Читать книгу A Struggle for a Fortune - Castlemon Harry - Страница 2

“Nat, what do you reckon he meant by that?”

“Meant by what?”

“Why he said that mother had always been good to him, and that some day – then he went off coughing and didn’t say the rest.”

“I don’t know, I am sure.”

“I reckon he has got some money stowed away somewhere, as pap always said he had, and that when he is gone mother will come into it. By gracious! I wish I could find it.”

“Would you take it away from your mother?”

“Yes, sir, I would. I would take it away from any body. I need some clothes, don’t I?”

“You would have to go down to Manchester if you got any money, and that is a long ways from here.”

“I don’t care; I would find it if I was there. Are you going to get him any tobacco?”

“Me? What have I got to buy him tobacco with? You talk as if I had lots of money hidden away somewhere.”

“‘Cause if I see you slipping away any where and I can’t find you, I will tell pap of it when he comes home. You know what you will get if I do that?”

“Well, you keep your eyes on me and see if I slip away any where except down to the potato patch,” said Nat, indignantly. “That is where I am going now.”

The two boys separated and went off in different directions, Nat wending his way to the potato patch and the other going toward the miserable hovel they called a barn to finish his task of shelling corn.

“What a mean fellow that Nat Wood is,” said Caleb Keeler, as he turned and gave his departing companion a farewell look. “That boy has got as much as four or five dollars hidden away about this place somewhere, and I tell you I am going to find it some day. Then won’t I have some clothes to wear? I’ve got a pair of nice shoes which pap made him give me, but I will have more if I find that money. Dog-gone him, he has no business to keep things hidden away from us.”

These two boys, Caleb Keeler and Nat Wood, cherished the most undying hatred to one another, and as far as Nat was concerned, there was reason for it. It was all on account of his lost shoes, and they had been taken away from him a year ago. The weather was getting cold, every morning the grass and leaves were wet and it was as much as a bare-footed boy wanted to do to run around in them, and Nat had prepared for it by going down to the store one evening and purchasing a pair of brogans and two pairs of stockings. He fully expected to get into trouble on account of them, and sure enough he did. The next morning he came out with them on, and his appearance was enough to create astonishment on Caleb’s part who stood and looked at him with mouth and eyes wide open.

“Well, if you haven’t got a pair of shoes I never want to see daylight again,” said Caleb, as soon as he had recovered from his amazement. “Where did you get them?”

“I bought them,” said Nat.

“Where did you buy them?”

“Down to the store.”

“Where did you get your money?”

“I earned it.”

“You did, eh? Well, you ain’t been a doing any thing about here to earn any money,” declared Caleb, after he had fairly taken in the situation. “If you have money to buy a pair of shoes you can get a pair for me too. How much did they cost you?”

“Two dollars.”

“Have you got any more of them bills?”

“Not another bill,” said Nat; and to prove it he turned his pockets inside out. There was nothing in them except a worn jack-knife with all the blades broken which nobody would steal if he had the chance.

“I don’t care for what you have in your pockets,” exclaimed Caleb, who grew angry in a moment. “You have got more hidden around in the bushes somewhere. You want to get two dollars between this time and the time we get through breakfast, now I tell you. I will go down to the store with you.”

“Well, I won’t do it,” said Nat.

“If you don’t do it I will tell pap.”

“You can run and tell him as soon as you please. If you want shoes, go to work and earn the money.”

Caleb waited to hear no more. He dropped the milk bucket as if it were a coal of fire and walked as straight toward the house as he could go. He slammed the door behind him but in two minutes he reappeared, accompanied by his father. Things began to look dark for Nat.

“There, sir, I have lost my shoes,” said he. “If Uncle Jonas takes these away from me he will be the meanest man I ever saw. They are mine and I don’t see why I can not be allowed to keep them.”

When Jonas came up he did not appear so cross as he usually did. In fact he tried to smile, but Nat knew there was something back of it.

“Hallo, where did you get them shoes, Natty?” was the way in which he began the conversation.

“I got them down to the store,” was the reply, “and Caleb wants me to buy him a pair; but I have not got the money to do it.”

“Don’t you reckon you could find two extry dollars somewhere?” said Jonas.

