Poppy Ott's pedigreed pickles

Full of curious admiration for the keen-eyed old man who had thus exposed us so cleverly and unexpectedly, Poppy and I filed sheepishly into the cave.

About fourteen feet in depth, the roomy chamber was furnished with a rustic table, over which hung a lantern, two chairs, and, on opposite sides, well back, two floor beds, the mattresses of which had been made of plaited grass. There was a stand, too, supporting a huge Bible, such as preachers use, and on a lower shelf of the stand was the talking machine that we had heard. Later we learned that the kid had made the furniture with a hatchet and scout knife, which shows you what a clever little woodsman he is.

The talk between the boy and his uncle had made it plain to us that much less than being in cahoots with the cat killer they really knew nothing about the other man, except that the boy had “seen something” at the mouth of the tunnel. This made the cat killer more of a mystery to us than ever. And there was added mystery, too, in these other people. But who could be afraid of an old man, however stern he tried to be, whose chief interest seemed to be in Bibles and Sunday-school lessons! Certainly, Poppy and I weren’t afraid. Our principal feeling, as I say, was curiosity.

The old man continued to glare at us.

“What’s your name?” he demanded of the leader, in a gruff voice.

“Poppy Ott.”

The questioner then turned as savagely to me.

“Jerry Todd,” says I.

The scowl deepened.

“Which one of you hit my Tommy?”

The sight of us had sort of stupefied the kid. But now his eyes blazed up.

“It was him,” he properly pointed.

“I took you for an enemy,” Poppy explained his attack.

“For two cents,” cried the kid, “I’d ‘enemy’ you with a crack on the jaw.”

“Tommy!” came the sharp command. “You shet up an’ keep still.”

“I can lick him,” the kid glowered.

“I’ll do some ‘lickin’ in a minute or two if you don’t mind me.”

The old man’s pretended fierceness was funny to us. More than that, with his whiskers and everything, he looked funny. So it isn’t surprising that Poppy grinned. And as though this was the final straw that tipped the hay cart over, or whatever the old saying is, the kid lit into the hated one like a young hurricane. For a minute or two all I could see was flying arms and legs. Over and over they rolled, whanging and banging each other like a couple of prize fighters. And, bu-lieve me, old Poppy had all he could handle! In the fracas the table was tipped over. Tin dishes clattered right and left. The old man tried to separate the fighters with his cane. Whack! whack! whack! But they paid no attention to the sharp cracks that he gave them. So he grimly got the pepper shaker. No kid can scrap and sneeze at the same time. So, for the present, at least, the battle was ended.

Nor were the two tousled fighters the only ones who dizzily contributed to the sneezing act. Boy, I thought I’d rip a hole in the top of my beezer. Uncle Abner spit his false teeth clean across the cave. Even the Bible stand rocked. But finally things sort of quieted down.

“Sech carryin’ on fur Sunday night,” stormed the old man, upon the recovery of his teeth. “I’m ashamed of you, Tommy Weir. Yes, I be. This other boy wasn’t wantin’ to fight. You’re the one who started it.”

“I’m going to knock his block off.”

“That’s enough from you, young man,” came in thundering tones. “You go right over there an’ set down on that bed. An’ if you give me any more trouble I’m a-goin’ to lay you across my knee.”

“Aw!...” says Poppy, sort of buttoning himself together after the fracas. “He’s all right. Let him be.”

The old man then went at us with a bunch of questions. He was shrewd about it, too.

“I kin see,” he nodded in conclusion, “that you boys know a great deal more about the secrets of the old stone house than you’re willin’ to admit. An’ now that you’ve followed Tommy here, I kin imagine that you’re curious to know who we be. To that p’int, to encourage frankness on your side, too, I don’t mind tellin’ you that my name is Abner Weir, more commonly known in Rimtown, Ohio, where our home is, as ‘Uncle Ab.’ Fortune has made me a nepher of the old rascal who built that house across the river. Asa Weir an’ Severn Weir, my father, was brothers, Asa bein’ much the oldest. Tommy, here, my nepher, is the only child of my brother. His ma an’ pa are dead. They’s jest me an’ him left in the family.”

Pausing, the speaker then regarded us intently for a moment or two. He seemed to be studying us. He realized, of course, that we were treasure hunting on our own hook. We hadn’t admitted it; but he knew! And being in the game, too, I could imagine that he was sort of figuring how he could draw us out without saying too much himself.

“Now, if me an’ Tommy was desperate characters,” he went on steadily, “we could easy enough rope you up an’ keep you here, seein’ as how you’re workin’ ag’in’ us. We probably could make you tell things, too, to our interests. But, frankly, we hain’t people of that sort. Tommy, of course, is kind of hot-headed, as you jest saw. But that hain’t nothin’ ag’in’ him to speak of. I used to be hot-headed myself when I was his age. An’ even to-day if I’m woke up sudden I start pitchin’ things. The other mornin’ I pitched a fryin’ pan. Jest missed Tommy’s head, too. So that is why he woke me up to-night with the talkin’ machine. The one big p’int is, as I see it, air we goin’ to turn you loose, to further work ag’in’ us, or, in fairness to us, would you first like to hear our story to sort of decide in your own minds whether or not it might not be best for you to work with us?”

