lent for some time. At
last she said, half timidly, "Farmer Hartley, you promised to tell me
more about your father some day. Don't you think this would be a good
time? I have been so much interested by what I have heard of him."

"That's curus, now," said Farmer Hartley slowly, flicking the dust with
the long lash of his whip. "It's curus, Huldy, that you sh'd mention
Father jest now, 'cause I happened to be thinkin' of him myself that
very minute. Old Father," he added meditatively, "wal, surely, he _was_
a character, Father was. Folks about here," he said, turning suddenly to
Hilda and looking keenly at her, "think Father was ravin' crazy, or
mighty nigh it. But he warn't nothin' o' the sort. His mind was as keen
as a razor, an' as straight-edged, 'xcept jest on _one_ subject. On
_that_ he was, so to say, a little--wal--a little _tetched_."

"And that was--?" queried Hilda.

"Why, ye see, Huldy, Father had been a sea-farin' man all his days, an'
he'd seen all manner o' countries an' all manner o' folks; and 'tain't
to be wondered at ef he got a leetle bit confoosed sometimes between the
things he'd seen and the things he owned. Long'n short of it was, Father
thought he hed a kind o' treasure hid away somewhar, like them pirate
fellers used to hev. Ef they _did_ hev it!" he added slowly. "I never
more'n half believed none o' them yarns; but Father, he thought _he_ hed
it, an' no mistake. 'D'ye think I was five years coastin' round Brazil
for nothin'?' he says. 'There's di'monds in Brazil,' he says, 'whole
mines of 'em; an' there's _some_ di'monds _out_ o' Brazil too;' and then
he'd wink, and laugh out hearty, the way he used. He was always
laughin', Father was. An' when times was hard, he'd say to my mother,
'Wealthy, we won't sell the di'monds yet a while. Not this time,
Wealthy; but they're thar, you know, my woman, they're thar!' And when
my mother'd say, 'Whar to goodness be they, Thomas?' he'd only chuckle
an' laugh an' shake his head. Then thar was his story about the ruby
necklace. How we youngsters used to open our eyes at that! Believed it
too, every word of it."

"Oh! what was it?" cried Hilda. "Tell me, and I will believe it too!"

"He used to tell of a Malay pirate," said the farmer, "that he fit and
licked somewhere off in the South Seas,--when he sailed the 'Lively
Polly,' that was. She was a clipper, Father always said; an' he run
aboard the black fellers, and smashed their schooner, an' throwed the