The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865

Which he accordingly did, and brought the tape-tied envelope home with him again. That night he slept with it under his pillow. The next day was Sunday; and although Mr. Ducklow did not like to have the bonds on his mind during sermon-time, and Mrs. Ducklow "dreaded dreadfully," as she said, "to look the minister in the face," they concluded that it was best, on the whole, to go to meeting, and carry the bonds. With the envelope once more in his breast-pocket, (stitched in this time by Mrs. Ducklow's own hand,) the farmer sat under the droppings of the sanctuary, and stared up at the good minister, but without hearing a word of the discourse, his mind was so engrossed by worldly cares, until the preacher exclaimed vehemently, looking straight at Ducklow's pew,—

"What said Paul? 'I would to God that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.' 'Except these bonds'!" he repeated, striking the Bible. "Can you, my hearers,—can you say, with Paul, 'Would that all were as I am, except these bonds'?"

A point which seemed for a moment so personal to himself, that Ducklow was filled with confusion, and would certainly have stammered out some foolish answer, had not the preacher passed on to other themes. As it was, Ducklow contented himself with glancing around to see if the congregation was looking at him, and carelessly passing his hand across his breast-pocket to make sure the bonds were still there.

Early the next morning, the old mare was harnessed, and Taddy's adopted parents set out to visit their daughter,—Mrs. Ducklow having postponed her washing for the purpose. It was afternoon when they arrived at their journey's end. Laura received them joyfully, but Josiah was not expected home until evening. Mr. Ducklow put the old mare in the barn, and fed her, and then went in to dinner, feeling very comfortable indeed.

"Josiah's got a nice place here. That's about as slick a little barn as ever I see. Always does me good to come over here and see you gittin' along so nicely, Laury."

"I wish you'd come oftener, then," said Laura.

"Wal, it's hard leavin' home, ye know. Have to git one of the Atkins boys to come and sleep with Taddy the night we're away."

"We shouldn't have come to-day, if 't hadn't been for me," remarked Mrs. Ducklow. "Says I to your father, says I, 'I feel as if I wanted to go over and see Laury; it seems an age since I've seen her,' says I. 'Wal,' says he, 's'pos'n' we go!' says he. That was only last Saturday; and this morning we started."

"And it's no fool of a job to make the journey with the old mare!" said Ducklow.

"Why don't you drive a better horse?" said Laura, whose pride was always touched when her parents came to visit her with the old mare and the one-horse wagon.

"Oh, she answers my purpose. Hossflesh is high, Laury. Have to economize, these times."

"I'm sure there's no need of your economizing!" exclaimed Laura, leading the way to the dining-room. "Why don't you use your money, and have the good of it?"

"So I tell him," said Mrs. Ducklow, faintly.—"Why, Laury! I didn't want you to be to so much trouble to git dinner jest for us! A bite would have answered. Do see, father!"

At evening Josiah came home; and it was not until then that Ducklow mentioned the subject which was foremost in his thoughts.

"What do ye think o' Gov'ment bonds, Josiah?" he incidentally inquired, after supper.

"First-rate!" said Josiah.

"About as safe as anything, a'n't they?" said Ducklow, encouraged.

"Safe?" cried Josiah. "Just look at the resources of this country! Nobody has begun yet to appreciate the power and undeveloped wealth of these United States. It's a big rebellion, I know; but we're going to put it down. It'll leave us a big debt, very sure; but we handle it now easy as that child lifts that stool. It makes him grunt and stagger a little, not because he isn't strong enough for it, but because he don't understand his own strength, or how to use it: he'll have twice the strength, and know just how to apply it, in a little while. Just so with this country. It makes me laugh to bear folks talk about repudiation and bankruptcy."

"But s'pos'n' we do put down the Rebellion, and the States come back: then what's to hender the South, and Secesh sympathizers in the North, from j'inin' together and votin' that the debt sha'n't be paid?"

"Don't you worry about that! Do ye suppose we're going to be such fools as to give the Rebels, after we've whipped 'em, the same political power they had before the war? Not by a long chalk! Sooner than that, we'll put the ballot into the hands of the freedmen. They're our friends. They've fought on the right side, and they'll vote on the right side. I tell ye, spite of all the prejudice there is against black skins, we a'n't such a nation of ninnies as to give up all we're fighting for, and leave our best friends and allies, not to speak of our own interests, in the hands of our enemies."

"You consider Gov'ments a good investment, then, do ye?" said Ducklow, growing radiant.

