The Treasure Hunt Page 7

  “I d-don’t know,” admitted Willie. “M-maybe a f-few days.”

  Joe offered quickly, “Shall I go for help?”

  Such a strange look came into Willie’s faded eyes! It reminded Joe of the look he sometimes saw in a wild animal’s eyes when it was cornered and couldn’t escape.

  “Oh, well, I d-don’t know,” he stammered.

  Joe made up his mind. “I’ll go get Father, but before I go, shall I put this other blanket on you?”

  Willie actually managed a smile of gratitude as Joe spread the green woolen blanket over him. Apparently he had been too sick to get it himself, even though it was at the foot of the bed.

  Forgetting the game he’d shot, Joe loped across the grain stubble. He hoped Father would be able to go and see Willie. Father had seemed quite well yesterday, but this morning he had been very tired again. “Seems it takes all my strength to heal this wound,” Father had remarked with a wan smile. It made Joe wonder just how bad that cut was underneath those bandages.

  He found Father sitting at the kitchen table. “Willie’s sick,” Joe announced. “Real sick. Looks like he hasn’t been out of bed much for a few days.”

  “Willie,” repeated Father, as if he couldn’t think who that was. “Oh, you mean the prospector who lives in the creek bank. I never did get around to visiting him.”

  “Well, he’s very sick,” Joe said again urgently.

  Father looked at him. “From what you say, I’d guess someone should go for the doctor. In the meantime, someone should go to Willie as well. Maybe I could do that if Jake would agree to go after the doctor.”

  “Is it far to the den?” asked Mother.

  “Not terribly far,” Joe answered.

  “Well, I’ll go along,” decided Mother.

  “Joe, will you ask Jake to go get the doctor? He can ride King. Then please show us where Willie lives.”

  Jake was forking straw in the barn. He listened to Joe’s story, asked a few questions, saddled King, and set off. Meanwhile, Father and Mother had started slowly across the field with Lydia trailing after them. Joe could easily catch up. In fact, he found it hard to walk slowly enough for Father.

  They eventually arrived at the door in the riverbank. Father nearly stumbled over Joe’s pan and asked, “What’s this?”

  “Oh, that’s to pan for gold,” Joe mumbled.

  “Oh. Well, Joe, will you go in first, since he knows you?”

  Joe knocked. As soon as he heard Willie’s voice, he went in and stood near the bed. “I brought my parents here. They want to help you.”

  Again Willie’s face got that look. He pulled the blanket up higher as Father and Mother approached the bed. “Leave me alone,” he begged.

  Father told him kindly, “We just want to help.”

  Mother quickly made a fire in the stove. Finding the oatmeal, she stirred together a thin gruel and brought it to Willie. “Here’s something for you to eat.”

  Willie stared at the bowl. Finally he reached out a claw like hand that shook badly. Anybody could see that he wasn’t able to hold the bowl, much less handle a spoon.

  Father helped Willie hold up his head, while Mother dribbled the gruel into his mouth, a few drops at a time. Lydia watched wide-eyed from the door. She had never seen such a sick person.

  After a while Father stuck his head out the door. “Where’s Joe? Oh, there you are. You’d better go back to the house. When the doctor comes, someone will have to tell him where Willie is.”

  Father helped Willie hold up his head, while Mother dribbled the gruel into his mouth.

  “Okay,”

  Lydia scrambled up the bank after Joe, but he trotted so fast that she couldn’t keep up. She wanted to beg him to wait, but she knew he should hurry. What if the doctor was already there at the house?

  Sure enough, Dr. Crawford’s car came bumping toward Lydia across the field. Joe grinned at her from the passenger side. Getting a ride in a car wasn’t something that happened often to the Yoder family.

  Lisbet was full of questions when Lydia finally reached the house, so she told her all she knew. Soon they saw the doctor’s car coming back, more slowly this time. “He’s probably got the sick man in the car, so that’s why he’s driving carefully,” Lisbet surmised.

