CHAPTER VI.
The Blue Jar.
IT was some minutes before either spoke. All they knew was that theywere once more in the air and light. Then, with a start, Reube sat upand looked about him. He looked, of course, for the _Dido_. To hisinexpressible relief the cherished craft was there in plain sight,riding safely at her anchor, some fifty yards from shore. And there,farther out, rode the pinkie. Reube blessed his comrade’s foresight.
“Will, where would the boats be now?” said he, “if you hadn’t insistedon anchoring them?”
Will sat up and surveyed the situation, thoughtfully clearing the mudfrom his eyes with little bunches of grass.
“It was just as well we anchored them,” he assented. “And now that I’vegot my wind, I think I had better swim out to the _Dido_ and bring herin for you. I feel as if I wanted a bath anyway; don’t you?”
“I’ll be with you in half a minute,” said Reube. “But first I want toexplore the cave a little more. It seems to me we came away in somethingof a hurry!”
He let himself cautiously down in the hole, feet first.
Will stopped his undressing and stared at him in amazement.
“Are you crazy?” he cried. “Do come out of that beastly hole! The ideaof it makes me quite ill!”
“O, I’m not going far,” said Reube, “and I won’t be gone long, either.Don’t be alarmed.”
As his head disappeared Will ran to the hole and looked down, anxiouslyand curiously. He saw Reube groping in a crevice filled with soft earth,about three feet below the surface.
“What in the world are you after, Reube?” he inquired.
“That!” replied Reube the next instant, holding aloft triumphantly asmall blue jar of earthenware. “Take it, and give me a lift out ofthis!”
Will deposited the old jar reverentially on the turf, and turned to helpReube up. He half expected that the jar would vanish while his back wastoward it; but no, there it was, plain and palpable enough. It had acover set into the rim, and sealed around the edges with melted rosin;and it was heavy.
Thrilling with suppressed excitement, Reube and Will sat down with thejar between them, and Reube proceeded to chip away the rosin with hisknife. Will gazed at the operation intently.
“Probably some good old Evangeline’s pet jar of apple sauce!” said he.
Reube ignored this levity, and chipped away with irritatingdeliberation. At last off came the cover. As it did so there was a mostthrilling jingling within, and the boys leaned forward with sucheagerness that their heads bumped violently together. They saw stars,but heeded them not, for in the mouth of the jar they saw the yellowglint of a number of gold coins.
“Well, dreams do sometimes come true!” remarked Will. And Reube,spreading out Will’s coat, which lay close at hand, emptied upon it thewhole contents of the jar.
It was coin—all coin! There were a few golden Louis, a number ofSpanish pieces, with silver crowns and _livres Tourtnois_, amounting,according to such hasty estimate as the boys could make, to some five orsix hundred dollars.
It was coin—all coin!]
“That’ll be three hundred dollars apiece,” said Reube, with eyessparkling; “and I’ll be able to take mother to Boston and go to collegetoo!”
“Three hundred dollars apiece!” said Will. “Indeed, I don’t see what Ihad to do with it. You found it. You had nerve enough to take notice ofit when you were more than three quarters dead. And you went back andgot it. I’ve no earthly claim upon it, old man.”
Reube set his jaw obstinately.
“Will,” said he, “we were exploring the cave in partnership. If you hadfound the stuff, I’d have expected my share. Now, you’ve got to goshares with me in this, or I give you my word our friendship ends!”
“O, don’t get on your dignity that way, Reube,” said Will. “If I must,why, I suppose I must! And if I can’t take a present from you, I don’tsee whom I could take one from. But I won’t take half, because I didn’tdo half toward getting it, and because you need it enough sight morethan I do. A couple of years ago I’d have spoken differently. But I’lldivide with you, and as to the proportions, we’ll settle that on the wayhome. Now I’m off for the _Dido_!” And having thrown off his clothes ashe talked, he ran down the bank and plunged into the sea.
“I’ll let you off with one third,” shouted Reube after him, as he sat onthe bank and watched. “Not one penny less!”
