THE
OLD MINE’S SECRET

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

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“There was Dick, waving his hand tauntingly�—page [18]

THE
OLD MINE’S SECRET

BY
EDNA TURPIN
AUTHOR OF “HONEY SWEET,� “PEGGY OF
ROUNDABOUT LANE,� “TREASURE
MOUNTAIN,� ETC.

FRONTISPIECE BY
GEORGE WRIGHT

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1921
All rights reserved

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Copyright, 1921,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1921.
Press of
J. J. Little & Ives Company
New York, U. S. A.

TO
REBECCA BROCKENBROUGH
AND
TERRY LEE ROBERTS

THE OLD MINE’S SECRET

CHAPTER I

“O-O-OH! oh me-e!� Dick made the sigh very sad and pitiful.

His father did not seem to hear it. He tilted his chair farther back, perched his feet on the porch railing, and unfolded his newspaper.

It was a mild April morning, and the Osborne family had drifted out on the porch,—Mr. Osborne with his papers and Mrs. Osborne with her sewing; Sweet William was playing jackstraws with himself, Patsy sat on the steps with her back to the others, especially Dick, who, however, was pitying himself too much to notice her.

“I always get blamed for everything I do,� he said mournfully, “but David——�

“‘House for War: Vote 373 to 50.’� Mr. Osborne read the headline. “That is the answer to the President’s message four days ago. Now the Senate——�

“Father! If you’ll just let me off to-day, I’ll work from school-out till dark every day next week. I certainly will. Father, please——�

“Richard Randolph Osborne! You are to work your assigned part of the garden to-day, to-day, without further pleas for postponement.� Mr. Osborne’s mild voice and red flabby face stiffened with determination. This was not the first week that Dick had neglected his garden task.

“Yes, sir,� Dick answered meekly, wriggling a little. That was all he could do—wriggle a little—because he was made into a sort of merman by having an old Persian shawl wrapped about him, from the waist down. “I think you might let me off,� he persisted in an undertone; “just this one more time. If mother had patched my trousers last night—if she’d let me put on my Sundays now—I could get that hateful old garden worked this morning. I’ve got something else to do to-day, something awfully important.�

“I’m sorry I forgot, son,� said his mother. “I certainly meant to mend them last night. I was reading, and forgot. I wish you had reminded me.� She took quicker stitches and her thread snarled so that she had to break it and begin again. “I am so sorry,� she repeated in the delicious voice that made her words seem as fresh and sweet as the red roses that fell from the mouth of the fairy-tale maiden.

Mrs. Osborne was a dear, sunny-hearted little woman with dark hair, irregular features, and a vivid, eager face. She loved to read; indeed, she could no more resist a book than a toper could refuse a drink, but she was always so sorry and so ashamed when she neglected home duties that every one except the person who suffered from it forgave her freely.

Patsy, Dick’s twin sister, came now to her mother’s defense. “It’s your fault, Dick,� she said. “It’s all your own fault. If you had locked the bookcase door, it would have reminded her there was something to do. And then she would have thought of the trousers.�

“I forgot,� Dick confessed. That put him clearly in the wrong, and made him the crosser. He turned on his sister, growling: “What business is it of yours, miss? You please let my affairs alone and attend to your own. What are you doing, Patsy?�

He tried to wriggle near enough to see, but Patsy made a face at him and ran into the yard. Dick was such a tease! She was not going to tell him that she had decided to be a poet and was composing a wonderful ballad. How surprised he would be when it came out in the Atlantic or St. Nicholas, with her name in big black letters—Pocahontas Virginia Osborne, as it was in the family Bible. Or would she have a pen-name, like ‘Marion Harland’? If she could think of a lovely original name—— But perhaps she had better finish the poem first.

She perched herself in the swing and chewed her pencil and read over the four lines she had written:

“Johnny was a sailor,

He was brave and bold;

He thought he would make an adventure

To find the North Pole.�

She could not think of anything else to say, so she read that over again; and then again. While inspiration tarried, an interruption came. It took the shape of her small brother William with two of his followers—Hop-o-hop, a lame duck that he had adopted when its hen mother pecked it and cast it off, and Scalawag, a sand-colored, bob-tailed stray dog that had adopted him.

“Hey, Patsy! I think I’ll give you a kiss,� announced Sweet William, raising his fair, serious face to hers. “I think I might give you two kisses. You are so sweet. Patsy,� he went on coaxingly, “wouldn’t you want to lend me a pencil? Just one little minute, to make you a picture of a horse.�

“Oh, Sweet William, you’re such a nuisance!� said Patsy. “I’m awfully busy. How can I ever finish this, if you bother me?�

But she gave him pencil and paper, and sat swinging back and forth, looking idly about the spacious yard where the budding oaks made lacelike shadows, on that April morning.

In the center of the yard was a great heap of bricks. That was the remains of Osborne’s Rest, the family mansion that had been burned in a raid during The War, as those southern Virginians called the War of Secession from which they dated everything. Since then, two generations of Osbornes had dwelt in The Roost, a cottage in one corner of the yard. It was now the home of Patsy, her father and mother, her two brothers, Dick and Sweet William, and a motherless cousin, David Spotswood.

The big front gate opened on The Street, the one thoroughfare of The Village. There were a church, a tavern, two shops, a dozen frame and brick dwellings set far back in spacious grounds, and the county Court-house in a square by itself. Behind the Court-house rambled The Back Way which had once expected to become a street, but remained always The Back Way with only a blacksmith’s shop, a basket-maker’s shed, and a few cabins on it.

