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. 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 half repined at having so long been scratching
about the surface of the soil, instead of digging to the centre.
He took his seat at the breakfast-table full of these speculations;
asked his daughter to put a lump of gold in to his tea, and on handing
his wife a plate of slap-jacks, begging her to help herself to a
doubloon.
His grand care now was how to secure this immense treasure without it
being known. Instead of working regularly in his grounds in the
day-time, he now stole from his bed at night, and with spade and
pickaxe, 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.
Every morning bore testimony to the ravages of the preceding night in
cabbages of all ages and conditions, from the tender sprout to the
full-grown head, piteously rooted from their quiet beds like worthless
weeds, and left to wither in the sunshine. It was in vain Wolfert's
wife remonstrated; it was in vain his darling daughter wept over the
destruction of some favorite marygold. "Thou shalt have gold of another
guess-sort," he would cry, chucking her under the chin; "thou shalt
have a string of crooked ducats for thy wedding-necklace, my child."
His family began really to fear that the poor man's wits were diseased.
He muttered in his sleep at night of mines of wealth, of pearls and
diamonds and bars of gold. In the day-time he was moody and abstracted,
and walked about as if in a trance. Dame Webber held frequent councils
with all the old women of the neighborhood, not omitting the parish
dominie; scarce an hour in the day but a knot of them might be seen
wagging their white caps together round her door, while the poor woman
made some piteous recital. The daughter, too, was fain to seek for more
frequent consolation from the stolen interviews of her favored swain,
Dirk Waldron. The delectable little Dutch songs with which she used to
dulcify the house grew less and less frequent, and she would forget her
sewing and look wistfully in her father's face as he sat pondering by
the fireside.
Wolfert caught her eye one day fixed on him thus anxiously, and for a
moment was roused from his golden reveries - "Cheer up, my girl," said
he, exultingly, "why dost thou droop? - thou shalt hold up thy head one
day with the - and the Schenaerhorns, the Van Hornes, and the Van
Dams - the patroon himself shall be glad to get thee for his son!"
Amy shook her head at this vain-glorious boast, and was more than ever
in doubt of the soundness of the good man's intellect.
In the meantime Wolfert went on digging, but the field was extensive,
and as his dream had indicated no precise spot, he had to dig at
random. The winter set in before one-tenth of the scene of promise had
been explored. The ground became too frozen and the nights too cold for
the labors of the spade. No sooner, however, did the returning warmth
of spring loosen the soil, and the small frogs begin to pipe in the
meadows, but Wolfert resumed his labors with renovated zeal. Still,
however, the hours of industry were reversed. Instead of working
cheerily all day, planting and setting out his vegetables, he remained
thoughtfully idle, until the shades of night summoned him to his secret
labors. In this way he continued to dig from night to night, and week
to week, and month to month, but not a stiver did he find. On the
contrary, the more he digged the poorer he grew. The rich soil of his
garden was digged away, and the sand and gravel from beneath were
thrown to the surface, until the whole field presented an aspect of
sandy barrenness.
In the meantime the seasons gradually rolled on. The little frogs that
had piped in the meadows in early spring, croaked as bull-frogs in the
brooks during the summer heats, and then sunk into silence. The peach
tree budded, blossomed, and bore its fruit. The swallows and martins
came, twittered about the roof, built their nests, reared their young,
held their congress along the eaves, and then winged their flight in
search of another spring. The caterpillar spun its winding-sheet,
dangled in it from the great buttonwood tree that shaded the house,
turned into a moth, fluttered with the last sunshine of summer, and
disappeared; and finally the leaves of the buttonwood tree turned
yellow, then brown, then rustled one by one to the ground, and whirling
about in little eddies of wind and dust, whispered that winter was at
hand.
Wolfert gradually awoke from his dream of wealth as the year declined.
He had reared no crop to supply the wants of his household during the
sterility of winter. The season was long and severe, and for the first
time the family was really straightened in its comforts. By degrees a
revulsion of thought took place in Wolfert's mind, common to those
whose golden dreams have been disturbed by pinching realities.
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