But Little Tim, in the mean time, had not been idle. Hastily throwing off his clothing, he dived again and again into the deep pool, swimming to the bottom and groping about there. He brought up handfuls of sticks and small stones, and the debris of the water's bed. A dozen times he was unsuccessful--and then, at last, as he clung to the bank and opened his fist for the water to thin the mud and ooze that he had clutched, there lay the golden coin, bright and shining in his palm.

He scrambled out, had his clothes on in a twinkling, dropped the coin into one of his pockets, and started off on a run down the road.

Perhaps old Granny Thornton had been right, however, when she exclaimed that there was a fate in the mysterious foreign piece; for when Tim Reardon reached his hand into his pocket presently, to see that the coin was safe--lo, it had once more disappeared. Little Tim, with a look of chagrin, turned his pocket inside out. A tell-tale hole in one corner accounted for the disappearance. Tim, muttering his disgust, slowly retraced his steps, kicking away the dust with his bare feet.

He was still searching for the coin when Bess Thornton returned. They were both searching for it an hour later. But the coin was lost.

"I'm awful sorry," said Tim, as they finally relinquished the search.

"I'll tell you what, though. It's my fault, and I've got a dollar and sixty cents left at home, and I'll give you that."

The girl shook her head sadly. "I wouldn't take it," she replied.

Two hours later, Benny Ellison, strolling homeward, with gun over shoulder, and two pickerel dangling from a crotched stick, espied something gleaming in the gra.s.s by the roadside. He stooped and picked up a golden coin.

"What luck!" he exclaimed. He put the coin in his pocket and carried it home. He had a collection of curiosities there, in an old cabinet, that he valued highly: coins, stamps, birds' nests, queer bits of stone and odds and ends of stuff. Seeing that the coin was punched, and foreign, and not available for spending money, he placed it among his treasures.

He was a curiously unsocial youth; had few pleasures that he shared with his cousins, but gloated over his own acquisitions quietly like a miser.

He rejoiced silently in this new addition to his h.o.a.rd, and said nothing about it.

CHAPTER XVII

A STRANGE ADMISSION

The days went by, and summer was near its end. Then, with the vacation drawing to a close, there came a surprise for Henry Burns, in the form of a letter from his aunt. It was she with whom he lived, in a Ma.s.sachusetts town; but now she wrote that she had decided to spend the winter in Benton, and that he must enter school there at the fall term, along with Tom Harris and Bob White. "Then I stay, too," exclaimed Jack Harvey, when he had read the important news--and he did. The elder Harvey, communicated with, had no objection; and, indeed, there was a most satisfactory arrangement made, later, that Jack Harvey should board with Henry Burns and his aunt; an arrangement highly pleasing to the two boys, if it added later to the concern and worry of the worthy Miss Matilda Burns.

The days grew shorter and the nights cool; and, by and by, with much reluctance, the canoes were hauled ash.o.r.e for the last time, of an afternoon, and stored away in a corner of the barn back of the camp; and fishing tackle for summer use was put carefully aside, also. There were lessons to be learned, and fewer half-days to be devoted to the sport for which they cared most.

The pickerel in the stream and the trout in the brook sought deeper waters, in antic.i.p.ation of winter. The boys spent less and less of their time in the vicinity of the old Ellison farm.

Tim and Young Joe Warren stuck mostly by the camp, and drew the others there on certain select occasions. For Little Tim, by reason of long roving, had a wonderful knowledge of the resources of the country around the old stream. He had a beechnut grove that he had discovered, three miles back from the water, on the farther sh.o.r.e; likewise a place where the hazel bushes were loaded with nuts, and where a few b.u.t.ternut trees yielded a rich harvest. Young Joe and he gathered a great store of these, as the nights of early frost came on; and they spread a feast for the others now and then, with late corn, roasted in questionable fashion over a smoky box-stove that heated the camp stifling hot.

October came in, with the leaves growing scarlet in the woods and sharp winds whistling through the corn and bean stacks. Henry Burns and his friends had seen but little of the Ellisons, who were out of school for the winter, caring for the farm; but now the night of the 31st of October found Henry Burns and Jack Harvey, George Warren, Bob White and Tom Harris seated in the big kitchen of the Ellison farmhouse.

It was plainly to be seen that, although the Ellisons had been reduced in circ.u.mstances through the loss of the mill, there was still an abundance of its kind yielded by the farm. On a table were dishes of apples and fall pears; two pumpkin pies of vast circ.u.mference squatted near by, close to a platter of honey and a huge pitcher of milk.