A century and a half before, three royal-grant estates, Broad Acres and Larkland and Mattoax, cornered at a stone now on Court-house Green. These plantations had long ago been divided into small farms; but in The Village still lived Wilsons and Mayos and Osbornes who counted as outsiders all whose grandfathers were not born in the neighborhood and the kinship.

While we have been looking about, Sweet William lay flat on the ground, holding his tongue between his teeth, to assist his artistic efforts.

“Look at my horse, Patsy!� he crowed, holding up the paper.

“Hm-m! I don’t call that much like a horse,� observed Patsy.

Sweet William’s face clouded, and then brightened. “Tell you what!� he said. “It’ll be a cow. I’ll kick out one hind leg and put a bucket here. Now! She’s spilt all the milk.�

Patsy laughed; and then one knew that she was pretty, seeing the merry crinkles around her twinkling hazel eyes, and the upward curve of her lips that brought out dimples on her freckled pink cheeks.

“I love you when you laugh, Patsy!� exclaimed Sweet William, hugging her knees. “You may have my picture. And I’ll sit in the swing with you.�

“You and Scalawag and Hop-o-hop may have the swing,� said Patsy. “I’m going in. I’ll finish my poem to-morrow. I want to find out—I think Dick has a secret.�

She jumped out of the swing, gave Sweet William’s ear a “love pinch,� and strolled back to the porch.

“Dick,� she asked in an offhand way, “what are you going to do with that candle you got this morning?�

Dick’s gloom relaxed and he winked tantalizingly.

“You wish you knew,� he said. “But—you’ll—never—find—out. Ah, ha-a-a!�

“Don’t you tell, Mister Dick!� said Patsy. “I don’t want you to tell. I’d rather find out for myself. And I certainly will find out, sir. You just see if I don’t.�

Mr. Osborne still had his nose in his day-old paper; news younger than that seldom, came to The Village. “‘Army plans call for a million men the first year.’ That is a gigantic undertaking, Miranda, and—�

“It certainly is,� she agreed placidly. “Mayo, Black Mayo has bought some more pigeons; and Polly says he’ll not tell what he paid for them, so she knows it’s some absurd sum that he can’t afford.�

“Yes.� Her husband agreed absently. “And a million men means not only men, but arms, equipment, food. Bless my life! Is that clock striking—it can’t be!—is it ten? And I here instead of at the Court-house.� He got up and stuffed the newspaper and a Congressional Record in his pocket.

“What are you going to do, dear?� asked his wife.

“We want to find out if the Board of Supervisors can appropriate money to send our Confederate veterans to the Reunion in June. There have been so many unusual expenses, bridges washed away and that smallpox quarantine, that funds are low. I hope they can raise the requisite amount.�

“Of course they will. They must,� Mrs. Osborne said quickly and positively. “Why, the yearly reunion—seeing old comrades, being heroized, recalling the glorious past—is the one bright spot in their gray old lives.�

“Mr. Tavis and Cap’n Anderson were talking about the Reunion at the post office yesterday,� said Dick. “They are just crazy about having it in Washington. Cap’n has never been there. But he was telling how near he and old Jube Early came to it, in ’64.�

“What an experience it will be, taking peaceful possession in old age of the Capital they campaigned against when they were soldier boys, over fifty years ago!� said Mrs. Osborne. “Certainly they must go. How many are there, Mayo?�

“Nine in our district,� answered her husband. “Last year there were sixteen. Three have died, and four are bedridden.�

“Ah! so few are left; so many have passed on.� Mrs. Osborne glanced through the open door at a portrait, her father in a colonel’s gray uniform. “Of course they must go, our nine old soldiers.�

“Sure!� said Dick. “If there isn’t money enough, we boys can help raise it. Mr. Tavis says he’ll pay me to plant corn, afternoons and Saturdays. I wasn’t thinking about doing it. But our old Confeds mustn’t miss their Reunion.�

“Good boy! that’s the right spirit,� exclaimed Mrs. Osborne.

She adored the memory of her gallant father and of the Confederate cause to which he had devoted himself. The quiet, uneventful years had brought no new deep, inspiring interests to the little Southern community. Its love and loyalty clung to the past. To the children the Lost Cause was a tradition as heroic and romantic as the legends of Roland and Arthur; but it was a tradition linked to reality by the old gray-clad men who had fought with Lee and Jackson. As Jones and Tavis and Walthall, they were ordinary old men, rather tiresome and absurd; but call them “Confederate veterans� and they were transformed to heroes whom it was an honor to serve. Dick, shirking the work that meant food for his family, would toil gladly to send them to their Reunion.

“They must have this, perhaps their last—�

Mrs. Osborne paused, and her husband said: “We’ll manage it; we’ll manage it somehow. If there is a deficit, we may be able to make it up by private subscription. Perhaps I’ll get a case next term of court, and can make a liberal contribution.� He laughed.

Mr. Osborne—called Red Mayo to distinguish him from a dark-haired cousin of the same name, called Black Mayo—was a lawyer more by profession than by practice; there were not enough law crumbs in The Village, he said, to support a sparrow.

He strolled toward the Court-house while Mrs. Osborne took her last hurried stitches. Then she handed the patched trousers to her son, who rolled indoors and put them on. He went into the garden and gloomily eyed the neglected square where peas and potatoes and onions were merely green lines among crowding weeds.

“I certainly can’t finish it this morning,� he growled. “There’s too much to do.�

“If you work hard, you can finish by sundown,� said his cousin, David Spotswood, who was planting a row of beets on the other side of the garden.

