The Treasure Hunt (12 page)

“I see.” Father paused and then asked quietly, “What happened? You didn't seem too happy after you came back.”

“They went inside,” Joe blurted out. “I told them not to, but they didn't listen.”

“I see. Was anything damaged?”

“I don't think so, but they messed around. I plan to go and put things right.”

“That's good. I might go with you tomorrow. I should talk with Samuel about this. If boys are allowed to do something wrong without being chastised, their consciences get hardened, and that is not what we want for our boys.” Smiling at Joe, he continued to say, “We want your conscience to be tender and willing to make things right.”

Joe smiled too. He was glad to hear that Father would go with him to the den.

As soon as the chores were done the next morning, they walked across the field.

“I wonder how Willie is,” Father said.

“How can we find out?” Joe asked.

“I guess we could ask Dr. Crawford.”

When they reached Willie's place, Joe went in and straight to the table. “There they are!” he said, pointing to three tiny flakes of gold gleaming beneath the overturned box.

Father bent for a closer look. “Gold?”

“Yes. Israel, he-he said he was checking to see if Willie left any gold. He dumped this box, but he didn't even see the gold.”

“He didn't realize the pieces would be this small. Had Willie showed you the gold?”

Joe felt his face grow warm. “Yes, he did. He trusted me. Now this happened.”

“Well, the gold is still safe.” Carefully Father nudged the tiny flakes back into the blue-lined box. “I think we had better talk to Dr. Crawford. This gold might help to pay Willie's medical bills.”

“Gold is worth a lot, isn't it?” Joe said as they walked home again. “Even little pieces like that can pay doctor bills.”

Father gave him a strange look and then slowly quoted, “ ‘Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him… And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.' ”

16

Miss Price and the Boys

I
wish I could go with you,” Lisbet admitted to Lydia on the first day of school.

Lydia laughed as she picked up her lunch bucket. “That would be fun, but why would you want to go back to school when you're eighteen already?”

“Maybe because you have such a young teacher,” Lisbet answered.

Lydia laughed again. “She's no older than you are, so she could barely be your teacher.” She looked out the window. “Joe's still in the barn. I hope he won't mind if I start off without him. I don't want to be late.”

“Maybe I should have done some of his chores this morning,” said Lisbet. “Oh, there he comes now.”

“He sure isn't walking very fast, and to think that he still needs to wash up and change into his good clothes,” fretted
Lydia. Brushing past her brother on the walk, she told him saucily, “You better hurry.”

“Why?” Joe shot back.

“Miss Price will mark you tardy.”

“So what?”

That stopped Lydia in her tracks. “Don't you even care about being on time on the very first day of school?”

“Oh well,” replied Joe with a shrug, “I'll get there.”

Lydia swished off down the road.
Why's Joe acting so stodgy today? Doesn't he care what the new teacher thinks of him?

She met the two Kanagy children just as they came out of their house. Little Aaron and Amanda were glad to have Lydia's company on the way to school. To them, she was a big girl, even though she was only eleven.

Aaron and Amanda chattered nonstop all the way to school. This was going to be Aaron's first day of school, and he certainly was excited. “I can count to one hundred,” he told Lydia, “and I can read.”

“Not much,” scoffed his eight-year-old sister. “Just ten words.”

Unabashed, Aaron went on to list all the words he could read: dog, cat, mother, father, and so forth. Lydia listened and smiled. It was fun being with someone so enthusiastic about school. In the back of her mind, she still fretted about Joe being late.

All that worrying was useless because Joe came
sauntering through door just as the bell rang. By that time Miss Price had already organized the classroom. Most of the thirty-five children had been told where to sit.

Miss Price eyed Joe as he entered the classroom. “There are still two missing. Isn't there another Miller boy, and another Higgins boy?”

Levi Miller raised his hand. “Israel had to help Father this morning.”

Miss Price's eyes narrowed. “He's not coming?”

Levi shrugged. “I think he is.”

Just then there was a banging on the porch. In popped the two oldest students—Israel Miller and Anton Higgins, both fourteen years old. Lydia felt a little shiver pass through her. They seemed to tower over the teacher.

Miss Price was not fazed. She calmly showed the boys their seats.

