I never felt so blue, so wet, so hungry, or so hopeless in my life. We moved on a little farther. All at once we came out of the timber. There was no snow whatever! At that moment the sun burst forth, we struck a deserted supply wagon, found a two-pound can of Boston baked beans, got an axe from the load, chopped open the can, and had just finished the tropical fruit of Massachusetts when our own team drove up, and joy and hope made their homes once more in our hearts.
We may learn from this a valuable lesson, but at this moment I do not know exactly what it is.
Lost Money.
Most anyone could collect and tell a good many incidents about lost money that has been found, if he would try, but these cases came under my own observation and I can vouch for their truth.
A farmer in the Kinnekinnick Valley was paid $1,000 while he was loading hay. He put it in his vest pocket, and after he had unloaded the hay he discovered that he had lost it, and no doubt had pitched the whole load into the mow on top of it. He went to work and pitched it all out, a handful at a time, upon the barn floor, and when the hired man's fork tine came up with a $100 bill on it he knew they had struck a lead. He got it all.
A man gave me two $5 bills once to pay a balance on some store teeth and asked me to bring the teeth back with me. The dentist was fifteen miles away and when I got there I found I had lost the money. That was before I had amassed much of a fortune, so I went to the tooth foundry and told the foreman that I had started with $10 to get a set of teeth for an intimate friend, but had lost the funds. He said that my intimate friend would, no doubt, have to gum it awhile. Owing to the recent shrinkage in values he was obliged to sell teeth for cash, as the goods were comparatively useless after they had been used one season. I went back over the same road the next day and found the money by the side of the road, although a hundred teams had passed by it.
A young man, one spring, plowed a pocket-book and $30 in greenbacks under, and by a singular coincidence the next spring it was plowed out, and, though rotten clear through, was sent to the Treasury, where it was discovered that the bills were on a Michigan National Bank, whither they were sent and redeemed.
I lost a roll of a hundred dollars the spring of '82, and hunted my house and the office through, in search for it, in vain. I went over the road between the office and the house twenty times, but it was useless. I then advertised the loss of the money, giving the different denominations of the bills and stating, as was the case, that there was an elastic band around the roll when lost. The paper had not been issued more than an hour before I got my money, every dollar of it. It was in the pocket of my other vest.