“A hundred thousand dollars!” he gasped.
“Sh! Not so loud,” cautioned his mother. “You don’t want everybody to know it, do you? Sit down here and tell us what you think of it.”
“To think that old Mr. Smith, who went about with his knees and elbows out, should be worth so much money!” said Leon. “It is no wonder that that fellow wanted to fight for it.”
“Yes, and you must be careful what you say around where he can hear it,” said his father, who had taken up a position in the door of the lean-to so that he could partially screen Leon while reading the will. “If he finds out where that money is hid, it’s all up with you.”
“But he won’t find it,” said Leon, who quickly copied after his father and spoke in an almost inaudible whisper. “He has got it hidden in the pig-pen. I was there while he was laying that floor along in the early part of the war, and he said then that I might some day dig up something under it. I couldn’t think then what he meant, although I know it now.”
“Well, you had better let your mother take care of the will,” said Mr. Sprague, “and then if anything happens to us she will know right where to go and get the money. I tell you that is a good deal more than we thought we were going to have.”
Leon was almost overwhelmed by the result of the last few minutes, and if he could have had his own way he would have been glad to get off somewhere by himself and think the matter over. But now it was impossible. Everywhere he went there was somebody around, and it seemed to Leon, now that he thought about it, that those who knew about Mr. Smith’s will had a way of looking at him as though they knew the secrets of what was hidden under the pig-pen. Of course, it was all imagination on his part, but still he wanted to get away and talk the matter over with Tom Howe.
“Mustn’t I take anybody into my confidence at all, not even Tom?” said he.
“Take nobody into your confidence,” said his father, earnestly. “You don’t know what sort of a fellow Tom is. He may be all right to have around where there’s a jam of logs in the river, but you don’t want to say anything to him about this money business.”
“Well, when are you going to get it? We’ll have to go away from here in order to use it.”