The Brass Bound Box

"Well, I went. I run 'most all the way. I got there – an' he wasn't. He wasn't at all!"

"Do you mean that he had left the cottage?"

"My suz! I should think he has. He's left, an' my log-cabin quilt's left, an' my best feather tick, an' pillows, an' a pair blankets – that kitchen-bedroom bedstead's stripped as clean as 'twas the day it was born – I mean, sot up. Now – what do you think of that?"

"I think – Oh, what a miserable business it all is! I am so worried I cannot sleep. Right and wrong, right and wrong, like the pendulum of the clock the two sides of the matter swing in my mind till I'm half-distracted. I hardly know what I am doing or saying, I am so anxious to do the best for everybody, yet what is best? I have a fear that those children asked me something absurd a few minutes ago, and I said 'yes' to them without comprehending. I think they said 'a field of pumpkins.' What could they want with a field —a field– of pumpkins?"

"Didn't want 'em, of course. Some their silliness. Don't worry. What's punkins, anyhow, compared with that log-cabin quilt?"

"Little, to be sure. And I hope it isn't really lost. Are you certain that the poor wretch is he you said?"

"As sure as I draw my breath," averred Susanna, solemnly.

"Then Squire Pettijohn must never know," said Eunice, with equal solemnity.

After that they hurried silently onward again, reckless of the fact that they had left a bedridden man alone in the house, for although the deacon was still about his evening chores, such kept him wholly outside. As for Katharine, she might or might not be on hand if Moses summoned her. Evidently she and her boy-chum had some fine scheme on hand and were away to put it in train, since they had both been more than commonly excited and eager.

Never mind. There are times in life when its commonplace affairs must yield to the extraordinary. These two quiet householders had come to such a time on that late October day.

They had walked almost as far as Susanna's cottage when Eunice paused, and held her companion also back, as she pointed through the darkening wood to a wild-looking creature prowling among the trees. He was evidently looking for something. His search so earnest and troubled that the caution he had heretofore displayed had deserted him. Stooping, poking among the leaves and bracken, rising, moving toward another tree, stooping again – repeating endlessly this same proceeding, the watchers soon tired of simply observing him.

"Stay here, Susanna. You were right. It is he. I will go and speak to him."

"Alone? Oh, Eunice, don't! Let the old quilt go! I wish I hadn't told ye. Besides, who'd ever want to sleep under it after he'd touched it?"

But though she caught at her mistress's hand to prevent such foolhardiness, Susanna could not stop her. She was walking swiftly toward the searcher and almost noiselessly, and had come up to him before he was aware. When she was close at his side, so close that her firm fingers rested on his ragged shoulder, he discovered her and started away. But she held him quiet, more by her will than her grasp, while, looking steadily into his eyes, she spoke his name, gently, kindly, as one who welcomes a long absent friend:

"Nathan! Why, Nathan! How glad I am to see you!"

The tramp no longer struggled to free himself, but as if spellbound by her gaze returned it in silence. Gradually there stole over his haggard features the light of recognition, and, instead of remembering later events, his mind reverted to his boyhood.

"Be you Miss Eunice? But – I hain't got my lesson."

Again he would have slunk away expecting a reprimand; yet none came. Quite to the contrary, Miss Maitland's own face brightened and she laughed, answering:

"Never mind the lesson, laddie. We're not little boy and young woman to-day, Sunday scholar and Sunday teacher. We're just two old friends well met, with other things to learn besides printed lessons. What have you lost? Can I help you find it?"

"A box. His'n. I fetched it safe so fur – an' now – now – I can't see it nowhere. Planck'll frown an' make me feel mean. I promised – "

There a pitiful stupidity took the place of the intelligent recognition he had momentarily displayed, and he resumed that fruitless search under the trees.

"Wait, Nathan. Maybe I know. Maybe I can help you. The box was an old, old box. It was of mahogany, heavy, bound with brass, with neither key nor keyhole, and only those who had been shown how could open it. Is that the one, Nathan?"

