John went to see her, reaching her cot at dusk and coming home in the evening. To do this he walked sixteen miles.
At first she was reticent.
“It ain’t no use to talk of mineral-rods with no gold nor silver to look at nor to feel of.”
There was no other way. So John put all the coins he had into her hand, and then she revealed her secret to him. Not only this, but she encouraged him when he told her of his plans. She related what she had done in her younger days when she lived in other parts. And more, she exacted a promise from him of some share of what he would surely find on the Beach.
“It had always been said,” she remarked as he was leaving, “and I’ve heerd it time an’ time agin, thet Kidd buried money on thet Beach as well as on Gard’ner’s Islan’. Nobody hed found any as yet, because nobody hed s’arched in the right spot. It hed come down from gineration to gineration thet he was along the South Beach many times, an’ thet he come in the inlets an’ got supplies of the Injins; an’ where could he bury treasure thet would be safer than on thet Beach? an’ if I was a younger woman, or even now at my age if I hed less rheumatiz, I’d go on to thet Beach an’ live there, an’ I’d s’arch it fur miles with a min’ral rod.”
In his lonely walk home he repeated the directions she had given him to fix them in his mind, for the old crone had been garrulous and had wandered from the particular subject again and again.
“Find a large witchhazel growing in moist, springy ground—near a stream was best. Cut a branch shaped like the letter Y, with prongs rather larger round than a man’s thumb, and leave the bark on. In the prong running down from the fork and near the end remove the bark and gouge out a hole large enough to hold a good-sized goosequill, which must be got from a pure white goose. Fill this quill with quicksilver and cover it tightly with kid. Then put this into the hole in the end of the witchhazel crotch, pack a little cotton around it, and replace the bark.
“He must carry a lucky bone in his pocket the while, and carry it with him for days before using the mineral-rod, as well as while using it. All must be done secretly, and no other person should see any part of the process. The rod must be concealed, and it was best to wrap it in an old coat till the spot of search was reached. When going to dig for treasure he must take nothing that had been used—always a new spade or shovel.”
John repeated these directions over and over in his walk through the great woods which are gone now almost completely.
The bay and the ocean to the south, the heavy forests north of the line of hamlets along the shores of the bay—such were the conditions at that time. To-day one can picture and realize those conditions to some degree,