It was dark already, though only half-past seven o'clock, and the lights of two kerosene lamps gleamed through the kitchen windows.

As hosts on this occasion, John and James Ellison presently proceeded to introduce their city friends to the delights of milk and honey; a dish composed of the dripping sweet submerged in a bowl of creamy milk, and eaten therewith, comb and all.

"Never hurt anybody eaten that way," explained John Ellison, "and this is the real thing. The milk is from the Jersey cows in the barn, and the honey's from the garret, where there's five swarms of bees been working all summer."

They need no urging, however.

"Poor Joe! He'll die of grief when I tell him about this," remarked George Warren, smacking his lips over a mouthful.

"Why didn't you bring him along?" asked John Ellison. "I wanted you all to come."

"Arthur's off down town, and Joe's gone to the camp with Tim Reardon,"

explained the eldest of the Warren brothers. "Tim and Joe'll be sky-larking around somewhere later. They're great on Hallowe'en night, you know. They've got a supply of cabbage-stumps to deliver at the doors."

And thus the talk drifted to Hallowe'en, the night when, if old romances could only be believed, there are witches and evil spirits abroad, alive to all sorts of pranks and mischief.

In the midst of which, and most timely, there came suddenly a sharp tap at one of the windows. They paused and turned quickly in that direction.

James Ellison sprang to the window and peered out.

"Nothing there," he said; "one of those big beetles, I guess, attracted by the light."

They fell to eating again, when presently another smart rap at the window startled them.

John Ellison laughed. "It's some of fat old Benny's nonsense," he said.

"He wouldn't come in, because you city chaps were coming. He's rigged a tick-tack; I can see the string of it. Wait a minute and I'll just steal 'round the other door and catch him at it. You fellows go on eating, and don't pay any attention. I'll catch him."

They resumed the feast; and again the sharp rap sounded upon the window pane, caused by the clicking of a heavy nail--suspended from the window sash by a pin and string, and yanked by somebody at the end of a longer string attached--swinging in against the gla.s.s.

There came a yell of surprise shortly; and, in a moment, there appeared John Ellison clutching the culprit by the collar. Which culprit, to their astonishment, proved to be, not Benny Ellison but Young Joe.

"Here he is," laughed John Ellison, dragging in his prisoner. "What'll we do with him?"

"Clean him," suggested George Warren, winking at the others. "He's got a dirty face."

True enough, Young Joe had, in the course of his evening's adventures, acquired a streak of s.m.u.t across one cheek.

Roaring at the suggestion, they seized the struggling captive, lifted him up bodily to the sink, where they held him face upward under a stream of water, pumped with a vigour. When they had done with him, Young Joe's face was most a.s.suredly clean.

"Now," said John Ellison, as they set Joe on his feet again, "there's a towel. Dry up and come and have some honey."

Young Joe, grinning, and with a joyous vision of honey and pumpkin pie before him, obeyed with alacrity.

"Say," he said, cramming a spoonful of the mess into his mouth, and gulping it with huge satisfaction, "can Tim come in? He's out there."

"Sure, bring him in," a.s.sented John Ellison.

A few shrill whistles from Young Joe brought his companion to the door; and Tim Reardon was soon likewise equipped with bowl and spoon--but not before he had got his ducking at the kitchen pump, which he took with Spartan fort.i.tude.

Honey and milk, pies and fruit soon disappeared rapidly at the renewed attack. A fresh pie, added largely for the benefit of Young Joe and Tim, went the way of the others. Young Joe gave a murmur of surfeited delight as the last piece of crust disappeared; while Little Tim was gorged to the point almost of speechlessness, and could hardly shake his head at the proffer of more.

"Well," said George Warren, at length, "what are you two chaps doing around here, anyway--I'll bet Joe smelled the food, clear down to the camp."

Young Joe, in reply, turned to John Ellison, and motioned toward the farmyard. "Give us one of those pumpkins?" he asked.

The pumpkins referred to lay in a great golden heap beside one of the barns; and there were a few scattered ones lying out in the corn-field beyond.

"Why, sure," responded John Ellison. "Have as many as you want." And he added, with a sly wink at George Warren, "We give a lot of them to the pigs. You're welcome."

Young Joe, lifting himself out of his chair with some effort, due to the weight of pie and honey stowed within, disappeared through the door. He returned, shortly, carrying a large handsome pumpkin on his shoulder.