CHAPTER VI

“ABOUT THAT HALF-DOLLAR.”

AT every sound of wheels Jack started; and more than once he imagined he heard a wagon stop at the gate. Still no deacon; would he never return? Jack watched the clock, and thought he had never seen the pointers move so slowly.

Three or four times he went to the door to listen; and at last he walked down to the gate. It was bright, still moonlight, only the crickets and katydids were singing, and now and then an owl hooted in the woods or a raccoon cried.

“There’s a buggy coming!” exclaimed Jack. He could hear it in the distance; he could see it dimly coming down the moonlit road. “It’s Mr. Chatford!” He knew the deacon’s peculiar “_Ca dep!_” (get up) to the horse.

“That you, Jack?” said the deacon, driving in.

“Yes; thought I’d come down and shut the gate after you,” replied Jack.

Mr. Chatford stopped at the house, and Jack ran to help him take out some bundles. Then the deacon drove on to the barn, and Jack hurried after him. Still not a word about the half-dollar.

“You can go into the house; I’ll take care of Dolly,” said Jack.

“I’ll help; ’t won’t take but a minute,” said Mr. Chatford. “I’ve got bad news for you.”

“Have you?” said Jack, with sudden faintness of heart. “What?”

“For you and Lion,” added the deacon. “Duffer’s got another dog. He made his brags of him to-night. Said he could whip any dog in seven counties.”

“He’d better not let him tackle Lion!” said Jack.

“I told him I hoped he wouldn’t kill sheep, as his other dog did. Take her out of the shafts; we’ll run the buggy in by hand.”

The broad door of the horse-barn stood open. Jack led the mare up into the bright square of moonshine which lay on the dusty floor. There the harness was quickly taken off. Not a word yet concerning the half-dollar, which Jack was ashamed to appear anxious about, and which he began to think Mr. Chatford, with characteristic absent-mindedness, had forgotten.

“By the way, I’ve good news for you!” suddenly exclaimed the deacon.

Jack’s heart bounded. “Have you?”

“I saw Annie over at the Basin. She wants to go home to her folks to-morrow. Would you like to drive her over? She spoke of it.”

“And stay till Monday?” said Jack, to whom this would indeed have been good news at another time.

“Yes; start early, and get back Monday morning in time for her to begin school. Then she won’t go home again till her summer term is out.”

“Maybe—I’d better—wait and go then.” Jack felt the importance of early securing his treasure, and, having set apart Sunday afternoon for that task (“a deed of necessity,” he called it to his conscience), he saw no way but to postpone the long-anticipated happiness of a ride and visit with his dear friend. Yet what if the treasure were no treasure?

“As you please,” said the deacon, a little surprised at Jack’s choice. “Moses will be glad enough to go. See that she has plenty of hay in the rack, and don’t tie the halter so short as you do sometimes. Now give me a push here,”—taking up the buggy-shafts.

“Oh!” said Jack, as if he had just thought of something,—“I was going to ask you—about that half-dollar?”

“I didn’t think on ’t,” said Mr. Chatford, standing and holding the shafts while Jack went behind,—“not till I’d got started for home. Then I put my hand in my pocket for something, and found your half-dollar. Help me in with the buggy, and then I’ll tell you.”

The deacon drew in the shafts, Jack pushed behind, and the buggy went rattling and bounding up into its place.

“Did you go back?” asked Jack, out of breath,—not altogether from the effort he had just made.

The deacon deliberately walked out of the barn, and carefully shut and fastened the door; then, while on the way to the house, he explained.

“I had paid for my purchases out of my pocket-book, or I should have found that half-dollar before. However, as I had promised you, I whipped about and drove back to the goldsmith’s. He was just shutting up shop. I told him what I wanted. He went behind his counter, lit a lamp, looked at your half-dollar, cut into it, and then flung it into his drawer.”

“Kept it!” gasped out Jack.

“Yes; ’t was as good a half-dollar as ever came from the mint, he said. He gave me another in its place.”

Jack could not utter a word in reply to this announcement, which, notwithstanding his utmost hopes, astonished and overjoyed him beyond measure. As soon as he had recovered a little of his breath and self-possession, he grasped the deacon’s arm, and was on the point of exclaiming, “O Mr. Chatford! I have found a trunk full of just such half-dollars as that!”—for he felt that he must tell his joy to some one, and to whom else should he go? But already the deacon’s other hand was on the latch of the kitchen door, which he opened; and there sat the family round the table within.

“What is it, my boy?” said Mr. Chatford, as Jack shrank back and remained silent. “Oh! you want your half-dollar. Of course!” putting his hand into his pocket.

“I don’t care anything about _that_,” said Jack. He took it, nevertheless,—a bright, clean half-dollar in place of the scratched and tarnished coin he had given Mr. Chatford that afternoon.

Mr. Chatford stood holding the door open.

“Ain’t you coming in?”

“No, sir,—not just yet.”

Jack felt that he must be alone with his great, joyful, throbbing thoughts for a little while; and he wandered away in the moonlit night.