Jibby Jones : $b A story of Mississippi River adventure for boysButler, Ellis Parker
General
Jibby Jones : $b A story of Mississippi River adventure for boys
Butler, Ellis Parker
Adventure and adventurers -- Juvenile fiction; Boys -- Juvenile fiction; Mississippi River -- Juvenile fiction
“That’s all right, of course, for this one time,” Wampus’s father said
then, “but don’t let the fellow hang around here. I think he is a tough
customer, judging by his looks. He has a bad eye. If he had two eyes, I
would say he had two bad eyes, but the one eye he has is bad enough to
satisfy any one.”
“I know,” Wampus’s mother said, “but I felt rather sorry for him because
he has only one leg.”
Wampus had been waiting for a chance to talk, because he was so eager to
tell about the 1804 dollar and the treasure, and now he had the chance,
and he lit into it. He handed the dollar to his father and went on to
tell him about all of us finding it, and about Jibby Jones guessing
there was hidden treasure, but he would not say where we had found the
dollar nor where the treasure was. He was too smart for that, because
just then Mary came in with the supper she had been keeping hot in the
oven for him. She stood around and listened while they talked about the
treasure and the 1804 dollar and how valuable it was, but Wampus did not
think anything about that, because Mary had been their hired girl for a
couple of years.
“And how much treasure does your Jibby Jones think you will find?” Mr.
Smale asked Wampus.
“He don’t know,” Wampus said. “Maybe thousands of dollars. Maybe none.
But, anyway, we’ve got this dollar and it ought to be worth almost a
thousand dollars, Jibby says.”
They went on talking it over, and Mr. Smale was sort of amused and did
not believe in the treasure much, but Wampus wouldn’t say where we had
been, or when we were going to dig for the treasure, and Mary went into
the kitchen. So that was all of that.
Then Wampus told his father and mother that the one-legged man Mary had
in the kitchen was the Tough Customer that Orph Cadwallader had run off
the island, but neither Mr. Smale nor Mrs. Smale seemed to think much
about it. All Mr. Smale said was: “He had no business on the island, but
I suppose it is all right for Mary to feed a cousin once in a while. How
about it, mother?”
“It has to be,” Mrs. Smale said; “it is so hard to get help these days.”
CHAPTER XX
ORLANDO
The next morning we were on our way to Sunday school. I waited for Jibby
and we picked up Wampus and Tad and Skippy, and we all had a good look
at the 1804 dollar, because Wampus’s mother had dipped it and it was
bright and beautiful. We passed it around and talked about it, and then
we noticed the Tough Customer ahead of us. He did look tough, too, with
his one peg-leg, and he swayed on his feet like a sailor--or on his one
foot and one peg--and when he got to the corner he stood and waited.
We had no use for him, and we did not want to talk to him, but when we
came up to the Tough Customer he said “Howdy!” to us.
“Are you the boys that have that 1804 dollar?” he asked.
“Yes, we are,” I said.
“My cousin told me about it,” he said. “She saw it in the dining-room
last night. I’d like to have a look at it.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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