Kansas for men. "Every footpath on this planet," said a rare thinker, "may lead to the door of a hero," and that trail into Kansas ended rightly at the tent-door of John Brown. And later, who that knew them can forget the picket-paths that were worn throughout the Sea Islands of South Carolina, - paths that wound along the shores of creeks or through the depths of woods, where the great wild roses tossed their airy festoons above your head, and the brilliant lizards glanced across your track, and your horse's ears suddenly pointed forward and his pace grew uneasy as he snuffed the presence of something you could not see. At night you had often to ride from picket to picket in dense darkness, trusting to the horse to find his way, or sometimes dismounting to feel with your hands for the track, while the great Southern fireflies seemed to offer their floating lanterns for guidance, and the hoarse "Chuck-will'swidow" croaked ominously from the trees, and the great guns of the siege of Charleston throbbed more faintly than the drumming of a partridge, from far away. Those islands are everywhere so intersected by dikes and ledges and winding creeks as to form a natural military region, like La Vendée; and yet two plantations that are twenty miles asunder by the road will sometimes be united by a footpath which a negro can traverse in two hours. These tracks are limited in distance by the island formation, but they assume a greater importance as you penetrate the mainland; they then join great States instead of mere plantations, and if you ask whither one of them leads, you are told Το Alabama," or "To Tennessee." Time would fail to tell of that wandering path which leads to the Mine Mountain near Brattleborough, where you climb the high peak at last, and perhaps see the showers come up the Connecticut till they patter on the leaves beneath you, and then, swerving, pass up the black ravine and leave you unwet. Or, of those among the White Mountains, gorgeous with great red lilies which presently seem to take flight in a cloud of butterflies that match their tints; paths where the balsamic air caresses you in light breezes, and masses of alder-berries rise above the waving ferns. Or of the paths that lead beside many a little New England stream, whose bank is lost to sight in a smooth green slope of grape-vine: the lower shoots rest upon the quiet water, but the upper masses are crowned by a white wreath of alder-blooms; - beside them grow great masses of wild roses, and the simultaneous blossoms and berries of the gaudy nightshade. Or of those winding tracks that lead here and there among the flat stones of peaceful old graveyards, so entwined with grass and flowers that every spray of sweetbrier seems to tell more of life than all the accumulated epitaphs of death. And when the paths that we have personally traversed are exhausted, memory holds almost as clearly those which the poets have trodden for us, — those innumerable by-ways of Shakespeare, each more real than any highroad in England; or Chaucer's ON OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. CAPTAIN KIDD'S MONEY. NE of our most favorite legendary and strewing hayseed down on his resorts was the old barn. Sam Lawson preferred it on many accounts. It was quiet and retired, that is to say, at such distance from his own house that he could not hear if Hepsy called ever so loudly, and farther off than it would be convenient for that industrious and painstaking woman to follow him. Then there was the soft fragrant cushion of hay, on which his length of limb could be easily bestowed. Our barn had an upper loft with a swinging outer door that commanded a view of the old mill, the waterfall, and the distant windings of the river, with its grassy green banks, its graceful elm draperies, and its white flocks of waterlilies; and then on this Saturday afternoon we had Sam all to ourselves. It was a drowsy, dreamy October day, when the hens were lazily "craw, crawing," in a soft, conversational undertone with each other, as they scratched and picked the hay - seed under the barn windows. Below in the barn black Cæsar sat quietly hatchelling flax, sometimes gurgling and giggling to himself with an overflow of that interior jollity with which he seemed to be always full. The African in New England was a curious contrast to everybody around him in the joy and satisfaction that he seemed to feel in the mere fact of being alive. Every white person was glad or sorry for some appreciable cause in the past, present, or future, which was capable of being definitely stated; but black Cæsar was in an eternal giggle and frizzle and simmer of enjoyment for which he could give no earthly reason: he was an "embodied joy," like Shelley's skylark. "Jest hear him," said Sam Lawson looking pensively over the hay-mow wool. "How that are crittur seems to tickle and laugh all the while 'bout nothin'. Lordy massy, he don't seem never to consider that this life's a dream, an empty show.'" "Look here, Sam," we broke in, anxious to cut short a threatened stream of morality, "you promised to tell us about Captain Kidd and how you dug for his money." "Did I now? Wal, boys, that are history o' Kidd's is a warnin' to fellers. Why, Kidd had pious parents and Bible and sanctuary privileges when he was a boy, and yet come to be hanged. It's all in this 'ere song I'm a goin' to sing ye. Lordy massy, I wish I had my bass-viol now. Cæsar," he said, calling down from his perch, “can't you strike the pitch o' 'Cap'n Kidd' on your fiddle?" Cæsar's fiddle was never far from him. It was, in fact, tucked away in a nice little nook just over the manger, and he often caught an interval from his work to scrape a dancing-tune on it, keeping time with his heels, to our great delight. A most wailing minor-keyed tune was doled forth, which seemed quite refreshing to Sam's pathetic vein, as he sang in his most lugubrious tones: "My name was Robert Kidd As I sailed, as I sailed.' "Now ye see, boys, he's a goin' to tell how he abused his religious privileges; just hear now: "My father taught me well, As I sailed, as I sailed. "There was a good deal more on 't," said Sam, pausing, "but I don't seem to remember it; but it's real solemn and affectin'." "Who was Captain Kidd, Sam?" said I. "Wal, he was an officer in the British navy, and he got to being a pirate, used to take ships and sink 'em, and murder the folks; and so they say he got no end o' money; gold and silver and precious stones as many as the wise men in the East. But ye see, what good did it all do him? He could n't use it and dars'n't keep it, so he used to bury it in spots round here and there in the awfullest heathen way ye ever heard of. Why, they say he allers used to kill one or two men or women or children of his prisoners and bury with it, so that their sperits might keep watch on it ef anybody was to dig arter it. That are thing has been tried and tried and tried, but no man nor mother's son on 'em ever got a cent that dug. 