“I can’t work after dinner,� said Dick. “I’ve got something else to do. I just can’t finish it to-day.�

“You’d better,� said Patsy, who had followed him into the garden. “When father says ‘Richard’ and shuts his mouth—so! he means business. Say, Dick! What were you getting that candle for? What are you going to do? Let us go with you, Anne Lewis and me, and I’ll help you here.�

“You help!� Dick spoke in his most superior masculine manner. “Girls haven’t any business in gardens. They ought to stay in the house and make bed-quilts. They’re too afraid of dirty hands and freckled faces.�

Patsy flared up and answered so quickly that her words stepped on one another’s heels. “That’s mean and unfair! You know I hate gloves and bonnets, and I just wear them because mother makes me. But anyway, sir, I think they’re nicer than great-grandmother’s shawl for trousers.�

She went back up the boxwood-bordered walk.

“I’ll keep my eyes on you, Mr. Richard Randolph Osborne,� she said to herself. “Where you go to-day, I’ll follow.�

Halfway up the long walk, she came upon Sweet William, sitting on the ground, holding a maple bough over his head.

“Won’t you come to our picnic, Patsy?� he said. “Me and Scalawag are having a loverly picnic in the woods down by Tinkling Water.�

“No, thank you,� said Patsy. “I want to see Anne Lewis about going somewhere after dinner.�

“Where?� asked Sweet William.

“I don’t know—till I find out,� laughed Patsy. “But Anne and I will do that; we certainly will.�

“I wish Anne was staying here,� Sweet William said wistfully.

“So do I,� agreed Patsy. “Easter holiday is too short to divide with Ruth. Oh! I’ll be so glad when it’s summer and Anne comes to stay a long time.�

“It isn’t ever a long time where Anne is,� said Sweet William. “I’m going with you to see her, Patsy, and I’ll have my picnic another day.�

They went off and left Dick raking and weeding and hoeing very diligently; but, working his best, he had not half finished his task when the dinner bell rang. He surveyed the garden with a scowl.

“It’ll take hours and hours to get it done,� he said. “And then it would be too late to go where I’m going. Maybe I can work the potato patch after supper.�

“You can’t,� said David, who had a straightforward way of facing facts.

“Oh! maybe I can,� said Dick, who had a picturesque way of evading them. “You might help me. You might work on it awhile after dinner.�

“Thank you! I’ve something else to do. I’m going to harrow my corn acre. I want to plant it next week,� said David, who was a blue-ribbon member of the Boys’ Corn Club.

At the dinner table the boys were joined by Sweet William, Patsy, and Anne Lewis, a cousin who was spending her Easter holiday in The Village. The two girls watched Dick like hawks, and jumped up from the table as soon as he went out of the dining room. He hurried to the little upstairs room he shared with David that was called the “tumble-up room� because the steps were so steep. Presently he came down and showed off the things he was putting in his pockets—a candle, a box of matches, and a ball of stout twine. He sharpened his hatchet and fastened it to his belt.

“Yah! You wish you knew what that’s for,� he said, with a derisive face at Patsy and then at Anne.

He strutted across the yard toward the front gate, but he was not to march off in undisturbed triumph.

“Dick! uh Dick!� called his mother. “Remember you’ve your garden work to finish.�

“Yes’m.� He scowled, then he said doggedly: “There’s something else I’ve promised myself to do first.�

Anne and Patsy waited only to see that he turned up, not down, The Street; then they ran around The Back Way and came out just behind him at the church; there The Street turned to a road which led past the mill and on to Redville. Dick walked quickly, and the girls hurried after him; then he walked slowly, and they loitered so as to keep just behind him.

“Where are you going?� he turned and challenged them.

“Oh! we might go to the mill to see Cousin Giles, or to Larkland to look at Cousin Mayo’s new pigeons, or to Happy Acres,� answered Patsy.

Dick strode on, and the girls trotted behind him, making amicable efforts at conversation.

“Steve Tavis has gone fishing with John and Baldie Eppes,� Anne remarked. “He said we girls might go, too. But Patsy and I thought there might be something—something more fun to do.�

No answer.

Patsy made an effort. “Dick,� she said, “I hope you’ll finish your garden work to-day. Father’s tired of excuses and he’s made up his mind for punishing. But even if we do get home late, I can help you.�

Silence.

“It’s a mighty nice day,� Patsy went on pleadingly, “to—to do outdoor things. You say yourself I’m as good as a boy to have around. I wouldn’t be in the way at all; and I could hold the candle for you.�

By this time they were at the mill where the Larkland road and the Happy Acres path turned from the highway. Dick kept to the main road and the girls followed. He stopped and faced them.

“You said you were going to the mill, or Larkland, or Happy Acres. Trot along!�

“I said we might go there,� Patsy amended. “Or we might go—’most anywhere. Do let us go with you; please, Dick.�

“Where?�

“Oh! wherever you are going. We’ll not tell.�

“You certainly will not,� he declared; “for a mighty good reason: you are not going to know anything to tell.�

Patsy’s eyes flashed. “We’ll show you,� she said. “We are going to follow you, like your shadow. You know good and well I can run as fast as you. Now take your choice, sir; let us go with you, or give up and toddle home and finish your task so as not to get punished.�

“Hm!� he jeered. “If I’ve got something on hand good enough to take punishment for, it’s too good to spoil with girls tagging along.�

He walked briskly up the road. Anne and Patsy followed him for a silent mile—up and down hills scarred with red gulleys, through woods, by brown plowed fields and green grain land. They passed several log cabins; the Spencer place, an old mansion amid tumbled-down out-buildings; Gordan Jones’s trim new house gay with gables and fresh paint. Then they came to an old farmhouse surrounded by neglected fields.

“Why, that door’s open!� Anne remarked with surprise. “Is somebody living at the old Tolliver place?�

“A new man; Mr. Smith. He came here last winter,� explained Patsy.