Poppy’s face was curious.

“Why do you put it that way?” says he guardedly. “Do you want us to work with you?”

“No!” the kid shoved in.

“Shet up, you!”

“Aw, heck! Throw the big simp out.”

But Poppy only grinned.

“Did you ever hear of a man by the name of Nathan Weir?” he then inquired, thinking, I guess, that here was a good chance to find out something about Mr. Weckler’s missing daughter.

The old man seemed suddenly saddened by the question.

“Nathan an’ me was brothers,” says he in a lower voice. “Tommy is his son.”

“What?” cried Poppy, staring. Then he shot a glance at me.

“Tommy had a good ma,” the old man went on. “But his pa, if I must say so as an own brother, was a bad one. So it’s jest as well, I s’pose, everything considered, that he’s dead. Fur them kind of people only make the world unhappier.”

Poppy turned curiously to the kid.

“Did you know,” says he, “that your grandfather lives in Tutter?”

“Huh!” came the scowl. “I’m not interested in him.”

“He’s a nice old man.”

“That’s what you say.”

“Have you ever seen him?”

“No, nor I don’t ever care to.”

“Why do you hate him?” says Poppy curiously.

“Why shouldn’t I hate him,” the kid’s eyes blazed, “after the way he turned down my mother.”

“He never knew what became of your mother.”

“Like time he didn’t! She wrote to him when she was down and out, asking him to take me. And he never as much as answered her letter. So, do you think I’m going to chase after him now? I guess not! I wouldn’t have come this close to him if it hadn’t been for the hidden treasure.”

Poppy then told how the grandfather had been hit on the head.

“A one-armed burglar,” spoke up the old man, sort of reflective-like. “It ought to be easy to spot him.”

“Have you ever seen a one-armed man hanging around here?”

“No, nor a two-armed man, nuther.”

“And you never suspected that you were being secretly watched?”

“Only what Tommy told me about seein’ somethin’ near the tunnel. But he wasn’t sure whether it was a man or not.”

“I have a hunch,” waggled Poppy, “that the cat killer, as we call him, for want of a better name, has been keeping closer tab on you than either of you suspect. And the object, of course, was to let you lift the treasure and then grab it on you.”

“But who can it be?” puzzled the old man.

“If it’s some one who has followed you here,” says Poppy, “you ought to be able to answer that a whole lot better than us.”

“Tommy,” the old man turned to his nephew, “kin you remember any one-armed men ’round Rimtown?”

“No,” the kid slowly shook his head.

“Um.... This cat killer, evidently, is a bad egg. An’ as they’s safety in numbers, I’m more convinced than ever that the four of us ought to be workin’ together. Besides, we prob’ly kin do quicker work if we put together what we know an’ what you know. Bein’ relations, me an’ Tommy, of course, has first claim on the gold. You kain’t git around that. An’ if you were to git it ahead of us we prob’ly could go to law an’ take it away from you. I’m not sayin’ that, however, to force you to j’ine us. You kin do whatever you think is best. But it would be an awful unlucky day fur both parties, I’m here to tell you, if we was to monkey along separately, each sort of buckin’ the other, an’ let the cat killer lift the treasure ahead of us. So, if you’ll j’ine us we’ll agree to go fifty-fifty with you, me an’ Tommy gittin’ half an’ you fellers the other half.”

“But we’ve already promised to share the treasure with Mrs. O’Mally,” says Poppy.

“The old lady in the stone house?”

“Yes.”

“Um.... After the scare we’ve given her with our ‘ghost’ noises she’s entitled to a share of the treasure, I guess. Anyway, she holds a deed to the land. That’s somethin’ in her favor. So, if you’re willin’, we’ll split the treasure five ways. Yes or no?”

Poppy looked at me.

“I’m willing, Jerry.”

“Here, too,” says I.

“Very well,” nodded the pleased old man. “But to make it a good bargain I guess you’d better go over there an’ shake hands with Tommy. I see he’s bin sittin’ there chawin’ his finger nails, which is a purty good sign that he’s sorry fur havin’ let his temper git away from him. An’ if you’ll give him a chance to show his real nature I think you’ll find that he’s a purty nice boy.”

As the old man had said, the kid didn’t look so mad now. Still, it kind of surprised me when he shoved out his mitt to us. And what a firm, warm mitt it was! Here was a kid, I told myself, whose friendship was worth prizing.

“Well, Tommy,” the old man grinned at his nephew, who now sat between us on the bed, “who’s goin’ to do the talkin’, me or you?”

“You go ahead, Uncle Abner.”

A chair was brought forward.