"I do, decidedly,—the very best. Besides, you help the Government; and that's no small consideration."

"So I thought. But how is it about the cowpon bonds? A'n't they rather ticklish property to have in the house?"

"Well, I don't know. Think how many years you'll keep old bills and documents and never dream of such a thing as losing them! There's not a bit more danger with the bonds. I shouldn't want to carry 'em around with me, to any great amount,—though I did once carry three thousand-dollar bonds in my pocket for a week. I didn't mind it."

"Curi's!" said Ducklow: "I've got three thousan'-dollar bonds in my pocket this minute!"

"Well, it's so much good property," said Josiah, appearing not at all surprised at the circumstance.

"Seems to me, though, if I had a safe, as you have, I should lock 'em up in it."

"I was travelling that week. I locked 'em up pretty soon after I got home, though."

"Suppose," said Ducklow, as if the thought had but just occurred to him,—"suppose you put my bonds into your safe: I shall feel easier."

"Of course," replied Josiah. "I'll keep 'em for you, if you like."

"It will be an accommodation. They'll be safe, will they?"

"Safe as mine are; safe as anybody's: I'll insure 'em for twenty-five cents."

Ducklow was happy. Mrs. Ducklow was happy. She took her husband's coat, and with a pair of scissors cut the threads that stitched the envelope to the pocket.

"Have you torn off the May coupons?" asked Josiah.

"No."

"Well, you'd better. They'll be payable now soon; and if you take them, you won't have to touch the bonds again till the interest on the November coupons is due."

"A good idea!" said Ducklow.

He took the envelope, untied the tape, and removed its contents. Suddenly the glow of comfort, the gleam of satisfaction, faded from his countenance.

"Hello! What ye got there?" cried Josiah.

"Why, father! massy sakes!" exclaimed Mrs. Ducklow.

As for Ducklow himself, he could not utter a word; but, dumb with consternation, he looked again in the envelope, and opened and turned inside out, and shook, with trembling hands, its astonishing contents. The bonds were not there: they had been stolen, and three copies of the "Sunday Visitor" had been inserted in their place.

Very early on the following morning a dismal-faced middle-aged couple might have been seen riding away from Josiah's house. It was the Ducklows returning home, after their fruitless, their worse than fruitless, journey. No entreaties could prevail upon them to prolong their visit. It was with difficulty even that they had been prevented from setting off immediately on the discovery of their loss, and travelling all night, in their impatience to get upon the track of the missing bonds.

"There'll be not the least use in going to-night," Josiah had said. "If they were stolen at the bank, you can't do anything about it till to-morrow. And even if they were taken from your own house, I don't see what's to be gained now by hurrying back. It isn't probable you'll ever see 'em again, and you may just as well take it easy,—go to bed and sleep on it, and get a fresh start in the morning."

So, much against their inclination, the unfortunate owners of the abstracted bonds retired to the luxurious chamber Laura gave them, and lay awake all night, groaning and sighing, wondering and surmising, and (I regret to add) blaming each other. So true it is, that "modern conveniences," hot and cold water all over the house, a pier-glass, and the most magnificently canopied couch, avail nothing to give tranquillity to the harassed mind. Hitherto the Ducklows had felt great satisfaction in the style their daughter, by her marriage, was enabled to support. To brag of her nice house and furniture and two servants was almost as good as possessing them. Remembering her rich dining-room and silver service and porcelain, they were proud. Such things were enough for the honor of the family; and, asking nothing for themselves, they slept well in their humblest of bed-chambers, and sipped their tea contentedly out of clumsy earthen. But that night the boasted style in which their "darter" lived was less appreciated than formerly: fashion and splendor were no longer a consolation.

"If we had only given the three thousan' dollars to Reuben!" said Ducklow, driving homewards with a countenance as long as his whip-lash. "'Twould have jest set him up, and been some compensation for his sufferin's and losses goin' to the war."

"Wal, I had no objections," replied Mrs. Ducklow. "I always thought he ought to have the money eventooally. And, as Miss Beswick said, no doubt it would 'a' been ten times the comfort to him now it would be a number o' years from now. But you didn't seem willing."

"I don't know! 'twas you that wasn't willin'!"

And they expatiated on Reuben's merits, and their benevolent intentions towards him, and, in imagination, endowed him with the price of the bonds over and over again: so easy is it to be generous with lost money!