“Somebody new in the neighborhood!� laughed Anne. “Doesn’t that seem queer? What sort of folks are they?�

“Um-mm; unfolksy,� said Patsy. “There’s just Mr. Smith, and his nephew Albert that goes to our school. We’ve never got acquainted with Albert. He’s sort of stand-offish; not as if he wanted to be, but as if he were afraid.�

“Afraid of what?� asked Anne.

“Oh! I don’t know. Nothing. I reckon he’s just shy.�

“What sort of man is Mr. Smith?� inquired Anne.

“Ugly; and grins. He’s away from home most of the time. He’s a salesman or agent of some kind. Dick,� Patsy returned to a more interesting subject, “do please tell us what you are going to do.�

“We-ell,� Dick began as if he were about to yield reluctantly; then he interrupted himself eagerly: “Oh! look at that squirrel!�

Their eyes followed his pointing finger, and crying, “Easy marks!� he darted into a dense thicket of pines on the other side of the road. The girls followed quickly, but he made good use of his moment’s start and they caught only glimpses of him here and there behind the trees.

“Run, Anne!� Patsy called presently. “To the left. Here! Let’s head him off!�

They ran around a thick clump of pines to meet him—and he was not there. He did not seem to be anywhere. He had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed him.

“We may as well give up,� Anne sighed at last.

“Yes,� Patsy agreed reluctantly. “I reckon he’s miles away by this time.�

Crestfallen and disappointed, they went back to the road and started slowly down the hill.

Then a red-brown head rose out of a heap of pine brush, so cautiously that it did not disturb the woodpecker drumming on a nearby stump. A pair of merry brown eyes watched the girls till they were at a safe distance; then Dick, to the terror and hasty flight of the woodpecker, scrambled out of the brush heap.

“Cock-a-doodle-doo-oo-oo!� he called deridingly.

Anne and Patsy started and looked back.

“There he is!� groaned Patsy.

Yes, there he was, standing in the middle of the road, waving his hand tauntingly.

“Shall we chase him again?� asked Anne.

“Yes,� said Patsy; and then: “No, it’s no use. He’s too far away; before we could get halfway up the hill, he’d be out of sight again.�

“Oh, well!� laughed Anne. “We don’t care, Patsy-pet. Let’s go to Happy Acres and see what flowers are in bloom.�

They went back to Larkland mill that had been a mill ever since The Village had been a village; crossed a foot bridge over Tinkling Water; and followed the path to the woodland nook they called Happy Acres. Long ago a house had been there, and persistent garden bulbs and shrubs gave beauty and fragrance to the place. One spring, Anne had adopted it and christened it Happy Acres, and she and her friends had made it a little woodland park that was a joy to all the neighborhood. It was fragrant now with a blossoming plum-tree and gay with the pink and scarlet of flowering almond and japonica.

Anne and Patsy plucked a few sprays to carry home the beauty of it, and started down the path for a little visit to their cousin, Giles Spotswood, the miller.

Patsy, who was in front, stopped suddenly. “What’s that?� she whispered.

“It sounds like men quarreling,� Anne whispered back. “Who on earth—�

“Look there!�

Anne crept to Patsy’s side and peeped through the bushes. There were two men on the roadside. One was their cousin, Black Mayo Osborne.

“Who’s that man?� asked Anne.

“Mr. Smith; the new man at the Tolliver place.�

“Ugh! he’s horrid! snarling like a spiteful cur dog!� exclaimed Anne.

The stranger was indeed odd and unpleasant-looking. He had long loose-jointed limbs and such a short body that it seemed as if its only function was to hold his head and limbs together. The two sides of his blond face were quite unlike. The left side was handsome with its straight brow and wide blue eye; but the right eye, half hidden by its drooping lid, slanted outward and down, the tip of the nose turned toward the bulging right nostril, and the mouth drooped at the right corner and ended in a heavy downward line.

“Easy! go easy, my German friend!� Black Mayo’s voice rang out clear and mocking.

“I am not a German; that am I not!� screamed Smith. “I am an American citizen. I can my papers show. I am more American than you. What are your peoples here? Ach! what do they? This morning they did the last cent out of their treasury take, the expenses of old traitors and rebels to pay—�

The sentence was not finished. A quick blow from the shoulder stretched him on the ground.

“Hey! lie there a minute!� cried Black Mayo, with an impish light twinkling in his dark eyes. “Listen! Here’s a tune you’ve got to respect in this part of the world.� He whistled “Dixie� with vim and vigor, over and over again. Then he stepped aside and held out his hand, saying: “Ah, well! You didn’t know any better. Forget it!�

The man glared up at him, without a word.

“Oh! if that’s the way you feel about it—� Mr. Osborne laughed, shrugged his shoulders, and, still whistling “Dixie,� took the road that led to his home at Larkland.

Mr. Smith scrambled to his feet and looked after Black Mayo, from under down-drawn brows, with his thin wide lips writhing like serpents; then he went limping up the road.

The girls turned white amazed faces to each other.

“Ugh!� said Patsy. “Let’s go home. Do—do you reckon he’ll hurt Cousin Mayo?�

“Of course not. He can’t. How can he?� said Anne. After a pause she added: “He certainly will if he can.�

CHAPTER II

EXULTING at the way he had diddled the girls, Dick pranced along the Redville road. He did not meet any one, for it was a fair spring day and the country people were busy; but he saw men and boys he knew, plowing and grubbing, hallooing to their teams and to one another.

