“ALL’S NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS,”
The Young Californian.
CHAPTER I.
BAD MANAGEMENT.
“Ain’t the stage rather late, Squire? I’ve been waiting round a considerable while now.”
The “Squire” had just driven up to the Post Office, which was at one end of the village tavern, and a man hanging to a post that upheld the piazza addressed him.
“Perhaps it may be, I’m rather late myself; but I drove the long road past Deacon Chase’s. Do you expect any body, Gilman?”
“Well—I can’t say I do, Squire; but I like to see the newspapers, and hear what’s going on in the world, as well as most people, specially since the Californy gold’s turned up. I wouldn’t mind finding a big lump or so myself.”
Gilman chuckled as he said this, and set a dilapidated hat a little more over his eyes, to shade them from the strong light of the declining sun. No wonder they needed it; for they were weak and bleared, and told the same tale that could be read in every line of a once expressive face. The tavern bar had seen as much of him as the piazza. He knew by long experience the taste of all those fiery liquids, contained in the rows of decanters, and worse still, of many a cask of New England rum, dispensed by the landlord of “Mooney’s Tavern.”
“I’ve heard your wife’s father say there was gold buried on every farm in New Hampshire, if people only knew where to find it,” the Squire answered pleasantly, fastening his horse to the much used tying-up post; “there ought to be on what’s left of his, by this time—there’s been enough buried there.”