The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1917-07-17

5000 W LID OCNAg IACIC1OIG he went 1llI0
the cottage, found an old fashioned
lantern, In which he stuck a candle
end, took up coal shovel and went
back to the beach.
Here by the candies dim light he
grimly dug into the shallow heap of
sand. 1t was FOOLS business, he told
himself as he delved downward to
where the sand was soaking wet and
the water oozed up into little wells and
impeded his labor.
AT last came rags and shreds Of
something that might have been an oil
skin coat, and afterward, deeply i'm
bedded In the sand, Jarvis found a
small water soaked box bound with
iron bands. This was treasure trove.
Jarvis hastened to the cottage and
with hammer and chisel pounded away
at the little box until its rotted sides
fell inward and the iron bands crum-
bled to rusty flakes.
Pitiful indeed was the little treasure
contained In the tiny chest-a sailors
keepsakes Bits Of coral and pretty
shells and stones, woman's lovely
face smiling from a furnished frame,
a baby's first photograph, the mothers
loving inscription penned on the back:
a few letters intimately tender from
wife to husband, a copy Of a will a
few months wages tied In little oilskin
sacks, the owners name on the inside
Of memorandum book-James Petrol.
master Of the freighter Sea Nymph-
that was all.
SO the man who had been thrown on
the beach as revealed to Jarvis In the
V1sion-for such the painter believed
his strange adventure to be-must have
been the captain of the I'll fated vessel
On the morrow he would inquire con-
corning the wreck of the Sea Nymnh
and try to find the relatives of James
Petrol.
After that Jarvis tumbled into bed
and went to sleep, wondering why he
OF all men had been chosen to bring to
light the long buried box. He dreamed
about the curly headed baby, whose
charming smile pursued him through
his dreams.
YES" said the Oldest cottager when
Jarvis guardedly made inquiries con-
corning wrecks on the coast. 1T was
as far back as 1885 that the Sea
Nymph went ashore off here. She got
on the shoals, but the seas were riding
so high she didn't stick Back she
went, and they simply swallowed her
up, so the story goes. Bits of cargo
foated ashore long afterward- or
two bodies of seamen That was all.
Divers never found trace of her. It
was the worst storm ever known on
the coast. After that they built the
breakwater and the lighthouse. At
that time there was an old fisherman's
hut on the spot where your cottage
now stands. Tradition has it that the
old man lured the steamer to her ruin.
II he did 1t was small profit to him,
for the storm washed his hut into the
sea, and he went with it. The man
who owns your cottage once found a
copper canister filed with choice
smoking tobacco buried in the sand
near by. 1t pleased him to resurrect it
and smoke It He quit using 1t after
awhile because, he claimed, it gave
him the nightmare-said the Sea
Nymph went ashore every night in his
dreams. If there's any of it left you
better not smoke It," added the oldest
cottager whimsically.
Its all gone" replied Jarvis. with a
cryptic smile. He did not think it |
worth while to inform the old man
that his advice had come little too
late.
And this is the treasure that Jarvis |
found. When he had traced the widow |
Of the luckless Captain Petrol he found |
her prosperously marriedsto one Of the
ships owners, while the curly headed |
baby with the charming smile had |
grown to be the loveliest girl Jarvis
had ever met AS consequence Doris |
Petrol became the artists wife.
In addition, the memory of the vision |
that had come to him that night chung |
so persistently in his mind that he |
transferred the stormy scene to canvas |
with every detail of that wild night Of |
thunder and lightning, hurricane winds
and mammoth waves, the ghostlike |
vessel shuddering to her watery grave,
the package on the beach half obliter- |
ated by the sand. Next to Doris her. |
self, this picture proved to be Jarvis
treasure for it made his fortune