“Then what?” besought Lammy, in an agony of suspense.
“Den you’ll hear sumpfin’!” shouted Lucky, suddenly pulling the handkerchief from his face and fixing Lammy with a cross-eyed stare that was paralyzing.
“But recommember,” Lucky added, shaking his forefinger ominously, “make dem bullets out o’ sumpfin’ yo’ find, not bought nor lead uns, but sumpfin’ white like silver, or dis year charm hit won’t work.”
“But where shall I find it?” gasped Lammy, so much in earnest that he did not realize the absurdity of what the old man said.
This question seemed to take the magician out of his depth, and annoyed him not a little. After casting his eyes helplessly about, they chanced to rest on the stream below the window, when he quickly closed them and whispered, “Yo’ must look in water—not in a pond, but in running water!” after which he refused to say another word.
When Lammy reached home, his mother was setting the supper on the table, while his father and brothers were going over the same old arguments as to the possibility or impossibility of buying the fruit farm. Lammy smiled to himself as he lifted Twinkle to his shoulder and then put the dog on a chair beside him, his usual place at meal-times, where he waited, one ear up and one down, until it was time to be fed.
No one noticed how red the boy’s cheeks were and how his eyes shone, as he hurried from supper to learn his lessons, that he might have time in the morning to begin his search for metal for the magic bullets before going to school. He thought if he had the material, all else would be easy, for there was an old bullet-mould in the workroom in the barn, where mending was done, also an iron pot that had been used for melting solder.
He did not tell his mother of his plan, not that he meant in any way to deceive her; but if she knew nothing, the surprise at the result would be all the greater.
For the next two or three days Lammy went up and down the river banks from the Mill Farm to the upper fork, apparently as aimlessly as in the time that he was dubbed “Look-out Johnny,” and the neighbours nodded, and said, “The brace he got fightin’ didn’t last,—he’s trampin’ again,” while his mother took it to heart and thought it was because he was grieving for Bird, as they had heard nothing definite or satisfactory from her for more than a month, and then only a few words on a card inquiring for Twinkle.
When Saturday came, Lammy started off in the morning early, asking his mother for a lunch to carry with him, which was nothing unusual. This day, instead of heading downstream, he started above the mill and followed the river up toward the woods. All the forenoon he looked here and there, and after eating his luncheon came out of the woods near where the highway branched and crossed the ford on the way to the bog dumping ground.