"—and then we got to poking around, looking into some boxes and talking about the funny old hooded cradle that Mother brought from her home in Massachusetts. And all of a sudden Corinne spied that little old hair-trunk,—do you remember it, Bess?—and she said she'd never seen an old trunk like that before. I asked her if she'd like to look into it. I really didn't remember, myself, what the inside was like or what was kept in it. She said she would, so we started to haul it down. It's rather small, and Sarah had it piled way up on that high shelf.
"Well, I guess we gave it too hard a jerk, for all of a sudden, down it came—smash!—and flew open (you know it hasn't any lock now), and everything in it was scattered all over the floor. Sarah had all our winter flannels packed away in it, and you can imagine what a time we had picking them up and trying to fold and get them back so she wouldn't know what had happened!
"Corinne noticed that the bottom of the trunk seemed all wrong"
"But here's the queer part of it! Just after we'd collected all the things and folded them nicely and were going to put them back, Corinne noticed that the bottom of the trunk seemed all wrong. One corner of it was humped up as though it had been knocked through in falling. I tell you I was scared, for I thought Sarah'd just go wild when she found it out! But when we turned the trunk upside down,—lo and behold! the bottom of it was all right—just as tight as a trivet!
"If we weren't astonished! We just didn't know what to make of it! Then we turned it back, and I put my hand under the part that was poked up, gave it a pull, and—it came right out!—the whole bottom! And there, if you please, was the real bottom of the trunk, underneath! But between the two was lying hidden—this!" Jess ran to the bookcase, pulled out the mysterious object she had concealed there, and crossing the room laid it in Margaret's lap. They all crowded about the chair.
"Why!" exclaimed Bess, in a tone of great disappointment, before the others could speak, "it's only an old, dusty, disreputable account-book with the back torn off. I don't see anything so wonderful in that!"
"Wait till you've seen what's inside!" remarked Corinne, quietly. Margaret, meanwhile, was fingering the crumbly leather cover, wondering at its queer, mottled aspect. Then she opened it to the first page and suddenly gave a big gasp.
"Well, of all things!" she murmured. "What in the world can it mean? I never saw anything like it before!"
"Neither did I!" agreed Bess, now in a tone of real awe. The other two only smiled, with a rather "I-told-you-so!" expression. Well might they marvel over its strange contents. The pages were yellow with age and mottled with curious brown stains, and some of them were torn. But the writing was still visible, and this is what it looked like:—