About two miles from The Village, Dick turned off on the Old Plank Road. Twenty years before, this had been a highway going through The Village, on its long way to Richmond. Then the railroad was built. It wanted to come through The Village, between court-house and church, but the people rose up in arms. They did not want shrieking, grinding trains, to scare horses and bring in outsiders, nor an iron track parting their homes from their graves in the churchyard. So the railroad went by Redville that was six miles from The Village in summer and three or four times as far in the winter season of ruts and red mud.

After the railway was built, however, the road by Redville station became the thoroughfare; the Old Plank Road was seldom traveled except by negroes who lived in clearings in the Big Woods that covered miles of the rocky, infertile ridge land.

Dick was near one of these clearings, a patch of stumpy land around a log cabin, when he heard a voice calling loudly, “Whoa! Gee! Whoa, I say!�

An old negro was coming up the hill, in a cart drawn by bony, long-horned oxen.

“Hey, Unc’ Isham!� said Dick. “What are you making such a racket for?�

Isham Baskerfield jumped nervously; but when he recognized the speaker, he grinned and said: “Howdy, little marster! howdy! I was jest talkin’ to my oxes. I tuk ’em down to de creek to gin ’em some water.�

“You sounded scared,� commented Dick. “And you looked scared, too.�

“Skeered? Course I aint skeered. Huccome I be skeered?� Isham replied loudly. Then he mumbled: “I aint nuver liked to go down dis road since dat old man—Whar you gwine, Marse Dick?� he interrupted himself. “Don’t you fool ’round dat lowermos’ cabin. Dat’s�—he breathed the name in a whisper—“Solomon Gabe’s house, dat is. An’ he can shore cunjer folks.�

Dick laughed. “So that’s what you are afraid of. You—�

“Sh—sh, little marster!� The old negro looked around, as if afraid of being overheard. He stopped his oxcart in front of his cabin. “I got to git my meal bag,� he said. “Lily Belle emptied it to make a hoecake for dinner, so I got to go to mill an’ git some corn ground ’fore supper time. I don’t worry ’bout nothin’ long as my meal bag can stan’ up for itself, but when it lays down I got to stir about. What you doin’, Marse Dick, strayin’ so fur from home?�

“Oh! I’m just strolling ’round,� Dick answered vaguely.

“Umph! When I fust see you, I thought you mought be gwine fishin’; but you aint got no fishin’ pole.�

“No use to carry a pole in the woods, when you’ve got a knife,� said Dick. “Where is a good place to go?�

“Uh! any o’ dem holes in Mine Creek below de ford,� said the old man; “taint good fishin’ ’bove thar.�

“O. K.!� said Dick. “If I catch more fish than I can carry, I’ll leave you what I can’t tote home.�

“Yas, suh; yas, suh! I reckon you will,� chuckled the old negro.

Dick went on down the road. But his merry whistle died on his lips as he passed Solomon Gabe’s cabin.

It stood, like a dark, poisonous fungus, under low-branching evergreens in a dank, somber hollow a little away from the road. The squat old log hovel had not even a window; the door stood open, not hospitably, but like the yawning mouth of a pit.

Dick ran on down the road and came presently to Mine Creek, a little stream straggling along a rocky, weed-fringed bed. Near the ford, there was a pile of rotting logs and fallen stones that had once been a cabin. He left the road here, but he did not take Isham’s advice and go down Mine Creek. Instead, he went up stream, following a vague old path that presently crossed the creek and climbed a little hill. There was a small enclosure fenced in with rotting rails. In and around the enclosure were piles of earth and broken stones of such ancient date that saplings and even trees were growing on them.

Dick paused on the hilltop and looked around cautiously. No one was in sight; and all was still except for the chatter of squirrels and the drumming of woodpeckers. He jumped over the old fence and advanced to the edge of a well-like opening. Again he stopped and looked around. Then he took out of his pocket a ball of string. He tied a stone to one end of it; dropped the stone into the hole; played out his line until it rested on the bottom; and tied a knot in the string at the ground level.

Then he went into the woods and cut down a hickory sapling; he measured it with his line and cut it off at the top; and trimmed the branches, leaving stout prongs at intervals of about eighteen inches. Every now and then, he stopped and looked about, to make sure that he was not observed. After nearly an hour’s work, he finished an improvised ladder which he carried to the hole and slid over the edge. Then with a final sharp lookout, he descended.

He found himself in a pit about ten feet in diameter, heaped knee-deep with twigs and leaves swept there by winds of many winters. At one side there was an opening four feet wide and five or six feet high, the mouth of a tunnel that was roofed with logs supported on the sides by stout rough timbers.

Dick lighted his candle and started down this tunnel. But after a few steps he turned back, set down his candle, and pulled his ladder into the hole.

“Now,� he said. “Anybody’s welcome to look in here. I reckon they’ll not find little Dick.�

He picked up his candle and went along the tunnel. Now and then it dropped down abruptly, but there were timbers and old ladders that made the way passable. At last the tunnel broadened into a room about thirty feet square and high enough to stand upright in. This room also was roofed with logs and poles propped by stout timbers of white oak. Here and there were heaps of earth and stones and piles of rotting timbers; on the left side there was another tunnel.

Dick hesitated a minute, then he muttered: “I reckon I’ll find it here. But I’ll look around first.�

He followed the lower tunnel. It, too, slanted downward, but it was longer than the upper one and had several short spurs. It ended in a pit a dozen feet deep, that had an old ladder in it. Dick climbed down and looked around, then he went back to the main room and began examining the clay and stone between the supporting timbers.

“It certainly seems as if they would have left some,� he said earnestly to himself. “I ought to see little bits sparkling somewhere. If they were ever so little, they would show me where to work.�

His tour of investigation brought him at last to a corner where there was a heap of earth and stones. He scrambled on top of the mound,—and, in a twinkling, he landed at the bottom of a hole.

