



Produced by David Widger from page images generously
provided by the Internet Archive









WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS

Being the Personal Narrative of Ross Sidney, Diver

By Holman Day

New York And London: Harper Brothers

1917


[Illustration: 0001]


[Illustration: 0010]


[Illustration: 0011]




WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS




I--BEING THE STRUGGLE OP AN AMATEUR AUTHOR TO GET A FAIR START

SPEAKING of money--and it’s a mighty popular topic--the investment of
the first twenty-five cents I ever earned, all at a crack, ought to
have directed my feet, my thoughts, and my future along the straight and
narrow way. Ten minutes after I had galloped gleefully home with that
quarter-dollar from Judge Kingsley’s hay-field, my good mother led me
down to Old Maid Branscombe’s little book-store and obliged me to buy a
catechism.

I earned that money by hauling a drag-rake for a whole day around behind
a hay-cart, barefoot and kicking against the vicious stubbles of the
shaven field. I honestly felt that I did not deserve the extra penance
of the catechism. However, that first day’s work gave me my earliest
respect for money--earned money. And I also remember that Judge
Kingsley, when he paid me, sniffed and said I hadn’t done enough to earn
twenty-five cents.

I hated to walk up to him and ask for my pay, because Celene Kingsley
was within hearing; she had come down to the field to fetch him home in
her pony-chaise. That’s right! You’ve guessed it! I’ll waste no words.
It was only another of the old familiar cases. Barefooted, folks poor,
keeping my face toward her, as a sunflower fronts the sun (though the
sunflower has other reasons than hiding patches), I was in the shamed,
secret, hopeless, heartaching agonies of a fifteen-year-old passion. Of
course, I don’t mean that I had loved her for all that time--I’m giving
my age and hers.

Yes, I hated to walk up. And the judge gave me the quarter only because
he did not have any smaller change.

And really, for the times, it was considerable of a coin for a single
juvenile job.

The services of youngsters in those days in Levant were paid for on a
narrower scale--ten cents for lawns and a nickel for shoveling snow, and
so on. And tin-peddlers were mighty stingy in their dickerings for old
rubbers and junk. To get rags one had to steal ’em--our folks made
rugs and guarded old remnants carefully.

So much for my first financial adventure of real moment--for the biggest
coin I had ever clutched; and right now I lay down my pen for a moment
and spread out two human paws which have juggled three million dollars’
worth of gold ingots as carelessly as one scruffles jackstraws. That was
maverick treasure. But there’s a big difference between earned money and
maverick money. If you don’t know what maverick means I’ll save you the
trouble of looking the word up in the dictionary. Once on a time, in
Texas, old Sam Maverick wouldn’t brand his cattle. Therefore, a maverick
was a cow or steer unbranded. And to-day it means any kind of property
at large which a bold man or a dishonest man may grab if he can beat
other thieves to it.

I had an early taste of maverick money, and the taste was so sweet that
I never have lost my hankering for more.

In the fall of that “year of the catechism” the line gale blew down
the chimney which had stood after the old Pratt house was burned. I was
there before the dust settled, for all the boys knew that there were
wrought-iron clamps high up in the bricks. But I left the clamps to
the next comers and picked up a dented tin box, rusty and dusty and
soot-blackened; I shook it; it rattled and I ran away into the woods.
When I had knocked the box open and looked in and spied coins I had the
heart-thrilling conviction that money worries were over for me in this
life. My first thought was that I would marry Celene Kingsley and settle
down and live happy ever after. If there had been in the box what I
thought at first there was, I could wipe my pen and close my story.

I dove both hands into the box and brought them up brimming--coins
scattering and clattering back over my trembling fingers. They were big
coins--and I had read much about the days of the bold pirates.

“Pieces of eight!” I whispered.

But they were not. When I had winked the mist out of my eyes I found
that they were old-fashioned coppers--bung-downs they used to be called.
Mixed in with them were a few copper tokens, a Pine Tree shilling, a
sprinkling of Speed The Plow cents, and the only coin of any account at
all was a Mexican dollar with a hole in it.

It wasn’t in my nature to bury that treasure. I knew it was pretty
worthless junk, but I had a hankering to carry it about with me, to feel
its drag in my pockets, to reach in and chink it when no one could hear.
I walked around weighted with it as afterward I have been weighted with
the leaden chunks of my diver’s dress. As early as that in my life I
found that money was a burden as well as a vexation. I didn’t dare to
frisk and frolic with the boys at school; I was not exploiting my new
wealth; I had grounds for caution because there were plenty of Pratts
left in Levant. At home I moved about so quietly that my folks thought,
I reckon, that I was entering an early decline. My mother