Every one knows that there is silver in Maine. Not a few know it to their sorrow; for there is nothing more discouraging than a mine that yields just a little less than enough to pay running expenses. But to us boys Addison's discovery suggested the possibilities of vast fortunes.
Addison felt very sure that it was silver, but we decided to say nothing to any one until we were certain. All that winter, however, we cherished rosy hopes of soon being wealthy. At the first opportunity we meant to make a quiet trip up there with hammer and drill to obtain specimens for assay, but for one reason or another we did not get round to it until August, when we planned the blackberrying excursion.
While we were at the breakfast table that morning there came a thundershower, and a thundershower in the early morning is unusual in Maine. The sun had risen clear, but a black cloud rose in the west, the sky darkened suddenly, and so heavy a shower fell that at first we thought we should have to give up the trip.
But the shower ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and the sun shone out again. Ellen, who had gone to the pantry for something, called to us that there was a bright rainbow in the northwest.
"Do come here to the back window!" she cried. "It's a lovely one!"
Sure enough, there was a vivid rainbow; the bright arch spanned the whole northwestern sky over the great woods.
"Rainbow in the morning,
Good sailors take warning,"
the old Squire remarked, smiling. "Better take your coats and umbrellas with you to-day."
We did not know then how many times during that day our thoughts would go back to the rainbow and the old superstition.
After breakfast we hitched up Old Sol, drove round by the Edwardses' to pick up Tom and Kate, and from there followed the lumber road into the great woods, to Otter Brook. The "burnt lots" were perhaps a mile beyond the brook.