“No, it don’t ring like the other,” observed the deacon. Jack’s heart sank. “Has a more leaden sound.” His heart went down into his shoes. “It may be good, though, after all.” It began to rise again. “We can’t tell how much the rust has to do with it. Shouldn’t wonder if any half-dollar would ring a little dull, after it had been lying out in the woods as long as this has.” And Jack’s spirits mounted again hopefully. “I’m going over to the Basin to-night,” concluded the deacon. “I’ll take it to the watch-maker, and have him test it, if you say so.”
“I wish you would,” said Jack. “And—I’d like to know who it belongs to.”
“That’s right; of course you don’t want it if it’s a bad one, or if you can find the real owner to it.”
“I meant,” faltered Jack,—“of course I wouldn’t think of passing counterfeit money, and I don’t want another man’s money any how,—but—I found it on somebody’s land. Now I’d like to know if—that somebody—has any claim to it, on that account.”
“I don’t think he’d be apt to set up a claim, without he was a pretty mean man,” said the deacon.
“Not even if ’twas Squire Peternot?” said Mr. Pipkin. “Guess he’d put in for his share, if there was any chance o’ gittin’ on ’t!”
“Nonsense, Pippy! If ’twas a large sum, he might, but a trifle like this,—you’re unjust to the squire, Pippy.”
“I haven’t said it was the squire’s land. But suppose it was? And suppose it had been a large sum,” queried Jack, “could he claim it? What’s the law?” And, to explain away his extraordinary interest in the legal point, he added, laughingly, “Just for the fun of it, I’d like to know what he could do if he should try Phin’s joke, and set out to get my half-dollar away!”
“I really don’t know about the law,” the deacon was saying, when Lion barked. “Hist! here comes Peternot himself! Say nothing. I’ll ask him. He’s bringing his nephew over to see us.”
“He’s kind of adopted his nephew, hain’t he, sence he heard of his son’s death?” said Mr. Pipkin. “I’ve seen him hangin’ around there.”