The quest for the rose of Sharon

So I had aided the enemy! I had thought myself clever enough to match my wits against his, and I had lost! It was a bitter reflection!

I had underestimated his strength, had dared to face him when I should have run away, and he had defeated me ignominiously. He had learned from me exactly what he wished to learn, and now he could rest secure until the month was up. I could guess how the thought that we might, after all, carry the matter to the courts had worried him—his very anxiety went far to prove that we might really be able to set aside the will.

One thing was clear enough. Silas Tunstall was not at all the ignorant boor that I had thought him. His ungainliness, his drawl, his slip-shod utterance were all assumed—for what? The answer seemed evident enough. They had been assumed to aid him in practising the deceptions of his business as a spiritualistic medium. What a belief-compelling thing it was for him to be able to cast aside, whenever he wished, the uncouth husk in which he was usually enveloped. In the gloom of the seance, what sitter would suspect that that clear voice could be Silas Tunstall’s, or that crisp and perfect enunciation his? Oh, it was evident enough; and I had walked straight into the trap he had set for me!

These were the pleasing reflections with which I had to comfort myself as we walked back toward the house together. I had played the fool—the boys were not to blame; it was I alone! If I had only had sense enough to hold my tongue!

The sound of wheels on the drive brought me out of my thoughts, and we reached the front door just as a buggy drew up before it.

“Good gracious! I hadn’t any idea we should be so late!” cried mother, as Mr. Chester helped her to alight. “But there were so many things to do, and on the way back we had a little accident—our horse slipped and broke one of the traces, and it took us half an hour to mend it. Won’t you come in, Mr. Chester?”

“Just for a moment,” he answered. “Tom, you go on home and tell your mother I’ll be there in ten minutes,” and he followed mother into the house.

Tom paused only long enough for a swift whisper in my ear.

“You’ve forgiven me?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“I felt awfully bad when I looked over the wall and saw you digging. I knew what you’d think of me. But it’ll never happen again!”

“It did hurt,” I said.

“And don’t you give up, Biffkins,” he added; “and don’t you go to blaming yourself. We’ll win out yet,” and he gripped my hand for an instant and was gone. And my heart was at peace again, for I knew that my ally was true to me.

What Mr. Chester said to mother we never knew, but he must have put the adventure in a decidedly milder light than he had used with the boys, for he and mother were laughing as they came out into the hall a few minutes later. And a great load was lifted from me, for I had feared that mother might really take a dislike to the place, if Dick got into serious trouble about it.

The episode was not entirely ended, however, for next morning a note came from Mr. Chester for Dick, and the two boys were sent off together to apologize to Mr. Tunstall, who, they reported, had received their apology as gracefully as could be expected.

“Only he looked at us out of those little black eyes of his,” Dick confided to me privately, afterwards, “as though he would like to kill us on the spot. I’m afraid the whole thing was a mistake, Biffkins. If he hadn’t had that attack of heart disease, I believe we’d have got the whole story out of him—if he knows it; but we really only succeeded in converting an adversary into a bitter enemy. Whatever he may pretend, I’m sure he’s our bitter enemy now.”

These were large words for Dick to use in conversation, and they showed how serious he thought the matter was. But I made light of it.

“I don’t suppose he was any too friendly before,” I said, “in spite of all his protests about playing fair. Certainly we didn’t expect any help from him. And I don’t see how he can do us any harm.”

“Well, maybe not,” agreed Dick, slowly. “But just the same, it was a mighty foolish thing to do.”

Indeed, as I thought it over afterwards, Mr. Tunstall had considerable cause to congratulate himself on the outcome of the adventure, and on his opportune fainting-fit. But for that, his secret, if he possessed one, might really have been frightened out of him; though now I think of it, it seems improbable that even the most ghostly of apparitions would have impressed him as supernatural. He had played that game too often himself.

“And oh, Biffkins,” added Dick, “you should have seen the place where he lives. It’s a little gray house, so shut in by trees and shrubbery that you can’t see it from the road at all, even in winter. In fact, a good many of the trees are evergreens, so that winter doesn’t make any difference. A funny little old woman let us in, and we had to sit in a little stuffy hall for ever so long before Mr. Tunstall came out to us. And he didn’t ask us in—just stood and listened and glowered, with his hands under his coat-tails, and then sent us about our business. I tell you, I felt mighty small.”

