As time went by the condition of things
at Oakland changed as it did everywhere
else. The boys’ mother, like all the other
ladies of the country, was so devoted to the cause
that she gave to the soldiers until there was nothing
left. After that there was a failure of the crops,
and the immediate necessities of the family and the
hands on the place were great.
There was no sugar nor coffee nor
tea. These luxuries had been given up long before.
An attempt was made to manufacture sugar out of the
sorghum, or sugar-cane, which was now being cultivated
as an experiment; but it proved unsuccessful, and
molasses made from the cane was the only sweetening.
The boys, however, never liked anything sweetened
with molasses, so they gave up everything that had
molasses in it. Sassafras tea was tried as a
substitute for tea, and a drink made out of parched
corn and wheat, of burnt sweet potato and other things,
in the place of coffee; but none of them were fit to
drink at least so the boys thought.
The wheat crop proved a failure; but the corn turned
out very fine, and the boys learned to live on corn
bread, as there was no wheat bread.
The soldiers still came by, and the
house was often full of young officers who came to
see the boys’ cousins. The boys used to
ride the horses to and from the stables, and, being
perfectly fearless, became very fine riders.
Several times, among the visitors,
came the young colonel who had commanded the regiment
that had camped at the bridge the first year of the
war. It did not seem to the boys that Cousin Belle
liked him, for she took much longer to dress when
he came; and if there were other officers present
she would take very little notice of the colonel.
Both boys were in love with her, and
after considerable hesitation had written her a joint
letter to tell her so, at which she laughed heartily
and kissed them both and called them her sweethearts.
But, though they were jealous of several young officers
who came from time to time, they felt sorry for the
colonel, their cousin was so mean to him.
They were on the best terms with him, and had announced
their intention of going into his regiment if only
the war should last long enough. When he came
there was always a scramble to get his horse; though
of all who came to Oakland he rode the wildest horses,
as both boys knew by practical experience.
At length the soldiers moved off too
far to permit them to come on visits, and things were
very dull. So it was for a long while.
But one evening in May, about sunset,
as the boys were playing in the yard, a man came riding
through the place on the way to Richmond. His
horse showed that he had been riding hard. He
asked the nearest way to “Ground-Squirrel Bridge.”
The Yankees, he said, were coming. It was a raid.
He had ridden ahead of them, and had left them about
Greenbay depot, which they had set on fire. He
was in too great a hurry to stop and get something
to eat, and he rode off, leaving much excitement behind
him; for Greenbay was only eight miles away, and Oakland
lay right between two roads to Richmond, down one
or the other of which the party of raiders must certainly
pass.
It was the first time the boys ever
saw their mother exhibit so much emotion as she then
did. She came to the door and called:
“Balla, come here.”
Her voice sounded to the boys a little strained and
troubled, and they ran up the steps and stood by her.
Balla came to the portico, and looked up with an air
of inquiry. He, too, showed excitement.
“Balla, I want you to know that
if you wish to go, you can do so.”
“Hi, Mistis ”
began Balla, with an air of reproach; but she cut him
short and kept on.
“I want you all to know it.”
She was speaking now so as to be heard by the cook
and the maids who were standing about the yard listening
to her. “I want you all to know it every
one on the place! You can go if you wish; but,
if you go, you can never come back!”
“Hi, Mistis,” broke in
Uncle Balla, “whar is I got to go? I wuz
born on dis place an’ I ‘spec’
to die here, an’ be buried right yonder;”
and he turned and pointed up to the dark clumps of
trees that marked the graveyard on the hill, a half
mile away, where the colored people were buried.
“Dat I does,” he affirmed positively.
“Y’ all sticks by us, and we’ll
stick by you.”
“I know I ain’t gwine
nowhar wid no Yankees or nothin’,” said
Lucy Ann, in an undertone.
“Dee tell me dee got hoofs and
horns,” laughed one of the women in the yard.
The boys’ mother started to
say something further to Balla, but though she opened
her lips, she did not speak; she turned suddenly and
walked into the house and into her chamber, where
she shut the door behind her. The boys thought
she was angry, but when they softly followed her a
few minutes afterward, she got up hastily from where
she had been kneeling beside the bed, and they saw
that she had been crying. A murmur under the
window called them back to the portico. It had
begun to grow dark; but a bright spot was glowing
on the horizon, and on this every one’s gaze
was fixed.
“Where is it, Balla? What
is it?” asked the boys’ mother, her voice
no longer strained and harsh, but even softer than
usual.
