghosts troubling him, why can’t other people do it, too? There ain’t no ghosts there.”
“Do you really think so, Jonas?”
“I know it. You see by going with the horse we’ll get there in the daytime, and everybody knows that ghosts can’t hurt you then. I will make him get that money and then me and you will have good times.”
“But maybe Nat won’t do it. He would be a fule to tell you where that money is hidden.”
Jonas was by this time engaged in hitching one of the traces to the whiffletree of the wagon. He stopped in his work, leaned against his horse which did not seem able to bear any weight but his own, and put his hands into his pockets.
“That boy is a plumb dunce if he is going down there to find that money and then give it up to you, who didn’t do the first thing toward helping him,” continued Mrs. Keeler.
“What’s the reason Nat won’t give up the money to me?” demanded Jonas.
“Because you won’t have your switch handy.”
“I have my knife in my pocket, and I tell you that switches are as handy down there in the woods as they be up here,” said Jonas, once more turning to his work. “What did that old woman Graves have to say to you?”
“Oh, she told the awfulest stories of what Peleg had seen,” said Mrs. Keeler, moving up to be a little closer to her husband. “She told about the heads and horns coming out of the bushes – ”
“She made that all up out of her own head,” interrupted Jonas, who became angry again. “Peleg did not see anything, because if he had, Nat would have become frightened, too. Now is breakfast ready? I am just crazy to be on my way to them woods. When you see us coming back, you can just take them old caliker gowns of yours and bundle them into the fire. You won’t have any more use for them.”
Mrs. Keeler tried to look pleased at this, but somehow or other she could not help thinking of the work Jonas would have to do before she could take those “caliker gowns” and tumble them into the fire. But she did not say any more for she knew it would be useless. She led the way toward the house to get breakfast ready, and Jonas followed with the wagon. Caleb came along presently with the milk, and he was the most sober one in the lot. He knew better than to refuse to go with his father, for there was that switch down in the barn. It had not been brought into use since his father threatened to apply it to Nat for saying that he would not give up the shoes he had purchased, and Caleb did not want to see it brought out for his benefit.
Jonas was evidently not at ease during breakfast, for he talked incessantly about the money which he knew was there, and the way he was going to induce Nat to show it to him.
“Just let me touch that switch to him once and see how quick he will run to that place where the money is hidden,” said Jonas, with an approving wink at his son. “He will go so fast that you can’t see him for the dust. If he don’t do it, I have another thing that will get next to him. I’ll tie him up and leave him there in the woods without a bite to eat or a drop to drink, and see how long he will be in coming to his senses.”
The breakfast being over there was nothing to detain them. Caleb got up and took down his father’s rifle which he closely examined. With that in his hands he was pretty sure that he could fight his way with any ghost that came in his path.
“Put a double charge of powder in there and two bullets,” said Jonas. “That’s the way I come it over a deer, and I will bet you if one of them ghosts gets those balls in his head – Well, he will be a dead ghost, that’s all.”
“You will let me carry the rifle, won’t you?” said Caleb.
“No, I reckon I had best carry it myself and you do the driving,” said Jonas, stretching out his hand for the weapon. “You can drive that old horse a heap faster than I can, and if I see one of those horns stuck out from the bushes – ”
“Now, Jonas, don’t talk that way,” whined Mrs. Keeler, casting uneasy glances about the room. “There may be one of them here now.”
“Naw, there ain’t. There ain’t no ghosts in the world. If you are ready Caleb, jump in. You will see us somewhere about sun-down.”
Jonas went ahead to lower the bars so that the wagon could drive through, and then, paying no further attention to his wife, he climbed to his seat, and Caleb cracked the whip and drove off.
“Hit the old fellow and make him go faster,” said Jonas. “We must get there by sun up, and have plenty of time to do the work besides. If we don’t, we have got to come home in the dark.”
This was all the encouragement that Caleb needed to make him keep up a tremendous beating of the horse all the way to Manchester. The horse suffered and did his best, but he did not seem to carry them over the miles very rapidly; but at length, to Caleb’s immense relief, the village appeared in sight. Of course the travelers were hungry and the horse needed watering, and so they drew up before the store at which Nat had purchased his things. Of course, too, the storekeeper knew them; he knew everybody within a circle of twenty miles around, and greeted them very cordially.
“Well, if there ain’t Jonas,” said he, briskly. “Are you going up to the woods to see how Nat is getting on? He was in here an hour or so ago, but I don’t see what he got those things for. He told me that he was going to look at some timber, and he bought a pick-ax and spade. Now what is he going to do with them?”