“No, nor one dollar. I will tell you what I will do,” said Nat, seeing that the smile of his uncle’s face speedily gave way to his usual fierce frown. “I will tell you right where my money is hidden and then Caleb can go and find it.”

“Well, that’s business,” said Caleb, smiling all over.

“If you will do that then me and you won’t have any trouble about them shoes,” chimed in Jonas, once more calling the smile to his face. “Where have you got it? How many years have you been here, Natty?” continued Jonas, for just then an idea occurred to him. “You have been here just eleven years – you are fourteen now – and you have kept that money hidden out there in the brush all this while. Now why did you do that?”

It was right on the point of Nat’s tongue to tell Jonas that he did not have the money when he came there, but he knew that by so doing he would bring some body else into trouble; so he said nothing.

“I was older than you and knew more, and you ought to have given me the money to keep for you,” continued Jonas. “If you had done that you could have come to me any time that you wanted a pair of shoes, and you could have got them without the least trouble.”

“Won’t you take what there is left in my bag after you see it?” asked Nat, hopefully.

“That depends. I want first to see how much you have in that bag. Where is it?”

“Caleb, you know where that old fallen log is beside the branch near the place where we get water?” said Nat. “Well, go on the off side of that and you will see leaves pushed against the log. Brush aside the leaves and there you will find the bag.”

Caleb at once posted off and Jonas, after looking in vain for a seat, turned the milk bucket upside down, perched himself upon it and resumed his mild lecture to Nat over keeping his money hidden from him for so many years. He was the oldest and knew more about money than Nat did, he was a little fellow when he came there – when Jonas reached this point in his lecture he stopped and looked steadily at the floor. Nat was only three years old when he came to take up his abode under the roof of Jonas Keeler, to be abused worse than any dog that ever lived, both by Jonas and his son Caleb, and how could he at that tender age hide away his money so that Jonas could not find it?

“Wh-o-o-p!” yelled Jonas, speaking out before he knew what he was doing.

“What is the matter?” inquired Nat.

“Nothing much,” replied Jonas. “I was just a-thinking; that’s all. If Nat was only three years old when he came here to live with me,” he added to himself, “he couldn’t have had that money. Somebody has given it to him since, and it was not so very long ago, either. Whoop!” and it was all he could do to keep from uttering the words out loud. “He has got it from the old man; there’s where he got it from. And didn’t I say that the old man had something hidden out all these years? He didn’t give me a quarter of what he saved from the rebels. Now he has got to give me that money or there’s going to be a fracas in this house. I won’t keep him no longer. You can bet on that.”

At this point in his meditations Jonas was interrupted by the return of his son who was coming along as though he had nothing to live for, swinging his hand with the bag in it to let his father believe that there was nothing in it that he cared to save.

“What’s the matter?” inquired Jonas.

“I have found the bag but there is nothing in it, dog-gone the luck,” sputtered Caleb. “There is just a ‘shinplaster’ in it and it calls for two bits. Where is the rest of your money?” he added, turning fiercely upon Nat.

“That is all I have,” replied Nat. “It was in that bag, wasn’t it? Then I have no more to give you.”

Jonas took the bag, glanced at the shinplaster and put it into his pocket. The smile had now given away to the frown.

“Say, pap, ain’t you going to give that to me!” asked Caleb, who began to see that the interest he had taken in unearthing Nat’s money was not going to help very much.

“No; you can’t get no shoes with that money. I will take it and get some coffee with it the next time I go to town. Is this all the money you have left, Nat?”

“Every cent; and now you are going to take that away from me, too?”

“Of course; for I think it is the properest thing to do. You don’t ever go to church – ”

“And what is the reason I don’t? It is because I have not got any clothes to wear,” said Nat, who plainly saw what was coming next.

“That’s neither here nor there,” said Jonas. “Caleb goes to church, and he would go every Sunday if he had the proper things.”

“You bet I would,” said Caleb.

“So I think that if you don’t go to church and Caleb does, you had better take off them shoes. Take them off and give them to Caleb.”

“Now, Uncle Jonas, you are not going to make me go bare-footed this cold weather,” said Nat, anxiously. “If Caleb wants shoes let him go to work and earn them.”

