her, as an outright fool might after the pewter-bells
on a baby's rattle!"

"You women can't understand how a man feels when his love changes to
hate; and yet you ought to know all about it, for when you do turn
upon one another you never let go. Aunt Hannah, I loved her better
than everything else upon the broad earth; I would have kissed the
dust where she walked; I always loved her, and she was fond of me,
until that college dandy came between us, and made a fool of her, a
villain of me. When she forsook me, and followed him off, I swore I
would be revenged. There is tiger blood in me, and when I am
thoroughly stirred up I never cool. It is a long, long time since I
lost her trail--soon after the child was born, and eight years ago I
almost gave up and went to Cuba; but if I can only find the track, I
will follow it till I hunt her down. I never received your letters,
or I would have hurried back. Where is Minnie now?"

"That is more than I know, but I think somewhere in Europe. The
letters are always sent to a lawyer in New York, who directs them to
her. I have tried in every way to find out, but they are all too
smart for me."

"Why don't you pump the child?"

"Haven't I? And gained about as much as if I had put a handle on the
side of a lump of cast iron, and pumped. She is closer than sealing
wax, and shrewder than a serpent. If you pumped her till the stars
fell, you would not get an air-bubble, She can neither be scared nor
coaxed."

"Where is the paper?"

"Safely buried here, among the dead."

"What folly! Don't you know the dampness will destroy it? Pshaw! you
have ruined everything."

"See here, Peleg, all the brains of the family did not lodge in your
skull; and I guess I was wiser at your age than you will be at mine.
The paper was safe and sound when I looked at it a month ago, and it
is wrapped up in oil-silk, then in cotton, and kept in a thick tin
box."

"When can I see it? Suppose you get it now?"

"In daylight? You may depend on my steering clear of detection, no
matter what comes. I would take it up to-night, but there is going to
be an awful storm. Do you hear how the thunder keeps bellowing down
yonder, under that dark line crossing the south? There will be wild
work pretty soon; it has been simmering all day, and when it begins
it won't be child's play. Even the marble slabs on the graves are
hot, and the ground scorched my feet, as if Satan and his fires had
burnt through all but