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Updated: June 29, 2025
"When are they going?" "To-morrow. We'll wait until to-morrow night after they've gone." "But Lenhart may not be on guard." "That's so," Cook agreed. "Coppoc, you can go alone. You'd better do it." "No." "You'd better." "I'm not made out of that sort of goods," the boy answered. "You've got a good old Quaker mother out in Springdale praying for you. It's your chance go I can't tonight."
When the shadows came and hung on the bare walls of his office the spook pictures that had been painted by his school chum, the young operator went over to the little tavern for the night. True, Springdale at that time was not much of a town; but the telegraph boy had the satisfaction of feeling that he was, by common consent, the biggest man in the place.
The snow had been all night falling silently over the long elm avenues of Springdale. It was one of those soft, moist, dreamy snow-falls, which come down in great loose feathers, resting in magical frost-work on every tree, shrub, and plant, and seeming to bring down with it the purity and peace of upper worlds.
Next week the Follingsbees alighted, so to speak, from a cloud of glory. They came in their own carriage, and with their own horses; all in silk and silver, purple and fine linen, "with rings on their fingers and bells on their toes," as the old song has it. We pause to caution our readers that this last clause is to be interpreted metaphorically. Springdale stood astonished.
John thought of all these things at intervals; and then, when he thought of the quiet, sober, respectable life at Springdale, of the good old staple families, with their steady ways, of the girls in his neighborhood with their reading societies, their sewing-circles for the poor, their book-clubs and art-unions for practice in various accomplishments, he thought, with apprehension, that there appeared not a spark of interest in his charmer's mind for any thing in this direction.
He has a fine, large, old-fashioned house there, and his sister is a very nice woman; but they are a sort of respectable, retired set, never go into fashionable company." "Oh, I don't mind it!" said Lillie. "I shall have things my own way, I know. One isn't obliged to live in Springdale, nor with pokey old sisters, you know; and John will do just as I say, and live where I please."
Then she made her few arrangements in the house-keeping line, called in her grand vizier and prime minister from the kitchen, and held with her a counsel of ways and means; put on her india-rubbers and Polish boots, and walked up through the deep snow-drifts to the Springdale post-office, where she dropped the fateful letter with a good heart on the whole; and then she went on to John's, the old home, to offer any parting services to Lillie that might be wanted.
He had been guilty of no wrong, but had been about what seemed to him his duty to his country. Still, he remembered with sadness the sharp rebuke of the Superintendent, a feeling intensified by the recollection that it was the same official who had brought him in from Springdale, made a train despatcher out of him, and promoted him as often as he had earned promotion.
Lillie either gaped in his face, and asked him what time it was; or playfully pulled his whiskers, and asked him why he didn't take to the ministry; or adroitly turned the conversation with kissing and compliments. Sunday morning came, shining down gloriously through the dewy elm-arches of Springdale.
One bright day, a few weeks after her arrival in Springdale, the boxes containing the treasures were landed there; and John, with all enthusiasm, busied himself with the work of unpacking these boxes, and drawing forth the treasures.
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