A Busy Year at the Old Squire's

by C. A. Stephens

Addison and I picked blackberries for a while with the others; then, watching our chance, we stole away and made for the ledges, a mile or two to the northeast.

I had managed to bring a drill hammer along in my basket, wrapped up in my jacket; and Addison had brought a short drill in his pocket. We found the ledge where Addison had made his discovery and had no great trouble in chipping off some specimens. I may add here that the specimens later proved to contain silver—in small quantities. I still have a few of them—mementos of youthful hopes that faded early in the light of greater knowledge.

We followed the ledges off to the northeast over several craggy hills. At one place we found many exfoliating lumps of mica; we cleaved out sheets of it nearly a foot square, which Addison believed might prove valuable for stove doors.

While pottering with the mica, I accidentally broke into a kind of cavity, or pocket, in the ledge, partly filled with disintegrated rock; and on clearing out the loose stuff from this pocket we came upon a beautiful three-sided crystal about two inches long, like a prism, green in color, except at one end, where it shaded to pink.

It was a tourmaline crystal, similar to certain fine ones that have been found some miles to the eastward, at the now world-famous Mount Mica. At that time we did not know what it was, but, thinking that it might be valuable, we searched the pocket for other crystals, but found no more.

We had both become so much interested in searching for minerals that we had quite forgotten our luncheon. The sky, I remember, was overcast and the sun obscured; it was also very smoky from forest fires, which in those days were nearly always burning somewhere to the north of us during the summer.

But presently, as Addison was thumping away with the hammer, I noticed that it was growing dark. At first I thought that it was merely a darker cloud above the smoke that had drifted over the sun, and said nothing; but the sky continued to darken, and soon Addison noticed it.

"Another shower coming, I guess," he said, looking up. "Don't see any particular clouds, though. I wonder what makes it so dark?"

"It seems just like night coming on," said I. "But it isn't so late as all that, is it?"

"No!" exclaimed Addison. "It isn't night yet, I know!" And he hastily took out Theodora's watch, which she had intrusted to him to carry that day, so that we should know when to start for home. "It's only half past three, and the sun doesn't set now till after seven o'clock."