The Baymouth turnpike was about the only passable road in the
neighborhood. By it Ishmael walked on to the village, one bitter cold
morning, to try to get credit for a quarter of a pound of tea.
But Nutt would see him hanged first.
Disappointed and sorrowful, Ishmael turned his steps from the town. He
had come about a mile on his homeward road, when something glowing like
a coal of fire on the glistening whiteness of the snow caught his eye.
It was a red morocco pocketbook lying in the middle of the road. There
was not a human creature except Ishmael himself on the road or anywhere
in sight. Neither had he passed anyone on his way from the village.
Therefore it was quite in vain that he looked up and down and all around
for the owner of the pocketbook as he raised it from the ground. No
possible claimant was to be seen. He opened it and examined its
contents. It contained a little gold and silver, not quite ten dollars
in all; but a fortune for Ishmael, in his present needy condition. There
was no name on the pocketbook and not a scrap of paper in it by which
the owner might be discovered. There was nothing in it but the
untraceable silver and gold. It seemed to have dropped from heaven for
Ishmael's own benefit! This was his thought as he turned with the
impulse to fly directly back to the village and invest a portion of the
money in necessaries for Hannah.
What was it that suddenly arrested his steps? The recollection that the
money was not his own! that to use it even for the best purpose in the
world would be an act of dishonesty.
He paused and reflected. The devil took that opportunity to tempt
him--whispering: "You found the pocketbook and you cannot find the owner; therefore it is
your own, you know."
"You know it isn't," murmured Ishmael's conscience.
"Well, even so, it is no harm to borrow a dollar or two to get your poor
sick aunt a little tea and sugar. You could pay it back again before the
pocketbook is claimed, even if it is ever claimed," mildly insinuated
the devil.
"It would be borrowing without leave," replied conscience.
"But for your poor, sick, suffering aunt! think of her, and make her
happy this evening with a consoling cup of tea! Take only half a dollar
for that good purpose. Nobody could blame you for that," whimpered the
devil, who was losing ground.
"I would like to make dear Aunt Hannah happy to-night. But I am sure
George Washington would not approve of my taking what don't belong to me
for that or any other purpose. And neither would Patrick Henry, nor
John Hancock. And so I won't do it," said Ishmael, resolutely putting
the pocketbook in his vest pocket and buttoning his coat tight over it,
and starting at brisk pace homeward.