The Brass Bound Box

"F-f-fudge. You ain't c-c-com – pany no more. You belong, don't you?"

"I – I guess so. I begin to hope so, for this is the most delightfully happening place I ever was in. Though I never was in, to stay, but one other. First you fell over a precipice, and then I found a nest of little turkeys all dead, out in the black currant-bushes, Susanna says they are, that had stolen themselves – whatever that is. Then that mystery of a brass bound box; and now Uncle Moses breaking his bones, and so much going on. But – Montgomery Sturtevant! That box! What did become of it? Would we dare, do you suppose we might go back to the woods and find it? It was all your fault. If I hadn't let you carry it – All this about poor Uncle Moses has put it out of my mind, but now it comes back and it's more important than he is. I'm sure of it. We must find it. Come, quick!"

Katharine pushed back from the table and; sprang to her feet, her weariness forgotten in this fresh anxiety.

But Monty was neither anxious nor excited; at least, not about the box, though he held it scarcely less important than she did. He was busy over a "sum" in mental arithmetic, a branch of study he little favored, though it had now come to assume considerable importance to him. Yet the problem was beyond his capacity, though this keen-witted girl might solve it. He'd try her. Therefore, still gurgling his milk, he spluttered:

"S-s-s-ay, Katy! if a man, if a m-m-man can earn a dollar a day doin' c-c-chores, all the c-c-chores, how much can a boy earn doin' h-h-ha-half of 'em?"

"Not a single cent, if I had to pay him, and he were such a boy as you. A boy so mean he'd take a brass bound box out of a girl's hands and lose it for her, and then wouldn't budge to go get it. You do try me so, Montgomery! And there's one thing I know. That is, that if I had the management of you I'd break you of that detestable habit of stuttering, or know the reason why. It's all nonsense. You can talk as well as anybody else, only you're too lazy. Now, will you come?"

To her surprise and to her shame, also, he neither resented her sharp speech nor her reply to his money question. Leaning forward, his blue eyes took on an earnestness which effectually dispelled all notion of vanity in their possessor, demanding:

"C-c-c-could you do it? C-c-can you? W-w-w-wi-will you?"

"Yes, I might, could, would, and should – if you'd go find my brass bound box!"

"Cross your heart, honest Injun, h-h-hope to d-d-die?"

"No. Neither one. Just plain 'Yes.' I know a way. I've read all about it in the Cyclopedia in the big bookcase. I hunted it up right away, that first day after the first night when I – I mocked you. I made up my mind then, and I never unmake minds, that if you'd be decent I'd cure you. It's nothing but a dreadful bad habit, anyway, and easy done. But not until you find my – the – Aunt Eunice's brass bound box."

He was gone and back in a flash.

Katharine, starting to follow, paused in the middle of the floor, arrested by the sight of him standing in one doorway with the glittering casket in his hands, and of Miss Maitland in another staring at that which he held as if she saw a ghost.

CHAPTER VIII.

HAY-LOFT DREAMS

All the pretty pink color which had hitherto tinged the lady's cheek had vanished, and she visibly trembled, so that Katharine darted forward to her support. But Aunt Eunice raised her hand protestingly, and tottered forward to the nearest chair. With dry, white lips, she asked in a voice so low it could barely be heard:

"Montgomery Sturtevant, where – where did you find that?"

Her appearance alarmed both the children, who fancied she, also, was about to faint as Moses had done, yet she did not fall nor did her gaze waver; and impelled by its sternness to make reply, Monty finally stammered:

"H-h-h-hay-m-m-ow."

"Hay-mow! Impossible!" returned Miss Maitland, becoming a bit more natural in appearance, while Kate indignantly turned upon her playmate, demanding and denying:

"How dare you? He didn't. 'Twas I – under a tree in your own big forest. I dug it up and fetched it – he fetched – there wasn't a hay-mow anywhere near it. Oh, Aunt Eunice, it's the Magic Treasure. It holds the key to all the world – to all the good things in the world, anyway. And you're the wonderful Wise Woman will open it and let us use the gold and diamonds and precious stones to make all the poor people rich and glad. 'Tis yours, I know, and quick, quick!"

With a bound she seized the box from Monty's hands and brought it to the disturbed lady, who, when the girl would have placed it on her lap, recoiled as from some venomous thing.

"No, no! Don't bring it to me. I wouldn't touch it. It has wrought evil already, and so great – "

Then she abruptly paused and steadfastly regarded the quaint old casket which, as Katharine had discovered, seemed to have neither lock nor fastening, and was in itself a marvellous piece of mechanism. As she gazed her thought was busy as painful, but out of the chaos one idea at last grew clear: The Brass Bound Box must be safely hidden and none must know that it had ever been found. To hide it she would have to touch it, no matter how unwillingly. But the secret of its existence must be kept, although that secret was already in the possession of these two others.

She called them to her and held out her hands now for the box. They approached her with a sort of awe, for there was that still in her face which altered its ordinary kindliness. Not that it was unkind, for there was even more than usual sweetness in the glance she gave Montgomery, yet he felt as if he had been guilty of some terrible sin without in the least knowing what or why.

"Children, you are young to be asked to promise so serious a thing as I now ask you, but you must promise it, and you must keep your word. Will you?"

"I never broke my word in my life, Aunt Eunice! I wouldn't begin now after I've grown to be such a big girl," said Katharine, promptly. "But it's honest to tell you I hate promises, and I never feel so tempted to lie as when I've made one. I'd rather not promise, if you please; and I guess – I guess I'd rather not hear any secret. I'll go out and let you tell it to Monty alone."

