The Rival Campers Ashore; or, The Mystery of the Mill

by Ruel Perley Smith

  CHAPTER XVIII

  GRANNY THORNTON'S SECRET

  The second day following these happenings, Tim Reardon sat on a bank ofthe stream, a short distance above the Ellison dam, fishing. There wasno off-season in the matter of fishing, for Little Tim. Nobody elsethought of trying for the pickerel now. But Tim Reardon fished thestream from early spring until the ice came; and, in the winter, hechopped through the ice, and fished that way, in the deep holes that heknew.

  He was no longer barefoot, for the days were chilly. A stout pair ofshoes protected his feet, which he kicked together as he dangled a longpole out from the shore. He was fishing in deep water now, with a leadsinker attached to his line; and, beside him, was a milk-can filled withwater and containing live shiners for bait. These he had caught in thebrook.

  The fish weren't biting, but Little Tim was a patient fisherman. He wasso absorbed, in fact, in the thought that every next minute to come hemust surely get the longed-for bite, that he failed to note the approachof a man from the road. And when, all at once, a big hand closed uponhis coat collar, he was so surprised and gave such a jump that he wouldhave lost his balance and gone into the stream, if the hand had not heldhim fast. Squirming about, in the firm grasp of the person who held him,Tim turned and faced Colonel Witham.

  "Well, I reckon I've got yer," was Colonel Witham's comment. "No use inyour trying to wriggle away."

  The fact was quite evident, and Tim's face clouded.

  "I haven't done anything to hurt," he said. "Lemme go."

  "Who said you had," replied Colonel Witham, grimly. "I didn't say youhad--and I didn't say you hadn't. I wouldn't take chances on saying thatyou hadn't done a whole lot of things you oughtn't to. You've got tocome along with me, though. I'm not going to hurt yer. You needn't bescared."

  He changed his grip on the boy, from the latter's collar to one wrist,which he held firmly.

  "Pick up your stuff," he said, "and come along with me. No use jumpingthat way. I've got you, all right."

  Little Tim, thinking over his sins, reached down and picked up the canof bait.

  "I haven't done anything to hurt," he repeated.

  "Hm!" exclaimed the colonel. "Reckon you've done a lot of things tohurt, if people only knew it. Here, I'll take that can. You carry yourpole. Now come along."

  "What for?" asked Tim, obeying the colonel's command to "come along"with him.

  "I'll show you what I want," replied Colonel Witham. "You know wellenough, I guess, without any of my telling. Oh, I know you'll say youdon't; but I don't care anything about that. Just come along."

  They proceeded out to the road, whence they turned and went in thedirection of the inn. Tim thought of the pumpkin, and his heart sank. Hewas going to "catch it" for that, he thought.

  They came up to the flag-staff presently, and Tim repressed a chucklewith difficulty; for there, as on the night they had sent it aloft, hungthe big pumpkin, grinning down on them both.

  "There," said Colonel Witham, "you didn't have any hand in that--oh, no!You wouldn't do it, of course. You never did nothing to hurt. I knowyou. But see here, youngster"--and he gave a twist to Tim'swrist--"you've got to get it down, do you understand?"

  Tim gave a sigh of relief. It wasn't a "whaling," after all.

  "Now," continued Colonel Witham, eying him sharply, "perhaps you had ahand in that, and perhaps you didn't. I don't know and I don't care.What I want is, to get it down. You needn't say you didn't do it,because I wouldn't believe any of you boys, anyway. But I'm going to dothe right thing." The colonel hesitated a moment. "I'm going to behandsome about it. You get that down and I'll give you aquarter--twenty-five cents, do you hear?"

  Little Tim nodded.

  "Well," Colonel Witham went on, "you give me that fish-pole. I'm notgoing to have you cut and run. I'm too smart for that."

  So saying, the colonel seized the boy's fish-pole, and relinquished hisgrasp of his wrist.

  "Reckon you won't run away long as I've got this," he said. "Now can youshin that pole?"

  "Sure," replied Tim. He glanced up at the lofty peak of the flag-staff,then began removing his shoes and stockings. He was up the pole the nextmoment like a squirrel, clinging fast with arms and bare toes. Half-wayup he rested, by clutching the halyard and twisting it about his arm.

