CHAPTER XV
BROUGHT TO BANK
The sanity of a man is mainly tested among his neighbors and kindred bythe amount of consideration which he has consistently given to cash.If money has been the chief object of his life, and he for its sake hasspared nobody, no sooner is he known to be successful than admirationoverpowers all the ill-will he has caused. He is shrewd, sagacious,long-headed, and great; he has earned his success, and few men grudge,while many seek to get a slice of it; but he, as a general rule,declines any premature distribution, and for this custody of his wealthhe is admired all the more by those who have no hope of sharing it.
As soon as ever it was known that Uncle Sam had lodged at his banker'sa tremendous lump of gold, which rumor declared to be worth at least ahundred thousand dollars, friends from every side poured in, all inhot haste, to lend him their last farthing. The Sawyer was pleased withtheir kindness, but thought that his second-best whiskey met the meritsof the case. And he was more particular than usual with his words;for, according to an old saying of the diggers, a big nugget always haschildren, and, being too heavy to go very far, it is likely to keep allits little ones at home. Many people, therefore, were longing to seekfor the frogs of this great toad; for so in their slang the minerscalled them, with a love of preternatural history. But Mr. Gundryallowed no search for the frogs, or even the tadpoles, of hispatriarchal nugget. And much as he hated the idea of sowing the seedsof avarice in any one, he showed himself most consistent now in avoidingthat imputation; for not only did he refuse to show the bed of his greattreasure, after he had secured it, but he fenced the whole of it in,and tarred the fence, and put loopholes in it; and then he establishedJowler where he could neither be shot nor poisoned, and kept a man witha double-barreled rifle in the ruin of the mill, handy to shoot, but noteasy to be shot; and this was a resolute man, being Martin himself, whohad now no business. Of course Martin grumbled; but the worse his temperwas, the better for his duty, as seems to be the case with a great manymen; and if any one had come to console him in his grumbling, neverwould he have gone away again.
It would have been reckless of me to pretend to say what any body oughtto do; from the first to the last I left every thing to those who knewso much better; at the same time I felt that it might have done noharm if I had been more consulted, though I never dreamed of saying so,because the great gold had been found by me, and although I cared for itscarcely more than for the tag of a boot-lace, nobody seemed to me ableto enter into it quite as I did; and as soon as Firm's danger and paingrew less, I began to get rather impatient, but Uncle Sam was not to behurried.
Before ever he hoisted that rock of gold, he had made up his mind for meto be there, and he even put the business off, because I would not comeone night, for I had a superstitious fear on account of its being myfather's birthday. Uncle Sam had forgotten the date, and begged mypardon for proposing it; but he said that we must not put it off laterthan the following night, because the moonlight would be failing, andwe durst not have any kind of lamp, and before the next moon the hardweather might begin. All this was before the liberal offers of hisfriends, of which I have spoken first, although they happened to comeafter it.
While the Sawyer had been keeping the treasure perdu, to abide the issueof his grandson's illness, he had taken good care both to watch it andto form some opinion of its shape and size; for, knowing the pile whichI had described, he could not help finding it easily enough; and indeedthe great fear was that others might find it, and come in great force torob him; but nothing of that sort had happened, partly because heheld his tongue rigidly, and partly, perhaps, because of the simpleprecaution which he had taken.
Now, however, it was needful to impart the secret to one man at least;for Firm, though recovering, was still so weak that it might have killedhim to go into the water, or even to exert himself at all; and strongas Uncle Sam was, he knew that even with hoisting-tackle, he alone couldnever bring that piece of bullion to bank; so, after much consideration,he resolved to tell Martin of the mill, as being the most trusty manabout the place, as well as the most surly; but he did not tell himuntil every thing was ready, and then he took him straightway to theplace.
Here, in the moonlight, we stood waiting, Firm and myself and Suan Isco,who had more dread than love of gold, and might be useful to keep watch,or even to lend a hand, for she was as strong as an ordinary man. Thenight was sultry, and the fire-flies (though dull in the radiance of themoon) darted, like soft little shooting-stars, across the still faceof shadow, and the flood of the light of the moon was at its height,submerging every thing.
While we were whispering and keeping in the shade for fear of attractingany wanderer's notice, we saw the broad figure of the Sawyer rising froma hollow of the bank, and behind him came Martin the foreman, and wesoon saw that due preparation had been made, for they took from undersome drift-wood (which had prevented us from observing it) a smallmovable crane, and fixed it on a platform of planks which they set up inthe river-bed.
"Palefaces eat gold," Suan Isco said, reflectively, and as if to satisfyherself. "Dem eat, drink, die gold; dem pull gold out of one other'sears. Welly hope Mellican mans get enough gold now."
"Don't be sarcastic, now, Suan," I answered; "as if it were possible tohave enough!"
"For my part," said Firm, who had been unusually silent all the evening,"I wish it had never been found at all. As sure as I stand here,mischief will come of it. It will break up our household. I hope it willturn out a lump of quartz, gilt on the face, as those big nuggets do,ninety-nine out of a hundred. I have had no faith in it all along."
"Because I found it, Mr. Firm, I suppose," I answered, rather pettishly,for I never had liked Firm's incessant bitterness about my nugget."Perhaps if you had found it, Mr. Firm, you would have had great faithin it."
"Can't say, can't say," was all Firm's reply; and he fell into thesilent vein again.
