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Read Ebook: Finding the Lost Treasure by Persons Helen M
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Ebook has 1621 lines and 51368 words, and 33 pages
FINDING THE LOST TREASURE
"What does what mean, Dissy?" asked her younger sister, who was rolling a ball across the floor to little Ren?.
"Just some figures on an old paper I found, dear. I must tell Jack about them. Do you know where he is?"
"Out there somewhere, I guess," replied the child, with a vague gesture indicating the front yard.
Desir? flung back her short dark curls and crossed the room to a window where sturdy geraniums raised their scarlet clusters to the very top of the panes. It was the custom in that part of Nova Scotia to make a regular screen of blossoming plants in all front windows, sometimes even in those of the cellar. Peering between two thick stems, she could see her older brother sitting on the doorstep, gazing out across St. Mary's Bay which lay like a blue, blue flag along the shore.
Crossing the narrow hall and opening the outside door, Desir? dropped down beside the boy and thrust a time-yellowed slip of paper into his hands.
"Did you ever see this?"
"Mortgage!" exclaimed Desir? in shocked tones. "I never knew we had one."
"And what did he tell you about this?" continued the girl, after a thoughtful pause, running her finger along the line of tantalizing characters.
"Nothing very definite. He said it was a memorandum of some kind that had been handed down in our family for generations. The name of its writer, and its meaning, have been lost in the past; but each father passed it on to his eldest son, with a warning to preserve it most carefully, for it was valuable."
"And now it belongs to you," concluded Desir?, half sadly, half proudly.
Jack nodded, and for several moments neither spoke.
The lives of the children had been simple, happy ones, until the recent death of their father and mother, hardly three months apart. John Wistmore, in whose veins flowed the blood of men of culture and ambition, had been anxious to give his children greater educational advantages than Sissiboo afforded. Jack, therefore, had been sent to Wolfville to school, and was now ready for college; while Desir? was looking forward to high school in the autumn. Now all was changed. Without relatives, without money, and without prospects, they faced the problem of supporting the two younger children and themselves.
"Where did you find this?" asked Jack, rousing himself.
"On the floor in front of the cupboard."
"It must have slipped from the box when I took out the mortgage. I went over it with Nicolas Bouchard this morning."
"Oh, does he hold it?"
"Yes--and--"
"He wants his money?"
Jack nodded.
"But what can we do? We can't possibly pay him."
"Nothing, I guess, dear, except let him foreclose."
"Would we get any money at all, then?"
"Very little. Not enough to live on, certainly."
"I wish I knew what these mean," she sighed wistfully, touching the paper still between her brother's fingers. "If we could only find out, maybe we'd get enough money to pay Nicolas."
Jack laughed in spite of his anxiety. "I'm afraid we'd all starve before they could be interpreted. Too bad, as things have gone, that I didn't farm as soon as I was old enough--"
"Don't say that! We'll hope and plan for your college course--"
"Desir?, dear," protested her brother, gently but firmly, "it is absolutely out of the question, even to think of such a thing."
"As far as I can see," he continued slowly, "the only thing to be done is to move to Halifax or Yarmouth, where I could get work of some kind. Should you mind very much?"
"Whatever you decide, I'll be willing to do," replied the girl bravely.
"If it will make you any happier," continued Jack, giving her one of his grave, sweet smiles, "we'll place higher education among our day dreams."
"If you folks ain't hungry, we are!" announced Priscilla, opening the door behind them so suddenly that both jumped.
"You see?" laughed Jack, as he pulled Desir? up from the low step.
"I've just had a wonderful inspiration though," she whispered as they entered the hall.
It was a quaint old room in which they settled down after supper had been eaten and the children put to bed. The woodwork was painted a deep blue, known as Acadian blue, and the floor was bare except for a couple of oval braided rugs in which the same color predominated. In the center of the room stood a hutch table, one that can be changed to a chest by reversing its hinged top. Around it were half a dozen high-backed chairs, their seats made of strips of deerskin woven in and out like the paper mats made in kindergartens. A spinning wheel stood beside the fireplace, before which sat Jack and Desir?, with no other light except that of the dancing flames.
"Now Dissy," said the boy, laying his hand affectionately over hers, "let's have the inspiration."
"It's this: that we stay on here as tenants. Nicolas can't live in this house and his own too!"
"But one trouble with that plan is that Nicolas wants to sell the property and get his money out."
"Who'd buy it? Nobody ever moves into or out of this town."
"He has a customer now. Andr? Comeau's prospective father-in-law wants to move here after the wedding. He can't bear to have Marie live so far away from him. Sorry to spoil your inspiration, dear."
Desir? made no reply; for she was very close to tears, and she hated to act like a baby instead of the good pal her brother had always called her.
"We're going to work on Andr?'s house again tomorrow," observed Jack presently. "The roof's on, the floors laid, and by Saturday we should be able to start the barn."
In New Acadia all the relatives, friends, and neighbors of a man who is about to be married join in building a new house for him. They clear a piece of land, haul materials, and labor for weeks on the construction of house, barn, and sheds. When these are finished, the garden is prepared, the fields ploughed and planted, and the buildings furnished. The bride-to-be contributes linens, and her people stock the farm with animals. Some morning the whole countryside walks to church to see the couple wedded, returning to the home of the bride's mother, where the day is spent in feasting and merry-making. If the groom can afford it, he then takes his bride to Yarmouth to spend a few days at the Grand Hotel. That is the greatest ambition of every rustic pair.
Jack talked on quietly about the house raising until he saw that his sister had recovered her composure. She was smiling bravely as he kissed her goodnight, but her sleep was broken by feverish dreams of the worn slip of paper, and a long journey.
When Jack returned at dusk the following evening, after a long day's work on Andr?'s house, he found Desir? waiting for him with sparkling eyes, flushed face, and such an air of repressed excitement that he wondered what had happened while he had been away.
It was necessary to wait until the children had gone to bed before he could question her. They had decided it was best to leave the younger ones out of discussions of ways and means. "Let them be carefree as long as they can," Desir? had urged, and Jack had agreed.
"Who do you suppose was here today?" she asked, perching on the arm of his chair as soon as they were alone.
"Never could guess," he replied, slipping his arm around her.
"Old Simon."
"Starting his spring trip early, isn't he?"
"Rather. I made him stay to dinner, and we talked and talked."
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