: Where Your Treasure Is: Being the Personal Narrative of Ross Sidney Diver by Day Holman - Treasure troves Fiction; Divers Fiction

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WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS

Being the Personal Narrative of Ross Sidney, Diver

New York And London: Harper Brothers

WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS

SPEAKING of money--and it's a mighty popular topic--the investment of the first twenty-five cents I ever earned, all at a crack, ought to have directed my feet, my thoughts, and my future along the straight and narrow way. Ten minutes after I had galloped gleefully home with that quarter-dollar from Judge Kingsley's hay-field, my good mother led me down to Old Maid Branscombe's little book-store and obliged me to buy a catechism.

I earned that money by hauling a drag-rake for a whole day around behind a hay-cart, barefoot and kicking against the vicious stubbles of the shaven field. I honestly felt that I did not deserve the extra penance of the catechism. However, that first day's work gave me my earliest respect for money--earned money. And I also remember that Judge Kingsley, when he paid me, sniffed and said I hadn't done enough to earn twenty-five cents.

I hated to walk up to him and ask for my pay, because Celene Kingsley was within hearing; she had come down to the field to fetch him home in her pony-chaise. That's right! You've guessed it! I'll waste no words. It was only another of the old familiar cases. Barefooted, folks poor, keeping my face toward her, as a sunflower fronts the sun , I was in the shamed, secret, hopeless, heartaching agonies of a fifteen-year-old passion. Of course, I don't mean that I had loved her for all that time--I'm giving my age and hers.

Yes, I hated to walk up. And the judge gave me the quarter only because he did not have any smaller change.

And really, for the times, it was considerable of a coin for a single juvenile job.

The services of youngsters in those days in Levant were paid for on a narrower scale--ten cents for lawns and a nickel for shoveling snow, and so on. And tin-peddlers were mighty stingy in their dickerings for old rubbers and junk. To get rags one had to steal 'em--our folks made rugs and guarded old remnants carefully.

So much for my first financial adventure of real moment--for the biggest coin I had ever clutched; and right now I lay down my pen for a moment and spread out two human paws which have juggled three million dollars' worth of gold ingots as carelessly as one scruffles jackstraws. That was maverick treasure. But there's a big difference between earned money and maverick money. If you don't know what maverick means I'll save you the trouble of looking the word up in the dictionary. Once on a time, in Texas, old Sam Maverick wouldn't brand his cattle. Therefore, a maverick was a cow or steer unbranded. And to-day it means any kind of property at large which a bold man or a dishonest man may grab if he can beat other thieves to it.

I had an early taste of maverick money, and the taste was so sweet that I never have lost my hankering for more.

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