"What do ye think o' Gov'ment bonds, Josiah?" he incidentally inquired, after supper.
"First-rate!" said Josiah.
"About as safe as anything, a'n't they?" said Ducklow, encouraged.
"Safe?" cried Josiah. "Just look at the resources of this country! Nobody has begun yet to appreciate the power and undeveloped wealth of these United States. It's a big rebellion, I know; but we're going to put it down. It'll leave us a big debt, very sure; but we handle it now easy as that child lifts that stool. It makes him grunt and stagger a little, not because he isn't strong enough for it, but because he don't understand his own strength, or how to use it: he'll have twice the strength, and know just how to apply it, in a little while. Just so with this country. It makes me laugh to bear folks talk about repudiation and bankruptcy."
"But s'pos'n' we do put down the Rebellion, and the States come back: then what's to hender the South, and Secesh sympathizers in the North, from j'inin' together and votin' that the debt sha'n't be paid?"
"Don't you worry about that! Do ye suppose we're going to be such fools as to give the Rebels, after we've whipped 'em, the same political power they had before the war? Not by a long chalk! Sooner than that, we'll put the ballot into the hands of the freedmen. They're our friends. They've fought on the right side, and they'll vote on the right side. I tell ye, spite of all the prejudice there is against black skins, we a'n't such a nation of ninnies as to give up all we're fighting for, and leave our best friends and allies, not to speak of our own interests, in the hands of our enemies."
"You consider Gov'ments a good investment, then, do ye?" said Ducklow, growing radiant.
"I do, decidedly,the very best. Besides, you help the Government; and that's no small consideration."
"So I thought. But how is it about the cowpon bonds? A'n't they rather ticklish property to have in the house?"
"Well, I don't know. Think how many years you'll keep old bills and documents and never dream of such a thing as losing them! There's not a bit more danger with the bonds. I shouldn't want to carry 'em around with me, to any great amount,though I did once carry three thousand-dollar bonds in my pocket for a week. I didn't mind it."
"Curi's!" said Ducklow: "I've got three thousan'-dollar bonds in my pocket this minute!"
"Well, it's so much good property," said Josiah, appearing not at all surprised at the circumstance.
"Seems to me, though, if I had a safe, as you have, I should lock 'em up in it."
"I was travelling that week. I locked 'em up pretty soon after I got home, though."
"Suppose," said Ducklow, as if the thought had but just occurred to him,"suppose you put my bonds into your safe: I shall feel easier."
"Of course," replied Josiah. "I'll keep 'em for you, if you like."
"It will be an accommodation. They'll be safe, will they?"
"Safe as mine are; safe as anybody's: I'll insure 'em for twenty-five cents."
Ducklow was happy. Mrs. Ducklow was happy. She took her husband's coat, and with a pair of scissors cut the threads that stitched the envelope to the pocket.
"Have you torn off the May coupons?" asked Josiah.
"No."
"Well, you'd better. They'll be payable now soon; and if you take them, you won't have to touch the bonds again till the interest on the November coupons is due."
"A good idea!" said Ducklow.
He took the envelope, untied the tape, and removed its contents. Suddenly the glow of comfort, the gleam of satisfaction, faded from his countenance.
"Hello! What ye got there?" cried Josiah.
"Why, father! massy sakes!" exclaimed Mrs. Ducklow.
As for Ducklow himself, he could not utter a word; but, dumb with consternation, he looked again in the envelope, and opened and turned inside out, and shook, with trembling hands, its astonishing contents. The bonds were not there: they had been stolen, and three copies of the "Sunday Visitor" had been inserted in their place.
Very early on the following morning a dismal-faced middle-aged couple might have been seen riding away from Josiah's house. It was the Ducklows returning home, after their fruitless, their worse than fruitless, journey. No entreaties could prevail upon them to prolong their visit. It was with difficulty even that they had been prevented from setting off immediately on the discovery of their loss, and travelling all night, in their impatience to get upon the track of the missing bonds.
"There'll be not the least use in going to-night," Josiah had said. "If they were stolen at the bank, you can't do anything about it till to-morrow. And even if they were taken from your own house, I don't see what's to be gained now by hurrying back. It isn't probable you'll ever see 'em again, and you may just as well take it easy,go to bed and sleep on it, and get a fresh start in the morning."