This was the same man who had waited on Nat when he was in the store, and he was determined to find out what those digging implements were to be used for. The customer whom he had consulted, was outside attending to some necessary business and getting a team ready to go up to Mr. Nickerson’s woods and find out, but he looked upon Jonas’s coming as a most fortunate thing, and he hoped that by some adroit questioning he could learn something; but he soon gave it up as a bad job.
“Now the boy doesn’t want a pick-ax and spade to find timber with, does he?” continued the storekeeper. “He must be going to dig in the ground with them, and I would like to know what he is after. He said he was going to repair some fences; but I did not believe it.”
“Give me ten cents’ worth of crackers and ten cents’ worth of cheese,” said Jonas, who wanted to get a little time to think about this matter. “I believe we are going to have falling weather before long.”
“It looks like it now,” said the man, hurrying to fulfill Jonas’s order. “We need rain badly. What did you say Nat wanted that spade and pick-ax for?”
“Oh yes; he is going to fix some fences, and of course he needs a spade to get the blocks in right,” said Jonas, who had been doing some tremendous thinking while the storekeeper was getting out his crackers and cheese. “I am going up to look at him and see that he does his work right Yes, the old man is dead,” said he, in reply to a question. “And if I can pay the tax rates on this place I shall have it.”
“Did he leave you anything?” asked the storekeeper. “I suppose that is what you are looking out for.”
“I don’t know why I should look for that more’n anything else,” said Jonas, in a tone of voice that showed the storekeeper that he did not care to answer any more questions on this point. “The money was his own, and he left it to whom he pleased.”
Having secured his crackers and cheese and the horse having drunk all he could, Jonas and Caleb climbed into the wagon again and continued on their way. At this moment the customer drove up with a team.
“It is no go, Eph,” said the storekeeper. “That’s Jonas in that wagon. He did not say anything about money, but I will tell you what I think: If the old man has left any money, he has got it hidden up there in the woods. Let us wait until the boy comes down here and then go for him.”
“It beats the world how everybody seems to think that the old man had left us some money,” said Jonas, as plainly as a mouthful of cracker would permit. “Everyone seems to think that the old man had money, and I believe he had, too. And it all rests with Nat. If he’s found it I am going to know where it is. Hit him hard, Caleb, and make him go faster.”
The six miles that lay between them and the village seemed to have lengthened out wonderfully, but the old horse finally covered the distance at last and drew up at the place where the boys had crossed the fence to enter the bushes. There had been somebody through there, that was plain; but Caleb’s eyes grew wild when he looked at the dark masses of brush that lay before him; and even Jonas was not quite so lively as he had been.
“I tell you it is mighty dark in there,” said the elder, getting his rifle into shape for instant shooting. “Go ahead, Caleb.”
“Now I won’t do it,” said Caleb, seizing his father’s arm and trying to push him toward the fence. “Give me the gun and I’ll go.”
But that gun was something that Jonas did not want to part with. He felt safe when he had that weapon, and that was more than could be said if Caleb had charge of it.
“Well, stay right close behind me and then nobody can hurt you,” said Jonas, speaking two words for himself and one for Caleb. “Don’t run away. The best way to fight these ghosts is to – ”
“But, pap, you say there isn’t any,” Caleb reminded him.
“Now I don’t believe there is; but it is well to be on the safe side. Come on, now.”
It was hard work for Jonas to screw up his courage to cross the fence, but he finally did it at last. As soon as he was safe in the bushes Caleb scrambled after him.
CHAPTER XIII.
The Rabbit’s Foot
Jonas and Caleb found it a hard task to work their way through those thick bushes toward the back end of Mr. Nickerson’s dooryard. There had been a path in former times, but it had been used so very seldom of late that the briers and branches had grown over it until it was pretty nearly obstructed. Caleb listened for the queer sounds that Peleg had heard while going through there, but nothing attracted his attention and he began to believe that there was nothing unusual in there. Jonas worked his way ahead without saying anything, and finally pushed the last bush aside and sprang out in full view of Nat’s camp. He cast his eager eyes around to see if any of the money had been dug up, but he could see nothing of it. Nat looked just like a hunter who was enjoying a rest after a long day in the woods.
“Well, sir, we have found you at last,” were the first words Jonas uttered. “Now where is the money that you have come to dig up?”
“What money?” inquired Nat, slowly rising to his feet.
“Aw! What money?” shouted Jonas, going under the lean-to, catching up Peleg’s valise and shaking it to be sure that there was no money in it. “I mean that money you have come here to dig up – the money that old man Nickerson hid here during the war; the money that you have been drawing on to buy him tobacco? Where is it?”
