The Brass Bound Box

"Well, Mr. Jones, when you get done staring at the monkey-shines of that young one you can just take her in charge a spell. Goin' to the wood-lot, ain't ye?"

"You know I be. Said so at breakfast, didn't I? Silly women always do have to have idees druv into their heads, like nails, 'fore they can clinch 'em. Eunice 'lowed that we'd ought to have a lot more small sticks chopped," answered the man who managed the estate but was presumably managed himself by Miss Maitland. He had his axe over his shoulder, and had merely stopped at the pantry window, kept open for his benefit, to take a drink from the pail of buttermilk which stood there.

"Well, Eunice has gone down to Madam's. And I've no time to bother, and you'll have to take her 'long with ye. If she ain't under somebody's eye no tellin' what'll happen. Harm of some kind, sure's you're born."

Moses was about to retort and decline, but a second glance at the child, who had now finished her cake-walk and was listening to her elders, reminded him that, as yet, he had heard no details of that night's escapade when his beloved Monty had so wonderfully come out safe from peril of death. This had been some days before, and rumor had it that the lad was still confined a prisoner in his chamber. Whether because of real illness or for punishment, nobody knew, nor dared anybody question the dignified Madam. Eunice had heard the rumor that morning and had immediately gone to see her friend and offer her own service as nurse, should nursing be necessary. Therefore, it was more to please himself than oblige Susanna, that he called through the window:

"Sissy, do you like chestnuts?"

"Oh, I love them! Why? And please, please don't call me 'Sissy.' It makes me feel so silly. My name is Katharine Maitland, though at home – " there came a little catch in her throat, which nobody else observed – "they used to call me 'Kitty Quixote,'" answered the girl, running to the window, and looking through the half-closed blind to the hired man.

"Hm-m. Ke-ho-ta. Kehota? Kee-ho-tee? Why, I thought I knew the Maitland family, root an' branch, twists an' turns an' ramifications, but I never heerd tell of a Keehotey amongst 'em. Not even 'mongst their wives' folks, nuther. Your own ma was a Woodley, and your pa's second was a Snowball, Eunice says, so how happens – "

"Oh, you dear, funny old fellow! Quixote wasn't any of our folks, but a fiction-y man, who was always doing chivalrous things in the wrong place, or where there was no occasion, as papa said – just like me. Wait till I come, please. I'll put on my hat and jacket and be back in a minute. For I've guessed what you mean about liking chestnuts. I'm to go to the wood-lot with you and gather them for myself. And I never, never, never in all my life gathered chestnuts! I've just bought them from the stands."

Away she flew, leaving Susanna rather doubtful of the success of her intended punishment. From present appearances Katharine was going to enjoy a morning in the woods with Moses far better than she would have done in the kitchen seeding raisins.

"An' she must have et as much as two whole bunches, even in that little spell. So, after all, it's a good thing for the cake, 'lowin' 't we want to have it rich in fruit, that she is goin'. But Eunice will have to see about her clothes. The idee! Wearin' white every day same as if it was Sunday in the summer-time. She told Eunice that her stepmother thought white was the sensiblest, for it would wash and bile, and she always needed bilin'. But she looks real peart, and sort of different set-up from Marsden girls in that little blue flannel suit she wore to come in. Dress an' coat an' hat all the same color, an' fittin' her's if she'd been run into 'em, yet easy-loose, too, an' not a bit of trimming on anything," continued Widow Sprigg with herself, having none other present with whom to commune; and, as Katharine reappeared, garbed in the same blue coat and hat, with her short dainty skirts showing below the coat and her face now glowing with anticipation, remarking aloud: "Well, your step-ma may not have been any great shakes for pleasantness, but she did manage to make you look real neat."

"Oh, she had beautiful taste! Everybody said that. When she was dressed to go out herself she always looked so just right that nobody could tell what at all she wore; and that, papa said, was the perfection of dressing. Indeed, do you suppose that my father, an artist, could have married a person who would offend his eye all the time? Why, what is that for, Susanna?"

While Katharine had been discussing her stepmother, the widow had been filling a quaint, old-fashioned, tight covered basket with caraway cookies and a red apple. The basket had a wreath of flowers painted on its sides and another on its cover. It was carried by two slender handles, and was unlike any which Kate had ever seen.

"There, deary, that is a lunch to eat whilst you're in the woods; crisp air makes a body hungry. Moses'll show you where the spring is, and there's a gourd dipper hangs by it to drink out of. But take dreadful care the basket. It was your own pa's meetin' one."

"My father's 'meeting one.' What was that? and how fearfully old it must be. 'Cause he ran away when he was a little boy, only a year or so older than I am now."

"He was old enough to have had more sense, and so're you. A 'meetin'-basket' was a basket to take to meetin', course. What else you suppose? We didn't have two three hours betwixt times, them days. We went in the morning and stayed till the afternoon service was over. We took our dinners with us an' et 'em on the graves in the graveyard back the church. Moses an' Eunice an' me gen'ally took all we needed in the big willow, but the childern liked their own by themselves. They used to eat in the hollow below the graveyard, and if any of 'em got too noisy, or played games wasn't Sabbath ones, one the deacons or head men would go down an' stop 'em. Oh, childern was raised right in them days, an' grown folks, too!"

This was all very interesting, and Katharine received the old round basket, which her dead father's boyish hands must have treated gently, indeed, to have left it so well preserved, with a reverent feeling that he must be there and see her. She hoped he did. She wanted him to know that she was back in his old home, following the haunts which he had loved, knowing the very same people who had cared for him. She wondered, as many an older person has wondered, if he did know, and she put the question eagerly to Susanna, who was herself so old and should, therefore, be so wise.

"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?