“No, thanks,” I grinned. “I’m not eating pickles to-day.” Nor did Poppy, I notice, show any interest in the pickles.
“Did you know,” says he, galloping into the food, “that the man who built this house used to have a big cucumber patch out back where your patch is?”
Coming out of the pantry with more bread on a plate, Mrs. O’Mally let the slices fall to the floor. And seeing her face, as it turned white at mention of the pirate, I kicked the leader under the table. She knew secret stuff, all right!
Later she took us down a flight of heavy stairs into the deep, dungeon-like cellar, where a week’s picking from the big cucumber patch had been put into one huge bin. One hundred and thirty bushels, she said proudly. I could imagine that she was saying “two hundred and sixty dollars” in her mind. And all we had in the bank was thirty-two dollars!
“I suppose,” says she, “that you’ll be comin’ after ’em soon.”
Poppy didn’t say anything. He felt kind of sneaking, I guess. But, to that point, until we knew for sure that we were up a tree there was no sense in alarming her.
“Had I not known Jerry’s pa and ma so well, I might have hesitated to save the cucumbers for ye, as the telegram said. But ’tis confidence I have a-plenty in the Todd family. For who give me the fine woolen blankets for me bed last winter, when the snow was tin feet deep between here and the river road? No one but Miz Todd, herself. An’ who come with a truck-load of coal, even shovelin’ his way? Ye should know, Jerry, for ’twas that elegant pa of yours. Sure, I wanted to pay him for the coal, but would he take a penny? Not him! He had coal goin’ to waste in the brickyard, he said, like the magnificent liar that he is, an’ it was a great accommodation to find some one who could make good use of it.” The old woman was dabbing at her eyes with the corner of her apron. “Yes, Jerry,” she put a trembling hand on my shoulder, “’tis a fine pa and ma that ye have. An’ if ye say ’tis me entire cucumber crop that ye want, God bless ye ’tis yours for the askin’. I can even wait for me money, if necessary.”
I didn’t say anything. But I was doing a lot of deep thinking. This showed how lucky a boy was to have a good pa and ma. Mrs. O’Mally trusted me because she trusted my folks. Old Poppy, I stiffened, as I saw where my duty lay, simply had to squeeze a winning scheme out of his beezer now. There were no “if’s” or “and’s” about that. For I saw that if we skidded on paying for the cucumbers it would be just the same as throwing dirt on the fine family reputation that Mother and Dad had been carefully building up all these years.
Tap! Tap! Tap! It was a slight sound. Faint and far-away. And under ordinary circumstances I might not have noticed it at all. For frequently sounds of no consequence carry a long distance in the earth, like the time in the Higby-ravine cave when we heard a farmer’s water-pumping engine almost a mile away. This, though, was no such sound as that. It was more like even rock-hammer blows. Tap! Tap! Tap! Some one near us was working underground.
There was a cry from Poppy. And I wheeled to find him supporting Mrs. O’Mally.