"But it's no use talkin'!" said Ducklow. "I've not the least idee we shall ever see the color o' them bonds again. If they was stole to the bank, I can't prove anything."

"It does seem strange to me," Mrs. Ducklow replied, "that you should have had no more gumption than to trust the bonds with strangers, when they told you in so many words they wouldn't be responsible."

"If you have flung that in my teeth once, you have fifty times!" And Ducklow lashed the old mare, as if she, and not Mrs. Ducklow, had exasperated him.

"Wal," said the lady, "I don't see how we're going to work to find 'em, now they're lost, without making inquiries; and we can't make inquiries without letting it be known we had bought."

"I been thinkin' about that," said her husband. "Oh, dear!" with a groan; "I wish the pesky cowpon bonds had never been invented!"

They drove first to the bank, where they were of course told that the envelope had not been untied there. "Besides, it was sealed, wasn't it?" said the cashier. "Indeed!" He expressed great surprise, when informed that it was not. "It should have been: I supposed any child would know enough to look out for that!"

And this was all the consolation Ducklow could obtain.

"Just as I expected," said Mrs. Ducklow, as they resumed their journey. "I just as much believe that man stole your bonds as that you trusted 'em in his hands in an unsealed wrapper! Beats all, how you could be so careless!"

"Wal, wal! I s'pose I never shall hear the last on 't!"

And again the poor old mare had to suffer for Mrs. Ducklow's offences.

They had but one hope now,—that perhaps Taddy had tampered with the envelope, and that the bonds might be found somewhere about the house. But this hope was quickly extinguished on their arrival. Taddy, being accused, protested his innocence with a vehemence which convinced even Mr. Ducklow that the cashier was probably the guilty party.

"Unless," said he, brandishing the rattan, "somebody got into the house that morning when the little scamp run off to ride with the minister!"

"Oh, don't lick me for that! I've been licked for that once; ha'n't I, Ma Ducklow?" shrieked Taddy.

The house was searched in vain. No clew to the purloined securities could be obtained,—the copies of the "Sunday Visitor," which had been substituted for them, affording not the least; for that valuable little paper was found in almost every household, except Ducklow's.

"I don't see any way left but to advertise, as Josiah said," remarked the farmer, with a deep sigh of despondency.

"And that'll bring it all out!" exclaimed Mrs. Ducklow. "If you only hadn't been so imprudent!"

"Wal, wal!" said Ducklow, cutting her short.

Before resorting to public measures for the recovery of the stolen property, it was deemed expedient to acquaint their friends with their loss in a private way. The next day, accordingly, they went to pay Reuben a visit. It was a very different meeting from that which took place a few mornings before. The returned soldier had gained in health, but not in spirits. The rapture of reaching home once more, the flush of hope and happiness, had passed away with the visitors who had flocked to offer their congratulations. He had had time to reflect: he had reached home, indeed; but now every moment reminded him how soon that home was to be taken from him. He looked at his wife and children, and clenched his teeth hard to stifle the emotions that arose at the thought of their future. The sweet serenity, the faith and patience and cheerfulness, which never ceased to illumine Sophronia's face as she moved about the house, pursuing her daily tasks, and tenderly waiting upon him, deepened at once his love and his solicitude. He was watching her thus when the Ducklows entered with countenances mournful as the grave.

"How are you gittin' along, Reuben?" said Ducklow, while his wife murmured a solemn "good morning" to Sophronia.

"I am doing well enough. Don't be at all concerned about me! It a'n't pleasant to lie here, and feel it may be months, months, before I'm able to be about my business; but I wouldn't mind it,—I could stand it first-rate,—I could stand anything, anything, but to see her working her life out for me and the children! To no purpose, either; that's the worst of it. We shall have to lose this place, spite of fate!"

"Oh, Reuben!" said Sophronia, hastening to him, and laying her soothing hands upon his hot forehead; "why won't you stop thinking about that? Do try to have more faith! We shall be taken care of, I'm sure!"

"If I had three thousand dollars,—yes, or even two,—then I'd have faith!" said Reuben. "Miss Beswick has proposed to send a subscription-paper around town for us; but I'd rather die than have it done. Besides, nothing near that amount could be raised, I'm confident. You needn't groan so, Pa Ducklow, for I a'n't hinting at you. I don't expect you to help me out of my trouble. If you had felt called upon to do it, you'd have done it before now; and I don't ask, I don't beg of any man!" added the soldier, proudly.

