The Rival Campers Ashore Part 33

The lock of the upper drawer of the bureau yielded readily to the pressure of the key; she drew the drawer out, and looked within. There was a mixture of curious odds and ends, from which she picked up a tiny white dress.

"That's funny," she exclaimed. "It's a baby's dress. I wonder what gran'

keeps it for; perhaps 'twas mine. It's small, though. Wonder if I was ever as little as that."

She took the tiny garment by the sleeves, and held it up against herself. Then she laughed merrily. "I wish I could ask gran' about it,"

she said.

A small box attracted her eye and she seized that. She got a surprise then. She had thought that perhaps it might contain the coin. But it contained that and more. There, indeed, was the golden coin; but, strangely enough, it was not as she and Tim Reardon had found it, but affixed to a small golden chain.

"Oh!" she exclaimed; "Gran' was right, then. It did belong to us, after all. My, it's pretty, too. Gran' ought to let me wear it."

She tried to hang it about her neck, but the chain was too short. She remedied that, however, by piecing it out with two bits of ribbon which she found in the drawer. These she knotted in a bow at the back of her neck, and danced over to the mirror, to note the effect of the chain with its ornament. It was a rare piece of finery in her eyes, and she gazed upon it long and wistfully.

"I'm going to wear it awhile," she exclaimed. "It won't hurt it any.

Gran' said I wore it once, when I was little. It's mine, I guess, anyway."

She continued her rummaging through the drawer, but it yielded nothing more to her fancy. She shut the drawer and locked it, and went to look at herself once more in the piece of mirror. The sun came out from behind the pa.s.sing clouds, and, as it streamed in at one of the windows, it shone on the chain and the coin and on the girl's face.

"I just can't take it off yet," she said; and, closing the blinds, tripped down the stairs. But, as she looked out the door, she espied Granny Thornton coming in at the gate. She thought of the chain and its coin; and, realizing it was too late to regain the attic and replace it, slipped quietly out at the shed door and ran down through the fields to the brook, before Granny Thornton had espied her.

As she came to the edge of the brook, a small boy, that had been lying face down on the turf, with an arm deep in the water, rose up and greeted her.

"Why, h.e.l.lo, Tim," she said, surprised; "what are you doing?"

"Trying to tickle that big trout," replied Tim Reardon. "I've been here half an hour, without moving, but I can't find him. There's where he lies, though; I've seen him often. But he won't come near; he's too smart. I'm going to try the pickerel. See here, look what I've got."

He put a hand into his trousers pocket, and drew forth an object wrapped in a piece of newspaper. It proved to be a new spoon hook, bright and s.h.i.+ny, with gleaming red and silver, and a bunch of bright feathers covering the hooks at the end.

"Isn't that a beauty!" he exclaimed. "Cost a quarter. I bought it. John Ellison gave me that money I found in the mill."

"It's fine," replied the girl. "Going to try it?"

"Sure," answered Tim. "My rod's hid down by the stream. I wanted to try to tickle a trout when the shower ruffled the water here. Ever tickle a trout?"

Bess Thornton laughed. "No," said she; "nor you, either, I guess."

"Honest injun, I have," a.s.serted Tim, warmly. "You just put your hand down in the water, and keep it still for an awful while; and by and by perhaps a fish'll brush against it. Then he'll keep doing it, and then you just move your hand and your fingers easy like, and the trout, he kind er likes it. Then, when you get a good chance, you just grab quick and throw him out on sh.o.r.e."

"Hm!" exclaimed the girl; "I'd like to see you do it."

They went along the brook to the road, pa.s.sed up the road to a point some way above the dam, when Tim Reardon presently disappeared in a clump of bushes; from this he soon emerged, with his bamboo fish-pole.

They went down through the field to the sh.o.r.e.

Jointing up the rod and affixing the reel, Tim Reardon ran out his line, tied on the bright spoon-hook and began trolling. The allurement proved enticing, and presently he hooked a fish. Tim gallantly handed the rod to Bess Thornton.

