STOLEN TREASURE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 854, 24 December 1929, Page 5

STOLEN TREASURE

Second Prize Story Pederkin dreamed where the flaming wattles sent long, cool shadows reaching out into the summer day. Only one old man in a million millions Is exquisite. Pederkin was. His short beard of silver silk that rested upon his breast was exquisite. His plump, smooth cheeks, so delicately pink and rounded, were exquisite and so were the curls that clustered beneath the velvet edge of his purple cap, and the snowdust of his brows. There was a sudden stirring in the green depths of the wattle and a bird soared heavenwards like a loosed arrow. Pederkin’s little plump hands moved. Blue eyes looked out beneath the snowdust, looked out at the weary face of a stranger who had appeared from nowhere just as the leaves stirred. He was jerking his thin body from one long foot to the other. He could not stand still, even his eyes were shifting —restless. “Look afraid, old man. look afraid!” he said in quick tones. “Why should I look afraid when I am not afraid,” Pederkin asked, softly. “I am never afraid.” “Then be afraid now,” ordered the stranger. “I have come to rob you.” Pederkin laughed. “There is no need to rob me. mischievous sir. There is silver if you want it beneath the fifth cabbage of the fifth row of the kitchen garden. I shall give it to you. Often have I wished to he rid of it, when neice Maria looks with silver in her eye and nephew Stephen speaks with silver on his tongue. I have no use for it.” “Silver!” cried the robber. “Silver for me? Oh no. It is not silver I want. You must give me your dreams—the dreams that come to you when you sleep here in the wattle shade. I know. I have watched.” “Have you none of your own?” asked Pederkin in surprise. “Would I desire yours if I had,” replied the robber, twisting his thin body in anger. “Poor thing, poor thing,” murmured the little old man. “Take them if you must. I have greater treasures than my dreams.” The robber capered with delight. He capered to the garden fence, and then right over it. No longer his eyes were weary and restless. No longer he jerked from foot to foot. He laughed—he danced —he sang—he was gone. It was morning . . . another morning . . . Pederkin walked with a stoop through the kitchen garden. He paused at the fifth row . . . He knelt beside the fifth cabbage. He felt greedily. His silver was there where he had placed it late in the last evening. He carired it through the summer day to the wattle shade and there he stayed—counting . . . counting. The young-old wind found him there and stirred the strands of his beard that was not so silver as before, and fanned the cheeks that were not so smooth as before, and raised the curls that were not so loose as before . . . and went sighing by. The wind knew the treasure of dreams and Pederkin went on counting . . . counting. . . . —Sighing Wind (Phyllis Fitz Gerald).