Art is long, and time is fleeting; And our hearts, though stout and brave, In the world's broad field of battle, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife! Let us, then, be up and doing, Learn to labor, and to wait. LONGFELLOW. NUMBERS; verses, poetry. GOAL; the end. DESTINED; appointed. ACHIEVING; performing. BIVOUAC; the guard or watch of a whole army, as in cases of great danger of surprise or attack. THE DUTCH MONEY-DIGGER. Peechy Prauw Van Hook, a prosy, narrative, old Dutchman, Ramm Rapley, and other members of a club who were accustomed to assemble at an inn in their neighborhood, met together one cold, stormy night, when their conversation happened to turn upon the subject of "money-dig-` ging." It was at that time generally believed that the noted Captain Kidd had buried money in that neighborhood; and it was also believed that Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor, had buried a great deal of money at the time of the Dutch troubles, when the English redcoats seized upon the province. It was then stated by the landlord of the inn, that the money-diggers had been very lucky of late, and that money had been dug up in the fields just behind Stuyvesant's orchard. Peechy Prauw could tell as many stories in an evening as his hearers could digest in a month. He affirmed that, to his knowledge, treasures had at different times been dug up in various parts of the island. The lucky persons who had discovered them had always dreamt of them three times beforehand, and, what was worthy of remark, these treasures had never been found but by some descendant of the good old Dutch families; which fact clearly proved that these treasures had been buried by Dutchmen in older times. A half-pay officer, a man of some weight among the members, by reason of his gunpowder tales, took a leading part in the conversation. He fathered upon Captain Kidd all the glory of depositing the money which was said to have been found or dug up. The name of Kidd at this period was like a talisman, and was associated with a thousand marvellous stories. All the golden stores of Kidd, however, and all the booty he had buried, were obstinately rivalled by the tales of Peechy Prauw, who, rather than suffer his Dutch progenitors to be eclipsed by a foreign freebooter, enriched every field and shore in the neighborhood with the wealth of Peter Stuyvesant and his contemporaries. Nor a word of this conversation was lost on Wolfert Webber. He returned pensively home, full of magnificent ideas. The soil of his native islands seemed to be turned into gold dust, and every field to teem with treasure. His head almost reeled at the thought, how often he must have heedlessly rambled over places where countless sums lay, scarcely covered by the turf beneath his feet. His mind was in an uproar with this whirl of new ideas. As he came in sight of the venerable mansion of his forefathers, and the little realm where the Webbers had so long and so contentedly flourished, his gorge rose at the narrowness of his destiny. 66 Unlucky Wolfert!" exclaimed he; "others can go to bed and dream themselves into whole mines of wealth; they have but to seize a spade in the morning, and turn up doubloons like potatoes; but thou must dream of hardships, and rise to poverty-must dig thy field from year's end to year's end, and yet raise nothing but cabbages!" Wolfert Webber went to bed with a heavy heart; and it was long before the golden visions that disturbed his brain permitted him to sink into repose. The same visions, however, extended into his sleeping thoughts, and assumed a more definite form. He dreamt that he had discovered an immense treasure in the centre of his garden. At every stroke of the spade he laid bare a golden ingot; diamond crosses sparkled out of the dust; bags of money were turned up, corpulent with pieces-of-eight, or venerable doubloons; and chests, wedged close with moidores and ducats, yawned before his ravished eyes, and poured forth their glittering contents. Wolfert awoke a poorer man than ever. He had no heart to go about his daily concerns, which appeared so paltry and profitless, but sat all day long in the chimney corner, picturing to himself ingots and heaps of gold in the fire. The next night his dream was repeated. He was again in his garden, digging and laying open stores of hidden wealth. There was something very singular in this repetition. He passed another day of revery; and though it was cleaning-day, and the house, as usual in Dutch households, completely topsy-turvy, yet he sat unmoved amidst the general uproar. The third night he went to bed with a palpitating heart. He put on his red night-cap wrong side outwards for good luck. It was deep midnight before his anxious mind could settle itself into sleep. Again the golden dream was repeated, and again he saw his garden teeming with ingots and money-bags. Wolfert rose next morning in complete bewilderment. A dream three times repeated was never known to lie; and if so, his fortune was made. In his agitation he put on his waistcoat with the hind part before; and this was a corroboration of good luck. He no longer doubted that a huge store of money lay buried somewhere in his cabbage-field, coyly waiting to be sought for; and he repined at having so long been scratching about the surface of the soil, instead of digging to the centre. -He took his seat at the breakfast table, full of these speculations; asked his daughter to put a lump of gold into his tea, and, on handing his wife a plate of flapjacks, begged her to help herself to a doubloon. r n 263. y s 44, 196. e 184. His grand care now was how to secure this immense treasure without its being known. Instead of working regularly in his grounds in the daytime, he now stole from his bed at night, and, with spade and pickaxe, went to work to rip up and dig about his paternal acres, from one end to the other. In a little time, the whole garden, which had presented such a good and regular appearance, with its phalanx of cabbages, like a vegetable army in battle array, was reduced to a scene of devastation; while the relentless Wolfert, with night-cap on head, and lantern and spade in hand, stalked through the slaughtered ranks, the destroying angel of his own vegetable world. Every morning bore testimony to the ravages of the preceding night, in cabbages of all ages and conditions, from the tender sprout to the full-grown head, piteously rooted from their quiet beds like worthless weeds, and left to wither in the sunshine. It was in vain Wolfert's wife remonstrated; it was in vain his darling daughter wept over the destruction of some favorite marigold. "Thou shalt have gold of another sort," he would cry, chucking her under the chin; "thou shalt have a string of crooked ducats for thy wedding necklace, my child." His family began really to fear that the poor man's wits were diseased. He muttered in his sleep, at night, about mines of wealth, about pearls, and diamonds, and bars of gold. In the daytime, he was moody and abstracted, and walked about as if in a trance. Dame Webber held frequent councils with all the old women of the neighborhood; scarce an hour in the day but a knot of them might be seen wagging their white caps together round her door, while the poor woman made some piteous recital. THE SAME, CONCLUDED. In the mean time, Wolfert went on digging and digging; but the field was extensive, and, as his dream had indicated no precise spot, he had to dig at random. The winter set in before one tenth of the scene of promise had been explored. The ground became frozen hard, and the nights too cold for the labors of the spade. No sooner, however, did the returning warmth of spring loosen the soil, and the small frogs begin to pipe in the meadows, but Wolfert resumed his labors with renovated zeal. Still, however, the hours of industry were reversed. Instead of working cheerily all day, planting and setting out his vegetables, he remained thoughtfully idle, until the shades of night summoned him to his secret labors. In this way he continued to dig from night to night, and week to week, and month to month, but not a stiver did he find. On the contrary, the more he digged the poorer he grew. The rich soil of his garden was digged away, and the sand and gravel from beneath were thrown to the surface, until the whole field presented an aspect of sandy barrenness. In the mean time, the seasons gradually rolled on. The little frogs, which had piped in the meadows in early spring, croaked as bull-frogs during the summer heats, and then sunk into silencé. The peach-tree budded, blossomed, and bore its fruit. The swallows and martins came, twittered about the roof, built their nests, reared their young, held their congress along the eaves, and then winged their flight in search of another spring. The caterpillar spun its winding sheet, dangled in it from the great button-wood tree before the house; turned into a moth, fluttered with the last sunshine of summer, and disappeared; and finally the leaves of the button-wood tree turned yellow, then brown, then rustled one by one to the ground, and whirling about in little em 156, 166. er 180, 340. |