“Well, I felt pretty small last night,” I said, “when I found out how he’d fooled me.”

“He’s a slick one,” was Dick’s final comment, and I echoed the verdict.

Dick started for Riverdale, right after lunch, with the list of things which we would need before the month was up, and I took advantage of his absence to put into effect the plan which had flashed into my head the day before, when mother was talking about our studies. I went over to Mrs. Chester’s and told her all about it, and the result was that Mr. Chester called upon mother that very evening, and suggested that Dick and Tom study together under the same tutor.

I saw how mother’s face flushed with pleasure at the suggestion, but she hesitated.

“Perhaps Dick may be in the way,” she said. “Cecil tells me that Tom is preparing to enter Princeton, and much as I would like my boy to study with him—”

“My dear Mrs. Truman,” broke in our visitor, “it will have quite the opposite effect. Tom will study all the better for having a companion. Please say yes. It’s for my boy’s good, as well as yours.”

So it was settled; and when Mr. Chester left, he gave my hand a little extra pressure, and whispered a word in my ear which made me very happy. And how pleased Dick was! Every day, from ten o’clock till one, the boys were closeted with the tutor, while I got my lessons by myself. I can’t pretend that I enjoyed it, or that I always spent all that time in study. I’m afraid that a good part of it was spent in trying to puzzle out the mystery of the rose of Sharon, and that the rule of four to the right and three diagonally interested me more than did any relating to planes and lines and angles. But, at least, the time was not wholly wasted.

How the days flew by! I was afraid to count them; afraid to consult the calendar. The disaster which was set to happen on the seventeenth of May loomed steadily larger and larger as the march of time brought it inexorably nearer. The stately ticking of the old clock in the hall became a thing to lie awake at night and listen to with dread.

Not that we were idle, for the two boys and I spent every afternoon and almost every evening striving to solve the mystery. Dick was thoroughly in earnest, now, and Tom proved himself the most delightful and helpful of comrades. Dear mother did not actively aid us much—indeed, I think she had never permitted herself to believe that this beautiful place could be hers permanently; but we three young people kept at work with the energy of desperation.

We rooted up a good portion of the orchard, taking all sorts of measurements from the old apple tree which leaned, ragged and solitary, above the pasture fence. We sounded the trees for possible hollows, but found most of them dishearteningly sound. We dug up the earth for many yards around the tall althea bush, and around as many others as seemed in any way distinctive. As the spring advanced, a clump of lilies sprang up among the trees near the house, and formed the centre of another extensive circle of operations—all of which were absolutely fruitless of result, except the enlargement of already healthy appetites.

“I tell you what,” remarked Dick wearily, one evening, “I’m beginning to believe that grandaunt is playing a joke on us. You remember the story of the old fellow who left a big field to his heirs, saying in his will that a great treasure was concealed there—”

“Yes,” I interrupted; “Mr. Tunstall spoke of it, too; only he added that grandaunt could scarcely have meant that, since we wouldn’t be here to reap the harvest.”

Dick winced at the words.

“Confound old Tunstall,” he said. “What’s become of him?”

“I don’t know,” Tom answered. “I haven’t seen him for quite a while.”

“Maybe he’s gone away,” I suggested. “Don’t let’s think of him. Well, what shall we do next?”

We had just completed the exploration of the vicinity of the clump of lilies, and Tom was standing with his eyes fixed upon them.

“But see here,” he cried, “we’ve just been wasting our time grubbing around here.”

“That’s evident enough,” growled Dick, with a glance at the piles of earth we had thrown up. “You’d suppose this was the Panama canal.”

“But why didn’t we think? Don’t you remember, Biffkins, we were going to look in your grandaunt’s Bible—it wasn’t really any use to look in father’s.”

“Why, of course!” I cried. “How silly of us! Come on, let’s look at it now.”

“You run on,” said Dick, “and find it. I’m dead tired—I’m also somewhat discouraged,” and he threw himself down on the grass.

“Shame!” I cried; but he only wiggled a little, and turned over on his face. Tom sat down beside him, and I saw that he was discouraged, too, though he wouldn’t admit it. “Very well,” I said. “I’ll get it. You two stay here.”