  "Little monkey!" ejaculated Colonel Witham; "I'd give a dollar to knowif he put it up there. Well, reckon I've got to give him that quarter,though, as long as I said I would."

  Tim did the topmost length of the pole cautiously. It was a high one,with a slim topmast spliced on with iron bands. He knew how to climbthis like a sailor; careful to hold himself close in to the slenderstick, and not throw his weight out, so as to put a strain on it thatmight cause it to snap and let him fall; careful not to get it toswaying.

  Then, almost at the very top, he rested again for a moment, sustainingpart of his weight by the halyards, as before. When he had got hisbreath, he drew himself up close to where the big pumpkin hung, on theopposite side; dug his toes in hard, and held on with them and one hand.He reached his other hand into a trousers' pocket, and drew forth aknife that he had opened before he began the ascent.

  Holding fast to the pole, he cut the rope that held the pumpkin. Itfell, grazing one of his knees, and would have dislodged him had he notguarded against it. The next moment, it landed with a crash at the baseand was shattered into fragments.

  Little Tim laboriously loosened the knot Harvey had tied, and let thehalyard run free. A moment more, and he was on the ground with ColonelWitham.

  The colonel eyed the wreck of the hobgoblin with satisfaction. Then heturned to Tim.

  "You're a smart little rascal," he said, "and a plucky one. I'll saythat for you. There's your fish-pole and your can."

  Colonel Witham paused, and reluctantly put his hand in his trouserspocket. With still greater reluctance, he drew forth a twenty-five centpiece and tendered it to the boy.

  "Here," he said, "it's a lot of money, but I won't say as you haven'tearned it."

  To Colonel Witham's astonishment, however, the boy shook his head.

  "I don't want any money," he said. "I wouldn't take it for that."

  Another moment, he had slipped into shoes and stockings, snatched up hispole and can, and was walking quickly down the road.

  Little Tim had a conscience.

  "Well, if that don't beat me!" exclaimed the amazed Colonel Witham, ashe stood staring at the boy. "Who'd ever have thought it?"

  But soon a great light dawned upon him.

  "Aha!" he exclaimed. "The little rascal! He stuck it up there, or myname's not Witham. That's why he wouldn't take the money for getting itdown. Reckon I ought to have given him a taste of that stick, instead ofoffering him a quarter."

  But even Colonel Witham, when he came to think upon it, knew deep downin his heart that he had a sort of admiration for Little Tim.

  In the meantime, Henry Burns, turning over in his mind the secret thathad been partly revealed to him, through the words of Grannie Thornton,could not make up his mind just what to do about it. He had almostdecided to entrust what he knew to Lawyer Estes, for him to unravel,when the lawyer was called out of town for several weeks, on animportant case. Again, another event intervened to cause delay. MissMatilda Burns made a visit to her home in Massachusetts, and took HenryBurns with her; and it was well into November, close upon Thanksgiving,in fact, when they returned to Benton. By this time early winter had setin, and some heavy snow falls had buried all the country around andabout Benton deep under drifts.

  "You're just in time," said Harvey, as he and Tom Harris greeted HenryBurns on the latter's return. "We've got a week's holiday, and look whatI've made for us."

  Harvey proudly displayed a big toboggan, some seven feet in length, inthe making of which he had expended the surplus time and energy of thelast two weeks. "No easy job steaming those ends and making 'em curl uptogether even," he added; "but she'll go some. Say, you ought to see theslide we've got, down the mounta
in above Ellison's. Well go up thisafternoon, if you like."

  They were up there, all of them, early in the afternoon, George andYoung Joe Warren driving one of the Warren horses hitched to a sleigh,and drawing a string of toboggans after. Blanketing the horse somedistance above the Ellison dam, they proceeded up the surface of thefrozen stream to the slide.

  It was, as Henry Burns said, enough to make the hair on one's fur capstand on end, to look at it. From the summit of what might almost betermed a small mountain--certainly, a tremendous hill--to the base, downa precipitous incline, the boys had constructed a chute, by banking thesnow on either side. This chute led down on to the frozen stream, wherea similar chute had been formed for a half-mile or more down stream.

  Moreover, a temporary thaw, with a fall of sleet, had coated the bed ofthe chute with a glassy surface, like polished steel, or glare ice.Henry Burns, standing beside the slide, half-way up the mountain, saw atoboggan with four youths dash down the steep incline, presently. LittleTim sat in front, yelling like an Indian at a war-dance. They fairlytook Henry Burns's breath away as they shot past him. He looked atHarvey and shrugged his shoulders.

