The Old Rifle Gives Up Its Secret

Out of that game with forbidden playmates, grew events which changed the lives of several people. It began by Richard’s deciding that a real gun was necessary for his equipment if he was to play the part of Leather-Stocking properly. Also, he argued, it would be a valuable addition to their stock of fire-arms. The broken old horse-pistols were good enough to play at pirating with, but something which would really shoot was needed when they started out in earnest on a sure-enough adventure.

Georgina suggested that he go to Fishburn Court and borrow a rifle that she had seen up in Uncle Darcy’s attic. She would go with him and do the asking, she added, but Belle had promised to take her with her the next time she went to see the net-mender, and the next time would be the following afternoon, if Tippy was well enough to be up and around. Georgina couldn’t miss the chance to see inside the cottage that had been the home of a hero and Belle’s drowned lover. She wanted to see the newspaper which Mr. Potter showed everybody who went to the house. It had an account of the wreck and the rescue in it, with Emmett’s picture on the front page, and black headlines under it that said, “Died like a hero.”

Tippy was well enough to be up next day, so Richard went alone to Fishburn Court, and Georgina trudged along the sandy road with Belle to the weather-beaten cottage on the edge of the cranberry bog. Belle told her more about the old man as they walked along.

“Seems as if he just lives on that memory. He can’t get out in the boats any more, being so crippled up, and he can’t see to read much, so there’s lots of time for him to sit and think on the past. If it wasn’t for the nets he’d about lose his mind. I wouldn’t say it out, and you needn’t repeat it, but sometimes I think it’s already touched a mite. You see the two of them lived there together so long alone, that Emmett was all in all to his father. I suppose that’s why Emmett is all he can talk about now.”

When they reached the cottage Mr. Potter was sitting out in front as usual, busy with his work. Georgina was glad that he did not offer to shake hands. His were so dirty and black with tar she felt she could not bear to touch them. He was a swarthy old man with skin like wrinkled leather, and a bushy, grizzled beard which grew up nearly to his eyes. Again Georgina wondered, looking at Belle in her crisp, white dress and white shoes. How could she care for this unkempt old creature enough to call him Father?

As she followed Belle around inside the dreary three-room cottage she wanted to ask if this would have been her home if Emmett had not been drowned, but she felt a delicacy about asking such a question. She couldn’t imagine Belle in such a setting, but after she had followed her around a while longer she realized that the house wouldn’t stay dreary with such a mistress. In almost no time the place was put to rights, and there was a pan of cookies ready to slip into the oven.

When the smell of their browning stole out to the front door the old man left his bench and came in to get a handful of the hot cakes. Then, just as Belle said he would, he told Georgina all that had happened the night of the wreck.

“That’s the very chair he was sittin’ in, when Luke Jones come in with the word that men were needed. He started right off with Luke soon as he could get into his oil-skins, for ‘twas stormin’ to beat the band. But he didn’t go fur. Almost no time it seemed like, he was comin’ into the house agin, and he went into that bedroom there, and shet the door behind him. That of itself ought to ’uv made me know something out of the usual was beginnin’ to happen, for he never done such a thing before. A few minutes later he came out with an old rifle that him and Dan Darcy used to carry around in the dunes for target shootin’ and he set it right down in that corner by the chimney jamb.

“‘First time anybody passes this way goin’ down ito Fishburn Court,’ he says, ’I wish you’d send this along to Uncle Dan’l. It’s his by rights, and he’d ought a had it long ago.’

“An’ them was his last words to me, except as he pulled the door to after him he called ‘Good-bye Pop, if I don’t see you agin.’

“I don’t know when he’d done such a thing before as to say good-bye when he went out, and I’ve often wondered over it sence, could he ’a had any warnin’ that something was goin’ to happen to him?”

Georgina gazed at the picture in the newspaper long and curiously. It had been copied from a faded tin-type, but even making allowances for that Emmett didn’t look as she imagined a hero should, nor did it seem possible it could be the man Belle had talked about. She wished she hadn’t seen it. It dimmed the glamor of romance which seemed to surround him like a halo. Hearing about him in the magical moonlight she had pictured him as looking as Sir Galahad. But if _this_ was what he really looked like--Again she glanced wonderingly at Belle. How could she care so hard for ten long years for just an ordinary man like that?

When it was time to go home Belle suggested that they walk around by Fishburn Court. It would be out of their way, but she had heard that Aunt Elspeth wasn’t as well as usual.

“Emmett always called her Aunt,” she explained to Georgina as they walked along, “so I got into the way of doing it, too. He was so fond of Dan’s mother. She was so good to him after his own went that I feel I want to be nice to her whenever I can, for his sake.”

“You know,” she continued, “Aunt Elspeth never would give up but that Dan was innocent, and since her memory’s been failing her this last year, she talks all the time about his coming home; just lies there in bed half her time and babbles about him. It almost kills Uncle Dan’l to hear her, because, of course, he knows the truth of the matter, that Dan _was_ guilty. He as good as confessed it before he ran away, and the running away itself told the story.”