I remembered having seen a shabby little leather-bound book lying on the stand at the head of grandaunt’s bed, and I did not doubt that this was the Bible which she habitually used. So I flew away toward the house, and up the stair to grandaunt’s room. It was evident enough that I had guessed correctly, as soon as I opened the volume, it was so marked and underlined. With a little tremor, I turned to the Song of Solomon, and ran down the narrow column until I came to the first verse of the second chapter.

The words, “I am the rose of Sharon,” formed the first line. Just to the right of it, across the line dividing the columns, was the second line of the fourteenth verse, “in the clefts of,” then, diagonally three to the left were the words, “the” “rock,” “stairs!”

With a shriek of victory, and hugging the little volume to me, I flew down the stairs and out upon the lawn.

The boys looked up as they heard me coming, and when they saw my face, both of them sprang to their feet.

“I’ve found it!” I cried. “I really believe I’ve found it this time,” and I showed them the mystic words.

“Well,” said Tom, at last, “it does seem that that’s too big a coincidence not to mean something. ‘In the clefts of the rock stairs.’ What do you think of it, Dick?”

“The cry of ‘wolf!’ doesn’t awaken any especial interest, any more,” answered Dick languidly. “I’ve become too used to it. But I suppose we might as well look up the rock stairs, wherever they are—”

“But perhaps there aren’t any,” I objected.

“Oh, yes,” said Dick, wearily, “you’ll find there’s some rock steps around the place somewhere, and we might as well proceed to tear them down, I suppose.”

But I would not permit him to discourage me. I hunted up Abner and asked him if there were any rock steps or a rock stairway about the place anywhere. Dick’s prediction came true.

“Why, yes, miss,” he answered, slowly, “they’s a short flight leads down into the milk-house, an’ another flight into the cellar. Then there’s the flight up to the front porch, an’ the other up to the side porch.”

“And is that all, Abner?” I questioned. “Be sure, now, that you tell me all of them.”

He stood for a minute with his eyes all squinted up, and I suppose he made a sort of mental review of the whole place, for he nodded his head at last and assured me that these were all.

Armed with this information, I rejoined the boys and—but why should I give the details of the search? It was the same old story, infinite labour and nothing at the end. Really it was disheartening.

“Well,” remarked Tom, philosophically, when we had finished putting the last step back into place, “they needed straightening, anyway. And the garden would have had to be dug up about this time, too; and I’ve always heard that it’s a good thing to loosen up the ground around trees.”

“I’m getting tired of improving the place for Tunstall’s benefit,” objected Dick. “I move we give it up.”

“Oh, no!” I cried. “We can’t give it up! That would be cowardly. Do you remember Commodore Perry, when he fought the British on Lake Erie? He had a banner painted with the words, ‘Don’t Give up the Ship,’ and he nailed it to his mast; and when his ship was sinking, he took the banner down, and carried it to another ship, and nailed it up there. Let’s nail our banner up, too.”

“But we’ve done everything we could think of doing,” objected Dick. “What can we do now, Biffkins?”

“We haven’t gone in pursuit of the early potato,” suggested Tom, demurely.

“We can begin in the house,” I said; “begin at the farthest corner of the garret, and work right down to the cellar.”

“That’s a big job,” said Dick, and sighed.

“I know it is; but I’m beginning to believe more and more that Mr. Chester was right, and that the treasure is somewhere in the house. We’ll begin to-morrow.”

“Oh, we can’t begin to-morrow,” said Tom.

“Why not?” I questioned, sharply, impatient of the least delay.

“Why, to-morrow’s May-Day,” he explained, “and the children at the Fanwood school are going to have a big time. We’ll all have to go—as distinguished guests, you know. Father and mother are going, and so is your mother. It’s to be a kind of picnic—a May-pole and all that sort of thing.”

“Very well,” I said, seeing that their hearts were set upon it; “we’ll go, then;” but I must confess that I did not enjoy the day, which, under other circumstances, would have been delightful. But in the midst of the gayety, clouding it, rising above the laughter, the thought kept repeating itself over and over in my brain that only fifteen days of grace remained. “Only fifteen days, only fifteen days,” over and over and over. It was with absolute joy that I climbed, at last, into the buggy to start homewards, and I could scarcely repress a shout of happiness as we turned in at the gate and rolled up to the dear old house.

