treasure box. All that remains now is to
conclude the story of Tom Chist, and to tell of what came of him in
the end.

He did not go back again to live with old Matt Abrahamson. Parson
Jones had now taken charge of him and his fortunes, and Tom did not
have to go back to the fisherman's hut.

Old Abrahamson talked a great deal about it, and would come in his
cups and harangue good Parson Jones, making a vast protestation of
what he would do to Tom--if he ever caught him--for running away. But
Tom on all these occasions kept carefully out of his way, and nothing
came of the old man's threatenings.

Tom used to go over to see his foster mother now and then, but always
when the old man was from home. And Molly Abrahamson used to warn him
to keep out of her father's way. "He's in as vile a humor as ever I
see, Tom," she said; "he sits sulking all day long, and 'tis my belief
he'd kill ye if he caught ye."

Of course Tom said nothing, even to her, about the treasure, and he
and the reverend gentleman kept the knowledge thereof to themselves.
About three weeks later Parson Jones managed to get him shipped aboard
of a vessel bound for New York town, and a few days later Tom Chist
landed at that place. He had never been in such a town before, and he
could not sufficiently wonder and marvel at the number of brick
houses, at the multitude of people coming and going along the fine,
hard, earthen sidewalk, at the shops and the stores where goods hung
in the windows, and, most of all, the fortifications and the battery
at the point, at the rows of threatening cannon, and at the
scarlet-coated sentries pacing up and down the ramparts. All this was
very wonderful, and so were the clustered boats riding at anchor in
the harbor. It was like a new world, so different was it from the
sand hills and the sedgy levels of Henlopen.

Tom Chist took up his lodgings at a coffee house near to the town
hall, and thence he sent by the postboy a letter written by Parson
Jones to Master Chillingsworth. In a little while the boy returned
with a message, asking Tom to come up to Mr. Chillingsworth's house
that afternoon at two o'clock.

Tom went thither with a great deal of trepidation, and his heart fell
away altogether when he found it a fine, grand brick house, three
stories high, and with wrought-iron letters across the front.

The counting house was in the same building; but Tom, because of Mr.
Jones's letter, was conducted directly into