Alvin Fernald's Incredible Buried Treasure

by Clifford B. Hicks

  ALVIN FERNALD’S

  Incredible Buried Treasure

  by Clifford B. Hicks

  illustrated by Roger Bradfield

  PURPLE HOUSE PRESS

  KENTUCKY

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  The Gettysburg Address

  Afterword

  For Rae, whose love, abiding interest, and unbelievable patience made every page of this book possible.

  I am indebted to Ben Hicks, and to Angela, Samantha and William Hicks for their historical research. Any errors that may have crept into the text are my responsibility, not theirs.

  I am also indebted to Gary and David Hicks for their technical expertise, which they generously provided, and to Douglas Hicks for his special interest in this story. This book has indeed been a family enterprise.

  I am grateful to Martha Zillioux and Beverly Cobb for their eagle-eye copyreading.

  Chapter 1

  An after-midnight spring shower had drenched the town of Riverton, and morning had brought a cooling breeze that now wafted through the windows of Alvin Fernald’s bedroom. The moving air carried the gentle odor of a neighbor’s cut grass, reminding Alvin that today was the day that he was supposed to cut the Fernald grass.

  Alvin was seated on a folding chair at one end of his Inventing Bench. The bench occupied a place of honor in the center of his bedroom. His bed was situated in one corner. The other furniture consisted of a battered chest of drawers, a full length mirror nailed to one wall, and two other rather decrepit folding chairs.

  His sister Daphne, who was two years younger than Alvin, had been taking yoga lessons, and was now in the process of assuming the lotus position on the floor across from Alvin. She was a lithe little bundle of energy, with a radiant head of golden hair which she wore in two pigtails that seemed to bob continually, even when she was only talking. Her cheeks were bright pink, as though she were wearing makeup. Makeup, though, was the last thing she wanted to wear. At the moment she was wearing jeans and one of Alvin’s old shirts. She worshipped her brother, and wanted to be just like him.

  “What shall we do today?” she asked, moving from the lotus position to stretch her right leg up across the back of her neck.

  Alvin groaned at the thought of such pressure on his own leg. “Not we, Pest. Me.” He called her the Pest because that’s what she was. Always trying to join him and Shoie in anything that was happening.

  Something was scratching about in his pocket, tickling his thigh, so he thrust his hand in to find out what it was. At the same time he said, “I’ll give you 50 cents to mow the lawn today.”

  “You know Mom and Dad won’t let me use the power mower.”

  She was right so he didn’t pursue the point. Instead he brought his hand out of his pocket and dumped the contents on his Inventing Bench. This was difficult because the Bench was covered with an old lamp, a washing machine motor, parts from a model airplane, a coil of wire, two expired balloons, one of his father’s cufflinks, a broken eggshell, the belt from Mom’s vacuum cleaner, and a myriad of other useful items. He shoved some of them aside, and dropped the items in his hand, one by one, on the bench top. There was a baseball trading card, a chewed stick of gum, half a dozen BB’s, a short length of fish line with a hook on one end and a dehydrated worm on the hook, a half-eaten peanut butter sandwich wrapped in foil, and a skeleton key. At last he found the item that had been scratching about in his pocket—a live grasshopper.

  He’d forgotten about the grasshopper when he came home from Durkin’s Pond yesterday afternoon. Now he went to the chest, pulled open the top drawer, and drew out an empty pill bottle. He had already punched air holes in the lid so the pill bottle could be used as a grasshopper house. Carefully he eased the grasshopper into the bottle and screwed on the lid.

  At that moment the bedroom door swung violently open, and Shoie walked in.

  Shoie had been Alvin’s best friend since kindergarten, when they had been running around a corner of the school building in opposite directions, and absolutely clobbered each other. They managed to stagger to their feet, put up their fists, and then both started laughing. They’d been laughing together ever since.

  Shoie was half a head taller than Alvin, and had a pair of broad shoulders that Alvin envied. He had a well deserved reputation as the best athlete in Roosevelt School. His black hair stood out in all directions like the end of a dust mop, and his nose slanted off to the left. It had been broken when he fell out of a tree last summer.

  After kicking the door closed behind him, Shoie made his usual entry. He took one running step, performed a perfect cartwheel, and landed on Alvin’s bed.

  “What’s up, Old Man?” he said. He and Alvin frequently called each other “Old Man” and “Old Bean.” He looked at Daphne. “Hi, Pest.”

  “Gotta mow the lawn,” said Alvin. “And make the bed. I’ll do that right now, while I’m thinking of it.”

  After a great deal of argument, Alvin had come to an agreement with his mother. They had argued so vociferously that Alvin had finally insisted that they put the agreement in writing. Thus was born “Alvin’s Bedroom Contract.” Alvin agreed to make his bed every morning, and to keep his room reasonably neat at all times. However, he had been careful to exclude his Inventing Bench from the contract. For her part, Mom agreed not to enter his room for six days in a row. Each Saturday she was permitted into the room to inspect it and to change sheets on the bed. If either person broke the contract, it would become null and void, and the disagreement would be taken to Alvin’s father for arbitration. So far, the contract had worked fairly well.