"Pull him in," he said. "I've caught lots of 'em. You can land this one."

The girl seized the rod, with a little cry of delight, and lifted the fish out of water. Then she swung it in on sh.o.r.e, where it lay, with its green body twisting about in the gra.s.s, and its great jaws distended, showing its sharp teeth.

"My, isn't he ugly looking!" she exclaimed. "You take the hook out, will you, Tim?"

Tim, grasping the squirming fish tightly behind the gills, disengaged the hook and threw the fish down in the gra.s.s again. "That one's yours,"

he said.

The girl still held the pole.

"Let me try just a minute, will you?" she asked. "If I get another, you can have it."

Tim a.s.sented readily, and she swung the pole and cast the hook far out upon the water. She drew it back and forth past a clump of lily pads, and then cast again. She was not as skilful with the long rod as the boy had been, however; and once, as she cast, the line did not have time to straighten out behind her, and the hook fell in the water close by the sh.o.r.e. She jerked it out and tried to cast again.

The hook swung in, almost striking her in the face; and both she and Tim Reardon dodged. The next moment, she made a sweep with the rod, to throw the hook back toward the water. Something caught, and she felt a slight tug at her neck. She dropped the rod and uttered a cry of dismay.

"What's the matter?" cried Little Tim. "Did you get hooked?"

But the girl made no answer. She stood, holding the ends of the broken chain in either hand, anxiously looking all about her.

"The coin!" she gasped. "Tim, I've lost the coin. Oh, won't gran' give it to me if I've lost that again!"

They hunted everywhere about them, parting the tufts of gra.s.s carefully and poking about on hands and knees. But the coin was nowhere to be seen.

"I tell you what," suggested Tim, "it's gone into the water. Never mind, though; I can get it. I'll dive for it."

They were at the edge of a little bank, from which the water went off deep at a sharp angle. They gazed down into the water, but there was not light enough within its depths, nor was it sufficiently clear to enable them to see the bottom.

"I'm going in after it, too," exclaimed Bess Thornton; "but I can't in this dress." She glanced at the sailor-suit she wore. "I'm going back to the house and put on the old one. You try for it while I'm gone, won't you, Tim?"

The boy nodded; and Bess Thornton, half in tears, started off on a smart run to the old house. In her dismay, she had forgotten that Granny Thornton had returned from the inn; but she was speedily aware of that fact as she darted in at the kitchen door. There stood Granny Thornton, with mingled anger and alarm depicted on her countenance.

"Oh," she cried, "I'd just like to shake you, good. Give me back that chain and the coin. Don't say you didn't take it. I found it gone. What do you mean by going into that drawer? Don't you ever--"

She stopped abruptly, for Bess Thornton was facing her, the tears standing in her eyes, and she held in her hand the broken chain.

"Oh, gran'," she cried, "don't scold. I didn't mean any harm. I just wanted to wear it a little while. But it's--it's gone."

And she told the story of the loss of the coin.

Granny Thornton stared at the girl in amazement. Then she burst forth in querulous tones, seemingly as though she were addressing the girl and soliloquizing at the same time.

"It's gone!" she gasped. "Gone again--and sure there's a fate in it.

Plenty of chains like that to be had, but never another coin of the kind seen about these parts. Oh, but you've gone and done it. Don't you know that coin meant luck for you, girl? You might have gone to the big house to live some day; but you'll never go now. You've lost the luck. You're bad--bad. There's no making you mind. Give me the chain."

Her voice grew more harsh and angry. "Let the coin go," she said.

"You've lost it, and you can suffer for it. You'll not go out of this house again to-day."

Puzzled at her strange words, and hurt at the scolding, Bess Thornton sat sullenly. "I'll get it back to-morrow, if I can't to-day," she said.

"I'm going to dive for it."

"You keep away from the water, do you hear?" replied Granny Thornton; but, a half-hour later, she seemed to have changed her mind. "Go and get it, if you can," she said, shortly. "Change that dress--and don't get drowned."