"That's right; I like your sperit!" said the miserable Ducklow. "But I was sighing to think of something,—something you haven't known anything about, Reuben."

"Yes, Reuben, we should have helped you," said Mrs. Ducklow, "and did, did take steps towards it"–

"In fact," resumed Ducklow, "you've met with a great misfortin', Reuben. Unbeknown to yourself, you've met with a great misfortin'! Yer Ma Ducklow knows."

"Yes, Reuben, the very day you came home, your Pa Ducklow made an investment for your benefit. We didn't mention it,—you know I wouldn't own up to it, though I didn't exactly say the contrary, the morning we was over here"–

"Because," said Ducklow, as she faltered, "we wanted to surprise you; we was keepin' it a secret till the right time, then we was goin' to make it a pleasant surprise to ye."

"What in the name of common-sense are you talking about?" cried Reuben, looking from one to the other of the wretched, prevaricating pair.

"Cowpon bonds!" groaned Ducklow. "Three thousan'-dollar cowpon bonds! The money had been lent, but I wanted to make a good investment for you, and I thought there was nothin' so good as Gov'ments"–

"That's all right," said Reuben. "Only, if you had money to invest for my benefit, I should have preferred to pay off the mortgage the first thing."

"Sartin! sartin!" said Ducklow; "and you could have turned the bonds right in, if you had so chosen, like so much cash. Or you could have drawed your interest on the bonds in gold, and paid the interest on your mortgage in currency, and made so much, as I rather thought you would."

"But the bonds?" eagerly demanded Reuben, with trembling hopes, just as Miss Beswick, with her shawl over her head, entered the room.

"We was jest telling about our loss, Reuben's loss," said Mrs. Ducklow in a manner which betrayed no little anxiety to conciliate that terrible woman.

"Very well! don't let me interrupt." And Miss Beswick, slipping the shawl from her head, sat down.

Her presence, stiff and prim and sarcastic, did not tend in the least to relieve Mr. Ducklow from the natural embarrassment he felt in giving his version of Reuben's loss. However, assisted occasionally by a judicious remark thrown in by Mrs. Ducklow, he succeeded in telling a sufficiently plausible and candid-seeming story.

"I see! I see!" said Reuben, who had listened with astonishment and pain to the narrative. "You had kinder intentions towards me than I gave you credit for. Forgive me, if I wronged you!" He pressed the hand of his adopted father, and thanked him from a heart filled with gratitude and trouble. "But don't feel so bad about it. You did what you thought best I can only say, the fates are against me."

"Hem!" coughing, Miss Beswick stretched up her long neck and cleared her throat "So them bonds you had bought for Reuben was in the house the very night I called!"

"Yes, Miss Beswick," replied Mrs. Ducklow; "and that's what made it so uncomfortable to us to have you talk the way you did."

"Hem!" The neck was stretched up still farther than before, and the redoubtable throat cleared again. "'Twas too bad! Ye ought to have told me. You'd actooally bought the bonds,—bought 'em for Reuben, had ye?"

"Sartin! sartin!" said Ducklow.

"To be sure!" said Mrs. Ducklow.

"We designed 'em for his benefit, a surprise, when the right time come," said both together.

"Hem! well!" (It was evident that the Beswick was clearing her decks for action.) "When the right time come! yes! That right time wasn't somethin' indefinite, in the fur futur', of course! Yer losin' the bonds didn't hurry up yer benevolence the least grain, I s'pose! Hem! let in them boys, Sophrony!"

Sophronia opened the door, and in walked Master Dick Atkins, (son of the brush-burner,) followed, not without reluctance and concern, by Master Taddy.

"Thaddeus! what you here for?" demanded the adopted parents.

"Because I said so," remarked Miss Beswick, arbitrarily. "Step along, boys, step along. Hold up yer head, Taddy, for ye a'n't goin' to be hurt while I'm around. Take yer fists out o' yer eyes, and stop blubberin'. Mr. Ducklow, that boy knows somethin' about Reuben's cowpon bonds."

"Thaddeus!" ejaculated both Ducklows at once, "did you touch them bonds?"

"Didn't know what they was!" whimpered Taddy.

"Did you take them?" And the female Ducklow grasped his shoulder.

"Hands off, if you please!" remarked Miss Beswick, with frightfully gleaming courtesy. "I told him, if he'd be a good boy, and come along with Richard, and tell the truth, he shouldn't be hurt. If you please," she repeated, with a majestic nod; and Mrs. Ducklow took her hands off.