When they reached Fishburn Court they could see two people sitting in front of the cottage. Uncle Darcy was in an armchair on the grass with one of the cats in his lap, and Richard sat on one seat of the red, wooden swing with Captain Kidd on the opposite site one. Richard had a rifle across his knees, the one Georgina had suggested borrowing. He passed his hand caressingly along its stock now and then, and at intervals raised it to sight along the barrel. It was so heavy he could not keep it from wobbling when he raised it to take aim in various directions.

At the click of the gate-latch the old man tumbled Yellownose out of his lap and rose stiffly to welcome his guests.

“Come right in,” he said cordially. “Mother’ll be glad to see you, Belle. She’s been sort of low in her mind lately, and needs cheering up.”

He led the way into a low-ceilinged, inner bedroom with the shades all pulled down. It was so dark, compared to the glaring road they had been following, that Georgina blinked at the dim interior. She could scarcely make out the figure on the high-posted bed, and drew back, whispering to Belle that she’d stay outside until they were ready to go home. Leaving them on the threshold, she went back to the shady door-yard to a seat in the swing beside Captain Kidd.

“It’s Uncle Darcy’s son’s rifle,” explained Richard. “He’s been telling me about him. Feel how smooth the stock is.”

Georgina reached over and passed her hand lightly along the polished wood.

“He and a friend of his called Emmett Potter used to carry it on the dunes sometimes to shoot at a mark with. It wasn’t good for much else, it’s so old. Dan got it in a trade once; traded a whole litter of collie pups for it. Uncle Darcy says he’d forgotten there was such a gun till somebody brought it to him after Emmett was drowned.”

“Oh,” interrupted Georgina, her eyes wide with interest. “Emmett’s father has just been telling me about this very rifle. But I didn’t dream it was the one I’d seen up in the attic here. He showed me the corner where Emmett stood it when he left for the wreck, and told what was to be done with it. ‘Them were his last words,’” she added, quoting Mr. Potter.

She reached out her hand for the clumsy old firearm and almost dropped it, finding it so much heavier than she expected. She wanted to touch with her own fingers the weapon that had such an interesting history, and about which a hero had spoken his last words.

“The hammer’s broken,” continued Richard. “Whoever brought it home let it fall. It’s all rusty, too, because it was up in the attic so many years and the roof leaked on it. But Uncle Darcy said lots of museums would be glad to have it because there aren’t many of these old flint-locks left now. He’s going to leave it to the Pilgrim museum up by the monument when he’s dead and gone, but he wants to keep it as long as he lives because Danny set such store by it.”

“There’s some numbers or letters or something on it,” announced Georgina, peering at a small brass plate on the stock. “I can’t make them out. I tell you what let’s do,” she exclaimed in a burst of enthusiasm. “Let’s polish it up so’s we can read them. Tippy uses vinegar and wood ashes for brass. I’ll run get some.”

Georgina was enough at home here to find what she wanted without asking, and as full of resources as Robinson Crusoe. She was back in a very few minutes with a shovel full of ashes from the kitchen stove, and an old can lid full of vinegar, drawn from a jug in the corner cupboard. With a scrap of a rag dipped first in vinegar, then in ashes, she began scrubbing the brass plate diligently. It had corroded until there was an edge of green entirely around it.

“I love to take an old thing like this and scrub it till it shines like gold,” she said, scouring away with such evident enjoyment of the job that Richard insisted on having a turn. She surrendered the rag grudgingly, but continued to direct operations.

“Now dip it in the ashes again. No, not that way, double the rag up and use more vinegar. Rub around that other corner a while. Here, let me show you.”

She took the rifle away from him again and proceeded to illustrate her advice. Suddenly she looked up, startled.

“I believe we’ve rubbed it loose. It moved a little to one side. See?”

He grabbed it back and examined it closely. “I bet it’s meant to move,” he said finally. “It looks like a lid, see! It slides sideways.”

“Oh, I remember now,” she cried, much excited. “That’s the way Leather-Stocking’s rifle was made. There was a hole in the stock with a brass plate over it, and he kept little pieces of oiled deer-skin inside of it to wrap bullets in before he loaded ’em in. I remember just as plain, the place in the story where he stopped to open it and take out a piece of oiled deer-skin when he started to load.”

As she explained she snatched the rifle back into her own hands once more, and pried at the brass plate until she broke the edge of her thumb nail. Then Richard took it, and with the aid of a rusty button-hook which he happened to have in his pocket, having found it on the street that morning, he pushed the plate entirely back.

“There’s something white inside!” he exclaimed. Instantly two heads bent over with his in an attempt to see, for Captain Kidd’s shaggy hair was side by side with Georgina’s curls, his niriosity as great as hers.

“Whatever’s in there has been there an awful long time,” said Richard as he poked at the contents with his button-hook, “for Uncle Darcy said the rifle’s never been used since it was brought back to him.”