“I can’t go to work about here,” said Caleb. “There’s nobody will hire me to do a thing.”

“Because you are too lazy; that’s what’s the matter with you,” said Nat, under his breath.

“Take off them shoes,” said Jonas.

Nat hesitated, but it was only for an instant. Jonas was not the man to allow his orders to be disobeyed with impunity, so he arose from his seat on the milk bucket with alacrity, disappeared in a little room where he kept a switch which he had often used on the boys when they did anything that Jonas considered out of the way, and when he brought it out with him he found Nat on the floor taking off his shoes.

“You have come to time, have you?” said the man with a grin. “So you are going to take them off and give them to Caleb, are you?”

“I am going to take them off because I can’t well help myself,” said Nat, boldly. “If I was as big as you are I would not take them off.”

“None of that sort of talk to me,” said Jonas, lifting the switch as if he were about to let it fall upon Nat’s shoulders. “You would take them off if you were as big as a mountain.”

When he had removed his shoes Caleb picked them up and in company with his father started toward the house. He wanted to put them where they would be safe, and Nat stood there in his bare feet watching him until he closed the door behind him.

We have not referred to the relationship which Nat bore to Jonas Keeler, but no doubt those into whose hands this story falls will be surprised to hear it. Jonas was his uncle, and, by the way, Mr. Nickerson was no relation to any body under that roof. Nat’s father and mother were dead; his father was killed in the rebel army. Jonas found him in Manchester and brought him home “to keep him safe and sound;” at least that was what he said; but those who knew Jonas thought that the reason was because he suspected that Nat was heir to some money which would some day turn up in his favor. He did not see where the money was to come from, but he believed it, and that was enough. The truth of the matter was, Nat did not have a cent. After he had been there for some years Jonas began to think so too, and from that time his treatment of Nat was anything but what it ought to be. It was only when Mr. Nickerson began to take an interest in him that Nat had anything that he could call his own. He did not like the way Nat was abused – he was in his right mind then and hale and hearty in spite of his years – and took pity on him and determined to help him. That was where Nat’s money came from, and the way he happened to get it was this:

One day, when Jonas went to town, Mr. Nickerson watched his opportunity and followed him out to the field where he was at work alone. Nat greeted him very cordially for he was always glad to see him. Mr. Nickerson was the only one except Mrs. Keeler, who had a kind word to say to him, and Nat remembered him for it.

“Do you know what I would do if Jonas abused me as badly as he does you?” said he.

“No, sir, I don’t,” replied Nat.

“I would sit down and rest. He has gone away to town now, and when he comes home he can’t tell whether you have been at work or not.”

The boy leaned on his plow handles – he was eight years old and ought not to have been required to do that sort of work – and looked at Mr. Nickerson without speaking. He wanted to see if the man was in earnest.

“Jonas knows just how much I ought to have done, and when he comes home and finds that I have not got it all done, he will use that switch on me.”

Mr. Nickerson saw that there was some sense in this reasoning, and after kicking some clods out of his way and looking toward the house to make sure that there was no one watching him, he went on to say —

“Jonas uses you pretty rough, does he not?”

“Well, I will be a man some day, and then I will take it out of him, I bet you,” said Nat; and when he uttered the words he clenched his hands and his eyes flashed as if there were plenty of spirit in him.

“But that is going to be a long time for you to wait. If you had money do you think you could hide it where Jonas and Caleb could not find it?”

“But I haven’t got any,” said Nat.

“But I say supposing you had some; could you keep it out of their reach?” said Mr. Nickerson, when he saw Nat’s eyes brighten when he thought of all the fine things that money would buy for him. “If you don’t keep it out of their way you will get me into trouble.”

“Were you going to give me some money?” stammered Nat.

“I had thought some of it,” said the man, lowering his voice almost to a whisper and glancing again toward the house. “I have some money but I dare not keep it. Last night while I was awake, I saw Jonas come in very quietly and go through my trousers’ pocket; but he did not find any money there. If he had looked under the head of my bed close to the wall, he would have found two hundred dollars.”

While Mr. Nickerson spoke he had drawn a well-filled book from his pocket, opened it and showed to the astonished boy a whole lot of greenbacks which he had stowed away there.