"I am a-goin' to do my duty," he said, humbly.
"You'd better. If you don't——" and she ended with a shake of her head that meant a great deal.
"She's bound to have her way," he told himself later. "I've got to git used to it, I suppose. Drat the luck, anyway. I wish I had never heard o' thet pot o' gold!"
In a roundabout fashion Abner Balberry had heard that Nat had gone to Buffalo, and then he learned through a man who had been to New York that his nephew was in the metropolis. Abner had often longed to visit New York, and here he saw his opportunity to do so.
"I'm a-goin' to New York," he announced one day, shortly after the pot of gold incident.
"What are you going to do there?" asked his wife.
"I'm a-goin' to look fer Nat. I've heard he's down there, an' I want to save him from goin' to destruction."
"Better leave him where he is," said the new wife, who did not fancy another of her husband's people around the farm.
"No, I'm a-goin' to hunt him up. I feel it's my duty to do it."
"Then, if you go to New York, you have got to take me along, Abner."