But I would not permit him to discourage me. I hunted up Abner and asked him if there were any rock steps or a rock stairway about the place anywhere. Dick’s prediction came true.
“Why, yes, miss,” he answered, slowly, “they’s a short flight leads down into the milk-house, an’ another flight into the cellar. Then there’s the flight up to the front porch, an’ the other up to the side porch.”
“And is that all, Abner?” I questioned. “Be sure, now, that you tell me all of them.”
He stood for a minute with his eyes all squinted up, and I suppose he made a sort of mental review of the whole place, for he nodded his head at last and assured me that these were all.
Armed with this information, I rejoined the boys and—but why should I give the details of the search? It was the same old story, infinite labour and nothing at the end. Really it was disheartening.
“Well,” remarked Tom, philosophically, when we had finished putting the last step back into place, “they needed straightening, anyway. And the garden would have had to be dug up about this time, too; and I’ve always heard that it’s a good thing to loosen up the ground around trees.”
“I’m getting tired of improving the place for Tunstall’s benefit,” objected Dick. “I move we give it up.”
“Oh, no!” I cried. “We can’t give it up! That would be cowardly. Do you remember Commodore Perry, when he fought the British on Lake Erie? He had a banner painted with the words, ‘Don’t Give up the Ship,’ and he nailed it to his mast; and when his ship was sinking, he took the banner down, and carried it to another ship, and nailed it up there. Let’s nail our banner up, too.”
“But we’ve done everything we could think of doing,” objected Dick. “What can we do now, Biffkins?”
“We haven’t gone in pursuit of the early potato,” suggested Tom, demurely.