A Struggle for a Fortune. Castlemon Harry
now I tell you. I will go down to the store with you.”
“Well, I won’t do it,” said Nat.
“If you don’t do it I will tell pap.”
“You can run and tell him as soon as you please. If you want shoes, go to work and earn the money.”
Caleb waited to hear no more. He dropped the milk bucket as if it were a coal of fire and walked as straight toward the house as he could go. He slammed the door behind him but in two minutes he reappeared, accompanied by his father. Things began to look dark for Nat.
“There, sir, I have lost my shoes,” said he. “If Uncle Jonas takes these away from me he will be the meanest man I ever saw. They are mine and I don’t see why I can not be allowed to keep them.”
When Jonas came up he did not appear so cross as he usually did. In fact he tried to smile, but Nat knew there was something back of it.
“Hallo, where did you get them shoes, Natty?” was the way in which he began the conversation.
“I got them down to the store,” was the reply, “and Caleb wants me to buy him a pair; but I have not got the money to do it.”
“Don’t you reckon you could find two extry dollars somewhere?” said Jonas.
“No, nor one dollar. I will tell you what I will do,” said Nat, seeing that the smile of his uncle’s face speedily gave way to his usual fierce frown. “I will tell you right where my money is hidden and then Caleb can go and find it.”
“Well, that’s business,” said Caleb, smiling all over.
“If you will do that then me and you won’t have any trouble about them shoes,” chimed in Jonas, once more calling the smile to his face. “Where have you got it? How many years have you been here, Natty?” continued Jonas, for just then an idea occurred to him. “You have been here just eleven years – you are fourteen now – and you have kept that money hidden out there in the brush all this while. Now why did you do that?”
It was right on the point of Nat’s tongue to tell Jonas that he did not have the money when he came there, but he knew that by so doing he would bring some body else into trouble; so he said nothing.
“I was older than you and knew more, and you ought to have given me the money to keep for you,” continued Jonas. “If you had done that you could have come to me any time that you wanted a pair of shoes, and you could have got them without the least trouble.”
“Won’t you take what there is left in my bag after you see it?” asked Nat, hopefully.
“That depends. I want first to see how much you have in that bag. Where is it?”
“Caleb, you know where that old fallen log is beside the branch near the place where we get water?” said Nat. “Well, go on the off side of that and you will see leaves pushed against the log. Brush aside the leaves and there you will find the bag.”
Caleb at once posted off and Jonas, after looking in vain for a seat, turned the milk bucket upside down, perched himself upon it and resumed his mild lecture to Nat over keeping his money hidden from him for so many years. He was the oldest and knew more about money than Nat did, he was a little fellow when he came there – when Jonas reached this point in his lecture he stopped and looked steadily at the floor. Nat was only three years old when he came to take up his abode under the roof of Jonas Keeler, to be abused worse than any dog that ever lived, both by Jonas and his son Caleb, and how could he at that tender age hide away his money so that Jonas could not find it?
“Wh-o-o-p!” yelled Jonas, speaking out before he knew what he was doing.
“What is the matter?” inquired Nat.
“Nothing much,” replied Jonas. “I was just a-thinking; that’s all. If Nat was only three years old when he came here to live with me,” he added to himself, “he couldn’t have had that money. Somebody has given it to him since, and it was not so very long ago, either. Whoop!” and it was all he could do to keep from uttering the words out loud. “He has got it from the old man; there’s where he got it from. And didn’t I say that the old man had something hidden out all these years? He didn’t give me a quarter of what he saved from the rebels. Now he has got to give me that money or there’s going to be a fracas in this house. I won’t keep him no longer. You can bet on that.”
At this point in his meditations Jonas was interrupted by the return of his son who was coming along as though he had nothing to live for, swinging his hand with the bag in it to let his father believe that there was nothing in it that he cared to save.
“What’s the matter?” inquired Jonas.
“I have found the bag but there is nothing in it, dog-gone the luck,” sputtered Caleb. “There is just a ‘shinplaster’ in it and it calls for two bits. Where is the rest of your money?” he added, turning fiercely upon Nat.
“That is all I have,” replied Nat. “It was in that bag, wasn’t it? Then I have no more to give you.”
Jonas took the bag, glanced at the shinplaster and put it into his pocket. The smile had now given away to the frown.
“Say, pap, ain’t you going to give that to me!” asked Caleb, who began to see that the interest he had taken in unearthing Nat’s money was not going to help very much.
“No; you can’t get no shoes with that money. I will take it and get some coffee with it the next time I go to town. Is this all the money you have left, Nat?”
“Every cent; and now you are going to take that away from me, too?”
“Of course; for I think it is the properest thing to do. You don’t ever go to church – ”
“And what is the reason I don’t? It is because I have not got any clothes to wear,” said Nat, who plainly saw what was coming next.
“That’s neither here nor there,” said Jonas. “Caleb goes to church, and he would go every Sunday if he had the proper things.”
“You bet I would,” said Caleb.
“So I think that if you don’t go to church and Caleb does, you had better take off them shoes. Take them off and give them to Caleb.”
“Now, Uncle Jonas, you are not going to make me go bare-footed this cold weather,” said Nat, anxiously. “If Caleb wants shoes let him go to work and earn them.”
“I can’t go to work about here,” said Caleb. “There’s nobody will hire me to do a thing.”
“Because you are too lazy; that’s what’s the matter with you,” said Nat, under his breath.
“Take off them shoes,” said Jonas.
Nat hesitated, but it was only for an instant. Jonas was not the man to allow his orders to be disobeyed with impunity, so he arose from his seat on the milk bucket with alacrity, disappeared in a little room where he kept a switch which he had often used on the boys when they did anything that Jonas considered out of the way, and when he brought it out with him he found Nat on the floor taking off his shoes.
“You have come to time, have you?” said the man with a grin. “So you are going to take them off and give them to Caleb, are you?”
“I am going to take them off because I can’t well help myself,” said Nat, boldly. “If I was as big as you are I would not take them off.”
“None of that sort of talk to me,” said Jonas, lifting the switch as if he were about to let it fall upon Nat’s shoulders. “You would take them off if you were as big as a mountain.”
When he had removed his shoes Caleb picked them up and in company with his father started toward the house. He wanted to put them where they would be safe, and Nat stood there in his bare feet watching him until he closed the door behind him.
We have not referred to the relationship which Nat bore to Jonas Keeler, but no doubt those into whose hands this story falls will be surprised to hear it. Jonas was his uncle, and, by the way, Mr. Nickerson was