So, much against their inclination, the unfortunate owners of the abstracted bonds retired to the luxurious chamber Laura gave them, and lay awake all night, groaning and sighing, wondering and surmising, and (I regret to add) blaming each other. So true it is, that "modern conveniences," hot and cold water all over the house, a pier-glass, and the most magnificently canopied couch, avail nothing to give tranquillity to the harassed mind. Hitherto the Ducklows had felt great satisfaction in the style their daughter, by her marriage, was enabled to support. To brag of her nice house and furniture and two servants was almost as good as possessing them. Remembering her rich dining-room and silver service and porcelain, they were proud. Such things were enough for the honor of the family; and, asking nothing for themselves, they slept well in their humblest of bed-chambers, and sipped their tea contentedly out of clumsy earthen. But that night the boasted style in which their "darter" lived was less appreciated than formerly: fashion and splendor were no longer a consolation.
"If we had only given the three thousan' dollars to Reuben!" said Ducklow, driving homewards with a countenance as long as his whip-lash. "'Twould have jest set him up, and been some compensation for his sufferin's and losses goin' to the war."
"Wal, I had no objections," replied Mrs. Ducklow. "I always thought he ought to have the money eventooally. And, as Miss Beswick said, no doubt it would 'a' been ten times the comfort to him now it would be a number o' years from now. But you didn't seem willing."
"I don't know! 'twas you that wasn't willin'!"
And they expatiated on Reuben's merits, and their benevolent intentions towards him, and, in imagination, endowed him with the price of the bonds over and over again: so easy is it to be generous with lost money!
"But it's no use talkin'!" said Ducklow. "I've not the least idee we shall ever see the color o' them bonds again. If they was stole to the bank, I can't prove anything."
"It does seem strange to me," Mrs. Ducklow replied, "that you should have had no more gumption than to trust the bonds with strangers, when they told you in so many words they wouldn't be responsible."
"If you have flung that in my teeth once, you have fifty times!" And Ducklow lashed the old mare, as if she, and not Mrs. Ducklow, had exasperated him.
"Wal," said the lady, "I don't see how we're going to work to find 'em, now they're lost, without making inquiries; and we can't make inquiries without letting it be known we had bought."
"I been thinkin' about that," said her husband. "Oh, dear!" with a groan; "I wish the pesky cowpon bonds had never been invented!"
They drove first to the bank, where they were of course told that the envelope had not been untied there. "Besides, it was sealed, wasn't it?" said the cashier. "Indeed!" He expressed great surprise, when informed that it was not. "It should have been: I supposed any child would know enough to look out for that!"
And this was all the consolation Ducklow could obtain.
"Just as I expected," said Mrs. Ducklow, as they resumed their journey. "I just as much believe that man stole your bonds as that you trusted 'em in his hands in an unsealed wrapper! Beats all, how you could be so careless!"
"Wal, wal! I s'pose I never shall hear the last on 't!"
And again the poor old mare had to suffer for Mrs. Ducklow's offences.
They had but one hope now,that perhaps Taddy had tampered with the envelope, and that the bonds might be found somewhere about the house. But this hope was quickly extinguished on their arrival. Taddy, being accused, protested his innocence with a vehemence which convinced even Mr. Ducklow that the cashier was probably the guilty party.
"Unless," said he, brandishing the rattan, "somebody got into the house that morning when the little scamp run off to ride with the minister!"
"Oh, don't lick me for that! I've been licked for that once; ha'n't I, Ma Ducklow?" shrieked Taddy.
The house was searched in vain. No clew to the purloined securities could be obtained,the copies of the "Sunday Visitor," which had been substituted for them, affording not the least; for that valuable little paper was found in almost every household, except Ducklow's.
"I don't see any way left but to advertise, as Josiah said," remarked the farmer, with a deep sigh of despondency.
"And that'll bring it all out!" exclaimed Mrs. Ducklow. "If you only hadn't been so imprudent!"
"Wal, wal!" said Ducklow, cutting her short.
Before resorting to public measures for the recovery of the stolen property, it was deemed expedient to acquaint their friends with their loss in a private way. The next day, accordingly, they went to pay Reuben a visit. It was a very different meeting from that which took place a few mornings before. The returned soldier had gained in health, but not in spirits. The rapture of reaching home once more, the flush of hope and happiness, had passed away with the visitors who had flocked to offer their congratulations. He had had time to reflect: he had reached home, indeed; but now every moment reminded him how soon that home was to be taken from him. He looked at his wife and children, and clenched his teeth hard to stifle the emotions that arose at the thought of their future. The sweet serenity, the faith and patience and cheerfulness, which never ceased to illumine Sophronia's face as she moved about the house, pursuing her daily tasks, and tenderly waiting upon him, deepened at once his love and his solicitude. He was watching her thus when the Ducklows entered with countenances mournful as the grave.
"How are you gittin' along, Reuben?" said Ducklow, while his wife murmured a solemn "good morning" to Sophronia.