For a minute he was stunned. Then he staggered to his feet, lighted the candle which had been extinguished in his fall, and looked around. He had fallen into a pit ten or twelve feet deep—probably an opening of the mine that had been abandoned with the failure of a vein that was being followed. The place had been covered with a layer of logs and poles on top of which earth and stones had been thrown. The rotting timbers—how many years they had been there!—had given way under his weight.

How was he to get out? The walls of the pit, stone in one place and clay on the other sides, were steep, almost perpendicular.

After considering awhile, he set his candle on a projecting rock, took out his knife, and dug some crannies for finger-holds and toe-holds, to serve as a ladder. But when he put his weight in them and tried to climb up, the clay slipped under his feet and he slid back. He made the holes larger and deeper, but after he mounted two or three steps he slid back again; and again; and again. At last he gave up this plan. Anyway, if he could climb to the top, how could he get out? He had crashed through the middle of the pit, and the broken downward-slanting poles barred the sides.

Must he stay here and wait for help to come? Help? What help? No one knew where he was. Oh! how he regretted now his careful plans to put every one off the trail. Anne and Patsy could only say that they had last seen him on the main road to Redville. And Isham thought he had gone down Mine Creek.

If only he had left the ladder in place, there would be a chance that when they missed him and made search, they would look in the mine. But he had taken that chance away from himself by pulling the ladder into the pit.

He must dig his way out. He must! There was no other way of escape. He selected a place that seemed free from rocks, and began to hack at the wall. He toiled till his arms ached and his hands were sore and blistered. It was a slow and painful task, but he was making progress. He piled up loose rocks and stood on tiptoe, so as to reach higher on the wall. In spite of his weariness and his tormented hands, his spirits rose.

“A tight place like this is lots of fun—after you get out. Won’t Dave and Steve pop their eyes when I tell ’em about it?�

He laughed and, with renewed vigor, drove his knife into the hard clay. There was a sharp scratch and a snap. Something fell, click! on a stone. It was his knife blade, broken against a rock that extended shelf-like above him, and formed an impassable barrier. All these hours of work and pain were wasted. He must begin again and dig out in another place; or try to, and perhaps run against rock again. And with this broken knife!

He groaned and looked around.

“O-oh!� he gave a sharp, startled cry. His candle! Only an inch of it was left. Oh! he must get out! How terrible it would be here in the pitch-black, shut-in dark!

He seized a broken bit of timber for a makeshift spade, and gave a hurried stroke. Alas! The old timber snapped in two, bruising and cutting his hands cruelly. He threw aside the useless fragment and then, as if he had lost the power of motion, he stood staring at his bit of candle that shortened with every passing second.

He pulled himself together. He must view every foot, every inch of the pit, so that he could work to purpose in the dark, not just dig, dig, dig, and get nowhere. He scrutinized the wall, noting every angle and projection; then he looked up, and studied the position of every log, every broken pole. For the first time, he observed a log that did not extend across the pit; its end was about two feet from the wall. Ah! perhaps, perhaps—

He jerked the string out of his pocket, made a slip noose, and threw it at the end of the log; the noose fell short. He threw it again; and again it went aside. The next time, it caught a broken pole, and to get it off he had to poke and push with a piece of timber for two or three minutes—minutes that seemed hours as he glanced fearfully at the flickering candle. He threw the noose again; and at last it went over the log. He tried to pull it along. He wanted to get it near the middle, free of the broken poles, and pull himself up by it, if—oh! how he prayed it was!—stout enough to bear his weight; but now it was fast on a knot and he could not move it.

He glanced at the candle. It was a mere bit of wick in a gob of grease; every flicker threatened to be its last. He could not wait any longer! he must do something! something! He would pull himself up to the end of the log and try to break through the poles.

As he pulled, the log began to move. Ah! If he could pull the end into the pit, it would be a bridge to climb out on. He jerked with all his might, and it moved, slid, slipped downward; the end caught against a projecting rock about four feet from the top; there it held fast.

The candle flame flared and dropped and—no, it was not out; not yet.

Dick jumped up and caught hold of the log. The movement fanned the failing light; it spurted and went out. No matter now! He had firm hold of the log. He scrambled up on it and managed presently to push and pull himself between the broken poles. At last, at last, thank Heaven! he was out of that awful pit.

He staggered along, feeling his way by the wall, making one ascent after another, until a light glimmered before him and he reached the entrance well. He raised his ladder and climbed out. Then his strength gave way. He dropped down on a pile of leaves at the mine entrance, and lay there, gazing blankly at the blue sky shining beyond the fretwork of budding branches.

Suddenly he began to laugh. He sat up and slapped his knees. “I’ll pass it on to them,� he said. “I’ll cover up that hole, and I’ll take Dave and Steve there—after I find it—and let them tumble in without a light. Then I’ll go off and pretend I don’t hear them, and—oh! I’ll let them stay there long enough for them to think, to feel—� His face was suddenly solemn. “I might have stayed there and died. Died!�

He got up and dragged the ladder out, and hid it under the leaves piled against the fence.

“I reckon I ought not to expect to find it right away,� he sighed. “I’ve got to keep on looking and looking and looking. And I say I will! But I need some real tools. A knife, specially a broken one, isn’t much force for mining.�

He went toward home, but he was in no hurry to complete the journey at the end of which were his unfinished task and his father. Instead of going down The Street, he took The Back Way behind the Court-house, and slipped around the corner of the blacksmith shop.