Montgomery shot out a restraining hand and clutched her vanishing skirts, while a faint smile stole to Miss Maitland's lips at this evidence of moral cowardice. The boy felt, and with justice, that it was "Kitty Quixote" who had got him into this scrape, with her wild woodland adventures and her fairy-tales, and that it was but fair she should share in it.

"Unfortunately, you already know it. What you must promise is – that you will never, never speak of this box or its strange reappearance to any person, young or old. I shall put it out of sight where it will not be easily found again, and then forget it. You must forget it, too. You are Sturtevant and Maitland, descendants of honorable men and women, and for the sake of your forebears you must hide this thing."

It was all so solemn that Katharine shivered, yet could not help wondering a little. "Forebears" – that meant dead people; and how could it harm people already dead to have that box found, even supposing it to be full of poisons or other dreadful stuff, as she now began to imagine?

Now, if Kate merely shivered and speculated, poor Montgomery was in an ague. When he fixed his great eyes upon Aunt Eunice's face they were so full of terror that she pitied him, and tried to comfort, saying:

"Don't look so frightened, dear. It's only to keep from speaking of what has happened this morning. That's easy, isn't it? Besides, you are so young you will not remember long. Other things will drive it from your minds. At least, I trust so. In any case, you are in honor bound."

With that she rose as if to dismiss them, and went away toward the seldom used west wing of the great house, carrying the box with her. Her step was no longer uncertain, but firm and decided. A terrible situation had suddenly confronted her, and made, for a moment, even her clear judgment dim; but she had swiftly weighed the consequences, pro and con, and had settled the wisest course to follow.

Left alone, these young "descendants of honorable men and women" regarded one another in dismay; and Montgomery was the first to speak, crying out with all the intensity words could express:

"Oh, ain't it a-a-aw-ful!"

"Huh! I don't see anything 'awful' about it, 'cept your hanging on to me and making me stay whether or no. That was a dirty mean trick – keeping me here when I might have got away without hearing."

"Y-y-you knew it a'ready. An' it was in the h-h-h-hay-mow. I'd hid it there the min-ute I g-g-got to the barn, waitin' for y-y-you. But come out there n-now. I've got s-s-s-somethin' to tell you," said the unhappy lad, far too disturbed to resent her sharpness. At which she became instantly regretful, and slipped her arm consolingly within his, as they walked toward the great barn, which had from the first seemed to the city girl the most delightful of structures.

It was further proof of Monty's dejection that he did not jerk his arm away, nor would he have cared at all who saw him thus being petted by a "girl." However, once arrived at the great sun-lighted doorway, and secure even from Susanna's ears, the trouble came out.

"Oh, w-w-what shall I do? I've told it all over t-t-town, a'ready, an' it's no s-s-se – cret at all!"

Katharine stuck her arms akimbo and stared mercilessly at the abject creature before her, who seemed to droop and wilt under her gaze as if he were sinking through the hay-strewn floor.

"You told it?" she repeated, indignantly.

Monty nodded mournful acquiescence.

"Then you – you – you ought to be set washing dishes again, and kept at it for the rest of your life. So there."

One blue eye was raised a trifle in surprise. How in the world had she known that? He didn't remember mentioning the cause of his recent retirement from public life, indeed, he was positive that this had been a "secret" really worth keeping. However, it didn't matter now. Nothing mattered except that he, who came of such "honorable" people, had betrayed his friends.

"W-w-what'll happen, s'pose?"

"I don't know," answered Kate, slowly. "Something dreadful ought. For before it was Aunt Eunice's secret the box was my secret, too. I was the first who should have told it, and only to her. You had no right to speak of it till I gave you leave."

"Un-un-uncle Mose broke his bones, and I h-h-had to go 'round, didn't I? An' when I told about him the o-o-other j-j-j-just slipped out itself. T-t-t-that's all."

"Humph! 'All!' And more mischief done than you or I can guess, maybe. For though I can't imagine why Aunt Eunice should be so overcome and anxious at sight of just a box, there must be some good reason. She has seen that box before and it doesn't suggest pleasant memories to her. That's plain. She would have been glad if it had never been found, and all my pretty romance about treasure and helping people turns out just horrid. I wish I had never gone to that wood, then things wouldn't have happened. The box would have stayed in its hole, I wouldn't have hurried home with it by the long wrong way and met you, and poor Uncle Moses wouldn't have followed nor fallen over that root. Aunt Eunice would have been like the saying, 'Where ignorance is bliss,' and wouldn't have been worried so, and we shouldn't have been forbidden to tell things that I wouldn't have cared to tell, if I hadn't been forbidden. And, oh, dear! What a terrible hard world it is! and what a lovely old barn! I think – Do you suppose I could climb up that hay-mow? Susanna's sure there are hens' nests 'stolen' up there, and she needs the eggs. I wish we could find them. I wish we could do something – anything that is pleasant and so helps us to 'forget,' as Aunt Eunice wished us to do. But I guess I can't climb much. I never had a chance to try."

"I'll s-s-show you!" cried the lad, eagerly, and delighted to think there was something in which he could excel this clever city girl. With a bound he had risen from the floor, where both had sat during the last of their talk, had promptly spit upon his palms and rubbed them together, then leaped to catch an upright beam. "Shinnying" up to the slippery mow with real agility, he there paused and regarded Katharine with an expression of great pride. But instead of admiration her mobile countenance expressed only disgust, and to his question, "H-h-how's that?" she retorted: "Nasty, dirty thing! You go wash your hands before you touch a single one of our eggs!"

"'O-o-our' eggs!" repeated Monty, scornfully, to hide his own chagrin. "H-h-how long since th-th-they were 'ours'?"