The Lock and Key Library: The most interesting stories of all nations: American
General
The Lock and Key Library: The most interesting stories of all nations: American
Detective and mystery stories; Short stories, American
[1] Spanish coins, worth about $1 each.
[2] Portuguese gold coins, valued at $6.50.
[3] Coins of gold and silver, valued at $2 and $1 respectively.
[4] Spanish silver coins, worth about $.20.
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 reverie, 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 nightcap wrong side outward, 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 the 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.[1] 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 center.
[1] It is an old superstition that to put on one’s clothes wrong
side out forebodes good luck.
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 slapjacks, begged her to
help herself to a doubloon.
His grand care now was how to secure this immense treasure without
its being known. Instead of his working regularly in his grounds
in the daytime, he now stole from his bed at night, and with spade
and pickax 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 goodly 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 nightcap on head and lantern and spade in hand, stalked
through the slaughtered ranks, the destroying angel of his own
vegetable world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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