  Alvin motioned Shoie off the bed, then tugged the sheet and blanket up toward the top, smoothing out some of the wrinkles. He stood back and stared at the bed. “Looks great!” he said defiantly.

  The Pest immediately said, “That’s hyperbole, Alvin. Strictly hyperbole.”

  “Hyper what?”

  “Hyperbole. H-y-p-e-r-b-o-l-e. It means it’s so exaggerated you don’t even believe it yourself. Now make up that bed right.”

  “Where did you learn that word?”

  Daphne said proudly, “I’ve been reading the dictionary.”

  “You’ve been what?” interjected Shoie. “You’ve been reading the dictionary?”

  “Yes. I’m just past the s’s. I’ve found some very interesting words. Like aardvark, which is the first real word in the dictionary. A-a-r-d-v-a-r-k. Aardvark. See? Two a’s to start with, which puts it right at the beginning. An aardvark is a big anteater. Some call it a great ant bear. And I’m an abecedarian. A-b-e-c-e-d-a-r-i-a-n. That’s another word early in the dictionary. It means a student of the alphabet. If you read the dictionary, you’ll find all kinds of fascinating words.”

  “Aardvark, huh,” said Alvin. “And abecedarian.”

  “Pest, come back in from outer space,” said Shoie.

  The intercom buzzer buzzed.

  At the time Alvin’s Bedroom Contract had been signed, Mom had po
inted out that since she was banned from the bedroom and the door would remain closed, she needed a way to communicate with him. Alvin had promptly rigged up a two-way buzzer. She could press a button in the kitchen and a buzzer installed under the Inventing Bench would sound off, meaning that Alvin should emerge from his room long enough to find out what his mother wanted.

  Now he opened the bedroom door, stepped to the top of the stairway, and hollered down, “Yes, Mom?”

  She appeared at the bottom of the stairs, and said, “Alvin, your father just called from police headquarters. He said a stranger appeared there this morning asking for you. Your father found out, at least sort of, what he wanted, and sent him here. He should be here any minute.”

  Alvin’s father was a sergeant on the Riverton Police Department.

  There was a pause. Then Alvin asked, “What does the man want from me?”

  “I don’t know for sure. Something about a buried treasure.”

  Immediately Alvin was intrigued. He had a reputation in Riverton for getting involved in all kinds of crazy schemes, some of which got him and others in trouble. Often, when people saw him coming, they crossed over to the other side of the street to keep from meeting him head-on. Frequently Shoie, or the Pest, or even his father had to rescue him from an especially embarrassing situation. But always he greeted the next potential adventure with open arms.

  “Okay, Mom. Let me know when he arrives.”

  As soon as he returned to his bedroom, Shoie asked, “What gives, Old Bean?”

  Trying to appear nonchalant, Alvin replied, “Nothing much, really. Some man wants to see me about a buried treasure.”

  Neither of the other kids gave him the satisfaction of questioning him further.

  Indeed the stranger was strange.

  Mom buzzed again, then appeared at the bottom of the stairs with a man standing behind her.

  “Alvin, this is Professor Liam O’Harra.” She pretended to sneeze, hiding her face behind her hand to keep from laughing at the name. “Professor O’Harra has some questions to ask you. Do you want to see him down here, or in your room?”

  “Hi, Professor O’Harra,” Alvin said, eyeing the stranger. “Come on up.”

  A wiry little man, Professor O’Harra was not even as tall as Shoie. Despite the summer heat he was dressed in a full suit, including vest. A strange little porkpie cap, bright yellow, rested atop his head. His chin was small, centered below a broad forehead, so his face appeared to be a perfect triangle. A few gray hairs poked out from beneath the cap. In one hand he carried a worn leather briefcase. In the other he brandished a very fancy walking stick, which he used to help himself up the stairs, tapping a rhythm on each step as he proceeded.

  At the top he stopped abruptly, and reached out with his right hand. “Alvin Fernald? Good to know you, sir! I’ve heard lots about you. Your father was one of my informants.”

  Alvin had never been called sir before. “Won’t you come in?” As soon as they were inside the bedroom he kicked the door shut behind him, and motioned toward the other two kids. “This is my sister Daphne, and my best friend Shoie.”

  The man smiled with a tight little motion of his lips, shook their hands, and said, “I’m very glad to know you. I mean no offense, but my business really is with Alvin.”

  “Forget it, sir,” said Alvin. “Anything I can tell you, these two guys know as well.” He gestured toward the chair at the end of the Inventing Bench. “Please sit down and tell us how we might help you.”

  Professor O’Harra sat down, looked with disdain at the top of the bench, pushed some of the items away, and very carefully placed his briefcase in front of him, and his yellow cap precisely in the middle of the briefcase.

  “Perhaps it’s just as well. Daphne and Shoie, you may be of help to me, too.” He had a high-pitched voice. “Alvin, indeed you come very highly recommended. I have spent two days in Riverton trying to locate someone who knows the natural sights in this area, who knows the terrain hereabouts, and who has some sense of the history of Riverton, and your name popped up again and again.”

  “I’m flattered,” said Alvin.