Mr. Mallett, the blacksmith, with only his corncob pipe for company, was sitting in a chair tilted against the door jamb of the grimy log cabin. He was a vivacious little man with blue eyes and dark hair, and a face that would have been sallow if it had been visible under the grime. All the Village boys liked to loaf at his shop, but Dick had now a special reason for visiting him.

“Mr. Mallett—� Dick began.

The smith started. “You young imp!� he exclaimed. “What do you mean by jumping at me, sudden as a jack-in-the-box? I wasn’t thinking ’bout you—and here you are, close enough to hear my very thoughts. I never see such a boy. Why, what’s the matter with your face?�

“I fell down. It got scratched,� Dick explained briefly. “Mr. Mallett, I was thinking about the Old Sterling Mine, near your great-grandfather’s shop. Do you reckon it was silver, real silver, he got there?�

“Do I reckon? No, I don’t! I know it, sure and certain as I’m setting here in this chair, smoking my corncob pipe. Aint I heard my father tell time and again what his granddad told him? Why, my father could remember him good. He was a little quick man with blue eyes and black hair—we all get our favor from him. He never did learn to talk like folks over here; he always mixed his words and gave ’em curious-sounding twists. He come from France, one of Lafayette’s soldiers he was.�

“Why didn’t he go back with Lafayette?� asked Dick. “I should think he’d have been lonesome here, away from his own home and folks.�

“Certainly he was lonesome,� said Mr. Mallett. “My father said, when he was old and child-like, he’d set in the corner, jabbering French by the hour, with tears dripping down his face.�

“I don’t see why he stayed here,� persisted Dick.

“He just stayed and kept staying,� said the smith. “Maybe that old silver mine had something to do with it. He was always expecting to get out a fortune. He come with the Frenchers to chase Cornwallis, and they stopped here, two or three days, to mend shoes and get victuals.

“The old Mr. Osborne that owned Larkland in them days see what a good blacksmith my great-grandad was, and told him when the war was over to come back here and he should have a home. So he did, and the squire helped him get some of the old glebe land, and he married Mr. Osborne’s overseer’s daughter. He had a smithy on the Old Plank Road by Mine Creek. I reckon you know the place.�

Dick nodded. He did not say he had been there that very afternoon.

“And he found silver on that hill. My grand-daddy used to tell us children about seeing his father getting silver out of the ground and beating it on his anvil with his sledge hammer. And Black Mayo that’s always finding out something ’bout everything, he found them old reecord papers.�

“And they proved about the silver mine?� asked Dick.

“Certainly they did,� asserted Mr. Mallett. “Would folks try a man in law court for making money out of silver he didn’t have? Great-granddad didn’t deny making of it. He just said he wasn’t making no false coins. He was hammering out sterling pure silver. That’s why they call it the Sterling Mine. And he was making pieces like Spanish six shilling pieces—our folks counted money by shillings in them days—and was giving them, in place of what they called alloy; he was giving better and purer money than the law. And what could folks say to that? Why, nothing; for it was the truth.�

“And so they didn’t punish him?� asked Dick.

“Punish him? What for? For doing better than the law of the land? No, sirree!�

“I don’t reckon he got out all the silver,� said Dick, more to himself than to Mr. Mallett.

“Course not! Some was got out in my father’s day, by the Mr. Mayo that owned the land before The War.�

“How did they get it out?� asked Dick.

“Dug it out with tools, of course. Aint there the old picks and sledges and things, setting there in that shed, that my father made for them? And Mr. Mayo—�

“Are they—�

Dick tried to interrupt, but Mr. Mallett went on with what he had to say: “He aint made much out of it. They say it was what they call ‘free silver’, and great-granddad chanced to strike where it was rich. It petered out, and silver was so scarce and the rock so hard it didn’t pay to work the mine. Some folks say that. There was a tale that the manager wasn’t trying to make it pay; he wanted to get the mine for himself. He tried to buy it. But he didn’t. He died. Anyway, The War came, and ’twasn’t worked any more.�

“Yes.� Dick accepted the fact that The War ended everything, even the worth of the silver mine. “It does seem, if it was real silver, we could see it there now,� he said thoughtfully.

“Shucks!� Mr. Mallett got up and knocked the ashes out of his pipe. “Course they took out all in sight. Folks would have to dig for any more they got.�

“And the tools; will you—� Dick checked himself. If he asked for the tools now, Mr. Mallett would guess what he was planning to do and somehow all The Village would know before sunset. He must wait and manage to get them, without betraying his purpose.

Mr. Mallett was looking at the westering sun. “Fayett ought to be home,� he said. “He went to Redville, and he was to be back in time to help me with a little work.�

“Fayett!� exclaimed Dick. “Why, I didn’t know he came home for Easter.�

“Yes,� said Mr. Mallett. “He’s mighty stirred up ’bout this war. What have we got to do with Europe’s war that started with the killing of a little prince in a country I’d never heard tell of? But Fayett’s got a notion in his head— Here! I’ve got to fix some rivets. Don’t you want to blow the bellows?�

“I wish I had time,� said Dick. “I’ve got to go home. I—I haven’t finished my garden work.�

“Then I reckon you’ll save it for another day,� said the smith. “Sun’s ’most down.�

Its long rays lay like a red-gold band across The Street, as Dick started home, wishing—too late!—that he had finished his garden task and postponed his adventuring to another day. Seeing his father on the porch, the truant slipped behind the boxwood at the edge of the walk. But Mr. Osborne called, “Dick!� and then more sternly, “Richard!�

It was useless to pretend not to hear.

“Sir!� Dick answered meekly.

“Have you completed your garden work?�

“Not—not quite, sir,� said Dick. “I am just going to it now, sir. I can get a lot done before dark. And I’ll get up soon Monday morning, and finish it, sir, indeed I will.�

“My son,—� Mr. Osborne spoke in a magisterial voice and took Dick by the arm.

