“Wal, when the gen’ral’s wife, she heared that the Yanks was a comin’ with them gunboats of their’n, she sent fur Jordan an’ she says to him: ‘Jordan, you see that thar bar’l? Thar’s eighty thousand dollars in gold an’ silver into it. Now, Jordan, you take that thar bar’l, an’ tote it off as quick as you can, an’ hide it in the ground, an’ remember an’ don’t let nobody see ye, an’ don’t say nothin’ to nobody, nuther.’ So Jordan he done tuk the bar’l an’ rolled it down to the tater patch, and digged a hole as quick as he could an’ kivered it up, an’ nobody, not even the missus, don’t know whar he put it!” Here Godfrey paused to take breath, and leaning his elbows on the table, looked from one to the other of the little group before him to see what they thought about it. “Wal, what of it?” said Dan, who was the first to speak. “What of it?” repeated his father. “Thar’s a heap of it, the fust thing you know--a hul bar’l full; an’ what’s to hinder us from gettin’ it fur our own, I’d like to know?” A gleam of intelligence shot across Dan’s swarthy face, and even David and his mother looked up and began to take some interest in what Godfrey was saying. “Jordan went off with the Yanks that very night, an’ he hasn’t been seed since,” Godfrey went on. “That was ten year ago, come next winter, an’ nobody don’t know whar that bar’l with the eighty thousand in gold and silver is. I was to hum on a furlong then, ye know, an’ kept hid in the cane while the Yanks was here; but I seed Jordan, an’ he told me that the bar’l was in the tater patch. I jest happened to think of it this mornin’ while I was a huntin’ in the swamp; an’ then I axed myself, wasn’t I a dunce to be livin’ in this way, when thar was eighty thousand dollars to be had fur the diggin’? An’ I told myself yes, I was. So I come hum right quick, an’ I’m done huntin’ fur a livin’ now!” “Are you going to look fur that barrel, father?” asked David. “I aint a goin’ to do nothing else. I know right whar that tater patch was, an’ me an’ Dan’ll dig it so full of holes that the folks up to Gordon’s house will think an army is goin’ to build a fort thar.” “And what will you do with it if you find it?” “What’ll I do with it?” cried Godfrey, rising to his feet, spreading out his arms and turning slowly around so that his son could have a good view of him. “Can you look at me an’ all of us an’ ax me what I’ll do with it? I’ll keep it fur myself, an’ spend it like a lord, too!” “Would you like to have somebody serve you that way?” asked David. “It wouldn’t be honest.”