“And it’s ten years come Michaelmas since Emmett was drowned,” said Georgina, again quoting the old net-mender.

The piece of paper which they finally succeeded in drawing out had been folded many times and crumpled into a flat wad. Evidently the message on it had been scrawled hastily in pencil by someone little used to letter writing. It was written in an odd hand, and the united efforts of the two little readers could decipher only parts of it.

“I can read any kind of plain writing like they do in school,” said Richard, “but not this sharp-cornered kind where the m’s and u’s are alike, and all the tails are pointed.”

Slowly they puzzled out parts of it, halting long over some of the undecipherable words, but a few words here and there were all they could recognize. There were long stretches that had no meaning whatever for them. This much, however, they managed to spell out:

“Dan never took the money.... I did it.... He went away because he knew I did it and wouldn’t tell.... Sorry.... Can’t stand it any longer.... Put an end to it all....”

It was signed “Emmett Potter.”

The two children looked at each other with puzzled eyes until into Georgina’s came a sudden and startled understanding. Snatching up the paper she almost fell out of the swing and ran towards the house screaming:

“Uncle Darcy! Uncle Darcy! Look what we’ve found.”

She tripped over a piece of loose carpet spread just inside the front door as a rug and fell full length, but too excited to know that she had skinned her elbow she scrambled up, still calling:

“Uncle Darcy, _Dan never took the money. It was Emmett Potter. He said so himself!"_

A Hard Promise

A dozen times in Georgina’s day-dreaming she had imagined this scene. She had run to Uncle Darcy with the proof of Dan’s innocence, heard his glad cry, seen his face fairly transfigured as he read the confession aloud. Now it was actually happening before her very eyes, but where was the scene of heavenly gladness that should have followed?

Belle, startled even more than he by Georgina’s outcry, and quicker to act, read the message over his shoulder, recognized the handwriting and grasped the full significance of the situation before he reached the name at the end. For ten years three little notes in that same peculiar hand had lain in her box of keepsakes. There was no mistaking that signature. She had read it and cried over it so many times that now as it suddenly confronted her with its familiar twists and angles it was as startling as if Emmett’s voice had called to her.

As Uncle Darcy looked up from the second reading, with a faltering exclamation of thanksgiving, she snatched the paper from his shaking hands and tore it in two. Then crumpling the pieces and flinging them from her, she seized him by the wrists.

“No, you’re _not_ going to tell the whole world,” she cried wildly, answering the announcement he made with the tears raining down his cheeks. “You’re not going to tell anybody! Think of me! Think of Father Potter!”

She almost screamed her demand. He could hardly believe it was Belle, this frenzied girl, who, heretofore, had seemed the gentlest of souls. He looked at her in a dazed way, so overwhelmed by the discovery that had just been made, that he failed to comprehend the reason for her white face and agonized eyes, till she threw up her arms crying:

_"Emmett_ a thief! God in heaven! It’ll kill me!”

It was the sight of Georgina’s shocked face with Richard’s at the door, that made things clear to the old man. He waved them away, with hands which shook as if he had the palsy.

“Go on out, children, for a little while,” he said gently, and closed the door in their faces.

Slowly they retreated to the swing, Georgina clasping the skinned elbow which had begun to smart. She climbed into one seat of the swing and Richard and Captain Kidd took the other. As they swung back and forth she demanded in a whisper:

“Why is it that grown people always shut children out of their secrets? Seems as if we have a right to know what’s the matter when _we_ found the paper.”

Richard made no answer, for just then the sound of Belle’s crying came out to them. The windows of the cottage were all open and the grass plot between the windows and the swing being a narrow one the closed door was of little avail. It was very still there in the shady dooryard, so still that they could hear old Yellownose purr, asleep on the cushion in the wooden arm-chair beside the swing. The broken sentences between the sobs were plainly audible. It seemed so terrible to hear a grown person cry, that Georgina felt as she did that morning long ago, when old Jeremy’s teeth flew into the fire. Her confidence was shaken in the world. She felt there could be no abiding happiness in anything.

“She’s begging him not to tell,” whispered Richard.

“But I owe it to Danny,” they heard Uncle Darcy say. And then, “Why should I spare Emmett’s father? Emmett never spared me, he never spared Danny.”

An indistinct murmur as if Belle’s answer was muffled in her handkerchief, then Uncle Darcy’s voice again:

“It isn’t fair that the town should go on counting him a hero and brand my boy as a coward, when it’s Emmett who was the coward as well as the thief.”

Again Belle’s voice in a quick cry of pain, as sharp as if she had been struck. Then the sound of another door shutting, and when the voices began again it was evident they had withdrawn into the kitchen.

“They don’t want Aunt Elspeth to hear,” said Georgina.

“What’s it all about?” asked Richard, much mystified.