"Heave-ho! heave-ho! there, you sons of cooks!" cried the Sawyer, whowas splashing for his life in the water. "I've tackled 'un now. Justtighten up the belt, to see if he biteth centre-like. You can't lift'un! Lord bless 'ee, not you. It 'll take all I know to do that, Iguess; and Firm ain't to lay no hand to it. Don't you be in such adoggoned hurry. Hold hard, can't you?"
For Suan and Martin were hauling for their lives, and even I caught holdof a rope-end, but had no idea what to do with it, when the Sawyer swunghimself up to bank, and in half a minute all was orderly. He showedus exactly where to throw our weight, and he used his own to such goodeffect that, after some creaking and groaning, the long horn of thecrane rose steadily, and a mass of dripping sparkles shone in themoonlight over the water.
"Hurrah! what a whale! How the tough ash bends!" cried Uncle Sam,panting like a boy, and doing nearly all the work himself. "Martin, layyour chest to it. We'll grass him in two seconds. Californy never saw asight like this, I reckon."
There was plenty of room for us all to stand round the monster andadmire it. In shape it was just like a fat toad, squatting with hisshoulders up and panting. Even a rough resemblance to the head and thehaunches might be discovered, and a few spots of quartz shone here andthere on the glistening and bossy surface. Some of us began to feel andhandle it with vast admiration; but Firm, with his heavy boots, made avicious kick at it, and a few bright scales, like sparks, flew off.
"Why, what ails the lad?" cried the Sawyer, in some wrath; "what harmhath the stone ever done to him? To my mind, this here lump is a proofof the whole creation of the world, and who hath lived long enoughto gainsay? Here this lump hath lain, without changing color, sincecreation's day; here it is, as big and heavy as when the Lord laid handto it. What good to argue agin such facts? Supposin' the world come outo' nothing, with nobody to fetch it, or to say a word of orders, however could it 'a managed to get a lump of gold like this in it? Theyclever fellers is too clever. Let 'em put all their heads together, andturn out a nugget, and I'll believe them."
Uncle Sam's reasoning was too deep for any but
himself to follow. He wasnot long in perceiving this, though we were content to admire his wordswithout asking him to explain them; so he only said, "Well, well," andbegan to try with both hands if he could heft this lump. He stirred it,and moved it, and raised it a little, as the glisten of the light uponits roundings showed; but lift it fairly from the ground he could not,however he might bow his sturdy legs and bend his mighty back to it;and, strange to say, he was pleased for once to acknowledge his owndiscomfiture.
"Five hundred and a half I used to lift to the height of my knee-capeasily; I may 'a fallen off now a hundred-weight with years, andstrings in my back, and rheumatics; but this here little toad is aclear hundredweight out and beyond my heftage. If there's a pound here,there's not an ounce under six hundred-weight, I'll lay a thousanddollars. Miss Rema, give a name to him. All the thundering nuggets hasthundering names."
"Then this shall be called 'Uncle Sam,'" I answered, "because he is thelargest and the best of all."
"It shall stand, miss," cried Martin, who was in great spirits, andseemed to have bettered himself forever. "You could not have given it afiner name, miss, if you had considered for a century. Uncle Sam is thename of our glorious race, from the kindness of our natur'. Every body'suncle we are now, in vartue of superior knowledge, and freedom, andgiving of general advice, and stickin' to all the world, or all the goodof it. Darned if old Sam aren't the front of creation!"
"Well, well," said the Sawyer, "let us call it 'Uncle Sam,' if the dearyoung lady likes it; it would be bad luck to change the name; but, forall that, we must look uncommon sharp, or some of our glorious race willcome and steal it afore we unbutton our eyes."
"Pooh!" cried Martin; but he knew very well that his master's words werecommon-sense; and we left him on guard with a double-barreled gun, andJowler to keep watch with him. And the next day he told us that he hadspent the night in such a frame of mind from continual thought that whenour pet cow came to drink at daybreak, it was but the blowing of herbreath that saved her from taking a bullet between her soft tame eyes.
Now it could not in any kind of way hold good that such things shouldcontinue; and the Sawyer, though loath to lose sight of the nugget,perceived that he must not sacrifice all the morals of the neighborhoodto it, and he barely had time to dispatch it on its road at the bottomof a load of lumber, with Martin to drive, and Jowler to sit up, andFirm to ride behind, when a troop of mixed robbers came riding across,with a four-wheel cart and two sturdy mules--enough to drag off everything. They had clearly heard of the golden toad, and desired to knowmore of him; but Uncle Sam, with his usual blandness, met these men atthe gate of his yard, and upon the top rail, to ease his arm, he resteda rifle of heavy metal, with seven revolving chambers. The robbers foundout that they had lost their way, and Mr. Gundry answered that so theyhad, and the sooner they found it in another direction, the better itwould be for them. They thought that he had all his men inside, and theywere mighty civil, though we had only two negroes to help us, and SuanIsco, with a great gun cocked. But their curiosity was such that theycould not help asking about the gold; and, sooner than shoot them, UncleSam replied that, upon his honor, the nugget was gone. And the fame ofhis word was so well known that these fellows (none of whom could tellthe truth, even at confession) believed him on the spot, and begged hispardon for trespassing on his premises. They hoped that he would not saya word to the Vigilance Committee, who hanged a poor fellow for losinghis road; and he told them that if they made off at once, nobody shouldpursue them; and so they rode off very happily.
Erema; Or, My Father's Sin Page 15