  "Guess that's pretty near as exciting as cruising in Samoset bay, isn'tit?" he remarked. "Well, you hold the tiller, Jack, and I'm game; thoughit's new sport to me. I never spent a winter in Maine before."

  "Oh, there isn't much steering to do here," replied Harvey; "you onlyhave to keep her in the chute, and not let her get to swerving. It'seasy. You'll like it."

  It certainly did seem a risky undertaking, to a novice, standing at thevery summit of the mountain and looking along down the icy plunge of thechute, far below to the stream. It took all of Henry Burns's nerve, toseat himself at the front end of the toboggan, while Jack Harvey gave ashove off. For the first moment, it was almost like falling off asteeple. Then he caught the exhilaration of the sport, as the toboggangathered speed and shot down the incline at lightning speed.

  Henry Burns had hardly time to gather his thoughts, and to glory in theexcitement, when they were at the foot of the descent, and glidingswiftly along the surface of the stream.

  "My, but that's great!" he exclaimed. "It's next to sailing, if it isn'tas good. Come on, let's try it again."

  The mountain was admirably situated for such a sport; for it rose upfrom the shore where the stream made a sharp bend in its course, forminga promontory that overlooked the surrounding land. Thus the chute,after leaving the base of it, continued in a straight line down stream.

  The sport, thrilling as it was, however, grew tame for Young Joe. Hewanted something different. He had brought along, also, a steel-shodsled, known to the boys as a "pointer," because its forward ends ran outto sharp points, protected by the turning up of the steel runners. Hedeclared himself ready to make the descent on that.

  "Don't be a fool, Joe," remonstrated his elder brother; "you can'thandle that here. You'll go so fast you can't steer it."

  If Young Joe had had any misgivings and doubts upon the matter before,however, this remonstrance settled them. A little opposition was allthat was needed to set him off. Modestly calling the attention of allthe others to the fact that he was about to attempt a feat never beforetried, Young Joe lay at full length upon the sled and pushed off.

  Certainly, never before had any object shot down the mountain side atthe speed Young Joe was travelling. Fortunately for him, the sides ofthe chute were sufficiently high to keep the sled within bounds, and onits course. The sled made the descent in safety and darted out acrossthe surface of the stream, still within the chute. Then somethingunexpected happened.

  The chute had been designed for toboggans, and continued only as far asthe fastest one of them would travel. Watching Young Joe's daring feat,the boys saw him make the descent and speed along the level, until hereached the spot where the toboggans usually stopped. And there, also,Young Joe's sled did stop, its sharp points digging into the crust andsticking fast.

  But not Young Joe. Like an arrow fired from a crossbow, he left the sledand continued on over the icy surface of the crust downstream. It was asmooth, glare surface, and he slid as though it were greased. Far downstream, they saw him finally come to a stop--the most astonished youththat ever slid down a hill. He ended in a little drift of snow blownagainst a projecting log, and arose, sputtering.

  Strangely enough, thanks to thick mittens, and a cap drawn down to coverhis face, he was not even scratched. He picked himself up, looked abouthim, dazed for a moment, and then walked slowly back.

  And after all, the upshot of Young Joe's experiment was, that sledsbecame popular on the chute, and almost came to exclude the toboggan;only the boys continued the chute for fully a mile down stream,shovelling away to the glare ice. Young Joe had introduced a new andmore exciting form of sport.

  The next two days afforded rare enjoyment, for the slide was at itsbest, and the weather clear and bracing. But the afternoon of the thirdday was not so propitious. It began to grow cloudy at midday, and somelight flakes of snow fell, as they ate their luncheon and drank theircoffee, beside a fire of spruce and birch at the summit of themountain, near the head of the slide.

  They continued till about five in the afternoon, however, when the snowbegan falling steadily, and they took their last slide. A party of threeof them, Harvey and Henry Burns and George Warren, had proceeded nearlyto the Ellison dam, on their way to Benton, when Henry Burns suddenlystopped, with an exclamation of annoyance.

  "I've got to go back," he said; "I've left my buckskin gloves and Tom'shatchet up by the fire."