Because they were given seats quite a distance apart, Anton raised his hand and said, “Aren't all the eighth graders supposed to sit together?”

Miss Price gave him a look that seemed to say that he was being impudent, but all she said was, “This is the way I've planned the seating.”

As Anton slumped down in a disagreeable way, Lydia shivered again.
Why does it seem like a cold draft entered the room along with those two big boys? What if they caused trouble for the teacher?

Miss Price moved on with her schedule. She introduced
the opening exercises and gave the students a quick talk on the school rules. Then she passed out books and started the first classes.

Miss Price stepped up to the chalkboard and began the lesson.

Seated at the very end of the third row, Lydia could easily see all three of the big boys—Joe, Israel, and Anton—without turning her head. How she hoped they would behave! Every now and then, she saw Israel and Anton
smiling at each other. She did not like the way those smiles looked.

It happened in math class. Anton wadded up a ball of paper and flipped it across the row. It landed squarely on Israel's desk. Israel grinned and began unfolding the paper.

“Anton.” Miss Price's voice cut the air like steel. “Go to that corner and stand with your back turned to the classroom. Stay there until I tell you to go back to your desk.”

Anton blinked in surprise. He waited a few seconds, but Miss Price's gaze never wavered. She stood still with her hands on her hips.

Finally he got to his feet, half lifting the desk with his knees as he did so. The soles of his shoes made a scraping noise as he walked across the bare, wooden floor. Lydia didn't dare turn her head to watch him head for the corner, but when Miss Price relaxed and went back to the first-grade math class, Lydia knew that Anton must have obeyed.

Lydia tried very hard not to let the incident spoil her day, but she simply could not understand why it had happened.
Why did the boys want to give our new teacher a hard time? And on the very first day of school?

That night in the barn, Lydia blurted out her question to Joe. “Why did Israel and Anton act like that?”

Joe was carrying the lantern over to the pigpen but stopped when he heard the question. The lantern cast a glow over his face as he answered slowly, “I don't know.”

“Miss Price has to work hard to teach so many children,” Lydia went on reproachfully. “Why would anyone want to make trouble for her?”

“I don't know,” Joe said again, still standing there with the lantern. After a while he added, “A week ago Israel was talking about how he might try out the new teacher.”

“Oh,” said Lydia, thinking that over. “Is that why you weren't enthused about going to school this morning?”

“Maybe,” said Joe as he moved on to the pigpen.

“Trouble at school?” Father asked, suddenly appearing out of the shadows.

Lydia's face grew warm when she realized he had been listening. Not that she'd said anything to be ashamed of, but she felt uncomfortable about Father finding out about the actions of those two boys. “Anton threw a paper to Israel,” she explained. Saying it like that made it sound like a small thing. Too small to call trouble.

“He was being disrespectful,” Father said.

“Yes,” replied Lydia, relieved that he understood. “So was Israel.”

“Anybody else?” Father's eyes went to the glow of the lantern over by the pigpen where Joe was busily forking straw.

Lydia shook her head. “Not Joe.”

“We want to teach our children how important it is to obey. It's the only way to have God's blessing.” Father's voice sounded a little strange, as though something was caught in his throat.

Father cleared his throat and moved a few steps toward Joe to make sure he could hear. “Dr. Crawford stopped me on the street today to talk about Willie.”

“You mean you were in town?” Joe asked. “I thought you couldn't drive yet with that hand.”

“I caught a ride with Reuben Kanagy,” Father explained. “Anyway, the doctor said Willie is out of the hospital now, though he was pretty sick for a while.”

“But he isn't back in his home?” asked Lydia.

“No, he's living with his brother over at Ordway. Willie sent a letter to Dr. Crawford to tell him about the gold in that box and how he wants to pay his hospital bill. The doctor plans to stop in here sometime soon to pick up that little box.”

“Shall I go get it first thing tomorrow morning?” Joe quickly offered.

“That would be a good idea.”

The next morning Joe was out of bed at the crack of dawn. Taking the shotgun in case he met a squirrel, he strode toward the creek. Little by little the sun peeped over the horizon, until finally the light touched Pikes Peak, far away on the western horizon.

Hastily Joe grabbed his pan and scooped up some gravel. This was another reason why he wasn't too enthused about
school starting. There was no more time for his treasure hunt.