Burton Egbert Stevenson

“ He had dropped his drawl, his nasal tone, his slip-shod enunciation. And his face had changed, too. It was thinner and more alert; and the ragged whiskers seemed absurdly out of place upon it.
“You’ve had a fainting-spell,” answered Mr. Chester, gently. “You will soon be all right again, I hope.”
A dark flush suffused Mr. Tunstall’s face, and he rose awkwardly to his feet.
“Oh, yes; I’ll soon be all right ag’in,” he said, with a weak attempt at a laugh. The drawl was back again—the nasal twang; but none of the others seemed to have noticed that he had used another tone a moment before. ”

“ Since the first object of my search was a rose of Sharon, it was evident that it must begin in the garden and I made my way into it through an opening in the hedge. The hedge was very close and thick, though spraggly and badly kept, and must have been planted many years before. The garden, as I have said, was a desolate place enough, but not without evidences of ancient beauty. Just inside the hedge was a perfect tangle of dead flower-stocks of hollyhocks with the fresh new plants springing at their base, of phlox and pinks and candytuft. ”

“ I confess I was ashamed of myself.
“Really, Cecil,” said mother, when she saw that I was all right again, “if you’re going to take it this way, I think the sooner we get away from here the better. You mustn’t yield to your feelings so.”
“But oh, mother,” I cried, with a little sob in my voice that I couldn’t repress, “it was cruel of her! Cruel! Cruel!”
“I’ve often heard your father say,” continued mother, “that the greatest test of character is defeat—that every manly man is a good loser. Have you already forgotten those lines of Browning which Mr. Chester repeated last night?” ”

“ But, for whatever cause, it was evident that grandaunt had at one time been fond of the garden, with its fountain and rockery and rustic seat. They offered her a distraction and relief from the sordidness of her life—a distraction which she came to need less and less, as she grew accustomed to it. Just at first, no doubt, she had often come here; the spot had once held a prominent place in her affections; and it was to it that her thoughts turned when she had been seeking a hiding-place for the treasure. ”

“ I was glad to obey; so I kissed her and Dick good-bye and mounted the stairs slowly. I felt as though my heart would break. I wanted to hide myself, to shut out the world, and be alone with my misery. Blindly, I opened the first door I came to, and entered the darkened bedchamber at the front of the house, which had been grandaunt’s.
I heard them talking on the steps below, and I crept to the front window, and peering out through the closed shutters, watched them till they drove away. ”

“ Chester bundling us into the carriage, of a long drive over a smooth country road, past stately old houses and pretty modern cottages half-hidden among the trees, and finally of rolling through a massive stone gateway, and of getting out, at last, before a great, square red-brick house with a beautiful columned doorway, where two old people, a man and a woman, stood bobbing their heads to us and gazing at us with a curiosity not unmixed with apprehension. ”

“ I started away on a little tour of discovery, and was surprised to find how large and well-kept the barn, stable, and other out-buildings were. It was here, evidently, that Abner had concentrated such energy as advancing age had left him. I didn’t know then, but I found out afterwards, that the especial pride of every true farmer is his barn and stable, just as the especial pride of every good housewife is her kitchen. And Jane and Abner certainly had reason to be proud of theirs. ”

“ It was not her fault, of course; she had never been used to children and did not understand them. I think she regarded them much as she did dogs and cats—nuisances, to be permitted in the house as little as possible, and then only in the kitchen. Her pet abhorrence, the annoyance which she could endure least of all, seemed to be the clatter of Dick’s shoes and mine over the floor and up the stairs. ”

“ Near the wall which bounded the garden on that side, a somewhat elaborate rockery had been laid out years before, with stones of different colours carefully arranged in rows, after a fashion once thought beautiful. Vines were running over them, myrtle principally, and shrubs of various kinds were growing among them; some had been misplaced and others buried in the ground; the whole forming a kind of tangle which proved that however much grandaunt had once thought of the spot, Abner was right in saying that she had completely neglected it in recent years. ”

