He stood there a few minutes, idly watching the dead leaves swirl along, and an occasional fish dart by, when his eyes became fixed upon an object lying close under a big stone in mid-stream; it glistened as the sun shone upon it, and then turned dull again. Whatever it was, it fascinated him strangely, and jumping from stone to stone, he soon reached it. “Only an old tin pan,” he muttered in disgust; “that won’t make bullets.”
As luck would have it, the stone upon which he stood turned, making him jump splash into the water, kicking the pan as he went. When he recovered himself, he looked about for footing, and there where the pan had been, to his amazement, lying almost at his feet, was the pewter tea-pot!
“However did that get here?” he exclaimed; but the answer was so simple that he guessed it at once. The tea-pot, in company with the pan, had been jolted from the ox-cart in crossing the ford on its way to the dump, and so escaped being swallowed.
“Hurrah!” cried Lammy, picking up the treasure and making his way to land, where he danced about in glee. “This ’ll melt into bullets first rate, and it’s kind of white like silver if it’s cleaned. When it’s melted, pop can’t call it ‘an eyesore’ or a ‘moniment,’ so it’s no harm for me to take it home.”
He could not tell why, but he took off his coat and wrapped it carefully around the tea-pot, and then slipped from the highway into the woods again.
When he reached home, it was still early afternoon. His father was cutting wood in the upper lot, and his mother had gone to Northboro with eggs for her Saturday customers, so Lammy had the place to himself.
First he buried the tea-pot deep in the feed bin, and taking the key of the house from its hiding-place under the door-mat, stole up to his room for dry shoes and socks, as it was a cold day and his sopping feet were already making him shiver and feel tight in the throat. Somehow the possession of the tea-pot gave him an uneasy feeling. Did it really belong to him? He hung about the house for a time, then walked straight out the gate and down to the Squire’s office in the town house. This same “Squire” was a man of education as well as a lawyer, and Lammy’s knock was answered by a cheery “Come in!” which he did, saying, all in one breath and quite reckless of grammar, “Please, sir, if I find anything that’s been took to the dump, but fell off and not been swallowed, would it be mine to make bullets of?”
The Squire looked up from under his bushy eyebrows and smiled at the lad encouragingly. “Certainly it would be yours, my boy; what is intentionally thrown away is fair plunder for any one.” And with a hasty “Thank you, sir,” Lammy was off again with an easy conscience, to find an old axe, break up the tea-pot, and melt it if possible before his parents’ return. Ah, but Lucky’s charm was surely working.
“Strange child that,” said the Squire, looking after him; “he’ll either turn out a fool or a genius. There is no middle path for such as he. I must keep my eye on him.”