“Somewhere along Mine Creek, I presume, my son?�
“Yes, sir.�
“Well, don’t venture too close to the old mine,� cautioned his father. “Of course you wouldn’t think of entering it. The timbers are probably all decayed; there might be a cave-in any time. It is a dangerous place.�
“Yes, sir,� Dick answered meekly.
And forthwith he went to Mr. Blair’s store and invested his last dime in two candles. He was very zealous about going to the mine for some time after that, but he only succeeded in chipping off a few bits rather worse than better than the one he had first secured.
The glow of that little success died away, and he felt discouraged and ashamed of himself when his schoolmates held their garden exhibit in the Tavern parlor.
All The Village and the surrounding country gathered there on the evening of that crisp autumn day, the last Saturday in October. The big parlor that had been a gathering place since stagecoach days had a gala air. It was decorated with American flags, and the vegetables were piled in pyramids on tables covered with red, white, and blue tissue paper. Every withered leaf had been cut from the cabbages. Each potato and onion and tomato had been washed as carefully as a baby’s face. The ears of corn had the husks turned back and tied, and were fastened in great bunches on the wall with tri-colored streamers. By the side of each pile of vegetables was a card saying how many bushels or gallons or quarts the garden had yielded. The girls had jars and jars of tomatoes, peas, beans, corn, berries—canned, pickled, preserved.
On a neatly lettered card above the door were the President’s words: “Every bushel of potatoes properly stored, every pound of vegetables properly put by for future use, every jar of fruit preserved, adds that much to our insurance of victory, adds that much to hasten the end of this conflict.�
“I tell you, dears,� quavered Mrs. Spencer’s gentle old voice, as she looked around, “this exhibition would be a credit to grown-up farmers anywhere. I don’t believe,� she added thoughtfully, “that people worked during The—that other war, like they are working now. Of course that was at home, and all our men were in it and our women all felt it as a personal thing. But people—well, they weren’t organized. Did you ever know children do anything like this, all this gardening and Red Cross work? Oh, it’s wonderful, wonderful! And they’ve all worked—even that dear little dove, Sweet William.�
“Oh, Sweet William! I always knew you’re a bird,� laughed Anne Lewis, who was standing near. “Now I know the kind. You are a dove; oh, you are a dove of war, like Cousin Mayo’s birds!