“Mineral rights,” says Uncle Hieronymous, “is the rights to the minerals and metals and sich a-hidin’ in the ground under a piece of prop’ty. One feller can own the trees, another can own the land, and another can own whatever happens to be found under the land. And that’s what I own yet. Haw! If somebody was to up and find a di’mond-mine on that al’ forty, who in the world would it b’long to? Why, to me, Hieronymous Alphabet Bell, and to nobody else that walks on two laigs.”
Mark nodded that he understood, and then Uncle Hieronymous wanted to know what we figured on doing that day.
“L-l-let’s explore,” says Mark.
“We’ll git lost,” says I.
“Shucks. We won’t go b-b-back into the woods. We’ll just go along the b-b-brook.”
“Good idee,” says uncle. “Get acquainted with the neighborhood, so to speak. Whenever you git back’ll be time to eat. If you get lost whistle like this,” and he showed us a whistle that went, “Wheet, wheet, wheet, whee, hoo.” “Reg’lar old lumber-camp signal,” he says.
“D-don’t you want to come?” Mark asked him.
“Me? Goodness, no! Couldn’t spare the time. Couldn’t spare a minnit. Got a lot of thinkin’ to do to-day, and consid’able newspaper-readin’, to say nothin’ of washin’ dishes and catchin’ a mess of fish. No, I don’t guess I got any time to spare. Why, there’s things I’ve been plannin’ to think about for weeks, and puttin’ off and puttin’ off. I picked to-day to study over ’em, and it’s got to be done. I got to git out there and lay onto my back and figger out what I’d ’a’ done if ever I’d got elected to Congress, and what keeps one of these here airyplanes up in the air; and another important p’int is why dogs wag their tails when they’re tickled and cats when they’re mad. You kin see I got my hands full.
“Some folks sit and think and think,
And some folks writes it down with ink,”