“You have the camp and you see everything that is to be seen,” said Nat. “Where the money is I don’t know. Yes, I do know,” he added to himself. “But I am going to keep it to myself.”
“Whoo-pee!” said Jonas again. “Did you come down here for nothing? I know you didn’t; and I must know where that money is and all about it, or there will be the worst whipped boy here in these woods that you ever heard tell of. Once more and for the last time, I ask you where it is.”
“You can just look around and find it for yourself,” replied Nat, who, by gradually working his way around, had succeeded in getting between Jonas and the bushes. “If Mr. Nickerson left any money I don’t know where it is. He would not leave it up here in the woods for it to rot all away and do nobody any good.”
“No, I don’t think he would do that. He thought too much of a dollar to waste it in that way; but he could leave it up here in the woods and tell you where to find it when he was through with it. Now, Nat, where is it? Tell me, honor bright, and I will give you half of it; I will, so sure as I stand here.”
“You must look around and find it, for I don’t know where it is,” replied Nat; and the expression on his face showed that he was in earnest in his decision to keep the hiding place of the money all to himself. “If you find it you can have it all.”
“I’ll bet you I do, and you will go without shoes and clothes this winter,” said Jonas, slipping his hand into his pocket and looking around at the trees as if he were searching for a switch. “I made you an offer and you won’t take it, and now I will look for myself; but first you are going to have something to remember that offer by. What do you find there, Caleb?”
“There ain’t nothing in Peleg’s valise because I have looked all through it,” replied Caleb. “But here is something I can’t see into.”
As he spoke he passed the spade over to his father, running his fingers through some dirt that still adhered to it.
“That spade has been used since it came up here, and if it could speak it would tell you something about the money,” continued Caleb. “He has dug it up and hid it away in another place.”
“Caleb, you are right” said Jonas, examining the spade. “Now where is it? Caleb, you just keep an eye on him while I cut a switch. I will bet you that he will tell all about it in less’n five minutes.”
“I can’t tell you about a thing that I don’t know,” said Nat.
“No; but you only think you have forgotten. A switch has a big means of starting one’s intellect, and when you see that swinging over your head, you will think faster than you do now.”
“Pap, I believe we are onto the track of the money at last,” said Caleb, who seemed to have forgotten all about the ghosts. “Lay it onto him good fashion, and we’ll go back home – by gracious! I wouldn’t take ten dollars for my chance.”
The words seemed to encourage Jonas, who presently pulled down a big bough and began to cut it loose. It was a large limb, larger than the one he would have taken to beat his horse with, and while he used his knife upon it, Caleb slipped around until he got on the outside of Nat, that is between him and the bushes, and stood regarding him with a smile of intense satisfaction.
“Don’t hit me with that thing,” said Nat, suddenly straightening up until he seemed to grow larger and stronger than Caleb had ever seen him look before. “If you do you will at ways regret it.”
“Oh, no, I won’t hit you with it,” said Jonas, with a sort of laugh that sounded more like the growl of an enraged animal. “I’ll just wear you out with it unless you tell me what has been going on here and all about it. You know where that money is, and I am going to find out before I let you go. You hear me?”
There was something about Nat that did not look exactly right to Caleb. He thought that his father had undertaken a bigger job than he could accomplish by endeavoring to force the boy to tell where his money was hidden, and if he could work it some way so as to get “upon Nat’s blind side” and coax him to tell what he wanted to know, why the way would be so much the easier for them. He resolved to try it, but he did not have time to try it all.
“Come now, Nat, you see how pap is going to lick you, don’t you?” said he. “Now tell me where the money is and you will get off scott free. Come now, Nat. Me and you has always been the best of friends – ”
What else Caleb was going to say he did not have time to say it, that is while he was standing erect. The place on which Nat was standing was suddenly vacant, Caleb’s left arm received a wrench and his foot a trip, and both of them sent him headlong into the bushes. A moment afterward Nat dashed into the bushes and was out of sight in an instant.
“By gum!” said Caleb, slowly raising himself upon his elbow and gazing in the direction Nat had taken. “Pap, he has got away.”
“Well!” exclaimed Jonas, who being concealed from view of the boys had not seen Nat when he made his bold dash for freedom. “Has he run away?”
“Yes, sir, he has run away; and he throwed me – ”
Jonas came around the tree and found that Nat was not there. He glanced all around in every direction but the boy he had hoped to try the switch upon was somewhere else. Caleb was just crawling to his feet.