Georgina told him all that she knew herself, gathered from the scraps she had heard the day of Cousin Mehitable’s visit, and from various sources since; told him in a half whisper stopping now and then when some fragment of a sentence floated out to them from the kitchen; for occasional words still continued to reach them through the windows in the rear, when the voices rose at intervals to a higher pitch.

What passed behind those closed doors the children never knew. They felt rather than understood what was happening. Belle’s pleading was beginning to be effectual, and the old man was rising to the same heights of self-sacrifice which Dan had reached, when he slipped away from home with the taint of his friend’s disgrace upon him in order to save that friend.

That some soul tragedy had been enacted m that little room the children felt vaguely when Belle came out after a while. Her eyes were red and swollen and her face drawn and pinched looking. She did not glance in their direction, but stood with her face averted and hand on the gate-latch while Uncle Darcy stopped beside the swing.

“Children,” he said solemnly, “I want you to promise me never to speak to anyone about finding that note in the old rifle till I give you permission. Will you do this for me, just because I ask it, even if I can’t tell you why?”

“Mustn’t I even tell Barby?” asked Georgina, anxiously.

He hesitated, glancing uncertainly at Belle, then answered:

“No, not even your mother, till I tell you that you can. Now you see what a very important secret it is. Can _you_ keep it, son? Will you promise me too?”

He turned to Richard with the question. With a finger under the boy’s chin he tipped up his face and looked into it searchingly. The serious, brown eyes looked back into his, honest and unflinching.

“Yes, I promise,” he answered. “Honor bright I’ll not tell.”

The old man turned to the waiting figure at the gate.

“It’s all right, Belle. You needn’t worry about it any more. You can trust us.”

She made no answer, but looking as if she had aged years in the last half hour, she passed through the gate and into the sandy court, moving slowly across it towards the street beyond.

With a long-drawn sigh the old man sank down on the door-step and buried his face in his hands. They were still shaking as if he had the palsy. For some time the children sat in embarrassed silence, thinking every moment that he would look up and say something. They wanted to go, but waited for him to make some movement. He seemed to have forgotten they were there. Finally a clock inside the cottage began striking five. It broke the spell which bound them.

“Let’s go,” whispered Richard.

“All right,” was the answer, also whispered. “Wait till I take the shovel and can lid back to the kitchen.”

“I’ll take ’em,” he offered. “I want to get a drink, anyhow.”

Stealthily, as if playing Indian, they stepped out of the swing and tiptoed through the grass around the corner of the house. Even the dog went noiselessly, instead of frisking and barking as he usually did when starting anywhere. Their return was equally stealthy. As they slipped through the gate Georgina looked back at the old man. He was still sitting on the step, his face in his hands, as if he were bowed down by some weight too heavy for his shoulders to bear.

The weary hopelessness of his attitude made her want to run back and throw her arms around his neck, but she did not dare. Trouble as great as that seemed to raise a wall around itself. It could not be comforted by a caress. The only thing to do was to slip past and not look.

Richard shared the same awe, for he went away leaving the rifle lying in the grass. Instinctively he felt that it ought not to be played with now. It was the rifle which had changed everything.

Lost and Found at the Liniment Wagon

With Mrs. Triplett back in bed again on account of the rheumatism which crippled her, and Belle going about white of face and sick of soul, home held little cheer for Georgina. But with Mrs. Triplett averse to company of any kind, and Belle anxious to be alone with her misery, there was nothing to hinder Georgina from seeking cheer elsewhere and she sought it early and late.

She had spent her birthday dollar in imagination many times before she took her check to the bank to have it cashed. With Richard to lend her courage, and Manuel, Joseph and Rosa trailing after by special invitation, she walked in and asked for Mr. Gates. That is the way Barby always did, and as far as Georgina knew he was the only one to apply to for money.

The paying teller hesitated a moment about summoning the president of the bank from his private office at the behest of so small a child, so small that even on tiptoe her eyes could barely peer into the window of his cage. But they were entreating eyes, so big and brown and sure of their appeal that he decided to do their bidding.

Just as he turned to knock at the door behind him it opened, and Mr. Gates came out with the man with whom he had been closeted in private conference. It was Richard’s Cousin James. The children did not see him, however, for he stopped at one of the high desks inside to look at some papers which one of the clerks spread out before him.

“Oh, it’s my little friend, Georgina,” said Mr. Gates, smiling in response to the beaming smile she gave him. “Well, what can I do for you, my dear?”

“Cash my check, please,” she said, pushing the slip of paper towards him with as grand an air as if it had been for a million dollars instead of one, “and all in nickels, please.”

He glanced at the name she had written painstakingly across the back.

“Well, Miss Huntingdon,” he exclaimed gravely, although there was a twinkle in his eyes, “if all lady customers were as businesslike in endorsing their checks and in knowing what they want, we bankers would be spared a lot of trouble.”

It was the first time that Georgina had ever been called Miss Huntingdon, and knowing he said it to tease her, it embarrassed her to the point of making her stammer, when he asked her most unexpectedly while picking out twenty shining new nickels to stuff into the little red purse:

“All of these going to buy tracts for the missionaries to take to the little heathen?”

