The Golden Eagle Mystery (14 page)

A
UNT
P
ATTY
was in the middle of housecleaning when Djuna got home, and had just finished sweeping the upstairs rooms.

“My goodness, it’s about time I cleaned out that fireplace,” she exclaimed, as she glanced around the front room. “I’ve been meaning to take those wood ashes out for a long time, but I never got around to it. Djuna, would you mind taking them out and dumping them on that strip of ground by the fence? I’m going to spade that up and plant some more flowers there, one of these days, and there’s nothing better than wood ashes to mix in the ground, to make them grow.”

Djuna got a dustpan and an old bucket and carried them out, and then swept out the fireplace carefully, till the hearth was clean. The fireplace was built of red bricks, and looked very neat. But Djuna stared at it in a puzzled sort of way.

“Where is the other fireplace, Aunt Patty?” he asked. “The one with the hearthstone?”

Aunt Patty looked startled. “Why, that’s the only one!” she exclaimed. “What do you mean, child?”

“Well, Captain Atterbury said there was one with a hearthstone,” said Djuna. “He said there was.”

“Oh!” said Aunt Patty. “Well, that’s so, there
was
one there, once. But that was years and years ago. I know what Captain Atterbury was thinking of. But
that
stone is over on Sixpenny Island, now. Captain Tubbs took it over there. He wanted it for a doorstep, and I told him he could have it if he would build a brick one for me. I always wanted a brick fireplace, anyway. Everybody else has stone ones, around here.”

“Captain Atterbury told me a lot of things,” said Djuna. “I think he’s awful nice. Oh, I forgot—he said to tell you the doctor said Mrs. Atterbury is much better.”

“Well, now, I’m glad to hear it!” exclaimed Aunt Patty, beaming. “That poor woman hadn’t been one bit well, lately. Run along now, Djuna, if you want to—I’ve got some sewing to do, as soon as I finish cleaning.”

Djuna hesitated. Then he asked the question that had come into his mind when Captain Atterbury had told him how Captain Tubbs, Aunt Patty’s husband, had liked to collect birds’ eggs.

“Aunt Patty,” he said, “have you still got the birds’ eggs Captain Tubbs got?”

Aunt Patty looked startled. “Why, no!” she said. “He never kept any of ’em—he sold ’em to Doctor Holder, as fast as he got ’em.”

“Does he live here?” asked Djuna.

“Why, yes,” said Aunt Patty. “He’s the only doctor there is in this town. But he’s pretty old, now. He knew my mother and father before I was born. Of course, he was just a young man, then. Mother never had any children except me, and she always wanted a boy. So Doctor Holder was just like a son to them.
They
thought a heap of him.”

“Don’t
you
like him?” asked Djuna.

“I’ve got nothing against Doctor Holder,” said Aunt Patty, grimly. “He never liked my marrying Captain Tubbs, and neither did Captain Atterbury. But that’s all over and done with. I don’t hold it against either of ’em. Live and let live, that’s
my
motto.”

“Has Doctor Holder got all kinds of birds’ eggs?” asked Djuna, wonderingly.

“Why, I suppose so,” said Aunt Patty, beginning to sweep the room. “He used to.”

“Gee, I’d like to see them,” said Djuna. “Do you think he would show them to me?”

“I don’t know why not,” said Aunt Patty. “Why don’t you ask him? Take Billy along with you—he’ll show you where Doctor Holder lives.”

Djuna called Champ and they set off together for Billy’s house. They found Billy in his front yard. He was walking around and around in a circle on the grass, and every few feet he would yell, “Oops!” He was so busy doing this, he didn’t notice them until they got right up to him.

“What are you doing?” asked Djuna.

Billy turned around, startled. “Oh, hello,” he said. “I’m teaching Alberto how to jump through a hoop.”

“What for?” asked Djuna.

“Well, I thought maybe I could sell him to the circus,” said Billy. “If there was a circus came here, I’ll bet I could sell him.”

“
I
wouldn’t sell him,” said Djuna. “Not if he was
my
dog. But I’ll bet you could get a lot of money for him. Say, listen, do you know where Doctor Holder lives?”

“Sure,” said Billy. “Why?”

“Aunt Patty says he collects birds’ eggs,” said Djuna. “I thought maybe he’d let us look at them. Do you want to go over with me and ask him?”