“And did you stand there and let him go?” demanded Jonas, and he half raised the switch as if he had a mind to lay it over Caleb’s shoulders. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
“You might as well try to stop a hurricane as to stop that fellow,” said Caleb, holding one hand to his elbow. “I never saw a boy go so before.”
“Well, now, catch him; catch him,” shouted Jonas. “Which way did he go?”
“Out there among the bushes; and pap, I just ain’t a-going in there after him. Maybe he’ll get those ghosts on his side.”
Jonas, who had been on the point of rushing into the bushes in pursuit of Nat, stopped when he heard those words and pulled off his hat and dashed it upon the ground at his feet. Then Caleb saw that his father was afraid of ghosts as he was himself. It was only his desire to possess the money that had induced him to come there. Caleb stood holding fast to his elbow and waiting to see what he was going to do about it.
“Dog-gone such luck!” said Jonas.
“That’s just what I say,” replied Caleb. “Why did not the old man leave his money to you or mam like he had oughter do? Now nobody won’t get it.”
“Nobody except that miserable Nat,” sputtered Jonas. “I have a good notion to use the switch on you for letting him go.”
“Well, pap, you would not make anything by that. I was talking to him like a Dutch uncle, and the first thing I knew I was flat on my back, and he was just going out of sight. I did not hear anything of him from the time he struck the bushes. Do you hear him now?”
Jonas listened but all the sound he heard was the chirping of birds and the faint sough of the wind as the breeze swept through the bushes. Everything was as still as a graveyard; it seemed too still for the woods. Jonas listened for a moment and then gathered up his hat and put it on his head.
“Let’s go home,” whispered Caleb. “This ain’t no place for us.”
“That’s just what I was thinking of,” said Jonas, in the same cautious whisper. “Let’s take everything he has got in his lean-to and dig out. We shall have to hurry because it will be dark before we reach home.”
“I don’t believe in taking Peleg’s valise and gun back to him,” observed Caleb. “He brought them out here and he can take them back.”
“Well, that is so,” said Jonas, who was busy picking up the spade and pick-ax and such provisions as he could find. “But in the present opportunity we want Peleg and his pap to believe that we were here. We have got a fearful story to tell when we go back, and we want them to believe us.”
“That is so, too; but, pap, we won’t go back through the bushes, will we?”
“Not much we won’t,” exclaimed Jonas, as if he were surprised at the mere mention of such a thing. “Nat’s in there, and who knows but what he has got some of the ghosts to help him along?”
“I’ll bet you that is just what he did,” said Caleb, dropping the armful of things which he had gathered up. “I did not hear hide nor hair of him after he got into the bushes.”
Father and son were not long in picking up the things that were scattered about the lean-to (they did not find the ax because that was concealed in the bushes), and with them in their hands they beat a hasty retreat from the camp, following the course that Peleg had pursued when he was there on a former occasion. They reached the bars, stopping now and then to cast furtive glances behind them, and when they got fairly into the road their courage began to return to them.
“I will tell you just what is the matter with us,” said Jonas. “We have not got a rabbit’s foot between us.”
“I do think in my soul that that’s what’s the matter,” said Caleb, stopping short and looking at his father. “Do you reckon that Nat has one of them?”
Now a rabbit’s foot is something that is held in high esteem by the negroes at the South, and by some of the white people, too. Whenever you kill a rabbit, take one of the feet off and put it into your pocket; or, if you are already provided for in that respect, take the foot and give it to some one who has not got any. Thus equipped you are free from every danger. Ghosts can not disturb you, and if you have to pass a graveyard or a house that is haunted after dark, it will see you safely through. Beyond a doubt this was what was the matter with Jonas and his son. They had thought of their rabbit’s feet when it was too late to be of service to them. They were kept at home on the mantle piece, snugly stowed away so that they could be seized at a moment’s warning, and they had come away and never thought a word about them.
“Now did anybody ever hear of such luck?” said Jonas, in disgust. “I have a rabbit’s foot and so have you; and by leaving them at home is what has beaten us. We will go down there to-morrow or next day and see what luck we shall have.”
“Do you reckon that Nat has one of them!” repeated Caleb, who was greatly relieved to know what it was that had brought them such ill luck. “Of course he had, or he never could have called upon them ghosts to help him.”
“Dog-gone such luck,” repeated Jonas, who kept turning this matter over in his mind. “He wouldn’t go away and leave his rabbit’s foot behind when he was engaged in such business, would he? I tell you I am going to keep it in my pocket wherever I go. It ain’t safe to be without it.”