“No, they’re all going to--to----”

She didn’t like to say for soda water and chewing gum and the movies, and hesitated till a substitute word occurred to her.

“They’re all going to go for buying good times. It’s for a sort of a club we made up this morning, Richard and me.”

“May I ask the name of the club?”

Georgina glanced around. No other customer happened to be in the bank at the moment and Richard had wandered out to the street to wait for her. So tiptoeing a little higher she said in a low tone as if imparting a secret:

“It’s the _Rainbow_ Club. We pretend that everytime we make anybody happy we’ve made a little rainbow in the world.”

“Well, bless your heart,” was the appreciative answer. “You’ve already made one in here. You do that every time you come around.”

Then he looked thoughtfully at her over his spectacles.

“Would you take an old fellow like me into your club?”

Georgina considered a moment, first stealing a glance at him to see if he were in earnest or still trying to tease. He seemed quite serious so she answered:

“If you really _want_ to belong. Anybody with a bank full of money ought to be able to make happy times for the whole town.”

“Any dues to pay? What are the rules and what are the duties of a member?”

Again Georgina was embarrassed. He seemed to expect so much more than she had to offer. She swung the red purse around nervously as she answered:

“I guess you won’t think it’s much of a club. There’s nothing to it but just its name, and all we do is just to go around making what it says.”

“Count me as Member number Three,” said Mr. Gates gravely. “I’m proud to join you. Shake hands on it. I’ll try to be a credit to the organization, and I hope you’ll drop around once in a while and let me know how it’s getting along.”

The beaming smile with which Georgina shook hands came back to him all morning at intervals.

Cousin James Milford, who had been an interested listener, followed her out of the bank presently and as he drove his machine slowly past the drug-store he saw the five children draining their glasses at the soda-water fountain. He stopped, thinking to invite Richard and Georgina to go to Truro with him. It never would have occurred to him to give the three little Portuguese children a ride also had he not overheard that conversation in the bank.

“Well, why not?” he asked himself, smiling inwardly. “It might as well be rainbows for the crowd while I’m about it.”

So for the first time in their lives Manuel and Joseph and Rosa rode in one of the “honk wagons” which heretofore they had known only as something to be dodged when one walked abroad. Judging by the blissful grins which took permanent lodging on their dirty faces, Cousin James was eligible to the highest position the new club could bestow, if ever he should apply for membership.

If Mrs. Triplett had been downstairs that evening, none of the birthday nickels would have found their way through the ticket window of the moving picture show. She supposed that Georgina was reading as usual beside the evening lamp, or was out on the front porch talking to Belle. But Belle, not caring to talk to anyone, had given instant consent when Georgina, who wanted to go to the show, having seen wonderful posters advertising it, suggested that Mrs. Fayal would take her in charge. She did not add that she had already seen Mrs. Fayal and promised to provide tickets for her and the children in case she could get permission from home. Belle did not seem interested in hearing such things, so Georgina hurried off lest something might happen to interfere before she was beyond the reach of summoning voices.

On the return from Truro she had asked to be put out at the Fayal cottage, having it in mind to make some such arrangement. Manuel had seen one show, but Joseph and Rosa had never so much as had their heads inside of one. She found Mrs. Fayal glooming over a wash-tub, not because she objected to washing for the summer people. She was used to that, having done it six days out of seven every summer since she had married Joe Fayal. What she was glooming over was that Joe was home from a week’s fishing trip with his share of the money for the biggest catch of the season, and not a dime of it had she seen. It had all gone into the pocket of an itinerant vendor, and Joe was lying in a sodden stupor out under the grape arbor at the side of the cottage.

Georgina started to back away when she found the state of affairs. She did not suppose Mrs. Fayal would have a mind for merry-making under the circumstances. But, indeed, Mrs. Fayal did.

“All the more reason that I should go off and forget my troubles and have a good time for a while,” she said decidedly. Georgina recognized the spirit if not the words of her own “line to live by.” Mrs. Fayal could bear up and steer onward with a joyful heart any time she had the price of admission to a movie in her pocket. So feeling that as a member of the new club she could not have a better opportunity to make good its name, Georgina promised the tickets for the family even if she could not go herself. She would send them by Richard if not allowed to take them in person.

It was still light when Georgina fared forth at the end of the long summer day. Richard joined her at the foot of the Green Stairs with the price of his own ticket in his pocket, and Captain Kidd tagging at his heels.

“They won’t let the dog into the show,” Georgina reminded him.

“That’s so, and he might get into a fight or run over if I left him outside,” Richard answered. “B’leeve I’ll shut him up in the garage.”

This he did, fastening the door securely, and returning in time to see the rest of the party turning the corner, and coming towards the Green Stairs.