"Yes, yes! It's all safe inside. He put it there – just when – just – "

With a sudden outburst of grief he began to weep. The great tears ran down his dirty cheeks and streaked them. His breath came in great blubbering sobs which he made no effort to check.

Eunice Maitland also went back in spirit many years and saw before her now, not the repellent vagrant, but a forlorn child who must be comforted. Without shrinking she clasped his vile hand in her dainty one and turned him back toward Susanna's cottage. That good soul had now drawn near and was herself crying bitterly. Why – she could hardly have explained. Surely, not from any affection for Nathan Pettijohn, returned rascal, nor from any sentimental memory of bygone years, such as her mistress's; but just naturally, in sympathy with two other tear-wet faces. She found the tears a relief. Indeed, they all appeared to do so, and began to retrace the way to the woodland cottage with swifter steps. The two women, because they were feeling the cold and now realizing what a foolish thing they had done in coming out unprotected from it. The vagrant, because it was his nature to follow rather than lead. Arrived there, they found the door wide open and the furnishing sadly disordered. Evidently, Nathan had rummaged the place thoroughly.

The Widow Sprigg had long since dried her unaccountable tears, and was freshly indignant at the state of affairs. So soon as they were within doors she turned upon the intruder, and demanded:

"What did you mean by such doin's as these, Nate Pettijohn? Ain't you ashamed to destroy folkses prope'ty this way? Where's my log-cabin quilt? My pillows? All my things?"

The man paid no heed to her, but fixed a hungry gaze upon the basket she had brought earlier in the afternoon, and Eunice interposed:

"Wait, Susanna. Let us feed him first, and hear his story afterward."

With that she opened the basket and set fresh food before him, while, with that thoughtfulness which was so constantly belying her sharp tongue, the cottage mistress went to the well and brought in a fresh pail of water. Though not as ravenous as he had been that afternoon by the riverside, he even now devoured, rather than ate, the sandwiches and cakes, swallowing them noisily and so rapidly that what the housekeeper had supposed would be sufficient to last any one for at least twenty-four hours disappeared in less than as many minutes.

"Well, my suz! If that don't beat the Dutch! I shouldn't think, if I hadn't knowed better, 'at you'd seen a mouthful o' victuals sence you scooted out o' Marsden a dozen years ago! An' as for manners – why, our pigs is better behaved. Water? Drink your fill, an' then, Nate Pettijohn, you walk right straight out to that wash-dish in the lean-to an' scrub yourself well. Of all the dirty creatur's – Why, what?"

The vagrant had been seized by a violent fit of coughing, so fierce that it threatened hemorrhage; and Susanna's wrath died.

"Consumption!" she whispered to Eunice, and shivered. It was of consumption "Spriggs, he" had died.

The paroxysm passed and left its victim exhausted. With a longing for rest, he tottered out of the kitchen into the lean-to, but not to wash as its owner had suggested. He went directly to the now uncovered manhole of the cistern and slowly descended a short ladder which protruded from it and had always hitherto hung upon the wall. The women watched him in astonishment, then Susanna hastily procured a candle, and, lighting it, held it above the opening.

As she had herself once said, the cistern was as dry as possible, and was in reality like a low-ceilinged little room, with the manhole for sky-light. Into this place the vagrant had tossed the missing bedding, and with his habit of hiding had bestowed himself upon it. In all probability, he had rarely occupied so snug and comfortable, though peculiar, a bedchamber.

"My – s-u-z!" gasped the widow, and sat down on a wash-bench to recover from her amazement.

Miss Maitland said nothing, yet an expression of great satisfaction settled upon her countenance, and, motioning her friend back into the kitchen, explained its cause.

