Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1896-11-05

BURIED TREASURE.
4 Little Dutch Maiden Fiaas the Heard q,


a Little Dutch Maiden Finds the Heard OF
Herr Baron GraaE
She followed a lizard that jumped
across the path and, scurried away
among the ferns. and failing to End
his hiding-plaee, she sat herself down
on the moss, and leaned against one
Of the huge blocks of stone that were
scattered about, and conned over to
herself the wonderful stories she had
heard her grootmoeder tell of buried
treasure, and Of Herr Baron GIRAFFE, who
had lived in the castle, and the beautiful
lady whom he had so i'll treated that
she had died; and Of the gold and sill
yer he had wrung from the peasants,
and boarded and buried in iron chests
IN the woods. How he suddenly dis
appeared, and no one ever saw or heard
OF him afterward. How people had
searched and dug for the treasure, but
no one had been able to find it.
1t was the belief in the village.
among the peasants, that the treasure
could only be found at sunset by a
maid who had suffered great mis-
fortune.
Perhaps it was buried just beneath
where she sat!
Mounting the ruined hall, she seated
herself upon a loose stone, and be-
thought her of lucky rhyme in vogue
among the children and which they al
ways repeated whenever they happened
to lose anything:
"I2en-ah, twee-ah, dric-ah Graacht.
Vijf-ah, zcs-ah zev'n-ah. Maacht,'
Nobody knew IN the least what it
meant, but that did not matter at all.
1t was lucky, and that was sufficient
While repeating the lucky rhyme she
beat time to it with her little sabots
upon the stone; and when She came to
the final word "Maacht, she gave such
a kick that off flew the sabot down
among the weeds below. Slipping
down from the spot where she had
sitting, she parted the thick bushes
with her hands, carefully avoiding the
nettles, and pushed her way among the
thick ferns to the spot where she could
see the point of the white sabot CLEAN
ing. The branches, springing back, al
most blinded her; and, putting out her
hands to keep them away, she suddenly
felt the ground crumbling under her
feet. She chung to the ferns and weeds
to save herself, but the effort was use
less, and down she went, with thA
stones and loose earth rafting and
falling all about her. One stone struck
her on the head. She saw for mo-
ment the green leaves and the patch
of golden sky above her; then all grew
dark before her eyes, and she knew no
more.
When little Melaatij opened her eyes
again, the light was but family shin
ing through the trees, for it was we'll
nigh nightfall. For moment She did
not realize where she was or what had
happened. But finally the pain in her
head and her bruised knees became so
bad that she remembered her fall, and
attempted to rise, catching at sort of
projection which jutted out from the
steep bank above her; hut to her horror
1t moved loosely, as if it would fall
She had barely time to roll to one side
ere the whole mass fell outward and
seemed to crumble away. The shane
OF 1T was square, and so remained: and
when she touched it she realized that it
was iron, but SO rusted that it was like
flakes Of rotten wood.
There were some rags in the square
shape, and she gingerly poked them
about until what seemed to be hun
dreds OF buttons began to run out of
the discolored mass in a stream. She
stopped and picked some of them up.
and examined them closely. They
seemed to her to be like money. but
such queer money-the like Of it she
had never seen before, and it was
SO brown and black, too! She put some
OF them INTO her pocket. George Whar-
ton Edwards, in st. Nicholas.
stub Ends of Thought.
rowing art for arts sal,e !. Mt -.