Mrs. Fayal, after her long day over the wash-tub, was resplendent in lavender shirt-waist, blue serge skirt and white tennis shoes, with long gold ear-rings dangling half-way to her shoulders. Manuel and Joseph were barefooted as usual, and in over-alls as usual, but their lack of gala attire was made up for by Rosa’s. No wax doll was ever more daintily and lacily dressed. Georgina looked at her in surprise, wishing Tippy could see her now. Rosa in her white dress and slippers and with her face clean, was a little beauty.

Mrs. Fayal made a delightful chaperon. She was just as ready as anyone in her train to stop in front of shop windows, to straggle slowly down the middle of the street, or to thrust her hand into Richard’s bag of peanuts whenever he passed it around. Cracking shells and munching the nuts, they strolled along with a sense of freedom which thrilled Georgina to the core. She had never felt it before. She had just bought five tickets and Richard his one, and they were about to pass in although Mrs. Fayal said it was early yet, when a deep voice roaring through the crowd attracted their attention. It was as sonorous as a megaphone.

“Walk up, ladies and gentlemen. See the wild-cat, _Texas Tim,_ brought from the banks of the Brazos.”

“Let’s go,” said Richard and Georgina in the same breath. Mrs. Fayal, out for a good time and to see all that was to be seen, bobbed her long earrings in gracious assent, and headed the procession, in order that her ample form might make an entering wedge for the others, as she elbowed her way through the crowd gathered at the street end of Railroad wharf.

It clustered thickest around a wagon in which stood a broad-shouldered man, mounted on a chair. He wore a cow-boy hat. A flaming torch set up beside the wagon lighted a cage in one end of it, in which crouched a wild-cat bewildered by the light and the bedlam of noisy, pushing human beings. The children could not see the animal at first, but pushed nearer the wagon to hear what the man was saying. He held up a bottle and shook it over the heads of the people.

“Here’s your marvelous rheumatism remedy,” he cried, “made from the fat of wild-cats. Warranted to cure every kind of ache, sprain and misery known to man. Only fifty cents, ladies and gentlemen, sure cure or your money back. Anybody here with an ache or a pain?”

The children pushed closer. Richard, feeling the effect of the gun-powder he had eaten, turned to Georgina.

“I dare you to climb up and touch the end of the wild-cat’s tail.”

Georgina stood on tiptoe, then dodged under someone’s elbow for a nearer view. The end of the tail protruded from between the bars of the cage, in easy reach if one were on the wagon, but those furtive eyes keeping watch above it were savage in their gleaming. Then she, too, remembered the gun-powder.

“I’ll do it if you will.”

Before Richard could put the gun-powder to the test the man reached down for a guitar leaning against his chair, and with a twanging of chords which made the shifting people on the outskirts stand still to see what would happen next, he began to sing a song that had been popular in his youth. Or, rather, it was a parody of the song. Georgina recognized it as one that she had heard Uncle Darcy sing, and even Tippy hummed it sometimes when she was sewing. It was, “When you and I were young, Maggie.”

They say we are aged and gray, Maggie,
As spray by the white breakers flung,
But the liniment keeps us as spry, Maggie,
As when you and I were young.”

Several people laughed and passed on when the song was done, but the greater part of the crowd stayed, hoping to hear another, for the voice was a powerful one and fairly sweet.

“Anybody here with any aches or pains?” he called again. “If so, step this way, please, and let me make a simple demonstration of how quickly this magic oil will cure you.”

There was a commotion near the wagon, and a man pushed his way through and climbed up on the wheel. He offered a stiff wrist for treatment. The vendor tipped up the bottle and poured out some pungent volatile oil from the bottle, the odor of which was far-reaching. He rubbed the wrist briskly for a moment, then gave it a slap saying, “Now see what you can do with it, my friend.”

The patient scowled at it, twisting his arm in every possible direction as if skeptical of any help from such a source, but gradually letting a look of pleased surprise spread across his face. The crowd watched in amusement, and nearly everybody laughed when the patient finally announced in a loud voice that he was cured, that it was nothing short of a miracle and that he’d buy half a dozen bottles of that witch stuff to take home to his friends.

The vendor began his speech-making again, calling attention to the cure they had just witnessed, and urging others to follow. As the subject of the cure stepped down from the wheel Richard sprang up in his place. Georgina, pressing closer, saw him lean over the side of the wagon and boldly take hold of the end of the beast’s tail.

“There. I did it,” he announced. “Now it’s your turn.”

Georgina gave one glance at the wild-cat’s eyes and drew back. They seemed to glare directly at her. She wondered how strong the bars were, and if they would hold the beast in case it rose up in a rage and sprang at her. But Richard was waiting, and she clambered up on the hub of the wheel. Luckily its owner was turned towards the other side at that moment or she might have been ordered down.

“There! I did it, too,” she announced an instant later. “Now you can’t crow over me.”

