old
Matt. At such times he would shut his teeth and bear whatever came to
him, until sometimes the half-drunken old man would be driven almost
mad by his stubborn silence. Maybe he would stop in the midst of the
beating he was administering, and, grinding his teeth, would cry out:
"Won't ye say naught? Won't ye say naught? Well, then, I'll see if I
can't make ye say naught." When things had reached such a pass as
this Molly would generally interfere to protect her foster son, and
then she and Tom would together fight the old man until they had
wrenched the stick or the strap out of his hand. Then old Matt would
chase them out of doors and around and around the house for maybe half
an hour, until his anger was cool, when he would go back again, and
for a time the storm would be over.

Besides his foster mother, Tom Chist had a very good friend in Parson
Jones, who used to come over every now and then to Abrahamson's hut
upon the chance of getting a half dozen fish for breakfast. He always
had a kind word or two for Tom, who during the winter evenings would
go over to the good man's house to learn his letters, and to read and
write and cipher a little, so that by now he was able to spell the
words out of the Bible and the almanac, and knew enough to change
tuppence into four ha'pennies.

This is the sort of boy Tom Chist was, and this is the sort of life he
led.

In the late spring or early summer of 1699 Captain Kidd's sloop sailed
into the mouth of the Delaware Bay and changed the whole fortune of
his life.

And this is how you come to the story of Captain Kidd's treasure box.

II

Old Matt Abrahamson kept the flat-bottomed boat in which he went
fishing some distance down the shore, and in the neighborhood of the
old wreck that had been sunk on the Shoals. This was the usual fishing
ground of the settlers, and here old Matt's boat generally lay drawn
up on the sand.

There had been a thunderstorm that afternoon, and Tom had gone down
the beach to bale out the boat in readiness for the morning's fishing.

It was full moonlight now, as he was returning, and the night sky was
full of floating clouds. Now and then there was a dull flash to the
westward, and once a muttering growl of thunder, promising another
storm to come.

All that day the pirate sloop had been lying just off the shore back
of the Capes, and now Tom Chist could see the sails glimmering
pallidly in the moonlight, spread for drying after the