“It’s the depot, madam.
They’s burnin’ it. That man told me
they was burnin’ ev’ywhar they went.”
“Will they be here to-night?” asked his
mistress.
“No, marm; I don’ hardly
think they will. That man said they couldn’t
travel more than thirty miles a day; but they’ll
be plenty of ’em here to-morrow to
breakfast.” He gave a nervous sort of laugh.
“Here, you all come
here,” said their mistress to the servants.
She went to the smoke-house and unlocked it.
“Go in there and get down the bacon take
a piece, each of you.” A great deal was
still left. “Balla, step here.”
She called him aside and spoke earnestly in an undertone.
“Yes’m, that’s so;
that’s jes’ what I wuz gwine do,”
the boys heard him say.
Their mother sent the boys out.
She went and locked herself in her room, but they
heard her footsteps as she turned about within, and
now and then they heard her opening and shutting drawers
and moving chairs.
In a little while she came out.
“Frank, you and Willy go and
tell Balla to come to the chamber door. He may
be out in the stable.”
They dashed out, proud to bear so
important a message. They could not find him,
but an hour later they heard him, coming from the stable.
He at once went into the house. They rushed into
the chamber, where they found the door of the closet
open.
“Balla, come in here,”
called their mother from within. “Have you
got them safe?” she asked.
“Yes’m; jes’ as
safe as they kin be. I want to be ’bout
here when they come, or I’d go down an’
stay whar they is.”
“What is it?” asked the boys.
“Where is the best place to
put that?” she said, pointing to a large, strong
box in which, they knew, the finest silver was kept;
indeed, all excepting what was used every day on the
table.
“Well, I declar’, Mistis,
that’s hard to tell,” said the old driver,
“without it’s in the stable.”
“They may burn that down.”
“That’s so; you might bury it under the
floor of the smoke-house?”
“I have heard that they always
look for silver there,” said the boys’
mother. “How would it do to bury it in the
garden?”
“That’s the very place
I was gwine name,” said Balla, with flattering
approval. “They can’t burn that
down, and if they gwine dig for it then they’ll
have to dig a long time before they git over that big
garden.” He stooped and lifted up one end
of the box to test its weight.
“I thought of the other end
of the flower-bed, between the big rose-bush and the
lilac.”
“That’s the very place
I had in my mind,” declared the old man.
“They won’ never fine it dyah!”
“We know a good place,”
said the boys both together; “it’s a heap
better than that. It’s where we bury our
treasures when we play ‘Black-beard the Pirate.’”
“Very well,” said their
mother; “I don’t care to know where it
is until after to-morrow, anyhow. I know I can
trust you,” she added, addressing Balla.
“Yes’m, you know dat,”
said he, simply. “I’ll jes’
go an’ git my hoe.”
“The garden hasn’t got
a roof to it, has it, Unc’ Balla?” asked
Willy, quietly.
“Go ’way from here, boy,”
said the old man, making a sweep at him with his hand.
“That boy ain’ never done talkin’
’bout that thing yit,” he added, with
a pleased laugh, to his mistress.
“And you ain’t ever given
me all those chickens either,” responded Willy,
forgetting his grammar.
“Oh, well, I’m gwi’
do it; ain’t you hear me say I’m gwine
do it?” he laughed as he went out.
The boys were too excited to get sleepy
before the silver was hidden. Their mother told
them they might go down into the garden and help Balla,
on condition that they would not talk.
“That’s the way we always
do when we bury the treasure. Ain’t it,
Willy?” asked Frank.
“If a man speaks, it’s
death!” declared Willy, slapping his hand on
his side as if to draw a sword, striking a theatrical
attitude and speaking in a deep voice.
“Give the ‘galleon’ to us,”
said Frank.
“No; be off with you,” said their mother.
“That ain’t the way,”
said Frank. “A pirate never digs the hole
until he has his treasure at hand. To do so would
prove him but a novice; wouldn’t it, Willy?”
“Well, I leave it all to you,
my little Buccaneers,” said their mother, laughing.
“I’ll take care of the spoons and forks
we use every day. I’ll just hide them away
in a hole somewhere.”
The boys started off after Balla with
a shout, but remembered their errand and suddenly
hushed down to a little squeal of delight at being
actually engaged in burying treasure real
silver. It seemed too good to be true, and withal
there was a real excitement about it, for how could
they know but that some one might watch them from some
hiding-place, or might even fire into them as they
worked?