  Joe loped along beside the car, and last of all came Father and Mother. Father trudged ever so slowly. Mother supported him by holding onto his good arm. As soon as he reached the kitchen, Father dropped into a chair.

  “Is Dr. Crawford taking Willie to the hospital?” Lydia asked.

  “For now he’ll just take him to Mrs.Whitsun’s boarding house. He wants to make some inquiries and find out if Willie has relatives nearby. He thinks Willie may just have the flu,” Mother replied. “We offered to take him into our house, but Dr. Crawford said he’d rather take him to town.”

  “He thought,” Father put in with a wry smile, “that we already have enough sick people the way it is.”

  15

  The Miller Boys

  Once Father’s hand was better, Jake finally got his wish to go to work on a threshing crew. On the morning he was to leave, Father read from Proverbs 3.

  My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments…Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart…Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

  Closing the Bible, Father said to Jake, “The crew you will be joining is quite decent, but there are a few fellows who are mainly out for a good time. With God’s help, may you resist temptation and stand strong in the faith.”

  Jake nodded very seriously. He didn’t seem to know what to say.

  Lydia felt a lump forming in her throat as she watched her big brother pick up his bag and start toward the door. “Goodbye! See you soon,” she called to him.

  “See you,” Jake echoed back to her.

  “I’ll be back in a month or so. There’s Samuel Miller coming up the road now with Jonas.” With that he stepped outside and closed the door behind him. Jonas was Jake’s age, and he too was going to join the threshing crew. His father had agreed to drive the two young men to the train station.

  Lydia ran to the window and said, “Maybe Rebecca and Veronica came along to visit me while their father is in town.” When no girls climbed down from the wagon when it stopped to pick up Jake, Lydia said sadly, “They haven’t been here for quite a while.”

  “I know what,” began Mother. “When Samuel comes back, we’ll try to stop him. We’ll ask him if they could come for Sunday dinner.”

  “Yes, let’s,” cried Lydia. “May I bake a cake? I’d like to make a pumpkin cake.”

  “That’s a good idea!”

  Everything worked out fine. Lydia saw Samuel Miller when he was still quite a distance down the road, so they had plenty of time to intercept him. He was sure his family would like to come on Sunday, so Lydia and Lisbet got busy with preparations. They cleaned the house, peeled potatoes, and stewed fruit besides baking a pumpkin cake.

  The Yoders’ table ended up being quite crowded that Sunday. Thinking that Barbara must be feeling lonely with Ben gone, Mother invited her and the children too. Of course they thought of Polly and Sam and invited them as well. What with the Millers’ four children and the Yoders’ three, that made seventeen people!

  Joe knew exactly what he wanted to do with the Miller boys. “Would you like to see the prospector’s house in the creek bank?” he asked as the boys went outside after dinner.

  “Sure thing,” said fourteen-year-old Israel, and, of course eleven-year-old Levi agreed.

  They reached the den in record time. “Willie’s not home yet,” Joe told the other two. “I guess he’s still sick.”

  “In the hospital?” Levi asked.

  Joe shrugged. “I don’t know. To tell you the truth, we haven’t heard from him since Dr. Crawford took him away. Mayb
e he’s gone to live with relatives. He was pretty old to be living alone.”

  “You know, I wouldn’t have noticed this little door if I’d just walked by,” Israel said admiringly. “It’s like a secret hideaway.”

  Levi asked eagerly, “Can we go in?”

  “Father said we’re not to go in, but we may open the door and peek inside,” Joe pushed the door open, and they all crowded close to take a look.

  “Everything is so tiny. Willie must not be a big man,” remarked Israel.

  “No, he’s not even as tall as I am,” Joe replied.

  “It would be fun to go in and sit on those chairs,” Levi said wistfully.

  “Father said we’re not to,” Joe said again. Soon he shut the door and suggested, “Shall we sit on the opposite bank?”

  The stream was so narrow that they could easily hop across. On the sun-warmed sand of the bank, they found a good spot to sit. Israel announced, “We’ve seen the teacher, Miss Price.”