  "Oh, let 'em go till to-morrow," said Harvey, who was feeling hungry.

  "No, it won't do," replied Henry Burns, looking back wearily to wherethe faint smoke of the day's fire still showed through the lightsnow-fall. "You fellows needn't wait, though. Keep on, and perhaps I'llcatch up."

  He started back, plodding slowly, for he was tired with the frequentclimbing of the mountain throughout the day. The others, thinking of thesupper awaiting them, continued on the way home.

  It was a little more than a mile that Henry Burns had to go; and, by thetime he was half-way there, it was snowing hard. The storm had increasedperceptibly; and, moreover, the wind was rising, and it blew the snowinto his eyes so that he could hardly see. He kept on stubbornly,however.

  Presently, there came a gust that reminded him of a quick squall on thewater. It seemed to gather a cloud of the driving snow and fairly buryhim under it. He staggered for a moment and stood still, holding hishands to his face for protection.

  "That's a three-reef blow, all right," he muttered, and went on again,finally beginning the ascent of the mountain. But there he found himselfsuddenly assailed by a succession of gusts that made it impossible totry to climb. Moreover, the air was rapidly becoming so thick with snowthat he saw he was in danger of being lost.

  He made up his mind quickly, realizing the danger he was in, and startedback down stream. He must gain shelter soon, or he would be unable tofind his way. He was not any too hasty in his decision. In a few minutesthe outlines of the stream and its banks were blended into a blurredwhite mass. Then he could no longer see the shore at any distance, andeven the path was being blotted out.

  He found, too, it was with difficulty that he could breathe, for theincessant flying of the snow into his nostrils. Estimating, as best hecould, where the Half Way House must lie, he struck off from the streamand headed for that. He stumbled on blindly, till his progress wassuddenly arrested by his bumping into an object that proved, mostfortunately, to be Colonel Witham's flag-pole. Even at that shortdistance, the inn was now hidden; but he knew where it must be, andpresently stood safe upon its piazza.

  It was an odd situation for Henry Burns. Once before, had Colonel Withamrefused him shelter under this roof, and that, too, in a storm. But heknew there was no help for it now. He had got to enter--and he had gotto stay. No human being could go on to-night. He hesitated only for amoment, and then opened the door and stepped within.

  The offi
ce was vacant, and the air was chilly. The remains of a woodfire smouldered, rather than burned, in the fireplace. There was no lamplighted, although it was quite dark, with the storm and approachingevening. The place seemed deserted.

  Henry Burns stepped to the desk, took a match from a box and lighted thelamp that hung there. It cast a dismal glow, and added little to thecheer of the place, although it enabled him to distinguish objectsbetter. He turned to the hearth, raked the embers together, blew up atiny blaze and replenished the fire from the wood-box. He threw off hisouter garments, and drew a chair toward the blaze.

  But now, from an adjoining room, the door of which was slightly ajar,there came unexpectedly a thin, querulous voice that startled him. Herecognized, the next moment, the tones of old Granny Thornton.

  "Is that you, Dan?" she asked.

  Henry Burns opened the door and answered. She seemed afraid, until hehad told her who he was, begging him to go away from the place and notharm a poor, lone woman. But she recognized him, when he had spokenagain, and had lighted another lamp and held it for her to look at him.

  She sat in an arm-chair, in which she had been evidently sleeping,propped up with pillows; and looked ill and feeble.

  "I'm cold," she said, and shivered.

  Henry Burns dragged her chair out into the office, by the fire, whileshe clung to the arms of it, as though in terror of tumbling out on tothe floor. And, in that brief journey from room to room, it flashed overHenry Burns that the time and opportunity had come for him to know thesecret she possessed.

  "Dan won't like to find you here," she muttered. "He ought to behere--leaving me all alone. My, how it blows! How'd you get here,anyway? Don't mind what Dan says; you'll have to stay."

  "He'll not be here to-night, with this storm keeping up," answered HenryBurns, "Where is he?"

  "He went to town with Bess," said she. "Why don't she come? I'm lonesomewithout her. I'm hungry, too. She ought to make me a cup of tea."

  "I'll make it," said Henry Burns; "and I'll get something for myself,too. I'll pay for it, so Witham won't lose by it."

