The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1878-02-16

nervous that it was almost impossible for him
to sleep. But the end came speedily. One
morning he was found in his bed cold and
stiff in death. He had apparently died with
out struggle, but to the surprise of all his
trunk of valuables was not in its usual place
and even an extended search failed to dis
cover any traces of it. The absence of the
trunk aroused a suspicion of foul play in con-
nection with the old mans death, but an in
quest, held upon the dead body, failed to
elicit any fact in support of this suspicion
and so the matter gradually passed from the
public mind as such things will. After the
death of her grandfather Mary went to live
with an acquaintance who resided in the
neighborhood.
Nothing further was discovered In regard
to the missing trunk, until old Steve Jones
leaning on the fence, as has already appeared
at the beginning Of this narrative, had told
Dick Barker that when returning from a
fishing expedition, he had seen Grandther
Wilkins bury the trunk under tree in the
meadow.
Jones had lived all his life in abject poverty
working only when necessity compelled him
to do so or when his wife informed him that
the larder was entirely empty. A large por-
ton of his time he spent in smoking, waiting
patiently for something to turn up. When
he learned that, after the death of Granther
Wilkins his trunk could not be found, he felt
hot hoI ot last LOFT
mined to reward his patient waiting and that
bis days of poverty were over. He alone
knew where the trunk was and he fully in
tended to appropriate its contents to his own
use. As to the honesty of the transaction,
he never gave it a thought. Like the birds
of the air or the beasts of the forest he con-
sidered it right to take what came in his
way without bubble or question. Had his
courage been equal to his cupidity pretty
Mary Wilkins would never have received her
inheritance; but fortunately for her Steve
was exceedingly superstitious and although
he had set night after night to go fol
the money. his courage had always
failed when the time for action came.
He had heard many tales of the evil spirits
which are said to guard buried money, and
he could not bring himself to face them alone.
In his perplexity he had determined to share
his secret with some man of well known
courage and daring. He had selected Dick
Barker as the one who would best answer
his purpose, without, of course, suspecting a
word OF Dicks special interest in the Iightful
heir of the money. But Dick, as soon as he
had learned the secret, went directly to Mary
Wilkins and, by her assistance, contriyed the
strategem which, as we have already seen, SO
thoroughly frightened the superstitious
Jones.
Dick Barker on winters evening fire.
quently takes little Dick, aged six, upon his
knee and tells him the story OF granther's
trunk; and when he tells how old Steve
Jones ran through the woods that night
when he saw the ghost both he and his wife
Mary laugh again almost as heartily as they
did then.
On the other hand, Uncle Steve as he sits
in his poor howell lamenting the poverty and
wretchedness of his lot in life, is comforted
by his wife as follows:
"You have only yourself to thank for it,
Steve Jones. If you had had the spunk of a
dead fly and hadn't been afraid of your own
shadder, we might been rich to-day stead
of pinching and scrinching to make both ends
meet"
And poor Steve, lighting his pipe in
thoughtful silence, goes out of doors and, lean
ing on the dilapidated fence looks gloomily
out upon the world around him.