“ Tom Chester’s got a tutor,” he added, with some irrelevance, “who’s coaching him for the June exams. He comes over from Fanwood every morning.”
“What college is he going to, Dick?” I asked.
“Oh, to Princeton,” said Dick, as though there wasn’t any other.
I knew that it was to Princeton Dick had dreamed of going. He had never confided that dream to anyone but me. And a bold project leaped into my head, which I determined to carry out that very day.
“Well,” said mother, “you’ll never get to college, or anywhere else, if you don’t study, no matter how lucky you are in other ways. ”

“ Tears of mortification sprang into my eyes; for I did have a blister and it hurt, though I wouldn’t have acknowledged it for the world! Why can’t girls work as boys can?
“But never mind, Biffkins,” added Dick. “Don’t get discouraged. Just wait till I set my massive brain to work at it—”
“Oh, that’s all that’s necessary!” I retorted, with cutting irony. Really this puzzle was beginning to get on my nerves a little; I wondered that Dick could jest about it when it meant so much to all of us. ”

“ I asked, for he still seemed a little white and shaken.
“Angry?” he repeated, looking down at me with a quick smile. “Why, no, Biffkins. But you needn’t have frightened a fellow half to death. I thought—I thought—no matter what I thought.”
[Pg 31]
“Oh, I didn’t mean to frighten you, Dick. But I haven’t told you all about it yet,” I went on, trotting along by his side. “There’s a mystery—you know how I adore mysteries!”
“What sort of mystery?” he asked, with provoking coolness.
“I don’t just know, but Mr. Chester—he’s the lawyer—says it’s a most peculiar will. Oh, Dick, am I really awake?” ”

“ Why, I should be afraid to go out of the house after dark!”
“What is the ‘philosophy of which he is such a distinguished disciple?’” I asked, quoting the will.
Mr. Chester laughed shortly, and then grew suddenly grave.
“Spiritualism,” he answered. “Not the real thing, of course, in which there may be some basis of truth, for all I know; but a kind of insincere hocus-pocus designed to catch the ignorant. I beg your pardon,” he added quickly. “I must not forget that Mrs. Nelson was a relative of yours.” ”

“ I brought the spade and dug down, as well as I could, in the places from which I had removed the stones; but after a few moments, it was evident, even to me, that the earth had not been disturbed for many years, and that there could not by any possibility be a treasure of any kind buried beneath it.
But I did not even yet despair. It might very well be that grandaunt had approached the rockery from the kitchen garden, in which case I must count in the other direction. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Key to be given my niece, Clara Truman, or her
heirs, on the day on which my will is opened.
“I have no idea what the envelope contains,” said Mr. Chester. “It was brought to me sealed as you see it.”
“Oh, don’t you see!” I cried, fairly jumping in my chair with excitement. “It’s not that kind of a key—not a for-sure key—it’s a key to the puzzle—a key to where the bonds and things are.”
“Well, we’ll soon see,” said mother, and tore open the envelope with trembling fingers. Mr. Chester, I think, had half a mind to stop her, but thought better of it and leaned back in his chair again. ”

“ Chester told us that from their summit, on a clear day, one could see the ocean, forty or fifty miles away to the eastward.
Plumfield struck me as a very fragmentary and straggling sort of village—so straggling, in fact, that it was scarcely recognizable as a village at all, and seemed to have no beginning and no end. There were two or three little stores, a church and a few houses—
“Though,” Mr. Chester explained, “the village isn’t so small as it looks. It is spread out a good deal, and you can’t see it all at one glance.” ”

“ Lots of people write things that don’t mean anything.”
“Well, the meaning of this is obvious enough,” I retorted. “Mother, what is a rose of Sharon? Isn’t it a flower?”
“Why, bless the child!” exclaimed mother, setting down her cup with a little bang, “of course it is! It’s a shrub—a hardy shrub that grows quite tall, sometimes. Many people call it the althea.”
“Well, that’s the first step,” I cried triumphantly. “And now the second—”
“The second,” echoed Dick, as I hesitated. “Well, go ahead, Biffkins; what’s the second?” ”