  He made his way to the kitchen and the pantry; lighted a fire in thekitchen stove, and made tea for himself and Granny Thornton; and toastedsome bread for her. Then he foraged for himself and ate a hearty meal,for he was ravenously hungry. And, all the while, he was thinking whathe should do and say to the old woman, nodding in the chair out in theoffice.

  He returned there, and put more wood on the fire, so that it blazed upbrightly, and the sparks shot up the flue with a roar. The roar was morethan answered by the wind outside. It rattled the glass in the windows,and dashed the snow against them as though it would break them in. Itfound a hundred cracks and crevices about the old inn, to moan andshriek through, and blew a thin film of snow under the door.

  Old Granny Thornton shook and quivered, as some of the sharper blastscried about the corners of the house. She seemed frightened; and onceshe spoke up in a half whisper, and asked Henry Burns if he believedthere were ever spirits out on such a night as this. He would havelaughed away her fears, under ordinary circumstances; but it suited hispurpose better now to shake his head, and answer, truthfully enough,that he didn't know.

  Presently, the old woman started up in her chair and stared anxiously atone of the snow-covered windows.

  "They might be lost!" she cried, hoarsely. "They could be lost to-nightin this storm, like folks were in the great blizzard twenty years ago.Oh, Bess"--she uttered the girl's name with a sob--"I hope you're safe.You'd die in this snow. Say, boy, do you suppose they've got shelter?It's not Dan Witham I care for, whether he's dead or not, but LittleBess."

  Henry Burns stepped in front of the old woman, and looked into her eyes.

  "What do you care whether Bess is lost or not?" he asked. "She don'tbelong to you. She's not yours. You're not her grandmother."

  At the words, so quick and unexpected, Granny Thornton shrank back asthough she had received a blow. Her eyes rolled in her head, and sheseemed to be trying to reply; but the words would not come. She gaspedand choked, and clutched at her throat with her shrunken hands.

  Henry Burns spoke again, grasping one of her hands, and compelling herto listen.

  "Somebody else wants her home more than you do," he said. "Why don't yougive her back? She's too smart and bright to go to the poorhouse, whenyou die. Why do you keep her here?"

  He spoke at random, knowing not whether he was near the secret or not,but determined that he would make her speak out.

  But she sank down in her chair, huddled into an almost shapeless,half-lifeless heap. Her head was buried in her hands. She rocked feeblyto and fro. Once she roused herself a bit, and strove to ask a question,but seemed to be overcome with weakness. Henry Burns thought he divinedwhat she would ask, and answered.

  "I know it's so," he said. "You can't hide it any longer. I've found itout."

  It seemed as though she would not speak again. The minutes went by,ticked off in clamorous sound, by a big clock on the wall. GrannyThornton still crouched all in a heap in her chair, moaning to herself.Henry Burns remained silent and waited.

  Then when, all at once, the old woman brought herself upright, with ajerk, and spoke to him, the sound of her voice amazed him. It was notunlike the tone in which she had answered Colonel Witham, the nightHenry Burns overheard her. It was shrill and sharp, though with awhining intonation. What she said was most unexpected.

  "Have you been to school?" she queried.

  Henry Burns stared hard. He thought her mind wandering. But shecontinued.

  "Don't stare that way--haven't you any wit? Can you write? Hurry--I'mafeared Dan will be here."

  Henry Burns understood, in a flash. He sprang to the desk, got the penand ink there and a block of coarse paper, the top sheet of which hadsome figuring on it. He returned to the old woman's side and sat down,with the paper on his knees. She stared at him blankly for a fewmoments--then said abruptly:

  "Write it down just as I tell you. I'm going to die soon--Don't starelike that--write it down. Dan Witham can't harm me then, and I'm goingto tell. Her name isn't Bess Thornton--it's Bess Ellison."

  Henry Burns's hand almost refused to write. But he controlled himself,and followed her.

  "Dan shan't have her," she continued. "I'll give her up, first. Twelveyears ago last June she was born. And she weren't as pretty as my girl'sbaby, that was born the same day--though they looked alike, too.

  "My girl's name was Elizabeth, but she's dead. She was a sight prettierthan Lizzie Anderson that married Jim Ellison. But my girl married TomHowland, and he ran away and left her, and that just before the baby wasborn. And her baby, Elizabeth Howland, was born the same day, I tellyou, as Lizzie Ellison's baby. That one was named Elizabeth,too--Elizabeth Ellison. That's Bess.