"Where are they now? where are they?" cried Ducklow, rushing headlong to the main question.

"Don't know," said Taddy.

"Don't know? you villain!" And Ducklow was rising in wrath. But Miss Beswick put up her hand deprecatingly.

"If you please!" she said, with grim civility; and Ducklow sank down again.

"What did you do with 'em? what did you want of 'em?" said Mrs. Ducklow, with difficulty restraining an impulse to wring his neck.

"To cover my kite," confessed the miserable Taddy.

"Cover your kite! your kite!" A chorus of groans from the Ducklows. "Didn't you know no better?"

"Didn't think you'd care," said Taddy. "I had some newspapers Dick give me to cover it; but I thought them things 'u'd be pootier. So I took 'em, and put the newspapers in the wrapper."

"Did ye cover yer kite?"

"No. When I found out you cared so much about 'em, I dars'n't; I was afraid you'd see 'em."

"Then what did you do with 'em?"

"When you was away, Dick come over to sleep with me, and I—I sold 'em to him."

"Sold 'em to Dick!"

"Yes," spoke up Dick, stoutly, "for six marbles, and one was a bull's-eye, and one agate, and two alleys. Then, when you come home and made such a fuss, he wanted 'em ag'in. But he wouldn't give me back but four, and I wa'n't going to agree to no such nonsense as that."

"I'd lost the bull's-eye and one common," whined Taddy.

"But the bonds! did you destroy 'em?"

"Likely I'd destroy 'em, after I'd paid six marbles for 'em!" said Dick. "I wanted 'em to cover my kite with."

"Cover your—oh! then you've made a kite of 'em?" said Ducklow.

"Well, I was going to, when Aunt Beswick ketched me at it. She made me tell where I got 'em, and took me over to your house jest now; and Taddy said you was over here, and so she put ahead, and made us follow her."

Again, in an agony of impatience, Ducklow demanded to know where the bonds were at that moment.

"If Taddy'll give me back the marbles," began Master Dick.

"That'll do!" said Miss Beswick, silencing him with a gesture. "Reuben will give you twenty marbles; for I believe you said they was Reuben's bonds, Mr. Ducklow?"

"Yes, that is"–stammered the adopted father.

"Eventooally," struck in the adopted mother.

"Now look here! What am I to understand? Be they Reuben's bonds, or be they not? That's the question!" And there was that in Miss Beswick's look which said, "If they are not Reuben's, then your eyes shall never behold them more!"

"Of course they're Reuben's!" "We intended all the while"–"His benefit"–"To do jest what he pleases with 'em," chorused Pa and Ma Ducklow.

"Wal! now it's understood! Here, Reuben, are your cowpon bonds!"

And Miss Beswick, drawing them from her bosom, placed the precious documents, with formal politeness, in the glad soldier's agitated hands.

"Glory!" cried Reuben, assuring himself that they were genuine and real. "Sophrony, you've got a home! Ruby, Carrie, you've got a home! Miss Beswick! you angel from the skies! order a bushel and a half of marbles for Dick, and have the bill sent to me! Oh, Pa Ducklow! you never did a nobler or more generous thing in your life. These will lift the mortgage, and leave me a nest-egg besides. Then when I get my back pay, and my pension, and my health again, we shall be independent."

And the soldier, overcome by his feelings, sank back in the arms of his wife.

"We always told you we'd do well by ye, you remember?" said the Ducklows, triumphantly.

The news went abroad. Again congratulations poured in upon the returned volunteer. Everybody rejoiced in his good fortune,—especially certain rich ones who had been dreading to see Miss Beswick come round with her proposed subscription-paper.

Among the rest, the Ducklows rejoiced not the least; for selfishness was with them, as it is with many, rather a thing of habit than a fault of the heart. The catastrophe of the bonds broke up that life-long habit, and revealed good hearts underneath. The consciousness of having done an act of justice, although by accident, proved very sweet to them: it was really a fresh sensation; and Reuben and his dear little family, saved from ruin and distress, happy, thankful, glad, was a sight to their old eyes such as they had never witnessed before. Not gold itself, in any quantity, at the highest premium, could have given them so much satisfaction; and as for coupon bonds, they are not to be mentioned in the comparison.

"Won't you do well by me some time, too?" teased little Taddy, who overheard his adopted parents congratulating themselves on having acted so generously by Reuben. "I don't care for no cowpen bonds, but I do want a new drum!"