Mitch Miller Part 6

"He couldn't count it all right there. It couldn't be done, because it had to be weighed and tested and tried out, and put on the market; for you might say some of it was rubies, and to know what rubies are worth takes experience and time and a lot of things."

Mitch got more and more interested and I did too. Then the old feller went on.

"But that ain't sayin' that this clerk didn't know it was treasure--he did--but it was treasure that he had to put work on to bring out all its value."

"Melt it up," said Mitch, "or polish it maybe."

"Yes," said the old feller, "melt it up and polish it, and put his elbow grease on it. And n.o.body but him could do it. He couldn't hire it done.

For if he had, he'd a lost the treasure--the cost of doin' that would have wasted all the treasure. And this the clerk knew. That's why he didn't know what it was worth, though he knew it was worth a lot and he was a happy man."

"Well," said Mitch, "what was it--tell me--I can't wait."

"Books," said the old feller--"two law books. Blackstone's Commentaries."

"Oh, shucks," said Mitch.

"Shucks," said the old man. "Listen to me. Here you boys dig in the sun like n.i.g.g.e.rs for treasure, and you'll never find it that a way. It ain't to be found. And if you did, it wouldn't amount to nothin'. But suppose you get a couple of books into your head like Abe Linkern did, and become a great lawyer, and a president, and a benefactor to your fellows, then you have found treasure and given it too. And it was out of that barl that Linkern became what he was. He found his treasure there. He might have found it sommers else; but at least he found it there. And you can't get treasure that's good that the good of you wasn't put into it in getting it. Remember that. If you dug up treasure here, what have you put into the getting of that treasure? Just your work with the shovel and the pick--that's all--and you haven't got rich doin' that. The money will go and you'll be where you was before. But if there's good in you, and you put the good into what you find and make it all it can be made, then you have found real treasure like Linkern did."

Mitch was quiet for a minute and then said: "Don't you 'spose the man who sold the barl to Linkern knew the books was in there? Of course he did. And if he did, why didn't he take the books and study and be president? He couldn't, that's why. If you call books treasure, they ain't unless they mean something to you. But take money or jewels, who is there that they don't mean somethin' to? n.o.body. Why there're hundreds of books around our house, that would do things if they meant anything. And I've found my book. It's 'Tom Sawyer.' And till I find another I mean to stick by it, as fur as that goes. One book at a time."

I don't know where Mitch got all this talk. He was the wonderfulest boy that ever lived, but besides he heard his pa talk things all the time, and his pa could talk Greek and knew everything in the world.

We sat talkin' to this old feller till pretty near sundown, when we said we must go. We threw the tools into Peter Lukins' cellar and started off, leavin' the old feller standin'. When we got to the edge of the hill which led down to the road by the river, we turned around and looked, and saw the old feller standin' there still, black like against the light of the sun. Mitch was awful serious.

"It must be awful to be old like that," said Mitch. "Did you hear what he said--come back to Menard County to be buried with his folks--and all his folks gone. How does a feller live when he comes to that? Nothin' to do, nowhere really to go. Skeeters, sometimes I wisht I was dead. Even this treasure business, as much fun as it is, is just a never endin'

trouble and worry. And I see everybody in the same fix, no matter who they are, worryin' about somethin'. And while it seems I've lived for ever and ever, and it looks thousands of miles back to the time I cut my foot off, just the same, I seem to be close to the beginnin' too, and sometimes I can just feel myself mixin' into the earth and bein'

nothin'."

"Don't you believe in heaven, Mitch?" says I.

"No," he says, "not very clear."

"And you a preacher's son!"

"That's just it," says Mitch. "A preacher's son is like a circus man's son, young Robbins who was here. There's no mystery about it. Why, young Robbins paid no attention to the horses, animals, the band--things we went crazy about. And I see my father get ready for funerals and dig up his old sermons for funerals and all that, till it looks just like any trade to me. But besides, how can heaven be, and what's the use? No, sir, I don't want to be buried with my folks--I want to be lost, like your uncle was, and buried by the Indians way off where n.o.body knows."

Then Mitch switched and began to talk about Tom Sawyer again. He said we're the age of Tom Sawyer; that Linkern was a grown man when he found the books; that there was a time for everything, that as far as that's concerned, Tom might be working on something else now, having found his treasure. "Why, lookee, don't the book end up with Tom organizing a robbers' gang to rob the rich--not harm anybody, mind you--but really do good--take money away from them that got it wrong and don't need it, and give it to the poor that can't get it and do need it?"

By this time we was clost to town. The road ran under a hill where there was the old graveyard, where lots of soldiers was buried. "Do you know," said Mitch, "them pictures your grandma had of soldiers stay in my mind. They looked old and grown up with beards and everything; but after all, they're not so old--and they went away and was killed and lots of 'em are buried up there--some without names. Think of it, Skeet.

Suppose there should be a war again and you'd go, and be blown up so no one could know you, and they'd put you in a grave with no stone."

"Ain't that what you want, Mitch?"

"Yes, but you're different, Skeet. And besides, it's different dyin'

natural and bein' buried by the Indians in a lovely place, and bein'

killed like an animal and dumped with a lot of others and no stone. If every boy felt as I do, they'd never be another war. They couldn't get me into a war except to defend the country, and it would have to be a real defense. You know, Skeet, we came here from Missouri, where there was awful times during the war; and my pa thinks the war could have been avoided. He used to blame Linkern, but he don't no more. Say, did you think of Linkern while we were diggin' to-day? I did. I could feel him.

The sky spoke about him, the still air spoke about him, the meadow larks reminded me of him. Onct I thought I saw him."