“All right,” spluttered Will, breasting a white-crested, yellow wave. Ina few minutes he was on board the _Dido_. Pulling up the anchor andhoisting the sail, he brought her in beside a jutting plaster rock whichformed a natural quay. Then he resumed his clothes, while Reube took hisplace at the helm.
The wind being still down the bay and the tide on the turn, they decidednot to attempt the all-night task of beating up against it. It tookthem, indeed, two tacks to reach the pinkie. Will went aboard the lattercraft, leaving Reube in his darling _Dido_. The two boats tackedpatiently back and forth, in and out of the wide cove, till they gainedthe shelter of a little creek under the lea of Wood Point. Here theywere secured with anxious care. Then Will and Reube started for home bythe road, pricked on to haste by the thought of how their mothers wouldbe worrying, by the sharp demands of their empty stomachs, and by theelating clink of the coins that filled their pockets. When they reachedMrs. Dare’s cottage Reube rushed in to relieve his mother’s fears, forshe had indeed begun to be anxious. Will hurried on toward FrostyHollow, munching a piece of Mrs. Dare’s gingerbread by the way.
As he trudged forward cheerfully, he was overtaken by an express wagonbound for “the Corners.” The driver offered him a “lift,” as the phrasegoes about Tantramar. It was none other than Jerry Barnes, the master ofthe red bull, and the owner of the pinkie which Will and Reube had soboldly appropriated. Will told him the whole story, omitting only thediscovery of the jar of coin. He and Reube had agreed to keep theircounsel on this point, lest some should envy their good luck and othersdoubt their story.
“I hope,” said Will, “you are not put out at our taking the pinkie?”
“I hope,” grinned Barnes, “you’re not put out at old Ramses for bein’ sooncivil in the pastur’! But as for the pinkie, of course you did quiteright. Only I’ll want you chaps to get her back to the creek byto-morrow mornin’s tide, as I’m goin’ to drift for shad to-morrownight!”
“Of course,” said Will; “we’ll go after her the first thing in themorning. That’s just what we planned on.”
“That there’s a smart boat Reube Dare’s built. And he’s a right smartlad, is Reube,” remarked Jerry Barnes.
“There’s where your head’s level,” agreed Will, warmly.
“And do you know when he’s goin’ to drift?” asked Barnes.
“He won’t be quite ready for to-morrow night,” said Will. “But we counton getting out the night following.”
“Well, now, a word in your ear!” went on Barnes, leaning overconfidentially. “I’ve no manner of doubt Mart Gandy cut the _Dido_loose. And now Reube had better keep his eye on his nets after the boatsget away to-morrow night. I shouldn’t wonder a mite if Gandy’d tryslashing ’em, so as to give Reube an unpleasant surprise when he startsout for the _Dido’s_ first fishing.”
“I say,” said Will, “I never thought of that! We’ll ‘lay’ for him, so tospeak, and give him a lesson if he tries it on.”
“A nod’s as good as a wink,” remarked Jerry Barnes, mysteriously, as heset Will down at Mrs. Carter’s door.
Mrs. Carter had not been at all anxious. Ever since Will’s reclamationof the new marsh she had had an implicit faith in his ability andjudgment. She had imagined that he was spending the day with Reube. Sherather lost her dignified self-control over Will’s story of theadventure in the cave, and she was filled with girlish excitement overthe finding of the old blue jar.
“Of course, dearest boy,” said Mrs. Carter, “you did quite right to wantReub
en to take all the treasure, since he alone found it. But wherewould he have been but for you? Reuben is a fine boy, if his grandfatherdidn’t amount to much. He takes after his mother’s family the most. I’mglad he made you take a share of these lovely old coins.”
“We’ll be able to have some sort of a jolly lark on the strength of itwhen Ted comes home,” said Will.
“We might take a run to Boston!” suggested his mother. “I want you boysto see the city; I want to see it myself. And I might—Mrs. Dare, youknow, might want a friend near her if the operation proves at allserious, which I hope it won’t.”
“You dear, that’s just like your thoughtfulness!” cried Will, jumping upand kissing her. And so it was agreed upon, subject, in a measure, toTed’s assent.