'T was tried here 'n Oldtown, and they come pretty nigh gettin' on 't, but it gin 'em the slip. Ye see, boys, it's the Devil's money, and he holds a pretty tight grip on 't." "Wal, how was it about digging for it? Tell us, did you do it? Were you there? Did you see it? And why could n't they get it?" we both asked eagerly and in one breath. "Why, Lordy massy, boys, your questions tumbles over each other thick as martins out o' a martin-box. Now you jist be moderate and let alone, and I'll tell you all about it from the beginnin' to the end. I did n't railly have no hand in 't, though I was knowin' to 't, as I be to most things that goes on round here, but my conscience would n't railly a let me start on no sich undertakin'. "Wal, the one that fust sot the thing a goin' was old Mother Hokum, that used to live up in that little tumbledown shed by the cranberry-pond up beyond the spring pastur'. They had a putty bad name them Hokums. How they got a livin' nobody knew, for they did n't seem to pay no attention to raisin' nothin' but childun, but the deuce knows there was plenty o' them. Their old hut was like a rabbit-pen, there was a tow head to every crack and cranny. 'Member what old Cæsar said once when the word come to the store that old Hokum had got twins. 'S'pose de Lord know best,' says Cæsar, 'but I thought dere was Hokums enough afore.' Wal, even poor workin' industrious folks like me finds it's hard gettin' along when there's so many mouths to feed. Lordy massy, there don't never seem to be no end on 't, and so it ain't wonderful, come to think on 't, ef folks like them Hokums gets tempted to help along in ways that ain't quite right. Anyhow folks did use to think that old Hokum was too sort o' familiar with their wood-piles 'long in the night, though they could n't never prove it on him; and when Mother Hokum come to houses round to wash, folks use sometimes to miss pieces, here and there, though they never could find 'em on her; then they was allers a gettin' in debt here and a gettin' in debt there. Why, they got to owin' two dollars to Joe Gidger for butcher's meat. Joe was sort o' good-natured and let 'em have meat, 'cause Hokum he promised so fair to pay, but he could n't never get it out o' him. 'Member once Joe walked clear up to the cranberry-pond arter that are two dollars, but Mother Hokum she see him a comin' jist as he come past the juniper-bush on the corner. She says to Hokum, 'Get into bed, old man, quick, and let me tell the story,' says she. So she covered him up, and when Gidger come in she come up to him and says she, 'Why, Mr. Gidger, I'm jist ashamed to see ye; why Mr. Hokum was jist a comin' down to pay ye that are money last week, but ye see he was took down with the small-pox-' Joe did n't hear no more; he jist turned round and he streaked it out that are door with his coat-tails flyin' out straight ahind him, and old Mother Hokum she jist stood at the window holdin' her sides and laughin' fit to split to see him run. That are's jist a sample o' the ways them Hokums cut up. "Wal, you see, boys, there's a queer kind o' rock down on the bank o' the river that looks sort o' like a gravestone. The biggest part on 't is sunk down underground, and it's pretty well growed over with blackberry-vines, but when you scratch the bushes away they used to make out some queer marks on that are rock. They was sort o' lines and crosses, and folks would have it that them was Kidd's private marks, and that there was one o' the places where he hid his money. "Wal, there's no sayin' fairly how it come to be thought so, but fellers used to say so, and they used sometimes to talk it over up to the tahvern, and kind o' wonder whether or no if they should dig, they would n't come to suthin'. "Wal, old Mother Hokum she heard on 't, and she was a sort o' enterprisin' old crittur, fact was she had to be, 'cause the young Hokums was jist like bag-worms, the more they growed the more they eat, and I expect she found it pretty hard to fill their mouths; and so she said ef there was anything under that are rock, they'd as good's have it as the Devil; and so she did n't give old Hokum no peace o' his life but he must see what there was there. "Wal, I was with 'em the night they was a talkin' on 't up. Ye see Hokum he got thirty-seven cents' worth o' lemons and some sperit. I see him goin' by as I was out a splittin' kindlin's, and says he, Sam, you jist go 'long up to our house to-night,' says he; 'Toddy Whitney and Harry Wiggin 's comin' up, and we 're goin' to have a little suthin' hot,' says he; and he kind o' showed me the lemons and sperit. And I told him I guessed I would go 'long, Wal, I kind o' wanted to see what they 'd be up to, ye know. 666 Maybe it's old silver plate from some o' them old West Indian grandees,' says another. "Wal, whatever it is,' says Mother Hokum, 'I want to be into it,' says she. "Wal, Sam, won't you jine?' says they. "Wal, boys,' says I, 'I kind o' don't feel jis like j'inin'. I sort o' ain't clear about the rights on 't; seems to me it's mighty nigh like goin' to the Devil for money.' “ ́ Wal,' says Mother Hokum, 'what if 'tis ? Money's money, get it how ye will; and the Devil's money 'll buy as much meat as any. I'd go to the Devil, if he gave good money.' "Wal, I guess I would n't,' says I. 'Don't you 'member the sermon Parson Lothrop preached about hastin' to be rich, last Sabba' day?' "Parson Lothrop be hanged!' says she. 'Wal, now,' says she, 'I like to see a parson with his silk stockin's and great gold-headed cane, a lollopin' in his carriage behind his fat, prancin' hosses, comin' to meetin' to preach to us poor folks not to want to be rich! How'd he like it to have forty-leven children, and nothin' to put onto 'em or into 'em, I wonder? Guess if Lady |