She was about to step down when she saw in the other end of the wagon, something she had not been able to see from her place on the ground under the elbows of the crowd. In a low rocking chair sat an elderly woman, oddly out of place in this traveling medicine show as far as appearance was concerned. She had a calm, motherly face, gray hair combed smoothly down over her ears, a plain old-fashioned gray dress and an air of being perfectly at home. It was the serene, unconscious manner one would have in sitting on the door-step at home. She did not seem to belong in the midst of this seething curious mass, or to realize that she was a part of the show. She smiled now at Georgina in such a friendly way that Georgina smiled back and continued to stand on the wheel. She hoped that this nice old lady would say something about the virtues of the medicine, for it cured two more people, even while she looked, and if she could be sure it did all that was claimed for it she would spend all the rest of her birthday money in buying a bottle for Tippy.

The placid old lady said nothing, but her reassuring presence finally made Georgina decide to buy the bottle, and she emptied the red purse of everything except the tickets. Then the man embarrassed her until her cheeks flamed.

“That’s right, little girl. Carry it to the dear sufferer at home who will bless you for your kindness. Anybody else here who will imitate this child’s generous act? If you haven’t any pain yourself, show your gratitude by thinking of someone less fortunate than you.”

Georgina felt that her blushes were burning her up at thus being made the centre of public notice. She almost fell off the wheel in her haste to get down, and in doing so stumbled over a dog which suddenly emerged from under the wagon at that instant.

“Why, it’s Captain Kidd!” she exclaimed in astonishment. “How ever did he get here?”

“Must have scratched under the door and trailed us,” answered Richard. “Go on home, sir!” he commanded, sternly, stamping his foot. “You know they won’t let you into the show with us, and you’ll get into trouble if you stay downtown alone. Go on home I say.”

With drooping tail and a look so reproachful that it was fairly human, Captain Kidd slunk away, starting mournfully homeward. He sneaked back in a few minutes, however, and trailed his party as far as the door of the theatre. Somebody kicked at him and he fled down the street again, retracing the trail that had led him to the wagon.

A long time after when the performance was nearly over he went swinging up the beach with something in his mouth which he had picked up from near the end of the wagon. It was a tobacco pouch of soft gray leather that had never been used for tobacco. There was something hard and round inside which felt like a bone. At the top of the Green Stairs he lay down and mouthed it a while, tugging at it with his sharp teeth; but after he had mumbled and gnawed it for some time without bringing the bone any nearer the surface, he grew tired of his newfound plaything. Dropping it in the grass, he betook himself to the door-mat on the front porch, to await his master’s return.

Buried Treasure

When Georgina tiptoed up the walk to the front porch where Belle sat waiting for her in the moonlight, Tippy called down that she wasn’t asleep, and they needn’t stay out there on her account, whispering. It did not seem an auspicious time to present the bottle of liniment, but to Georgina’s surprise Tippy seemed glad to try the new remedy. The long-continued pain which refused to yield to treatment made her willing to try anything which promised relief.

It was vile-smelling stuff, so pungent that whenever the cork was taken out of the bottle the whole house knew it, but it burned with soothing fire and Tippy rose up and called it blessed before the next day was over. Before that happened, however, Georgina took advantage of Belle’s easy rule to leave home as soon as her little morning tasks were done. Strolling down the board-walk with many stops she came at last to the foot of the Green Stairs. Richard sat on the top step, tugging at a knotted string.

“Come on up,” he called. “See what I’ve taken away from Captain Kidd. He was just starting to bury it. Looks like a tobacco pouch, but I haven’t got it untied yet. He made the string all wet, gnawing on it.”

Georgina climbed to the top of the steps and sat down beside him, watching in deep and silent interest. When the string finally gave way she offered her lap to receive the contents of the pouch. Two five-dollar gold pieces rolled out first, then a handful of small change, a black ring evidently whittled out of a rubber button and lastly a watch-fob ornament. It was a little compass, set in something which looked like a nut.

“I believe that’s a buckeye,” said Richard. He examined it carefully on all sides, then called excitedly:

“Aw, look here! See those letters scratched on the side--’D. D.’? That stands for my name, Dare-devil Dick. I’m going to keep it.”

“That’s the cunningest thing I ever saw,” declared Georgina in a tone both admiring and envious, which plainly showed that she wished the initials were such as could be claimed by a Gory George. Then she picked up the pouch and thrust in her hand. Something rustled. It was a letter. Evidently it had been forwarded many times, for the envelope was entirely criss-crossed with names that had been written and blotted out that new ones might be added. All they could make out was “Mrs. Henry”--“Texas” and “Mass.”

“I’d like to have that stamp for my album,” said Richard. “It’s foreign. Seems to me I’ve got one that looks something like it, but I’m not sure. Maybe the letter will tell who the pouch belongs to.”

“But we can’t read other people’s letters,” objected Georgina.

“Well, who wants to? It won’t be reading it just to look at the head and tail, will it?”

“No,” admitted Georgina, hesitatingly. “Though it does seem like peeking.”

“Well, if you lost something wouldn’t you rather whoever found it should peek and find out it was yours, than to have it stay lost forever?”

“Yes, I s’pose so.”

“Let’s look, then.”

