At length the soldiers moved off too far to permit them to come on visits, and things were very dull. So it was for a long while.
But one evening in May, about sunset, as the boys were playing in the yard, a man came riding through the place on the way to Richmond. His horse showed that he had been riding hard. He asked the nearest way to "Ground-Squirrel Bridge." The Yankees, he said, were coming. It was a raid. He had ridden ahead of them, and had left them about Greenbay depot, which they had set on fire. He was in too great a hurry to stop and get something to eat, and he rode off, leaving much excitement behind him; for Greenbay was only eight miles away, and Oakland lay right between two roads to Richmond, down one or the other of which the party of raiders must certainly pa.s.s.
It was the first time the boys ever saw their mother exhibit so much emotion as she then did. She came to the door and called:
"Balla, come here." Her voice sounded to the boys a little strained and troubled, and they ran up the steps and stood by her. Balla came to the portico, and looked up with an air of inquiry. He, too, showed excitement.
"Balla, I want you to know that if you wish to go, you can do so."
"Hi, Mistis----" began Balla, with an air of reproach; but she cut him short and kept on.
"I want you all to know it." She was speaking now so as to be heard by the cook and the maids who were standing about the yard listening to her. "I want you all to know it--every one on the place! You can go if you wish; but, if you go, you can never come back!"
"Hi, Mistis," broke in Uncle Balla, "whar is I got to go? I wuz born on dis place an" I "spec" to die here, an" be buried right _yonder_;"
and he turned and pointed up to the dark clumps of trees that marked the graveyard on the hill, a half mile away, where the colored people were buried. "Dat I does," he affirmed positively. "Y" all sticks by us, and we"ll stick by you."
"I know I ain"t gwine nowhar wid no Yankees or nothin"," said Lucy Ann, in an undertone.
"Dee tell me dee got hoofs and horns," laughed one of the women in the yard.
The boys" mother started to say something further to Balla, but though she opened her lips, she did not speak; she turned suddenly and walked into the house and into her chamber, where she shut the door behind her. The boys thought she was angry, but when they softly followed her a few minutes afterward, she got up hastily from where she had been kneeling beside the bed, and they saw that she had been crying. A murmur under the window called them back to the portico. It had begun to grow dark; but a bright spot was glowing on the horizon, and on this every one"s gaze was fixed.
"Where is it, Balla? What is it?" asked the boys" mother, her voice no longer strained and harsh, but even softer than usual.
"It"s the depot, madam. They"s burnin" it. That man told me they was burnin" ev"ywhar they went."
"Will they be here to-night?" asked his mistress.
"No, marm; I don" hardly think they will. That man said they couldn"t travel more than thirty miles a day; but they"ll be plenty of "em here to-morrow--to breakfast." He gave a nervous sort of laugh.
"Here,--you all come here," said their mistress to the servants. She went to the smoke-house and unlocked it. "Go in there and get down the bacon--take a piece, each of you." A great deal was still left.
"Balla, step here." She called him aside and spoke earnestly in an undertone.
"Yes"m, that"s so; that"s jes" what I wuz gwine do," the boys heard him say.
Their mother sent the boys out. She went and locked herself in her room, but they heard her footsteps as she turned about within, and now and then they heard her opening and shutting drawers and moving chairs.
In a little while she came out.
"Frank, you and w.i.l.l.y go and tell Balla to come to the chamber door.
He may be out in the stable."
They dashed out, proud to bear so important a message. They could not find him, but an hour later they heard him, coming from the stable.
He at once went into the house. They rushed into the chamber, where they found the door of the closet open.
"Balla, come in here," called their mother from within. "Have you got them safe?" she asked.
"Yes"m; jes" as safe as they kin be. I want to be "bout here when they come, or I"d go down an" stay whar they is."
"What is it?" asked the boys.
"Where is the best place to put that?" she said, pointing to a large, strong box in which, they knew, the finest silver was kept; indeed, all excepting what was used every day on the table.
"Well, I declar", Mistis, that"s hard to tell," said the old driver, "without it"s in the stable."
"They may burn that down."
"That"s so; you might bury it under the floor of the smoke-house?"
"I have heard that they always look for silver there," said the boys"
mother. "How would it do to bury it in the garden?"
"That"s the very place I was gwine name," said Balla, with flattering approval. "They can"t burn _that_ down, and if they gwine dig for it then they"ll have to dig a long time before they git over that big garden." He stooped and lifted up one end of the box to test its weight.
"I thought of the other end of the flower-bed, between the big rose-bush and the lilac."
"That"s the very place I had in my mind," declared the old man. "They won" never fine it dyah!"
"We know a good place," said the boys both together; "it"s a heap better than that. It"s where we bury our treasures when we play "Black-beard the Pirate.""
"Very well," said their mother; "I don"t care to know where it is until after to-morrow, anyhow. I know I can trust you," she added, addressing Balla.
"Yes"m, you know dat," said he, simply. "I"ll jes" go an" git my hoe."
"The garden hasn"t got a roof to it, has it, Unc" Balla?" asked w.i.l.l.y, quietly.
"Go "way from here, boy," said the old man, making a sweep at him with his hand. "That boy ain" never done talkin" "bout that thing yit," he added, with a pleased laugh, to his mistress.
"And you ain"t ever given me all those chickens either," responded w.i.l.l.y, forgetting his grammar.
"Oh, well, I"m _gwi"_ do it; ain"t you hear me say I"m gwine do it?"
he laughed as he went out.
The boys were too excited to get sleepy before the silver was hidden.
Their mother told them they might go down into the garden and help Balla, on condition that they would not talk.
"That"s the way we always do when we bury the treasure. Ain"t it, w.i.l.l.y?" asked Frank.
"If a man speaks, it"s death!" declared w.i.l.l.y, slapping his hand on his side as if to draw a sword, striking a theatrical att.i.tude and speaking in a deep voice.
"Give the "galleon" to us," said Frank.
"No; be off with you," said their mother.
"That ain"t the way," said Frank. "A pirate never digs the hole until he has his treasure at hand. To do so would prove him but a novice; wouldn"t it, w.i.l.l.y?"
"Well, I leave it all to you, my little Buccaneers," said their mother, laughing. "I"ll take care of the spoons and forks we use every day. I"ll just hide them away in a hole somewhere."