“Sure,” said Billy. “But I’m not going to take Alberto. He’s all tired out. I guess I made him jump through the hoops a million times, I guess. Well, maybe not quite a million, but almost.”

Billy led the way across the village till they came to Doctor Holder’s house, and they rang the bell at the front door. Pretty soon Doctor Holder came to the door.

He was the oldest looking man Djuna had ever seen. He was tall and thin, his face was brown and wrinkled, and although he had no hair on top of his head, the hair at the back of his head was snow-white, and so long that it came down to his coat collar. But he smiled down at the boys and in a very kind voice asked them what they wanted.

“Could we please see your egg collection?” asked Billy.

“Come in, come in,” said the old gentleman, opening the door wider. “I’ll be glad to show it to you. I haven’t looked at them, myself, for years, but I guess they’re all here, still.”

He led the way across the hall into his office, a high-ceilinged room cluttered up with old furniture. Tall mahogany cabinets, with glass doors, stood against the wall, their shelves crowded with bottles of all sorts of medicine. His desk, an old-fashioned roll-topped desk of dark walnut, was heaped with letters and papers; and every pigeonhole was stuffed with papers. Bookcases, their shelves filled with hundreds of books, stood on each side of the fireplace; and near them was an old, but comfortable-looking, deep armchair, its leather much worn and tattered. In one corner stood a pile of flat wooden boxes; and the old man, shuffling over to them on his slippered feet, began to lift these boxes one by one and carry them over to a table by the window. The boys hurried forward to help him, but the old doctor motioned them to wait.

“I’d better do this myself,” he said. “I’ve never let anyone else touch them, some of these shells are so delicate that a touch might crush them. If I break one myself, then nobody else is to blame.”

A pane of glass, which had become coated thick with dust since the last time it had been touched, served as a lid for the first of the big flat boxes which Doctor Holder brought to the table. He lifted it off and propped it up against the wall.

“Now, let’s see what we have here,” he said, as the boys came to the table to peer into the open box.

Inside, the box was divided by thin strips of wood into twenty-four neat compartments, each one filled with soft cotton batting. Gently removing the cotton, Doctor Holder displayed the treasured eggs, while the boys exclaimed in admiration of them.

The robin, the song sparrow, the wood thrush, the woodpecker, the seagull—the eggs of each of these, and of a hundred other kinds of birds were cradled there in the boxes.

The first of the three boxes that Doctor Holder brought out contained the eggs of the smallest birds, such as sparrows and warblers. The second box held the eggs of medium-sized birds. The eggs in the third box were so big that there was room in the box for only nine of them.

“These are mostly eggs of different kinds of hawks,” said Doctor Holder. “This one, this pale bluish white one, is a marsh hawk’s egg. I happened to find the nest one day when I was out hunting. It was just a heap of twigs right on a dry spot of ground, in among the swamp grass. There were five eggs in the nest, but I took only this one.

“This next one, the big white one with the brown spots, is a hen hawk’s egg. The nest was at the top of a big pine tree. The farmer who brought it to me took all three eggs from the nest. He said he didn’t want any more hawks killing his chickens.

“And this white egg, the biggest one, is an eagle’s egg.”

Both boys looked at it excitedly. “An eagle’s egg!” they exclaimed in one breath.

Doctor Holder nodded his head sadly. “Yes,” he said, “and that egg cost a man his life.”

Djuna looked surprised. “But how did he get it?” he exclaimed. “Do you mean that’s the one that Mister Tubbs tried to get?”

Doctor Holder glanced at him sharply. “Oh, then you’ve heard that story, have you?” he asked. “Who told you about it?”

“Yes, sir, Captain Atterbury told me,” said Djuna. “But he said the eagles fought Mister Tubbs when he climbed up to the nest and made him fall off before he got the eggs.”

“That’s only partly right,” said Doctor Holder. “I was the first one to climb up to the nest, not Billy Tubbs. I was lucky enough to climb up there when both the birds were away. There were two eggs in the nest. I took this one, and came down safe. But I told Billy Tubbs, afterwards, that I had left one egg in the nest, and I’m sorry I did. He tried to get it, and he fell. Don’t you boys ever try a thing like that, it’s too dangerous. It’s a good thing that the eagles don’t nest in this neighborhood any more.”

“But we saw one!” cried both boys at once.

“What’s that?” said Doctor Holder. “Are you sure? Sure it wasn’t a hawk?”

