“Jack,” she called to her brother, who was in the house reenforcing a shelf.
“What’s wanted?” he responded, sticking his head out of the window.
“Come here, quick!”
Throwing his long legs over the sill, he dropped onto the ground and was at her side in a moment. “What’s the matter,” he asked; “snake?”
“Something’s down there,” pointing to the hole.
Jack seized the spade and quickly uncovered an iron box. Desiré was trembling violently, and could only gaze silently at the strange object.
“What have you got?” demanded René, appearing at that moment from the front yard. “Prissy!” he shrieked, without waiting for an answer, “come ’n’ see!”
Priscilla appeared, viewed the find calmly, and proposed taking it into the house to see what it contained.
“Do you think we had better take it over to the judge’s?” asked Desiré, finally finding her voice. “Perhaps we should not open it by ourselves.”
“I’ll go right after him,” declared Jack. “Just put some papers on the table so I can carry the box in and set it down before I go.”
CHAPTER XXIX
W-1755—15x12—6754
It seemed a long time before they heard the sound of the Ford, but it was in reality only about half an hour; for Jack had covered the ground at his best speed, and the judge lost no time in getting back with him.
“Well,” said Judge Herbine, darting into the room and up to the table, “lots of excitement. Got anything to open it with, Jack? It’s locked.”
With considerable difficulty they managed to force the lock, and pry up the cover. Then everyone crowded around to peer inside. The box was filled with gold and silver pieces.
“Money!” gasped Jack.
“Oh,” cried Desiré, “it must have been out there ever since the Expulsion. I read in my little blue history that some of the Acadians buried their savings in their gardens before they left the country, because they expected to come back again very soon.”
“Then it probably belonged to our ancestors,” said Jack slowly.
“Let’s tip it out,” proposed the judge. “It looks to me like a goodly sum.”
Tarnished and dull, it lay in a heap on the table; and as the judge turned the box right side up again, he caught sight of some papers in the bottom.
“Documents of some kind!” he exclaimed, loosening them carefully.
Stiff, yellow with age, the writing was dim but discernible.
“That’s a will, isn’t it?” asked Jack, catching sight of a few words at the top of the sheet, as the man unfolded it slowly.
“Exactly. ‘To my daughter, Desiré Godet and her heirs forever—’” he read. “6754-1755.”
“What?” gasped Desiré, crowding closer to look at the paper.
“This house and money; and here’s the missing deed with the will. I congratulate you—most heartily, children. This is evidently—a perfectly legal will—and the long lost deed; and since you are Godet survivors—the place and the money must belong to you.”
“Oh, Jack!” cried Desiré, throwing herself into his arms, “now you can go back to college, and nobody can ever take this house away from us. It is really our home, now, just as I always felt it was.” Desiré was sobbing in her delirium of joy.
“’N’ is all that money ours?” demanded René, staring at it with wide eyes.
“Guess it is, my boy,” replied the judge, adding to Jack, “And some of these are doubtless rare pieces—worth much more than their intrinsic value.”
“Then we can have an automobile,” pronounced René.
Everybody laughed, and the tension was somewhat relieved.
“Look, Jack,” said Desiré, “there are two of the numbers from that slip of paper that was in Father’s box.”
“What’s that?” inquired the judge, whirling around like a top.
Desiré explained while Jack got the paper and they all examined it carefully.
“1755 is the year,” decided the judge, “and 6754 the number of the deed; but—Wait a minute; I have an idea.”
Out into the garden he hurried, followed by the whole family. With the hole as a base, he measured and calculated, while the others watched silently.
“I have it!” he exclaimed at last. “W means west of the house; 15 is the depth of the hole, and 12 the distance from the edge of the lot.”
“The mystery is solved at last!” exulted Desiré.
Several weeks later the ownership of the little cabin was formally handed over to the Wistmores, under the guardianship of Judge Herbine, and their little fortune duly deposited to their credit, ready for the fall when Jack was to go to college, and Desiré to high school.
THE MYSTERY OF ARNOLD HALL, by Helen M. Persons [Part 1]
CHAPTER I
PAT’S CHANCE
“Will you go, Patricia?” called Mrs. Randall from the living room, one cool evening late in August, as the doorbell rang imperatively. “I’m starting a fire in the grate.”
From the dining room across the hall, where she had been putting away the last of the supper dishes, hurried a tall slender girl, whose short wavy yellow hair and big brown eyes were set off to perfection by a green jersey dress. Expecting to see one of the neighbors when the door was opened, she was startled into an involuntary gasp as a messenger thrust forward a special delivery letter, inquiring curtly—“Miss Patricia Randall?”
“Y—es.”
“Sign here.”
Patricia signed his book, closed the door, and walked slowly into the living room staring down at the unexpected missive in her hand.
“What is it, Pat?” inquired her mother, glancing up from the hearth rug where she knelt trying to coax a blaze from a bed of charcoal and paper.
“A special delivery letter—for me.”
“For you?” repeated Mrs. Randall in surprise. “From whom?”
“I don’t know,” replied her daughter, frowning in a puzzled fashion.
“Well, open it and find out. Don’t stand staring at it like that,” urged her mother briskly.
Patricia sank into a low tapestry chair beside the fireplace and tore open the envelope. As she drew out the single sheet it contained, a slip dropped from it onto her lap. Still holding the folded letter she picked up the slip and exclaimed:
“A cashier’s check for a thousand dollars!”
“Pat!” cried Mrs. Randall, reaching for the yellow paper to read it for herself. “Look at the letter, quick, and see who sent it!”
“It’s only a line. ‘For Patricia Randall to spend on a year at Granard College.’ Oh—why—Mums!”
Patricia flung herself on her mother so suddenly that Mrs. Randall lost her balance, and the two fell in a heap on the rug.
“Mary! Patricia!” ejaculated a horrified masculine voice from the doorway. “What in the world—”
“Oh, Dad!” cried the girl, springing up and giving a helping