  “Oh? We heard that school’s to begin soon, but we didn’t know if the teacher had arrived,” Joe said.

  “We went with Father to help get the school ready. You probably heard that they’re fixing up the Higgins’s shed. It’s really quite a nice classroom now. And the teacher will board at the Higgins’s house. Miss Price is tiny. Smaller than I am.”

  “Oh?” Joe said again, noting that Israel was a good inch shorter than he was.

  “And not very old. Maybe not much older than I am. Well, maybe as old as your sister Lisbet.” Israel said with a grin. “Do you think Miss Price can make us listen?”

  Joe shifted uncomfortably. He wasn’t sure what he should say to that.

  Israel got to his feet. “I’m going to take another peek at that prospector’s cave.” With a single leap, he was across the creek and at the door. To Joe’s distress, he pulled it open and disappeared inside.

  Levi followed his brother into the den. Joe hopped over and stood unhappily outside the door. How he wished he hadn’t brought the Miller boys here! What if they damaged some of Willie’s belongings?

  Israel was walking stoop-shouldered around the low room, poking into every corner. He opened the stove lid. He got down on his hands and knees and peered under the bed. “I’m looking to see if he left any gold lying around,” he explained to Joe. “He did pan for gold, didn’t he?”

  “Uh, yes,” stammered Joe. How could he get these boys out of here before they started nosing into the cupboard?

  Just then Israel reached for the cupboard door. Joe opened his mouth to tell him not to touch that cupboard, but shut his mouth before any words came out. If he said anything, Israel would certainly wonder what was inside.

  “Here’s a little wooden chest! Maybe this is where he keeps his gold,” Israel said.

  Joe clenched his fists. He wanted to go over and wrench the little blue-lined box out of Israel’s hands.

  Israel dumped the box upside down on the table. “Huh. It’s empty. Well, Levi, we better get out of here. Joe doesn’t look too happy with us, does he?”

  Joe bit his lip as they passed him. He wanted to go in there and check whether those little flakes of gold lay on the table. It was possible Israel just hadn’t seen them. But, of course, it wouldn’t work for him to do that now, so Joe closed the door carefully and followed the other two up the bank.

  For Joe the afternoon had been spoiled. He tried to be friendly and think of something else he and the boys could do together, but nothing was fun anymore. They ended up sitting on the lawn near Father and Samuel, who had taken two chairs outdoors to sit and visit. How relieved Joe was when the Millers left for home!

  There was no time to sneak off and set Willie’s home to rights that evening because Joe had to do the chores. Father did his best to help feed the cattle, but he still couldn’t use his right hand.

  It wasn’t bandaged any more, and the wound had healed quite nicely, but there was a vivid scar across the palm, and Father couldn’t move his fingers very much. He had explained to Joe that the nerves were probably damaged.

  Tonight, after feeding some grain, Father sat on a low wall and watched Joe forking hay. “What did you boys do this afternoon?” he asked.

  Joe stopped forking hay. “We went to see Willie’s house.”

  “I see.” Father paused and then asked quietly, “What happened? You didn’t seem too happy after you came back.”

  “They went inside,” Joe blurted out. “I told them not to, but they didn’t listen.”

  “I see. Was anything damaged?”

  “I don’t think so, but they messed around. I plan to go and put things right.”

  “That’s good. I might go with you tomorrow. I should talk with Samuel about this. If boys are allowed to do something wrong without being chastised, their consciences get hardened, and that is not what we want for our boys.” Smiling at Joe, he continued to say, “We want your conscience to be tender and willing to make things right.”

  Joe smiled too. He was glad to hear that Father would go with him to the den.

  As soon as the chores were done the next morning, they walked across the field.

  “I wonder how Willie is,” Father said.

  “How can we find out?” Joe asked.

  “I guess we could ask Dr. Crawford.”

  When they reached Willie’s place, Joe went in and straight to the table. “There they are!” he said, pointing to three tiny flakes of gold gleaming beneath the overturned box.