“It was, too, an eagle!” exclaimed Billy hotly. “We saw it right up close!”

And both boys proceeded to tell the old gentleman just how they had seen the great bird flying over Haypenny Island and how it had perched on Eagle Rock, only a few feet away from them. Doctor Holder listened attentively, nodding his head as they described the bird, and when they had finished he agreed that it was certainly an eagle.

“Well, that was a bald eagle, and no mistake,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean that it has a nest anywhere near here. It may have flown from hundreds of miles away. It’s a rare sight, here. You boys have seen something that few others have seen, nowadays.”

He was about to put the glass lid back on the wooden tray holding the eggs, when Djuna asked him to wait.

“What kind of an egg is this one?” he asked, pointing at the largest of all the big eggs in the box. “Is that an ostrich egg, Doctor Holder?”

The old gentleman smiled. “Oh, no,” he said. “That’s nowhere near as big as an ostrich egg. If I had one, you’d see the difference. But it’s a very interesting specimen. That egg has traveled the whole way around the world. Aunt Patty’s father gave it to me. And he told me that his father brought it home from one of his long voyages, as a present for him, when he was a small boy. I imagine it must be almost a hundred years old. It’s really quite wonderful that it was never broken, in all these years.”

The boys stared at it. It was really a huge egg, almost three inches long. Its color was light brownish, like some hens’ eggs, but it had blotches of grayish and pale purple color here and there, and spots of light reddish brown, also. It was almost as thick as it was long.

“What kind of an egg is it?” repeated Djuna wonderingly.

Doctor Holder rubbed his bald head. “I really can’t remember,” he said slowly. “I’m sure Amos Greene must have told me, when he gave it to me, but that’s so long ago that I can’t remember. Dear me, this is really annoying!”

“Where did it come from?” asked Billy.

“Well, that I can’t be sure of, either,” said the old man, as he put the glass lid back on the box. “Amos’ father made very long voyages, you know. If I’m not mistaken, when he came home from that voyage he had sailed to China by way of Cape Horn and came back by way of the Cape of Good Hope. He might have stopped in Valparaiso, in Chile. There’s a big bird called the condor in the high mountains down there. Perhaps he bought the egg there. He stopped at San Francisco, too, I’m sure. And from California he sailed on to China. But I just can’t remember, for the life of me, where Captain Greene got that egg to bring home to his son. It might be a condor’s egg, but I’m not sure. Well, well, I’ll think of it, one of these days.”

When he had put the boxes back in the corner and dusted off his hands, the boys thanked him for showing them the collection, and Doctor Holder invited them to come again whenever they liked. As they were going toward the front door, Djuna began to smile.

“What’s so funny?” said Billy, noticing the smile.

“Oh, I just thought of a joke,” said Djuna. “If that big egg came from China, then it’s no wonder it never got broken, even if it is a hundred years old, because it’s really a china egg.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” said Billy, giggling. “That’s the worst joke I ever heard.”

“And if it was a china egg,” Djuna went on stubbornly, “then you could use it for a nest egg.”

Old Doctor Holder was just opening the door for them. He turned around and looked at Djuna in a very queer way.

“What’s that?” he said sharply. “What nest egg are you talking about?”

The boys were surprised by the way he spoke. “Why, I don’t know,” said Djuna. “We weren’t talking about a real one. We were just joking.”

“Just joking, hey?” said the old gentleman. “Well, a nest egg is nothing to joke about, let me tell you. You’ll find that out when you get older.”

Just then Champ, who had been impatiently waiting for them outdoors, rushed up and began telling them that it was long past his dinner time, so they started home with him.

When they got out of sight of Doctor Holder’s house, Djuna turned to Billy and said in an excited whisper:

“Did you see it?”

“See what?” said Billy.

“That egg!” exclaimed Djuna. “The one he couldn’t remember the name of!”

“Of course, I saw it,” said Billy, wonderingly. “What about it?”

“Didn’t it remind you of anything?” demanded Djuna. “Didn’t it make you think of something else?”

Billy pondered, and finally shook his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t know what you mean. What was funny about it?”

“Don’t you remember that handle I showed you?” asked Djuna. “That funny round stone with the bird claw carved on it? Don’t you remember?”

“Oh!” exclaimed Billy. “Oh, sure!” He began to look excited, too. “That’s right, it looked just like that egg! Say, you don’t suppose it could be the same thing, do you, with the claw taken off?”