Just then the front gate clicked, and Black Mayo came up the walk.

“War has been declared,� he said without a word of greeting. “War! The United States has declared war with Germany.�

Red Mayo dropped Dick’s arm. “How’d you hear?�

“I met Fayett Mallett coming from Redville. He’d heard the news, if we can call it news. We knew it was coming.�

“Of course; it was inevitable. We knew that the minute we read the President’s War Message. He held off as long as he could.�

“Yes. Now the War Resolution has passed Congress and the President has signed it.�

Dick stood listening a minute, then slipped indoors just as his mother came out.

“What are you talking about?� she asked. “What is the matter?�

“War!� said her husband. “The United States is in the War, Miranda.�

Sweet William was at his mother’s elbow. He spoke in a puzzled little voice. “I thought The War was done. I thought the Confedacy was overrun.�

“This is another war, son,� laughed Mr. Osborne. “This is war with Germany.�

CHAPTER III

JUST then Emma came to the door. Emma was the Osbornes’ old servant, brown and plump as one of her own baked apple dumplings, and as much a part of the family as the tall clock in “the chamber.�

“Supper is ready, Miss M’randa, an’ you-all come right away, please’m,� she said. “De muffins is light as a feather. Come on an’ butter ’em. If you-all will live on corn bread, please’m eat it hot.�

“Poor Emma!� laughed Mrs. Osborne. “She cannot reconcile herself to our food program.�

“I tell Emma ’bout the Belgians,� complained Sweet William. “But she says ‘them folks is too far off for her to bother ’bout; corn bread don’t set good on her stomach; and she’s going to eat what she likes, long as she can get it.’ And, mother, she has light bread and hot biscuits for herself every day, and—�

“Sh-sh, son boy!� said Mrs. Osborne. “Emma doesn’t know any better, and we do. Come, Mayo, and Mayo. Come to the hot corn muffins!�

“I ought to go home,� said Black Mayo. “Polly’ll be expecting me.�

“Indeed she will not,� said Mrs. Osborne. “Polly never expects you till she sees you coming in the gate. How is she, and how are your pigeons? I understand they are a part of your family now. Of course you’ll stay to supper, Mayo. Patsy, tell Emma to put another plate on the table.�

A visit from their Cousin Mayo, always a delight, was now especially welcome to Dick because it postponed, perhaps prevented, a disagreeable interview with his father. He slipped to his place and quietly devoted himself to the hot muffins, cold ham, and damson preserves.

“Why, Dick! What have you done to your face?� asked his mother.

“Nothing. It got scratched,� he mumbled, glancing at his father.

But Mr. Osborne was not thinking of the garden; he was about to present to his family an amazing piece of news. He prepared for it by an impressive “Ahem!� with his eyes fixed on Black Mayo.

“A client came to my office to-day,� he said solemnly.

“Really, Mayo!� exclaimed his wife.

“What is a client?� asked Sweet William.

“Who disturbed the hoary dust of your sanctum?� asked Black Mayo.

“Well may you inquire!� said the Village lawyer. “You are responsible for his coming.�

“I?� There was a look of blank astonishment, followed by a peal of laughter. “You don’t mean to say that scoundrel Smith—�

“Yes. He wants to take action against you for assault and battery.�

“What is a client?� Sweet William asked again.

“What in the world are you talking about?� inquired Mrs. Osborne.

“Oh, I reckon I know.� Patsy eagerly aired her knowledge. “That Smith, the new man at the Tolliver place, quarreled with Cousin Mayo, and Cousin Mayo knocked him down. We saw it, Anne and I.�

“Oh, Princess Pocahontas! Are you and Lady Anne taking the witness stand against me?� Black Mayo said in mock reproach. “Well, it’s true.�

Mrs. Osborne gave a little exclamation of horror. “Oh, Mayo!� she said, frowning at her husband. “I’ve begged you not to let outside people buy land around here. And now Mayo’s had to knock one of them down.�

“But, Miranda dear, when a man sells his farm and the purchaser comes to get me to look up the title—�

“You just ought to tell him we don’t want him here,� said Mrs. Osborne. “What is the use of being a lawyer if you can’t put some law on outsiders to keep them from spoiling The Village?�

The two men laughed.

Then Black Mayo said: “I suppose he told you about it, Mayo. The ‘I saids’ and ‘he saids’?�

“Yes; oh, yes!�

“H’m! I hope you’ll make him pay you a good fat fee for the case.�

“Fee!� Red Mayo stared in amazement. “Assuredly you don’t think I’d accept his dirty money! Case! I informed him he had none.�

“But I did knock him down.�

“Of course you did. When he repeated what he said, I’d have knocked him down myself, if he hadn’t been in my own office. I told him if The Village heard such talk, he’d be tarred and feathered and drummed out of the community. Then I ordered him out of my office.�

“And that is how you treat your rara avis, a client!� said Black Mayo.

“What is a client?� repeated Sweet William, whose questions were always answered because he never stopped asking till they were.

“A client, young man, is the golden-egg goose that a lawyer tries to lure into his coop,� Black Mayo explained. “One fluttered to your father and he shooed it away.�

“I wish I had a goose that laid gold eggs,� said Sweet William. “I wouldn’t kill it, like the silly man in that story.�

“Perhaps I can find one and trade it to you for Hop-o-hop,� suggested his cousin.

Sweet William considered and shook his head. “Hop-o-hop couldn’t get on without me,� he said gravely.

“Ah, it’s a family failing,� laughed Black Mayo, as they left the table. “None of you is willing to pay the price for the goose.