The Believing Years

by Edmund Lester Pearson

In this one much importance was attached to a plate of sand set on a table. This, so Jimmy solemnly averred, was for the purpose of discovering the presence of mice in the basement. If they ran over the sand, their footprints would betray them, and traps might be set. It did not occur to me to marvel at the obliging nature of mice who should be at such great pains to record their arrival. Observing that Jimmy's great-aunt often inspected the plate of sand and smoothed its surface over after each inspection, we looked to it that she should never be disappointed.

It is not hard to counterfeit small footprints, such as might be made by a scurrying mouse.

In an adjoining room there was a steam-boiler—part of the heating apparatus of the house. The existence of this boiler, the discovery of clay in Davenport's field, and the always present need of marbles, these conditions led to the foundation of an enterprise that occupied a number of days.

The clay was brought from "Davenport's," and rolled into balls of the proper size. These were placed on shingles and set to bake beneath the boiler.

Visions of revolutionizing the marble industry spurred us on. We calculated that we could undersell the regular dealers and that profits would accrue. But although the clay balls were duly left beneath the boiler all night, there were defects in the finished product. The part that had rested on the shingle obstinately remained flat. We found no way of giving our marbles the glaze necessary to the real thing; so the dealers continued to ask the exorbitant sum of a cent for ten, and did not have to break prices to meet our competition.

It is possible that the fact that there was no heat in the boiler had something to do with this fiasco.

After this, to keep our minds from wandering toward the green chest, we started the manufacture of gunpowder on a large scale. The raw material, rotting stone, could be procured from the sand heap and dump, which at that date (before the rise of city improvement associations) adorned the banking at the end of the frog pond. This dump had many attractions, not the least of which were the squash vines which trailed over it. They never got beyond the blossoming stage, but that did not trouble us. The possession of raw squashes would have availed us little. The flowers were interesting, and I scarcely need to point out the value of the stems. We cut a slit near one end, and they became in our hands trumpets with which to blow soul-animating strains. It is, of course, necessary to scrape off the prickles with a jack-knife, or the lips of the performer are apt to suffer.

But these were by the way. The rotting stone, red, gray, brown, and black, was the most valuable product of the dump. We carried it to a broad, flat piece of slate which covered a cistern just outside the basement windows. Here, with hard rocks, we ground it fine. It then became, by the chemistry which worked so quickly in those days, gunpowder. The black dust was the ordinary article. Mixed with red or other colors, it was transformed into various high explosives. Then we stored it in packets in the basement, where it might be drawn upon in case of need—any sudden attacks by Indians or pirates, for instance.

The day on which we stored the powder was not long after the Fourth of July. Our operations in the basement had to come to an end on that day, for Grandmother Bradley and Aunt Josephine were going away for a week. The house was to be closed, and Jimmy would stay with his Grandmother Toppan in the country.

The last time we entered the basement our eyes wandered toward the green chest. But neither of us spoke about it. I wondered if the chest would be stolen, or be burned up, or should I die and never look inside it? Already the little glass ships and fishes had become less real, though more beautiful, than the folks of elf-land. What small hope I had ever entertained of seeing them was dwindling to a pin-point.