Two heads bent over the sheet spread out on Richard’s knee. They read slowly in unison, “Dear friend,” then turned over the paper and sought the last line. “Your grateful friend Dave.”

“We don’t know any more now than we did before,” said Georgina, virtuously folding up the letter and slipping it back into the envelope.

“Let’s take it to Uncle Darcy. Then he’ll let us go along and ring the bell when he calls, ‘Found.’”

Richard had two objections to this. “Who’d pay him for doing it? Besides, it’s gold money, and anybody who loses that much would advertise for it in the papers. Let’s keep it till this week’s papers come out, and then we’ll have the fun of taking it to the person who lost it.”

“It wouldn’t be safe for us to keep it,” was Georgina’s next objection. “It’s gold money and burglars might find out we had it.”

“Then I’ll tell you”--Richard’s face shone as he made the suggestion-- “Let’s _bury_ it. That will keep it safe till we can find the owner, and when we dig it up we can play it’s pirate gold and it’ll be like finding real treasure.”

“Lets!” agreed Georgina. “We can keep out something, a nickel or a dime, and when we go to dig up the pouch we can throw it over toward the place where we buried the bag and say, ‘Brother, go find your brother,’ the way Tom Sawyer did. Then we’ll be certain to hit the spot.”

Richard picked up the compass, and rubbed the polished sides of the nut in which it was set.

“I’ll keep this out instead of a nickel. I wonder what the fellow’s name was that this D. D. stands for?”

Half an hour later two bloody-minded sea-robbers slipped through the back gate of the Milford place and took their stealthy way out into the dunes. No fierce mustachios or hoop ear-rings marked them on this occasion as the Dread Destroyer or the Menace of the Main. The time did not seem favorable for donning their real costumes. So one went disguised as a dainty maiden in a short pink frock and long brown curls, and the other as a sturdy boy in a grass-stained linen suit with a hole in the knee of his stocking. But their speech would have betrayed their evil business had anyone been in earshot of it. One would have thought it was

“Wild Roger come again.
He spoke of forays and of frays upon the Spanish Main.”

Having real gold to bury made the whole affair seem a real adventure. They were recounting to each other as they dug, the bloody fight it had taken to secure this lot of treasure.

Down in a hollow where the surrounding sandridges sheltered them from view, they crouched over a small basket they had brought with them and performed certain ceremonies. First the pouch was wrapped in many sheets of tin foil, which Richard had been long in collecting from various tobacco-loving friends. When that was done it flashed in the sun like a nugget of wrinkled silver. This was stuffed into a baking-powder can from which the label had been carefully scraped, and on whose lid had been scratched with a nail, the names Georgina Huntingdon and Richard Moreland, with the date.

“We’d better put our everyday names on it instead of our pirate names,” Gory George suggested. “For if anything should happen that some other pirate dug it up first they wouldn’t know who the Dread Destroyer and the Menace of the Main were.”

Lastly, from the basket was taken the end of a wax candle, several matches and a stick of red sealing-wax, borrowed from Cousin James’ desk. Holding the end of the sealing-wax over the lighted candle until it was soft and dripping, Richard daubed it around the edge of the can lid, as he had seen the man in the express office seal packages. He had always longed to try it himself. There was something peculiarly pleasing in the smell of melted sealing-wax. Georgina found it equally alluring. She took the stick away from him when it was about half used, and finished it.

“There won’t be any to put back in Cousin James’ desk if you keep on using it,” he warned her.

“I’m not using any more than you did,” she answered, and calmly proceeded to smear on the remainder. “If you had let me seal with the first end of the stick, you’d have had all the last end to save.”

All this time Captain Kidd sat close beside them, an interested spectator, but as they began digging the hole he rushed towards it and pawed violently at each shovelful of sand thrown out.

“Aw, let him help!” Richard exclaimed when Georgina ordered him to stop. “He ought to have a part in it because he found the pouch and was starting to bury it his own self when I took it away from him and spoiled his fun.”

Georgina saw the justice of the claim and allowed Captain Kidd to join in as he pleased, but no sooner did they stop digging to give him a chance than he stopped also.

“Rats!” called Richard in a shrill whisper.

At that familiar word the dog began digging so frantically that the sand flew in every direction. Each time he paused for breath Richard called “Rats” again. It doubled the interest for both children to have the dog take such frantic and earnest part in their game.

When the hole was pronounced deep enough the can was dropped in, the sand shoveled over it and tramped down, and a marker made. A long, forked stick, broken from a bayberry bush, was run into the ground so that only the fork of it was visible. Then at twenty paces from the stick, Richard stepping them off in four directions, consulting the little compass in so doing, Georgina placed the markers, four sections of a broken crock rescued from the ash-barrel and brought down in the basket for that especial purpose.

“We’ll let it stay buried for a week,” said Richard when all was done. “Unless somebody claims it sooner. If they don’t come in a week, then we’ll know they’re never coming, and the gold will be ours.”