"Oh, if I only had somebody to pick them up with me!" sighed Kate, as she fell to work. Then her thoughts travelled far afield, for a delightful notion had taken possession of her, and her young brain was teeming with a scheme so great it was—well, it was fully worthy of itself.
Almost unconsciously she gathered the fallen chestnuts, scarcely realizing the novelty of the task so absorbed was she in her sudden Quixotic project. Yet, as she groped among the brown leaves at the foot of her tree, her fingers came in contact with something wholly different from chestnuts or their thorny burrs. It was hard as a stone, yet it wasn't a stone. It was half-buried in the leaf-mold and moss, though the rain of the previous night had washed it free in one corner.
That corner glistened so that it dazzled the digger's eyes, and she exclaimed aloud:
"Oh, I've found a gold mine! Right here in Aunt Eunice's woods. I must get this great piece of gold out and take it to her. And I won't tell anybody, not anybody, not even Uncle Moses, till I've told her. For whatever is in her woods must be hers, of course."
Away went the last great scheme, which had been wholly connected with Mr. Jones and his aspirations for town office; and up rose another far more gigantic, by which everybody who was poor, "everybody in the whole wide world," should benefit. For, of course, the mine was to be inexhaustible, and Aunt Eunice would be able to give away money hereafter without stint or measure.
If only she could get out that first great shining lump of gold!
And at last it was out, yet, after all, no gold whatever. Something almost as splendid, though, since this was a mystery. A mystery with a capital M! For if there were no mystery in the matter why should anybody hide that strangely shaped, glittering brass bound box beneath a chestnut-tree?