"No, Mitch."

"Yes, sir--you see I see things, Skeet, sometimes spirits, and I hear music most of the time, and the fact is, n.o.body knows me."

"Nor me," says I. "I'm a good deal lonelier than you are, Mitch Miller, and n.o.body understands me either; and I have no girl. Girls seem to me just like anything else--dogs or chickens--I don't mean no disrespect--but you know."

By this time we'd got to Petersburg, and up to a certain corner, and we'd been talking about Linkern so much that a lot of things came to me.

And I says: "See this corner, Mitch? I'll tell you somethin' about it--maybe to-morrow."

CHAPTER X

The next day as I was helpin' Myrtle bury her doll, Mitch came by and whistled. I had made a coffin out of a cigar box, and put gla.s.s in for a window to look through at the doll's face, and we had just got the grave filled. I went out to the front gate and there was Charley King and George Heigold with Mitch. They were big boys about fourteen and knew a lot of things we didn't. They hunted with real guns and roasted chickens they hooked over in Fillmore's woods. They carried slings and knucks and used to go around with grown men, sometimes Joe Pink. I didn't like to have Mitch friends with these boys. It hurt me; and I was afraid of something, and they were not very friendly to me for some reason. But a few times I went to Charley King's to stay all night. His mother was a strange woman. She petted Charley like the mother did in the "Fourth Reader" whose boy was hanged because he had no raisin' and was given his own way about everything. Mrs. King used to look at me and say I had pretty eyes and take me on her lap and stroke my head. She was a queer woman, and Charley's father was off somewhere, Chandlerville, or somewhere, and they said they didn't live together. My ma stopped me goin' to Mrs. King's, and so as Charley ran with George Heigold, that's probably why I didn't like Mitch to be with them, as I wasn't very friendly any more with Charley on account of this.

These two boys went off somewhere and left us when we got to the square.

And then I took Mitch to see something.

The tables was now turned. I did most of the talkin'--though Mitch was more interestin' than me, and that's why he says more than I do in this book. We went to that corner where we was the day before, and I says to Mitch: "Look at this house partly in the street, and look at the street how it jogs. Well, Linkern did that. You see he surveyed this whole town of Petersburg. But as to this, this is how it happened. You see it was after the Black Hawk War in 1836, and when Linkern came here to survey, he found that Jemima Elmore, which was a widow of Linkern's friend in the war, had a piece of land, and had built a house on it and was livin'

here with her children. And Linkern saw if the street run straight north and south, a part of her house would be in the street. So to save Jemima's house, he set his compa.s.s to make the line run a little furder south. And so this is how the line got skewed and leaves this strip kind of irregular, clear through the town, north and south. This is what I call makin' a mistake that is all right, bein' good and bad at the same time."

And Mitch says: "A man that will do that is my kind. And yet pa used to say that freein' the slaves was not the thing; and maybe Linkern skewed the line there and left a strip clear across the country that will always be irregular and bad."

"Anyway," said Mitch, "do you know what I think? I think there ain't two boys in the world that live in as good a town as this. What's Tom Sawyer's town? Nothin' without Tom Sawyer--no great men but Tom Sawyer, and he ain't a man yet. There ain't anybody in his book that can't be matched by some one in this town--but there's no one in his book to equal Linkern, and this is Linkern's town. And I've been thinkin' about it."

I says: "There you have it, Mitch. It's true. We're the luckiest boys in the world to live here where Linkern lived, and to hear about him from people who knew him, to see this here house where he made a mistake, though doin' his best, to hear about them books, and to walk over the ground where he lived at Salem, and more than that, to have all this as familiar to us as n.i.g.g.e.r d.i.c.k or Joe Pink."

"It's too familiar," said Mitch. "My pa says we won't appreciate it or understand it all for years to come."

So I went on tellin' Mitch how my grandpa hired Linkern once in a lawsuit; then we went to the court house, for I wanted to show Mitch some things I knew about.

The court house was a square brick building with a hall running through it, and my pa's office, the coroner's office, the treasurer's office on each side of the hall. And there was a big yard around the court house, with watermelon rinds scattered over the gra.s.s; and a fence around the yard and a hitch rack where the farmers tied their teams. And at one side there was a separate building where the clerks of the courts had their offices. I knew all the lay of the land. So I took Mitch into the clerk's office and showed him papers which Linkern had written and signed. At first he wouldn't believe it. So while we was lookin' at them papers, John Armstrong came in to pay his taxes or somethin' and he knew me because him and my pa had played together as boys. He was a brother of Duff which Linkern had defended for murder, and I tried to get him to tell Mitch and me about the trial, but he didn't have time, and he said: "The next time you come to your grandpap's, come over to see me. I live about 7 miles from your grandpap. And I'll tell you and play the fiddle for you."

"When can we come?" says Mitch.

"Any time," says John.

"To-morrow," says Mitch.

"Wal, to-morrow I'm goin' to Havaner--But you just get your grandpap to drive you and Mitch over some day, and we'll have a grand visit." So he went away.

Then as we was comin' out of the clerk's office, Sheriff Rutledge stepped up and read a subpoena to Mitch and me to appear before the Grand Jury in August, about Doc Lyon.

"We won't be here," says Mitch.

"Why not?" says the sheriff. "Where'll you be?"

This stumped Mitch--he didn't want to say. The sheriff walked away and Mitch says: "Now I see what we have to do. We must clean up that Peter Lukins' cellar right off and get off to Hannibal to see Tom. One thing will happen after another if we let it, and we'll never get away, and never see Tom. I wish this here Doc Lyon was in Halifax."