“Just keep right on churnin’,” Mrs. Swenson insisted. “You don’t dare stop or the butter won’t come.
“It’s the strangest thing!” her eyes roved about the large room. “The Chicaskis—that was the name of the people who built this cabin—they disappeared, you might say, overnight.”
“Oh! Did you know them?” the swish-swash stopped for a space of seconds.
“Well, yes and no,” Mrs. Swenson smiled an odd smile. “No one got to know them very well. They left on foot,” she leaned forward in her chair. “They’d had a horse. They sold that to Tim Huston. So away they went, each of them with satchels in both hands. That’s all they took. It’s the strangest thing.”
She paused. The churn went swish-swash. The little tin clock in the corner went tick-tick-tick. Florence’s lips parted.
Then her visitor spoke again: “They had other things. Wonderful things. A huge copper kettle and,” her voice dropped to a whisper, “seven golden candlesticks. Leastwise, I always thought they was gold. She always had ’em up there above the fireplace, and how they did shine! Gold! I’m sure of it.
“They might have took them. Maybe they did, the candlesticks, I mean. But that huge copper kettle. They never took that, not in a satchel.
“I don’t mind admitting,” Mrs. Swenson’s tone became confidential, “that those of us who’ve lived around here ever since have done a lot of snoopin’ about this old place, lookin’ for that copper kettle and—and other things.
“There are those who say they hid gold, lots of Russian, or maybe German gold, around here somewhere. But, of course, you can’t believe all you hear. And no one has ever found anything, not even the big copper kettle. So,” she settled back in her chair, “perhaps there’s nothing to it after all. Mighty nice cabin, though,” her tone changed. “Make you a snug home in winter. Not like these cabins the other settlers are building out of green logs. Them logs are goin’ to warp something terrible when they dry. Then,” she threw back her head and laughed, “then the children will be crawlin’ through the cracks, and with the temperature at thirty below—think what that will be like!”
Florence did think. She shuddered at the very mention of it, and whispered a silent prayer of thanksgiving to the good God who had guided them to their snug cabin at the edge of the clearing beside that gem of a lake.