“I don’t know how much you boys know about this rascally uncle of mine who put away the treasure on the other side of the river,” the story was begun, “but if all accounts of him is true I tremble to think of what become of his wicked soul when he died. His thievery, though, as it was told to me, was a slim business fur the most part, as he hadn’t much chance to get his hands on anything big. One day, though, the story got out that a St. Louis packet was comin’ up the river with a shipment of gold. Well, old Peg-leg, as I’ll call him, seein’ as how that’s what everybody else called him, was determined to make the one big haul of his wicked career. An’, as we know, he did it. They was murder on the river that terrible night. An’ the gold that was later put away has on it the taint of human blood. A few weeks later, in early winter, old Peg-leg was shot. An’ when he was dyin’ he give my father, who was then a boy in knee pants, a gold cucumber about as long as my thumb. ‘It’s the key,’ says he. ‘Keep it. An’ whatever you find is yours.’ Then the posse broke in an’ my father had to git out of sight into the tunnel or he, too, young as he was, would ’a’ bin lugged off to jail an’ mebbe hung. Skippin’ the country, he went to Ohio, settlin’ near Rimtown, an’ so ’fraid was he of the Illinois law that he never dared to go back.

“This, of course, happened many years ago. An’ havin’ bin born an’ brought up in another state I never knew that they was sech a man as old Peg-leg Weir until my brother Nathan picked up the story from a distant relative. He come here then, Nathan did, to see what he could find, though he hadn’t bin told about the gold cucumber, as none of us knew about that until our father’s death. What Nathan brought home, a year later, wasn’t a chest of gold but a wife. Jest a young girl. Then, several years later, Tommy was born. As he grew up he was a great pet of his grandpa’s, an’ we used to wonder what the old man meant when he kept sayin’, ‘Some day, Tommy, Grandpa’s goin’ to make you rich.’ We was dirt poor. An’, fur one, I couldn’t figure out where these sudden riches was comin’ from. Then, on the tenth of last May,” the voice dropped, “we was left entirely alone, me an’ Tommy, but not until we had bin told the story of the gold cucumber. It was given to Tommy on his grandpa’s deathbed, an’ we was told about the tunnel an’ the secret door in the chimney. So, naturally, as soon as we could straighten up our affairs we set out fur Illinois, each with a pack on his back, an’ here we be with all of our belongings, which hain’t much. Of course, in startin’ out we hadn’t any idear of endin’ up in a cave like this. Havin’ bin led to believe that the old house was deserted, we expected to use it temporarily. But on findin’ it occupied we did the next best thing. An’, to that p’int, we’ve bin comfortable here, though sometimes the spiders an’ skeeters git after us. Makin’ free use of a boat that we found tied in the creek, we first went back an’ forth across the river in the dark. It wasn’t any trick fur us to find the tunnel an’ later on the secret passage leadin’ to the underground cellar. But however much we sounded the stone walls in the underground room we could find no hollow places, as seemed natural to expect. Lately I’ve quit goin’ over. Fur it seemed useless to me. But Tommy he hung on. He even took to goin’ over in broad daylight. But still, after a month’s work, we’re right where we started in. So, however good our claim is to the treasure, we’ll be mighty glad to share it with you, as I say, if you kin help us find it. Fur we’ve had no luck ourselves.”

Poppy and I were dead sure, of course, as we enthusiastically told the old man, that the treasure would soon be separated from its hiding place. And now that we were all working together, including Mrs. O’Mally, why not abandon the cave, we suggested. There was plenty of room for all of us in the big stone house. And the others would be a lot safer over there than here. So the cave stuff was quickly gathered up. And then, as we were leaving, the old man, now dressed, got down on his knees to dig his money box out of a hole in the floor.

“We hid it,” he explained, “not so much because of the hundred dollars that we’ve got in it as on account of the gold cucumber. Wait jest a minute an’ I’ll show it to you. Mebbe you kin better figure out its secret than us.”

There was a startled cry.

“It’s gone!”

Poppy and I saw in a flash what had happened. Secretly watching the cave, as the leader had said, the cat killer had stolen the gold cucumber, only to lose it later on in Mr. Weckler’s flower bed.

“I—I guess, boys,” the old man got up, white-faced, “that we’re done fur now.”

Poppy laughed.

“Don’t you ever think so, Mr. Weir. For it so happens that Jerry and I have been claiming ownership to your gold cucumber for the past twenty-four hours.” Hurriedly he told how the cucumber had fallen into our hands. “You can see,” he concluded, “why we connected the cat killer with the treasure. For that same morning we found out that the pirate not only had raised cucumbers as a hobby, but had made a queer cucumber mold.”

The old man’s eyes were full of admiration.

“Smart!” he waggled. “Smart as a whip!”

Ten minutes later our two loaded boats were afloat on the river. And as I looked back at the shore, with the talking machine in my lap, I fancied that I could trace the outline of a creeping black shape. But I wasn’t scared. For there were four of us now.

Oh, baby! The fun we were going to have! We were poor now. But in a day or two we probably would be as rich as Henry Ford.