Old Peter Wetmore, of Lebanon, was suspected of being a Tory, but he kept shut lips. “Don’t open the doors of your soul,” he used to say, “and people will never know who you are. They can’t imprison your soul without the body, nor the body unless the soul opens its gates,” by which he meant the lips. “What I say is nothing to nobody. I chop wood!”

Morose, silent, grunting, if he spoke at all, he lived in a mossy, gable-roofed house, with a huge woodpile before his door.

There was a great oak forest on rising ground above him. Below him was a cedar swamp, with a village of crows and crow-blackbirds, which all shouted in the morning, and told each other that the sun was rising.

He was in his heart true to the King. When the patriots of Lebanon came to him to talk politics after the Lexington alarm, he simply said, “I chop wood.”

Chop wood he did. His woodpile in front of his house was almost as high as his house itself. But he chopped on, and all through the winter his ax flew. And he split wood, hickory wood, with a warlike expression on his face, as his ax came down. He had one relative—a nephew, Peter, whom he taught to “fly around” and to “pick up his heels” in such a nervous way that people ceased to call him Peter Wetmore, but named him Peter Nimble. The boy was so abused by his uncle that he wore a scared look.

Lebanon was becoming one of the most patriotic towns in America. At one time during the Revolutionary War there were five hundred men in the public services. The people were intolerant of a Tory, and old Peter Wetmore, who chopped wood, was a suspect.

A different heart had young Peter, the orphan boy, who was for a time compelled to live with him or to become roofless.

The Lexington alarm thrilled him, as he heard the news on Lebanon green.

He caught the spirit of the people, and as for Governor Trumbull, he thought he was the “Lord” or almost a divinity. The Governor probably used to give him rides when he met him in the way. The Governor did not “whip behind.”

When Peter had heard the news of the Lexington alarm, he said:

“I must fly home now and tell uncle that.”

It was a long way from the green to the cabin that Peter called “home.”

He hurried home and lifted the latch, and met his uncle, who was scowling.

“What has happened now?” said the latter, seeing Peter had been running.

“A shot has been fired on the green.”

“What, on Lebanon green?” gasped the old man in alarm.

“No, on Lexington green.”

“That doesn’t matter. Lexington green is so far off. Who fired the shot? The regulars,” he added.

“The young men at Lebanon are all enlisting. I wish I were old enough to go!”

“For what?”

“To fight the British.”

“What, the King?”

“Yes.”

“The King? Do I hear my ears, boy?”

“Uncle?”

“I am going to pull the latch-string, and out you go. Don’t talk back. Do you hear? Out you go, and you may never be able to tell all you lose.”

The boy half comprehended the hint, for he believed that his uncle had money stored in the cellar, or in some secret place near the house. As the latter would never let any one but himself go to the soap-barrel in the cellar, the boy suspected the treasure might be there, or in the ash-flue in the chimney.

Young Peter turned white.

Old Peter tugged his rheumatic body to the door, and turned.

“I am going to pull the string, Peter.”

To the boy the words sounded like a hangman’s summons.

“Where shall I go, uncle?”

“That is for you to say. I’ve got store enough, boy. Somebody will bury me if I die. But the King, my King, he who goes against the King goes against me. Who do you go for?”

“The people.”

“The people!” shrieked the old man. “Then out you go; out!”

“There is one house, uncle, whose doors are open to all people who have no roof.”

“Which one is that—the poorhouse?”

“No, the Governor’s.”

“That makes me mad—mad! I hate the Governor, and his’n and all! I can live alone!”

He pulled the latch-string and cried, in trumpet tone:

“Out!”

Peter went out into the open April air, into the wood. He went to the Governor’s, and told him all, but in a way to shield the old man.

“He is a little touched in mind,” said Peter, charitably.

“You shall have a home with me, or mine,” said the Governor. “My son-in-law over the way will employ you as a shepherd. If he doesn’t, others will. And you can use the hills for a lookout, while you herd sheep. Dennis will find work for you to do at times in his service. Boy, perilous times are coming, and you have a true heart. I know your heart; I can see it—I know your thoughts, and people who sow true thoughts, reap true harvests. Don’t be down-hearted; you own the stars. I will cover you.” He lifted his hand over him.

“You won’t harm uncle for what I have said?”

“No, no, I will not harm the old man for what you have said now. It is better to change the heart of a man and make him your friend than to seek to have revenge on him. He will turn to you some day, and perhaps he will leave you his gold, for they say that he has gold stored away somewhere. You have a heart of charity—I can see—as well as of truth. Charity goes with honor. As long as you do right, nothing can happen to you that you can not glorify.”

Peter was made acquainted with Dennis by the Governor, who was a father to all friendless children, and he was employed as a shepherd boy, on the hills.

The hills were lookouts now.

People went to the old man to reprove him for his treatment of his nephew, but he would only say:

“I am cutting wood!”

While he lived with his Tory uncle, Peter used to hear strange things at night.

The old man would get up, bar all the doors, light the bayberry candle, and bring something like a leather bag to his table.

Then he would talk to himself strangely.

“One,” he would say, putting down something that rang hard on the table.

“One, if he stays with me, and is true to the King.

