Why , here were old provincial bills of credit and treasury notes and bills of land-banks , and all other bubbles of the sort , from the first issue -- above a century and a half ago -- down nearly to the Revolution . Bills of a thousand pounds were intermixed with parchment pennies , and worth no more than they . `` And this , then , is old Peter Goldthwaite 's treasure ! '' said John Brown . `` Your namesake , Peter , was something like yourself ; and when the provincial currency had depreciated fifty or seventy-five per cent , he bought it up in expectation of a rise . I have heard my grandfather say that old Peter gave his father a mortgage of this very house and land to raise cash for his silly project . But the currency kept sinking till nobody would take it as a gift , and there was old Peter Goldthwaite , like Peter the second , with thousands in his strong-box and hardly a coat to his back . He went mad upon the strength of it . But never mind , Peter ; it is just the sort of capital for building castles in the air . '' `` The house will be down about our ears , '' cried Tabitha as the wind shook it with increasing violence . `` Let it fall , '' said Peter , folding his arms , as he seated himself upon the chest . `` No , no , my old friend Peter ! '' said John Brown . `` I have house-room for you and Tabby , and a safe vault for the chest of treasure . To-morrow we will try to come to an agreement about the sale of this old house ; real estate is well up , and I could afford you a pretty handsome price . '' `` And I , '' observed Peter Goldthwaite , with reviving spirits , `` have a plan for laying out the cash to great advantage . '' `` Why , as to that , '' muttered John Brown to himself , `` we must apply to the next court for a guardian to take care of the solid cash ; and if Peter insists upon speculating , he may do it to his heart 's content with old Peter Goldthwaite 's treasure . '' CHIPPINGS WITH A CHISEL . Passing a summer several years since at Edgartown , on the island of Martha 's Vineyard , I became acquainted with a certain carver of tombstones who had travelled and voyaged thither from the interior of Massachusetts in search of professional employment . The speculation had turned out so successful that my friend expected to transmute slate and marble into silver and gold to the amount of at least a thousand dollars during the few months of his sojourn at Nantucket and the Vineyard .
The secluded life and the simple and primitive spirit which still characterizes the inhabitants of those islands , especially of XXXXX 's Vineyard , insure their dead friends a longer and dearer remembrance than the daily novelty and revolving bustle of the world can elsewhere afford to beings of the past .
Martha Nantucket Tabitha fall house-room months pounds second strong-box violence