"I am doing well enough. Don't be at all concerned about me! It a'n't pleasant to lie here, and feel it may be months, months, before I'm able to be about my business; but I wouldn't mind it,I could stand it first-rate,I could stand anything, anything, but to see her working her life out for me and the children! To no purpose, either; that's the worst of it. We shall have to lose this place, spite of fate!"
"Oh, Reuben!" said Sophronia, hastening to him, and laying her soothing hands upon his hot forehead; "why won't you stop thinking about that? Do try to have more faith! We shall be taken care of, I'm sure!"
"If I had three thousand dollars,yes, or even two,then I'd have faith!" said Reuben. "Miss Beswick has proposed to send a subscription-paper around town for us; but I'd rather die than have it done. Besides, nothing near that amount could be raised, I'm confident. You needn't groan so, Pa Ducklow, for I a'n't hinting at you. I don't expect you to help me out of my trouble. If you had felt called upon to do it, you'd have done it before now; and I don't ask, I don't beg of any man!" added the soldier, proudly.
"That's right; I like your sperit!" said the miserable Ducklow. "But I was sighing to think of something,something you haven't known anything about, Reuben."
"Yes, Reuben, we should have helped you," said Mrs. Ducklow, "and did, did take steps towards it"
"In fact," resumed Ducklow, "you've met with a great misfortin', Reuben. Unbeknown to yourself, you've met with a great misfortin'! Yer Ma Ducklow knows."
"Yes, Reuben, the very day you came home, your Pa Ducklow made an investment for your benefit. We didn't mention it,you know I wouldn't own up to it, though I didn't exactly say the contrary, the morning we was over here"
"Because," said Ducklow, as she faltered, "we wanted to surprise you; we was keepin' it a secret till the right time, then we was goin' to make it a pleasant surprise to ye."
"What in the name of common-sense are you talking about?" cried Reuben, looking from one to the other of the wretched, prevaricating pair.
"Cowpon bonds!" groaned Ducklow. "Three thousan'-dollar cowpon bonds! The money had been lent, but I wanted to make a good investment for you, and I thought there was nothin' so good as Gov'ments"
"That's all right," said Reuben. "Only, if you had money to invest for my benefit, I should have preferred to pay off the mortgage the first thing."
"Sartin! sartin!" said Ducklow; "and you could have turned the bonds right in, if you had so chosen, like so much cash. Or you could have drawed your interest on the bonds in gold, and paid the interest on your mortgage in currency, and made so much, as I rather thought you would."
"But the bonds?" eagerly demanded Reuben, with trembling hopes, just as Miss Beswick, with her shawl over her head, entered the room.
"We was jest telling about our loss, Reuben's loss," said Mrs. Ducklow in a manner which betrayed no little anxiety to conciliate that terrible woman.
"Very well! don't let me interrupt." And Miss Beswick, slipping the shawl from her head, sat down.
Her presence, stiff and prim and sarcastic, did not tend in the least to relieve Mr. Ducklow from the natural embarrassment he felt in giving his version of Reuben's loss. However, assisted occasionally by a judicious remark thrown in by Mrs. Ducklow, he succeeded in telling a sufficiently plausible and candid-seeming story.
"I see! I see!" said Reuben, who had listened with astonishment and pain to the narrative. "You had kinder intentions towards me than I gave you credit for. Forgive me, if I wronged you!" He pressed the hand of his adopted father, and thanked him from a heart filled with gratitude and trouble. "But don't feel so bad about it. You did what you thought best I can only say, the fates are against me."
"Hem!" coughing, Miss Beswick stretched up her long neck and cleared her throat "So them bonds you had bought for Reuben was in the house the very night I called!"
"Yes, Miss Beswick," replied Mrs. Ducklow; "and that's what made it so uncomfortable to us to have you talk the way you did."
"Hem!" The neck was stretched up still farther than before, and the redoubtable throat cleared again. "'Twas too bad! Ye ought to have told me. You'd actooally bought the bonds,bought 'em for Reuben, had ye?"
"Sartin! sartin!" said Ducklow.
"To be sure!" said Mrs. Ducklow.
"We designed 'em for his benefit, a surprise, when the right time come," said both together.
"Hem! well!" (It was evident that the Beswick was clearing her decks for action.) "When the right time come! yes! That right time wasn't somethin' indefinite, in the fur futur', of course! Yer losin' the bonds didn't hurry up yer benevolence the least grain, I s'pose! Hem! let in them boys, Sophrony!"
Sophronia opened the door, and in walked Master Dick Atkins, (son of the brush-burner,) followed, not without reluctance and concern, by Master Taddy.
"Thaddeus! what you here for?" demanded the adopted parents.