“Two.”

There would follow a metallic sound.

“Two, if he stays with me, and is loyal to the King.

“Three, if he stays and is loyal.

“Four. All for him when I go out, if only he is true.”

Then the bag would jingle. Then would follow a rattling sound.

“Five, six, seven, eight,” and so on, adding up to a hundred. He seemed to be counting coin.

Then there would be a sound of sweeping hands. Was he gathering up coin—gold coin? Presently there would be sounds of chubby feet, and a chest would seem to open, and the lid to close, and to be bolted.

“All, all for him,” the old man would say, “if he only stays with me and is loyal to the King, whose arms are like those of the lion and the unicorn.”

Then he would lie down, saying, “All for him,” and the house would become still in the still world of the cedars.

The boy wondered if “him” were the King, or if it were he, or some unknown relative, or friend. He could hardly doubt that the old man had treasure, and counted it at night, either for the King, or for himself.

So now, often when the great moon shone on the cedars, he lay awake and wondered what the old man meant. Had he missed a fortune by his patriotic feeling?

The words, “if he stays with me and is loyal to the King,” made him think that the wood-chopper meant himself, or some unknown relative.

But “if he stays with me” suggested himself so strongly, that he often asked himself, if the hard old man really loved him and was carrying out some vision for his welfare in his silent heart.

Peter used to meet Brother Jonathan as the latter crossed the green, which he did almost daily. The Governor was usually so absorbed in thought that he did not seem to see the shining sun, or to hear the birds singing; he lived in the cause.

But when he met Peter he would stretch out his hand in the Quaker manner, and look pleasant. To see the old man’s face light up was a joy to the susceptible boy; it made him so happy as to make him alert the rest of the day.

One day as the two were crossing the green, in near ways, the Governor suddenly said:

“Let us consider the matter:

“My young man, for so you are before your time, I must have a clerk in my store, and he must be no common clerk; he must be one that I can trust, for he must do more than sell goods and barter; he must look out for me, when I am in the back room, the war office; and he must be the only one to enter the war-office room when the council is in session. The council has met more than three hundred times now. And, Peter, Peter of the hills, shepherd-boy, night-watch—my heart turns to you. You must be my clerk—that is, to the people; meet customers, barter, trade, sell; but to me, you must be the sentinel of the door of the war office. Peter, I can see your soul; you will be true to me. I am an old man; don’t say it, but I forget, when I have so many things to weigh me down. You shall stand between the store and the war office, at the counter, and I will give you the secret keys, and if any one must see me, you must see about the matter. Peter, the Council of Safety is a power behind the destiny of this nation. It is revealed to me so. Will you come?”

“Yes, yes, Governor. I live in my thoughts for you. Yes, yes, and I will be as faithful as I can.”

“Of course you will. Come right now. You may sleep in the store at night. The drovers will tell you stories on the barrels. I can trust you for everything. So I dismiss myself now—you are myself. Here is the secret key. Don’t feel hurt if I do not speak to you much when you see me. I live for the future, and must think, think, think.”

The Governor went into the tavern, and Peter, with the secret key, went to the store. The Governor had considered the matter. He used the word consider often.

The Governor soon began to send almost all people who came to see him, except the members of the council, to Peter. “Go to my clerk,” he would say, “he will do the best he can for you.”

Peter rose in public favor. Two plus two in him made five, as it does in all growing people. He was more than a clerk. He was keen, hearty, true.

Peter received news from couriers for years. What news was reported there—The battle of Long Island, the operations near New York, Trenton, Princeton, Morristown, Burgoyne’s campaign, Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, the southern campaign, the exploits of Green, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of incidents of the varying fortunes of the war!

The couriers, despatchmen, the wagoners, the drovers, came to the war office and went. They multiplied.

But the activity diminished as the army moved South.

People gathered in the front store in the evenings to hear the news, and often to wait for the news. They saw the members of the Council of Safety come and go; and while the things that lay like weights in the balance of the nation were there discussed, the men told tales on the barrels that had come from the West Indies, or on the meal chests and bins of vegetables. What queer tales they were!

Let us spend an evening at the store, and listen to one of the old Connecticut folk tales.

It is a winter night. The ice glares without in the moon, on the ponds and cedars. There is an open fire in the store; in the window are candy-jars; over the counter are candles on rods, and on the counter are snuff-jars and tobacco.

One of the old-time natural story-tellers sits on a rice-barrel; he is a drover and stops at wayside inns, and knows the tales of the inns, and especially the ghost-stories. Such stories did not frighten Peter as they did Dennis, who was new to the country. Peter had become hardened to them.

Let us give you one of these peculiar old store stories that was told on red settles, and that is like those which passed from settle to settle throughout the colony. The speaker is a “grandfather.”

THE TREASURE DIGGER OF CAPE ANN

“Oh, boys, let me smoke my pipe in peace. How the moon shines on the snow, far, far away, down the sea! That makes me think of Captain Kidd. Ah, he was a hard man, that same Captain Kidd, and he had a hard, hard heart, if he was the son of a Scotch preacher.”

Here the grandfather paused and shook his head.