"Nathan himself has decided what should best be done with him. He is perfectly safe and comfortable in that cistern. It is warm and sufficiently aired. He will not be apt to build a fire, as you feared, especially if we see to it that he has enough to eat. Nobody will think of looking for him in such a place, even though, as he declared he should, his father organizes a search for him. Unhappy father, if he does, and – poor, unhappy son. He looks very ill, and he certainly is no more intelligent than when he went away. But he is evidently faithful to Verplanck Sturtevant, as he always was. It is he that has brought back and for safe-keeping, presumably, hidden the brass bound box that Katharine found, and that has led to so many wild rumors. Do you not think we would better leave him undisturbed for the present, until I can secure better clothing for him? Also, can decide that awful question – whether or not to tell Elinor the stolen box is found. It will be like deliberately trying to break her heart over again if I give it to her and it is empty. Yet, it is not mine, and it rests on my conscience like an actual weight. Do advise me, Susanna."

From which it appears that the widow's curiosity had already been satisfied concerning the fabulous "find" in the Maitland forest, and she readily assented to her companion's idea.

"No, Eunice, we couldn't do better. Let him be. Poor wretch, he won't trouble nobody long, by the sound o' that cough. An' if Squire Pettijohn is mean enough an' onfeelin' enough to treat him like he vowed he would ary tramp, 'even his own son,' I guess we can let the Lord 'tend to him. He wouldn't know another day's peace, not if he's human; 'cause once that mis'able creatur', no matter what he is now, was a baby – a baby in arms. But – my suz, Eunice! I've just figured it out! How can the Squire 'rest anybody? He ain't no constable. Nobody ain't a constable here in Marsden. Ain't been none sence Isaac Brewster died, an' nobody would take his place. 'Less I'm one, myself, as Moses said."

At which she laughed heartily, then hastily added:

"But we must be gettin' home to oncet. I'll step up attic an' get a couple o' shawls to wrop 'round us, heads an' all. I do hope we shall be pervented from takin' cold temptin' Providence the way we have, at our time o' life. Nate, he won't stir no more to-night. He's too tuckered out an' too well fed. Sleep's the best medicine for him, so we'll shut up quiet like an' start. But where in the world'll you get clothes, as you said? Man's clothes, you an' me, old women without a man betwixt us, except Moses, an' it bein' kep' secret from him still. If you tell him he'll tell the deacon, an' what the deacon knows belongs to the hull community."

"I'll find them, Susanna; I'll send an order for all he needs by the morning stage."

"Tell Reub Smith! My suz! Might as well proclaim it from the church steeple!"

"No, indeed. I shall not tell him, but simply send an order by him when he goes to town in the morning."

Then they hurried home, and Miss Maitland rested better that night than she had done since the children brought her the brass bound box from out the forest.

Next morning Monty "hooked school." Not that this was an extraordinary thing to happen, although its purpose was mysterious. He did not seek either woods or river, for nuts or fishes, but hung about the post-office till Reuben Smith drove tooting down South Hill into the village street on his way outward toward the county town. The stage drew up with a jerk, Reuben stepped down with unusual liveliness, and behold! there were two patrons ready with orders to be executed.

Miss Eunice and Montgomery Sturtevant. They faced each other in mutual surprise. Each held a sealed letter in hand and each was in haste. The lady spoke first: "Why, Monty! Is your grandmother trusting you to take care of her business matters already? That's fine."

"N-n-no, Aunt Eu-Eu-Eunice. I-I-I-I – " The afflicted lad had never stammered worse nor seemed so uncomfortable.

Puzzled, but too well-bred to pry into other people's affairs, Miss Maitland finished her directions to the stage-driver and general express agent for the village, and went home. Montgomery's relief at her departure made Reuben laugh, but he liked the lad and listened very patiently to the almost endless details stammered at him. Then he most carefully, with an exaggerated caution indeed, bestowed the fat envelope which contained ten whole crisp new dollars where nobody but himself would be apt to look for it – not in the wallet with his other commissions, but in his boot! This gave the whole transaction a touch of the romantic, and suggested possible "hold-ups" in a way to set Monty's eyes a-bulge. Then the stage rattled away to the north, and the day's monotony settled upon Marsden village.