' here we be to the woods. The best chestnut-trees is yender, the best
shellbarks t'other way. 'Tain't time for hickories yet, not till a
heavier frost comes, but chestnuts you've got to get early if you get
any at all. The squirrels an' boys are smart round this way. Why, 'most
every year they gather Eunice's nuts off her own trees, then march up to
her front door an' sell 'em to her. Fact. An' the silly woman only
laughs an' says she don't begrudge 'em a little pocket-money. An' she
don't need. Eunice is real forehanded, Eunice is; and does seem 't the
more she gives away the more comes in. Now, I'll cut a saplin'-pole an'
thrash a tree for you. Then, whilst I'm choppin' down in that clump of
pines over there, you can be pickin' up nuts. Make up your mind to prick
your fingers with the burrs. A body has to fight for most anything worth
while."

"Oh, if I only had somebody to pick them up with me!" sighed Kate, as
she fell to work. Then her thoughts travelled far afield, for a
delightful notion had taken possession of her, and her young brain was
teeming with a scheme so great it was--well, it was fully worthy of
itself.

Almost unconsciously she gathered the fallen chestnuts, scarcely
realizing the novelty of the task so absorbed was she in her sudden
Quixotic project. Yet, as she groped among the brown leaves at the foot
of her tree, her fingers came in contact with something wholly different
from chestnuts or their thorny burrs. It was hard as a stone, yet it
wasn't a stone. It was half-buried in the leaf-mold and moss, though the
rain of the previous night had washed it free in one corner.

That corner glistened so that it dazzled the digger's eyes, and she
exclaimed aloud:

"Oh, I've found a gold mine! Right here in Aunt Eunice's woods. I must
get this great piece of gold out and take it to her. And I won't tell
anybody, not anybody, not even Uncle Moses, till I've told her. For
whatever is in her woods must be hers, of course."

Away went the last great scheme, which had been wholly connected with
Mr. Jones and his aspirations for town office; and up rose another far
more gigantic, by which everybody who was poor, "everybody in the whole
wide world," should benefit. For, of course, the mine was to be
inexhaustible, and Aunt Eunice would be able to give away money
hereafter without stint or measure.

If only she could get out that first great shining lump of gold!

And at last it was out, yet, after all, n