They met the old fellow as he was
coming from the carriage-house with a hoe and a spade
in his hands. He was on his way to the garden
in a very straightforward manner, but the boys made
him understand that to bury treasure it was necessary
to be particularly secret, and after some little grumbling,
Balla humored them.
The difficulty of getting the box
of silver out of the house secretly, whilst all the
family were up, and the servants were moving about,
was so great that this part of the affair had to be
carried on in a manner different from the usual programme
of pirates of the first water. Even the boys
had to admit this; and they yielded to old Balla’s
advice on this point, but made up for it by additional
formality, ceremony, and secrecy in pointing out the
spot where the box was to be hid.
Old Balla was quite accustomed to
their games and fun their “pranks,”
as he called them. He accordingly yielded willingly
when they marched him to a point at the lower end
of the yard, on the opposite side from the garden,
and left him. But he was inclined to give trouble
when they both reappeared with a gun, and in a whisper
announced that they must march first up the ditch
which ran by the spring around the foot of the garden.
“Look here, boys; I ain’
got time to fool with you chillern,” said the
old man. “Ain’t you hear your ma tell
me she ’pend on me to bury that silver what
yo’ gran’ma and gran’pa used
to eat off o’ an’ don’
wan’ nobody to know nothin’ ‘bout
it? An’ y’ all comin’ here with
guns, like you huntin’ squ’rr’ls,
an’ now talkin’ ‘bout wadin’
in the ditch!”
“But, Unc’ Balla, that’s
the way all buccaneers do,” protested Frank.
“Yes, buccaneers always go by water,”
said Willy.
“And we can stoop in the ditch
and come in at the far end of the garden, so nobody
can see us,” added Frank.
“Bookanear or bookafar, I’s
gwine in dat garden and dig a hole wid my hoe, an’
I is too olé to be wadin’ in a ditch like
chillern. I got the misery in my knee now, so
bad I’se sca’cely able to stand. I
don’t know huccome y’ all ain’t
satisfied with the place you’ ma an’ I
done pick, anyways.”
This was too serious a mutiny for
the boys. So it was finally greed that one gun
should be returned to the office, and that they should
enter by the gate, after which Balla was to go with
the boys by the way they should show him, and see
the spot they thought of.
They took him down through the weeds
around the garden, crouching under the rose-bushes,
and at last stopped at a spot under the slope, completely
surrounded by shrubbery.
“Here is the spot,” said
Frank in a whisper, pointing under one of the bushes.
“It’s in a line with the
longest limb of the big oak-tree by the gate,”
added Willy, “and when this locust bush and that
cedar grow to be big trees, it will be just half-way
between them.”
As this seemed to Balla a very good
place, he set to work at once to dig, the two boys
helping him as well as they could. It took a great
deal longer to dig the hole in the dark than they had
expected, and when they got back to the house everything
was quiet.
The boys had their hats pulled over
their eyes, and had turned their jackets inside out
to disguise themselves.
“It’s a first-rate place!
Ain’t it, Unc’ Balla?” they said,
as they entered the chamber where their mother and
aunt were waiting for them.
“Do you think it will do, Balla?” their
mother asked.
“Oh, yes, madam; it’s
far enough, an’ they got mighty comical ways
to get dyah, wadin’ in ditch an’ things it
will do. I ain’ sho’ I kin fin’
it ag’in myself.” He was not particularly
enthusiastic. Now, however, he shouldered the
box, with a grunt at its weight, and the party went
slowly out through the back door into the dark.
The glow of the burning depot was still visible in
the west.
Then it was decided that Willy should
go before he said to “reconnoitre,”
Balla said “to open the gate and lead the way,” and
that Frank should bring up the rear.
They trudged slowly on through the
darkness, Frank and Willy watching on every side,
old Balla stooping under the weight of the big box.
After they were some distance in the
garden they heard, or thought they heard, a sound
back at the gate, but decided that it was nothing
but the latch clicking; and they went on down to their
hiding place.
In a little while the black box was
well settled in the hole, and the dirt was thrown
upon it. The replaced earth made something of
a mound, which was unfortunate. They had not
thought of this; but they covered it with leaves,
and agreed that it was so well hidden, the Yankees
would never dream of looking there.
“Unc’ Balla, where are
your horses?” asked one of the boys.
“That’s for me to know,
an’ them to find out what kin,” replied
the old fellow with a chuckle of satisfaction.
The whole party crept back out of
the garden, and the boys were soon dreaming of buccaneers
and pirates.