“Now the boy doesn’t want a pick-ax and spade to find timber with, does he?” continued the storekeeper. “He must be going to dig in the ground with them, and I would like to know what he is after. He said he was going to repair some fences; but I did not believe it.”
“Give me ten cents’ worth of crackers and ten cents’ worth of cheese,” said Jonas, who wanted to get a little time to think about this matter. “I believe we are going to have falling weather before long.”
“It looks like it now,” said the man, hurrying to fulfill Jonas’s order. “We need rain badly. What did you say Nat wanted that spade and pick-ax for?”
“Oh yes; he is going to fix some fences, and of course he needs a spade to get the blocks in right,” said Jonas, who had been doing some tremendous thinking while the storekeeper was getting out his crackers and cheese. “I am going up to look at him and see that he does his work right Yes, the old man is dead,” said he, in reply to a question. “And if I can pay the tax rates on this place I shall have it.”
“Did he leave you anything?” asked the storekeeper. “I suppose that is what you are looking out for.”
“I don’t know why I should look for that more’n anything else,” said Jonas, in a tone of voice that showed the storekeeper that he did not care to answer any more questions on this point. “The money was his own, and he left it to whom he pleased.”
Having secured his crackers and cheese and the horse having drunk all he could, Jonas and Caleb climbed into the wagon again and continued on their way. At this moment the customer drove up with a team.
“It is no go, Eph,” said the storekeeper. “That’s Jonas in that wagon. He did not say anything about money, but I will tell you what I think: If the old man has left any money, he has got it hidden up there in the woods. Let us wait until the boy comes down here and then go for him.”
“It beats the world how everybody seems to think that the old man had left us some money,” said Jonas, as plainly as a mouthful of cracker would permit. “Everyone seems to think that the old man had money, and I believe he had, too. And it all rests with Nat. If he’s found it I am going to know where it is. Hit him hard, Caleb, and make him go faster.”
The six miles that lay between them and the village seemed to have lengthened out wonderfully, but the old horse finally covered the distance at last and drew up at the place where the boys had crossed the fence to enter the bushes. There had been somebody through there, that was plain; but Caleb’s eyes grew wild when he looked at the dark masses of brush that lay before him; and even Jonas was not quite so lively as he had been.