I was never troubled by any suspicion that the tank, the ocean, and the glass creatures existed only in Jimmy's imagination. Such doubts did not fret me then, nor afterwards. The green chest remained one of the mysteries of the believing years.
CHAPTER IX
WHITE PEACOCKS
During the time that Jimmy stayed at his grandmother's farm—a period that was lengthened to more than two weeks—we were all agitated by the approach of a circus. Excitement had reached such a pitch that when, three days before circus-day, Jimmy invited me to make him a visit, I was in some doubt whether I ought to venture so far afield.
But on a solemn promise from Jimmy's Uncle Will that he would personally convey me home, behind one of his own horses, at least twenty-four hours before the great event, I thought it might be safe to risk it. Jimmy could stay at the farm (fully two miles away) until the very morning, if he liked. I preferred to be nearer at hand. So to the farm I went.
Certainly, no other place would have tempted me. It was, to our fancies, perhaps the most fortunate spot on earth. Historians and antiquaries might deny that it had been the scene of a proper Indian raid. We could see the loopholes from which the flintlocks had been fired, and mark the small window whence a dipperful of molten lead was poured, to discourage an Indian whose anxiety to come inside the house made him indiscreet. I have never heard any of the slaves to fact assert that the farm-house might not have seen the tomahawk flashing about its walls and heard the war-whoop ring out.
It was there in the days of tomahawks and war-whoops.
If the Indians had been so inconsiderate as to pass it by, we were not going to let that trouble us. Certainly, a plough seldom turned the earth of the adjoining meadow without bringing to light a flint arrow-tip or the head of a stone axe—weapons which even the scientific historian might hesitate to attribute to the ministers and deacons of Puritan times.