As soon as lessons were over next day, the search of the house began. The refrain had changed a little: “Only fourteen days—only fourteen days!” it ran now. Fourteen days! Thirteen days! Twelve days! How I tried to lengthen every one of them; to make every minute count! And how useless it seemed. For we made no progress; we were apparently not one step nearer the solution of the puzzle than we had been at first. We opened boxes, ransacked cupboards, explored dim crannies under the eaves, turned drawers upside down—disclosing treasures, indeed, which at another time would have filled me with delight, but, alas! they were not the treasures we were seeking! From the garret to the second floor, then to the first floor, then to the cellar—we turned the house inside out, did everything we could think of doing, short of tearing it down, and utterly without result! At last, mother interfered.

“You children must sit down and rest,” she said. “You will make yourselves ill. Cecil is getting nervous and positively haggard.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” I said; “I wouldn’t mind anything, if we could only find the treasure.”

“You don’t sleep well at night,” pursued mother remorselessly. “You twitch about—”

“Yes,” I admitted; “and lie awake listening to the old clock in the hall, and thinking that every second it ticks off is one second less.”

“Well,” said mother, more sternly, “it must stop. It isn’t worth it. Why not be satisfied with thinking that we’re merely on a visit here—a month’s vacation—and plan to make the last days of the visit as pleasant as you can? Then, when we go away, we can at least look back upon having had a nice time.”

“But we don’t want you to go away, Mrs. Truman,” spoke up Tom. “Mother was saying again last night how dreadfully she would feel if you would have to go. As for me, I—I don’t know what I’d do.”

I looked up and met his eyes, and there was something in them that made me feel like laughing and crying too.

“You’ve all been very kind to us,” said mother, flushing with pleasure, “and you must come over to Riverdale and see us often. I want you all to be sure to come over and spend the last evening with us here—a kind of farewell, you know.”

She tried to smile, though it ended a little miserably, and I could see that she was deeply disappointed, too, but was being brave for our sake. I never knew until long afterward how she herself had worked to solve the mystery.

We obeyed her by abandoning the search—indeed, we must soon have stopped from sheer inability to find anything more to do. We had exhausted our ingenuity and our resources—we were at the end. But all that could not prevent me worrying—it had rather the opposite effect; and night after night I lay awake, wondering where the treasure could be. And though I was careful to lie still and breathe regularly, so that mother might not suspect my wakefulness, it was often all I could do to keep myself from crying out under the torture.

In the afternoons, we rambled about the place, or visited each other; but there was a shadow over us which nothing could lift. One day we even made a little excursion to the range of hills which shut us in upon the west. It was from them, so Mr. Chester said, that we might see the sea over the wide plain which sloped away eastward to it; but we didn’t see it. Perhaps the day was not clear enough, or perhaps the sun was too far west to throw back to us the glint of the water; but I fancy I should not have seen it, however favourable the conditions, for I had eyes for little else than the old house nestling among the trees, two miles away. About it, the broad fields looked like the squares of a great chess-board, dark with new-turned earth, or green with the growing wheat.

Dusk was falling as we started toward home. We were all a little tired and very hungry, and we cut across lots, instead of going around by the road. We skirted a field of wheat, and finally came to the back of the orchard, and silently climbed the fence.

“That’s the rose of Sharon,” I said, pausing for a look at the old gnarled apple-tree. “I wonder if it really could have anything to do with the treasure?”

“Oh, come on, Biffkins,” said Dick, a little crossly. “Don’t you ever get that off your mind?”

“No, I don’t,” I retorted, sharply. “And I don’t see—”

I stopped abruptly, for I fancied I saw a shadow skulking away from us under the trees.

“What is it?” asked Tom, following the direction of my startled gaze.

“I thought I saw somebody,” I said; and in that instant, a terrible conviction flashed through my mind. “It was Silas Tunstall. Quick—this way.”

I was off under the trees, without stopping to think what we should do if it really proved to be that worthy, and I heard the boys pattering after me. We raced on, and in a moment, sure enough, there was the figure, just swinging itself over the orchard fence.

“There; there!” I cried, and the boys saw it, too. In a moment more we were at the fence, and tumbled over it.

But the figure had disappeared. We raced this way and that, but could find no trace of it; and at last we gave it up in disgust, and started back through the orchard.

But the memory of the figure I had seen for an instant silhouetted against the sky, as it mounted the fence, burnt and burnt in my brain—for I was sure that it carried under its arm a square parcel of some sort—and I told myself frantically that it could be only one thing—the treasure.