“ And I began to realize, too, how absurd it was that I should have supposed for a moment that the treasure was concealed anywhere underground. I had allowed myself to be influenced by a sort of [Pg 170] convention that treasure was always concealed there—the word “treasure” itself, which grandaunt had used, was largely responsible for it; but Mr. Chester had unquestionably been right. No one would think of burying such treasure as stocks and bonds; no woman, especially, would place any of her belongings in such a position that she would have to use a pick and shovel to get at them. ”

“ Evidently there was no treasure concealed about the roots of this rose of Sharon!
Half dead with fatigue, I sank down again, with a sigh, upon the bench. The fatigue I should not have minded so much, but for the sore heart in my bosom. That one’s comrade should desert one! That was the last straw! I almost wished that we had never seen the place!
I buried my face in my hands in the effort to keep back the tears, for, as I have said already, I [Pg 128] don’t like girls who cry. I resolved anew that I would not permit myself to grow discouraged, that I would keep right on trying. ”

“ You seem a little delirious though—got any fever?”
“Only the fever of excitement, Dick,” I said. “How can you keep so cool about it? I think it’s wonderful!”
“What’s wonderful?”
“Why, the legacy—of course it’s a legacy, Dick. We’re her only living relatives! And she lived in a big, old-fashioned house, which she inherited from her husband. I never thought of grandaunt as having a husband,” I added, reflectively. “I wonder what sort of man he was.”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” retorted Dick. “What does it matter?” ”

“ Chester smiled as he looked at my serious, intent face.
“Come, my dear,” he said, “don’t take it so much to heart. Remember you have nearly a month in which to work out the answer. A great many things may happen in that time. Besides, as you grow better acquainted with the place, some natural solution of the puzzle may suggest itself to you. You mustn’t be discouraged over a first failure—that won’t do at all.” ”

“ It was evident enough that the parlours had not always been furnished in horsehair! There was a pair of slender-legged card-tables, inlaid in satin-wood, with entrancing curves—but there; if I stopped to describe one-half the treasures in that attic there would never be an end!
“The Nelson family has lived here for five or six generations, so Mr. Chester told me last night,” said mother, at last. “They’ve always been well-to-do, and that accounts for all this beautiful old furniture. Besides, in those days as in these, the best was always the cheapest. ”

“ We never did anything to deserve it, and I’ve sometimes thought that we would be stronger, and in the end happier, if we didn’t get it. Gifts make paupers, sometimes.”
“I’m not afraid,” said Dick; “we can fight our own battles;” and he looked around at us with such a light in his eyes that I could have hugged him.
“Well,” said Mr. Chester, “I’m not one of those who think that everything that happens is for the best; but I do believe that our lives are what we make them, and that we can make them pretty much what we please. I certainly don’t believe that your future depends upon this legacy ”

“ 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! ”

“ She was married when quite young to a man much [Pg 58] older than herself, who brought her to this house, and shut himself up with her there; a crabbed and high-tempered man, who set his stamp upon her and moulded her to his fashion. He had died many years before, but grandaunt had gone on living as she had lived, so compelling is the force of habit! And if she came to regard all the world with suspicion, and to fall into queer prejudices and beliefs, why, she was not so much to blame, after all! ”

“ As I have already said, a wide hall divided the lower floor into two halves. The hall itself reminded me of the pictures I have seen of the great halls in feudal castles, with its beamed ceiling, its waxed floor, its great fireplace and its impressive furniture. On one side were the state apartments, the parlours, connected by a double door. They had apparently been hermetically closed for years, and were very musty and dusty. They were furnished in hideous horsehair, and we closed the door behind us after the merest glance into them. ”

“ Nelson would do anything so foolish as to bury her securities. She would be too anxious, I imagine, to have them within reach, like a miser with his gold. I am tempted to believe that the ‘rose of Sharon’ does not refer to a bush or a tree, but to something else which we have not discovered as yet. ”

“ He was only too eager to go—it was quite an adventure for him to drive over to the station.”
“Though Susan seems to be a horse with a past rather than a future,” supplemented Dick; whereat we all laughed.
“Yes,” said Mr. Chester, “I’ve seen her trotting meditatively along many a time. I dare say her past is a blameless and useful one—well worth meditating upon.” ”