  "And when the two babies were born, why we were poor and Jim Ellison waswell-to-do. The Thorntons got in debt, and he bought up the mortgages.And when Bess Ellison was born, her mother was so ill she didn't see thebaby for many weeks; and my girl went up to the house in about threeweeks to nurse both babies, we being poor. And I went up, too, to lookafter things.

  "I guess my girl was wild, too, though I won't blame her now. One dayshe went to town and didn't come back; and she left me a note, sayingshe wouldn't ever come back, anyway. And I could bring up thebaby--which I didn't like to do, because I'd brought up one, and nowshe'd run away.

  "So I was getting ready to go back to the house and take the baby withme; and I took care of both babies for a day or two. And just as I wasplanning to go back, there lay the two, side by side in the bed; and Icould hardly tell which was which--they looked so much alike.

  "Then what put it into my head, I don't know. But I thought that, if Ichanged the two, nobody'd know, because Bess Ellison's mother hadn'tseen her. And I thought of how the property would come back to theThorntons that way, if I put my girl's Bess in the other's place. And Iup and did it, quick.

  "Then, when I got home with Lizzie Ellison's baby, wh
y I found I'd beenso hasty I'd brought away a chain and bit of money, that they'd putabout her neck. It was an old coin that had been in the family foryears, and was thought to carry good luck--so I learned afterwards. Imeant to take it back, but I couldn't, right away, and then I lost thecoin. Oh, how I hunted for it! But I never could find it.

  "Now are you putting it all down? Be quick, or Dan might come in. It wasall for nothing--what I did--for my girl's baby died two years later.Let me look what you've got there. I know school-writing. I went toschool once. Give me the pen. I'll put my name down to that. Hold myhand, so it won't shake. That's my name. It don't look like much, Iguess. But that's it."

  Tremblingly, the old woman took the pen and, guided by Henry Burns,subscribed her name to what he had written. Then she spoke again:

  "Go into that bed-room and look in the top drawer. There's a key there.That's the key to the old house."

  Henry Burns followed her instructions, and brought forth the key. Shebade him keep it, and go the next day and get the stuff in the attic:the chain, minus its locket; the little dress, and a pair of shoes. Shemourned the loss of the coin, lest her strange story might not bebelieved by Mrs. Ellison, without that evidence--not knowing that thecoin had even now come into Mrs. Ellison's own hands.

  She sank into a doze not long after; and Henry Burns also slept, on acouch in the office, with a buffalo robe over him. He woke early nextday, waded through the drifts to the old house, and got the things fromthe drawer. Then he went down the road.

  Below the old mill, near the road that ran up to the Ellison farm, ahorse and sledge came in sight, travelling slowly. Henry Burns's pulsebeat quicker as he recognized Colonel Witham and Bess coming up fromBenton, where they had passed the night. Colonel Witham scowled uponhim, but the girl smiled.

  "Hello," she said. "Isn't everything pretty, all covered with snow?Where'd you come from so early?"

  Henry Burns could hardly answer her. He faced Colonel Witham.

  "Granny Thornton's got an errand up at the Ellisons' for Bess," he said."I just came from the inn, I left the money for my lodging, too. Mrs.Ellison wants to see Bess."

  Colonel Witham grumbled. "I won't wait for her," he said. "She'll haveto foot it up through the snow."

  "I don't care," exclaimed the girl, and sprang lightly out.

  Henry Burns never did remember what was said on that walk up to thefarm. His mind was taken up with one subject. He had a vagueremembrance, after it was all over, of knocking at the door, and oftheir being both admitted; of his almost ignoring the greeting of thebrothers; of his finding himself and Bess somehow in the parlour withMrs. Ellison.

  He remembered, afterward, of handing the writing he had done, at oldGranny Thornton's bidding, to Mrs. Ellison, and of her starting to readit and breaking down suddenly; of her asking him many questions aboutit, and of his answering them almost in a daze. He remembered that Mrs.Ellison resumed the reading, the tears streaming down her cheeks; of howhe laid down the little bundle of stuff he had brought from the attic,and pointed it out to Mrs. Ellison.

  He remembered that Mrs. Ellison sprang up and seized the child in herarms--and just about that time Henry Burns stole out and left the twotogether; so that he never did know just what happened next.