  “But you do, Alvin,” exclaimed the Pest. “I mean, you know all those things. You know everything about Riverton. You’ve been in trouble all over this place.”

  “So have you and Shoie. You’ve been with me whenever I got in trouble.” He added ruefully, “Most often, you’ve been the ones that got me out of trouble. Anyway, what kind of information do you want, Professor O’Harra?”

  “My friends all call me Liam. Why don’t you? My business, kids, is finding lost documents. I started, back in Ireland, when I was not much older than you. I helped those Irish, back from America, to trace their roots—their family burial plots, birth and marriage certificates. I trace down legal papers that have somehow disappeared, wills and titles to properties, all that sort of thing. Sometimes financial papers. Even if I say so myself, I’m rather good at what I do. And what I want from you kids is local evidence to help me find a document that disappeared in Riverton over a hundred years ago.”

  “Wow!” said Daphne. “That’s really old! Why, it’s just about superannuated!”

  “Liam, don’t pay any attention to the Pest. She reads the dictionary for fun. She’s an abecedarian.”

  “Oh. I see. No, I don’t really see. She’s probably the first abecedarian, whatever that is, that I’ve ever met.”

  Daphne said coyly, “Why don’t you put down your shillelagh, Professor?”

  He jumped as though he’d been shot, looked at his walking stick, and placed it on the bench. “Daphne, you’re the first American in my life that’s used that word.”

  “Shillelagh. S-h-i-l-l-e-l-a-g-h. It started out as a club or bludgeon. Now it sometimes means walking stick, just as you have there.”

  He picked up his shillelagh. “And sometimes, to me, it is a form of expression, of entertainment.”

  To the kids’ amazement the walking stick suddenly came alive. It shifted from hand to hand so fast they couldn’t follow its movements. Suddenly, with no apparent effort on the professor’s part, it shot into the air, bounced against the ceiling, and dropped behind the professor’s back, where he caught it with his right hand.

  Almost at the same instant, the professor’s clear tenor voice echoed from every corner of Alvin’s room:

  Sure it’s the same old shillelagh

  My father brought from Ireland;

  And divil a man was prouder than he

  As he walked with it in his hand.

  He’d lead the band on Paddy’s day,

  And twirl it round his mitt,

  And divil a bit, we’d laugh at it,

  Or dad would have a fit,

  Sure with the same old shillelagh

  Me father brought from Ireland.

  With that, the stick came dropping from the ceiling straight into Liam O’Harra’s teeth.

  Shoie somehow seemed unimpressed. He was more excited with the reason the professor had appeared at the house. He said, “You started to tell us how we might help you.”

  “Yes, yes. I hope you can. There might be a little money in it for each of you.”

  Alvin, seated on his bed, suddenly lifted his head.

  “The best way to tell you how you may be able to help me is to tell you a story. And the best way to tell that story is to read a certain boy’s journal. The boy was about your age—” he pointed to Alvin and Shoie, “when he wrote the journal. It tells a long story, and a true story. Do you have any plans for this afternoon? It may take that long to read the entire journal.”

  Alvin said, “You said there might be money in it? Of course we’ll listen.”

  Liam blinked his eyes as though to clear them, and opened his briefcase. He took out a small book, bound in roughly worn leather and obviously very old. “The story starts way back in February or March of 1862. Abraham Lincoln lived in the White House. He had been President for about a year, and the Civil War had been spre
ading across the South. Things were not going very well for the North.”

  Liam opened the book. The kids could see that the text was written in small, very neat, handwriting.

  Liam began to read.

  Chapter 2

  My name is Caleb Getme, and this is my journal. I am about twelve years old, but I’m not sure of my age because I was born a slave on a cotton plantation in South Carolina, and births were never recorded there.

  I’m very proud that I can write well enough to keep this journal. Directly, I’ll tell you how I learned to write.

  My earliest memory is weeding the tobacco patch behind the big house. There were four masters—the owner and his three sons.

  The old man seemed to enjoy the ailments of age; we seldom saw him except through the windows of the big house.

  We called the sons “the three massas.” One of them would come and check on my work every hour, and give me bloody what-for if it wasn’t done properly.

  Massa Gideon was the natural leader of the three sons. He was a tall man with a thick chest, and a jaw that protruded out in front of it. He had a booming voice, which he used at every opportunity. Wide red suspenders held up his trousers, and a huge revolver rested along his right thigh.

  Massa Esau was equally tall, but looked like a sapling compared to Massa Gideon’s oak tree. Bland by nature, he constantly followed Massa Gideon around, and did his bidding. I doubt that he ever had an original thought in his mind.

  Massa Joseph was much quieter than either of his two brothers. In the summer he would place a chair under the apple tree near the back door, and read a book by the hour. Occasionally he’d bring out a banjo and play old Southern songs, which delighted us. Our smiles, though, would bring on his wrath. He carried a staff with him wherever he went, and used it to hit or poke us to show his displeasure.

  There were only three of us in my family: myself and my Ma and Pa. Pa was a field slave, who worked in the cotton and tobacco. He was a big man, with rolling black muscles. And he was a dreamer, always trying to improve his lot in life. Mainly he dreamed about running away to the North.