  Father bent for a closer look. “Gold?”

  “Yes. Israel, he-he said he was checking to see if Willie left any gold. He dumped this box, but he didn’t even see the gold.”

  “He didn’t realize the pieces would be this small. Had Willie showed you the gold?”

  Joe felt his face grow warm. “Yes, he did. He trusted me. Now this happened.”

  “Well, the gold is still safe.” Carefully Father nudged the tiny flakes back into the blue-lined box. “I think we had better talk to Dr. Crawford. This gold might help to pay Willie’s medical bills.”

  “Gold is worth a lot, isn’t it?” Joe said as they walked home again. “Even little pieces like that can pay doctor bills.”

  Father gave him a strange look and then slowly quoted, “ ‘Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him… And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.’ ”

  16

  Miss Price and the Boys

  I wish I could go with you,” Lisbet admitted to Lydia on the first day of school.

  Lydia laughed as she picked up her lunch bucket. “That would be fun, but why would you want to go back to school when you’re eighteen already?”

  “Maybe because you have such a young teacher,” Lisbet answered.

  Lydia laughed again. “She’s no older than you are, so she could barely be your teacher.” She looked out the window. “Joe’s still in the barn. I hope he won’t mind if I start off without him. I don’t want to be late.”

  “Maybe I should have done some of his chores this morning,” said Lisbet. “Oh, there he comes now.”

  “He sure isn’t walking very fast, and to think that he still needs to wash up and change into his good clothes,” fretted Lydia. Brushing past her brother on the walk, she told him saucily, “You better hurry.”

  “Why?” Joe shot back.

  “Miss Price will mark you tardy.”

  “So what?”

  That stopped Lydia in her tracks. “Don’t you even care about being on time on the very first day of school?”

  “Oh well,” replied Joe with a shrug, “I’ll get there.”

  Lydia swished off down the road. Why’s Joe acting so stodgy today? Doesn’t he care what the new teacher thinks of him?

  She met the two Kanagy children just as they came out of their house. Little Aaron and Amanda were glad to have Lydia’s company on the way to school. To them, she w
as a big girl, even though she was only eleven.

  Aaron and Amanda chattered nonstop all the way to school. This was going to be Aaron’s first day of school, and he certainly was excited. “I can count to one hundred,” he told Lydia, “and I can read.”

  “Not much,” scoffed his eight-year-old sister. “Just ten words.”

  Unabashed, Aaron went on to list all the words he could read: dog, cat, mother, father, and so forth. Lydia listened and smiled. It was fun being with someone so enthusiastic about school. In the back of her mind, she still fretted about Joe being late.

  All that worrying was useless because Joe came sauntering through door just as the bell rang. By that time Miss Price had already organized the classroom. Most of the thirty-five children had been told where to sit.

  Miss Price eyed Joe as he entered the classroom. “There are still two missing. Isn’t there another Miller boy, and another Higgins boy?”

  Levi Miller raised his hand. “Israel had to help Father this morning.”

  Miss Price’s eyes narrowed. “He’s not coming?”

  Levi shrugged. “I think he is.”

  Just then there was a banging on the porch. In popped the two oldest students—Israel Miller and Anton Higgins, both fourteen years old. Lydia felt a little shiver pass through her. They seemed to tower over the teacher.

  Miss Price was not fazed. She calmly showed the boys their seats.

  Because they were given seats quite a distance apart, Anton raised his hand and said, “Aren’t all the eighth graders supposed to sit together?”

  Miss Price gave him a look that seemed to say that he was being impudent, but all she said was, “This is the way I’ve planned the seating.”

  As Anton slumped down in a disagreeable way, Lydia shivered again. Why does it seem like a cold draft entered the room along with those two big boys? What if they caused trouble for the teacher?

  Miss Price moved on with her schedule. She introduced the opening exercises and gave the students a quick talk on the school rules. Then she passed out books and started the first classes.