The pause made an atmosphere. The natural story-teller lowered his voice, and the earth seemed to stand still as he said:

Here the old man paused, pressed down the tobacco in his pipe with a quick movement of his forefinger, and shook his head twice, leaving the impression that the said Captain Kidd was a very bad sea-rover.

The room was still. You could hear the sparks shoot out; the corn-sheller stopped in his work. The old maiden lady who had come in for snuff touched the pepper pods: the air grew peppery, but no one dared to sneeze.

The old man bobbed up his head, as making an atmosphere for highly wrought work of the imagination.

“There was once an old couple,” he said, “who lived down on Cape Ann, and beyond their cottage was a sandy dune, and on the dune there was a thatch-patch.

“They had grown old and were poor, and both thought that their lot had been hard, and the old woman said to the old man:

“‘It was you who made my life hard. I was once a girl, and what I might have been no one knows. Ah me, ah me!’

“One fall morning the old man got up, and frisked around in an unusual way.

“‘What makes you so spry?’ asked the old woman.

“‘I dreamed a dream last night in the morning.’

“‘And what did you dream?’

“‘I dreamed that Captain Kidd hid his treasure in an iron box under the thatch-patch, right in the middle of the patch, where the shingle goes round.’

“‘Then go out and dig. If you don’t, I will. Think what we might be, if we could find that treasure. We might have a chariot like the Pepperells, and fine horses like the Boston gentry, the Royalls, and the Vassals.’

“‘But I can have the treasure only on one condition.’

“‘What is that?’

“‘I must not speak a word while I am digging.’

“‘That would be hard for you. Your mouth is always open, answering your old wife back. I could dig without a word, now. Well, well, ah-a-me! If you should dream that dream a second time, it would be a sign.’

“The next morning the old man got up spryer than before. He clattered the shovel and the tongs.

“‘Wife, wife, I dreamed the same dream again this morning.’

“‘Well, if you were to dream it a third time, it would be a certainty—that is, if you could dig for the treasure without speaking a word, which a woman of my sense and wit could do. Go and dig.’

“‘But the voice that came to me in my dream told me to dig at midnight, at the rising of the moon.’

“That night as the great moon rose over the waters of Cape Ann, like the sun, the old man took his hoe and hung on to it his clam-basket, and put both of them over his shoulder. He went out of the door over which the dry morning-glory vines were rattling.

“‘Now, husband, you stop and listen to me,’ said the old wife. ‘Remember all the time that you are not to speak a word, else we will have no chariot to ride past the Pepperells, nor cantering horses, leaving the dust all in their eyes. Now, what are you to do?’

“‘Never to speak a word.’

“‘Under no surprise.’

“‘Not if the sea were to roar, nor the sky to fall, nor an earthquake to uproot the hills, nor anything!’

“‘Well, you may go now, and when you return we will be richer than the Governor himself. I have always been dreaming that such a day might come to us as a sort of reward for all that we have suffered. But they say that Captain Kidd tricks those who dig for his treasures. His ghost appears to them. Never you fear if he lays hands on you.’

“The old man went down to the sea. The moon rose so fast that he could see it rising.

“The old couple had a black cat, a very sleek, fat little animal, which lived much on the broken clams that the clam-diggers threw out of their piles of bivalves at low tides.

“When she saw that the old man was going down to the sea, she started after him, with still feet—still, still.

“The old man measured by his eye the center of the thatch-patch, and dug into the tough roots of the thatch lustily. He became exhausted at last and stopped to rest, looking up to the moon that glittered in the autumn sea. He pushed the handle of the hoe down into the sand. It struck something that sounded like iron. He felt sure of the treasure.

“Suddenly he felt something rubbing against his leg. It was like a hand. ‘Captain Kidd came back to disconcert me,’ thought he. ‘But I will never speak a word,’ thought he silently, ‘not for the moon herself, nor for a thousand moons.’

“The supposed hand again rubbed against his leg—still, still.

“He turned his head very slowly and cautiously. He saw something move. It was like a gloved hand. ‘Captain Kidd’s, sure,’ he thought, but did not speak a word. The thing had still feet or hands.

“He turned his head a little more and was humbled to discover that it was not Captain Kidd’s hand at all, but only Tommy, purring and purring—still, still.

“His pride fell. He was disconcerted. No one can tell what he may do when he finds a pirate’s ghost to be only the house cat, all so still.

“There are some situations that take away all one’s senses, little things, too.

“He inclined his head more, so to be certain, when the truth was in an instant revealed to him beyond a possibility of doubt, but everything was still, still, still.

“‘Scat!’”

The story-teller had been talking in a very low tone. He uttered the last word with an explosive voice when he had caused all ears to be strained. His hearers leaped at this electric ending of his Red Settle Tale.

He resumed his pipe, and merely added:

“There are some things that human nature can not stand. When a man finds out something to be nothing, for example, like the treasure digger of Cape Ann.”

After a long time, during which heart-beats became normal, some one might venture to ask:

“And what became of the old woman?”

“Oh, after the old man spoke the sea roared and came rushing into the thatch-patch and over it, and he and the cat ran, and I mind me that that cat didn’t have much peace and comfort in the house after that.”