Evelyn Raymond - The Brass Bound Box

"Oh, Widow Sprigg! Do you believe he can see me, does know, is glad? Do you suppose that right now, while I hold this basket, his basket, up high toward the sky, careful and loving and not afraid, he is looking down and loving, too? Do you?"

Susanna pushed her spectacles very high, indeed, that she might better observe this strange child who now confronted her with gleaming eyes and that exalted expression; and the face startled her. She was not much used to children, and this one was of a sort so novel that she made one uncomfortable. She'd have given "Johnny's girl" the old egg-basket instead of this "meeting" one, could she have foreseen results. But she could and did bring the girl out of the clouds with the exclamation:

"My suz! You're enough to give a body the creeps. All I meant was that Johnny was a good boy and took care. If you want to be like him you'll take care, too. When he didn't take care, it was Moses' business to lick him, an' if you keep him much longer at that lane gate, he'll feel like lickin' you, too. So, off with you."

Katharine lowered the basket. Also, lowered her gaze from the ceiling it had seemed to pierce till it rested on the old woman's face. What she saw there was something very different from what the harsh words had suggested, and, with an impulse of affection, she threw her arms, basket and all, about Susanna's neck and kissed her ecstatically.

Poor Widow Sprigg caught her breath and gasped it back again before her surprise allowed her to say: "There, there, deary, run along. Don't keep Moses waitin' a minute longer. He'll be terrible cross. Yes, you can take Punchy. I'd ruther you'd take him 'an not, for Sir Philip looks peakeder 'n ever to-day. The very sight o' that humbly dog 'pears to make him sick. After you've et your cookies you can put your chestnuts in the basket to fetch 'em home – if you get any."

Moses had lost his patience, as was to be expected, but he soon regained good nature while Katharine related to him all that her father had once told her of the famous Don Quixote for whom he had nicknamed her. Then, in turn, he pointed out to her the old meeting-house and graveyard, long since disused, where the Marsdenites had repaired to take their Sunday lunch.

"But it was so – so funny! So absurd, so sort of – of ghastly, wasn't it? But what a perfectly glorious place for a hallowe'en party – if there was anybody to give a party to. I wish there was somebody to play with, Uncle Moses."

Moses ignored the wish. He was not anxious that Katharine should enlarge her acquaintance, which would mean more trouble for all concerned. He merely continued to discourse upon the ancient customs, of how not only did the people bring their dinners to the church, but the mothers their babies, with rocking-chairs furnished galore by the congregation, and ranged in the roomy vestibule. There the mothers could sway their offspring gently to and fro without losing their own religious privileges or disturbing anybody.

Kate listened in silence till a bend of the road hid the meeting-house from view, then exclaimed:

"I can see the whole picture. I mean to paint it when I grow up. But I shall give the babies cherubic faces, like the old masters, because I suppose most of them are angels now. I hope they know I'm thinking about them, and I wonder if papa sees any of them there, up in heaven. What do you think?"

Even as Susanna had done, the hired man stared at Katharine, saying:

"I think – I don't know what I do think! I think I know some of them babies that grew up to be anything but angels. If they'd been made into angels a little earlier in their lives 'twould ha' been better for Marsden, an' I shouldn't feel it my painful duty to 'rest 'em when I get to be constable – if ever I'm elected," and then Moses sighed so profoundly that Katharine's thoughts flew from this old-time reminiscence to the present day's ambitions. Slipping her hand softly into the one of his that swung at his side, she gave it a little squeeze, and asked:

"Do you awfully want to be a constable? Just awfully, Uncle Mose?"

There was so much of sympathy in the small face at his elbow that Mr. Jones was caught unawares.

"Well, 'Kitty Keehoty,' wild horses wouldn't have drug it out of me to anybody else; but I don't mind lettin' on to you, just you, that I'd admire to be one. I'd like it real well. But, that's nuther here nor there. Likin' things an' havin' 'em is as different as chalk an' cheese. An' here we be to the woods. The best chestnut-trees is yender, the best shellbarks t'other way. 'Tain't time for hickories yet, not till a heavier frost comes, but chestnuts you've got to get early if you get any at all. The squirrels an' boys are smart round this way. Why, 'most every year they gather Eunice's nuts off her own trees, then march up to her front door an' sell 'em to her. Fact. An' the silly woman only laughs an' says she don't begrudge 'em a little pocket-money. An' she don't need. Eunice is real forehanded, Eunice is; and does seem 't the more she gives away the more comes in. Now, I'll cut a saplin'-pole an' thrash a tree for you. Then, whilst I'm choppin' down in that clump of pines over there, you can be pickin' up nuts. Make up your mind to prick your fingers with the burrs. A body has to fight for most anything worth while."

"Oh, if I only had somebody to pick them up with me!" sighed Kate, as she fell to work. Then her thoughts travelled far afield, for a delightful notion had taken possession of her, and her young brain was teeming with a scheme so great it was – well, it was fully worthy of itself.

Almost unconsciously she gathered the fallen chestnuts, scarcely realizing the novelty of the task so absorbed was she in her sudden Quixotic project. Yet, as she groped among the brown leaves at the foot of her tree, her fingers came in contact with something wholly different from chestnuts or their thorny burrs. It was hard as a stone, yet it wasn't a stone. It was half-buried in the leaf-mold and moss, though the rain of the previous night had washed it free in one corner.

That corner glistened so that it dazzled the digger's eyes, and she exclaimed aloud:

"Oh, I've found a gold mine! Right here in Aunt Eunice's woods. I must get this great piece of gold out and take it to her. And I won't tell anybody, not anybody, not even Uncle Moses, till I've told her. For whatever is in her woods must be hers, of course."

Away went the last great scheme, which had been wholly connected with Mr. Jones and his aspirations for town office; and up rose another far more gigantic, by which everybody who was poor, "everybody in the whole wide world," should benefit. For, of course, the mine was to be inexhaustible, and Aunt Eunice would be able to give away money hereafter without stint or measure.

If only she could get out that first great shining lump of gold!

And at last it was out, yet, after all, no gold whatever. Something almost as splendid, though, since this was a mystery. A mystery with a capital M! For if there were no mystery in the matter why should anybody hide that strangely shaped, glittering brass bound box beneath a chestnut-tree?

A moment later Kate had sped through the wood to the spot where Moses was chopping, exclaiming:

"Oh, Mr. Jones, I've got to go home, back to Aunt Eunice's right away, quick. Is there a shorter way than we came, or can I find that by myself? Please tell me, quick, quick!"

Moses paused in his work and looked at the girl in great surprise. None of his fishing-mates, if given such a chance as she had, would have gone home till driven there; for the chestnuts had rattled out of their burrs at a fine rate when he had threshed the trees, and it was impossible that she should have gathered all or even many.