September 2007

            The wind was blowing vigorously from the North, so the screams were easily carried right toward us.  Our attention was jolted quickly toward the hill as we sauntered casually along the dirt road past St. John's Corner.  We had slung the handles of our tin buckets over our arms as we set out early on this sunny, but breezy morning.  Birds were chirping, frogs in the bog were croaking and the monarchs were gliding smoothly from pollen source to pollen source.  Even the red-winged black birds were flitting from one cat tail to another.

            Our hair was being ruffled and fluffed by the brisk wind coming right down over the hill.  We could feel the coolness enough to make us button some of the buttons and pull our sweaters tighter around our bodies.

            Hannah Fitch had bolted out of the door of her solid frame hoe, jumped off the porch steps, and torn down the hill so rapidly we were amazed that she was able to keep her balance.  But she did.  And in just a brief moment she stopped right in front of us and her body swayed towards us as her feet clung to the pebbly soil.

            "Hello, hello", she shouted above the swishing wind which as pushing her longish hair right down over her face.  Quickly her left had reached up to clear the hair away so she could see us.   Even though we knew she was right handed, she couldn't use her right hand.  In that hand was a fairly good sized piece of paper, but this wasn't just any piece of paper.  One quick look identified it as a very old piece of paper.  The edges were a pale brown and looked as if several places along the border had simply dropped away with age.

            After Hannah Fitch got her hair pulled back, so she could see, she looked us straight in the eye and yelled, "I have the answer."

            We looked questioningly at one another.  What is she talking about, we wondered.

            She was our puzzled looks and smiled, probably because she felt she had put one over on us.  She knew something we didn't and knowing something which no one else knows about, makes all of us happy, doesn't it?  But, she could contain herself no longer.

            "Here it is.  Here is the answer to the question, "What's in the hole?"  Remember?  When you fell you knocked a rock out of place and lo and behold, there was a hole about 18 inches deep and 8 inches wide?  Remember?"

            "How could we ever forget?  I still have a scar on my left ankle from that darn rock.  That should make me remember, even if nothing else does."  But what is it, I thought.  What the heck is in that hole?

            Hannah held up the age charred paper and twirled it round and round above her head as the breeze almost yanked it from her hands.  Apparently forgetting her words of caution to us.

            "Come on, Hannah.  What is it?  come on, tell us."

            She pulled the paper back, right in front of her eyes, looked straight at it for a moment, and looked straight at us.

            "All right.  Let's go up on the porch.  It will be much easier for us to sit in the rockers, while I tell you the whole story; the mystery of the hole, in among the rocks, in the very farthest corner of my father's land."

            After we were comfortably settled in the rockers on the porch, Hannah began.  "Remember how dark and rainy it was here last Tuesday?  Well, my mother suggested that since we could not work in the garden or in our flower beds because of the storm, that it would be a good day to straighten out the boxes in the attic.  So we worked all morning and were just about to quit for our noon meal when mother picked up a small, brown box."

            "Here Hannah.  Look in here.  Sort it out and decide if there is anything we should keep."

            Hannah continued, "As I pulled on the cover , it flew open, and some papers and envelopes fell out on the wide plank floor.  Quickly I picked them up and put them back in the box.  Then I found a comfortable spot leaning up against an old cushion, and began to read.  Some were old bills, old postcards, and old notes.  Mother had gone downstairs to prepare the food.  I read and read and read.  My eyes were tiring.  Mother called.  I was just about to dump all of the paper and envelopes into an old basket to be thrown away.  As I stood up when I heard Mother's voice, one old paper fell down and landed right on my shoe.  I started to crumple it up to throw it in the basket.  I have absolutely no understanding of why my hands suddenly stopped crumpling and started smoothing the paper I had grabbed up off my shoe.  I started to read.  I felt like a frozen statue.  I couldn't move.  I just stood there as if I were stuck to that one spot.  I read and I read some more.  Then I reread it.  After three more readings, and my mother impatiently calling me several times, I felt as if a brilliant light had suddenly started to shine.  I could feel the heat right on my face.  Now I knew what I had been reading and I understood what it was all about."

            "Hannah, what was it?  Tell us?  Tell us?"

            "I won't tell you a thing.  Bus.....I will show you just what I have here in my hands. Be careful as you handle it because it is very old and crumbly.  Here, wait just a minute.  Let's lay it up here on this wide board on the porch railing so we can see it more easily."  Gently Hannah laid it down.  We were now on the south side of her house so the wind did not cause a problem.  We carefully moved closer so we wouldn't accidentally knock it off the railing. The words seemed to jump off the page right at us."

                                                                                            June 28, 1828

            To My Future, Loving Family Members,

                    I Jabez Fitch, being of sound mind and body, have decided that I will today, place my grandfather's large, gold watch in a strong canning jar with a tight glass lid.  This is the watch he gave me on my 10th birthday.  Because I want to be very sure that it will still be in my possession for my first grandson's 10th birthday, I am placing it in this strong enclosure and burying it on my property north of the home I built.  I will reclaim it when my grandson reaches his first decade.  May he protect it thus, so that his first grandson may know the joy of holding it in his hands, and the further joy of passing it along to a new generation of our strong, dedicated, hard-working Fitch family members.  May we always remain loyal to one another, to our families, and to our growing nation, so each of us may experience good heath, success, and happiness.  Signed Jabez Fitch.

        "Oh my gosh!  Oh my gosh!  What a letter!"

            We stood there as if lost in thought.  Suddenly, Hannah reached over and picked up the letter.

            "Hey, the best part is yet to come!  Come on!  Let's go!"

            Clutching the letter tightly in her right hand, Hannah raced along with us to the rocky place, way over at the very edge of the property.

            "Which stone is it?  Oh, I don't know!"  So......we began to move the stones, big and little.  I had completely forgotten the one where I had whacked my ankle.

            "Here it is!"  Hannah stood looking down into the hole.  The stones were all around our feet and the trees were heavily laden with leaves, so we stood in the shade.  It was too dark to see anything at all, way down in the hole.

            "I'll go and get our lantern."  Shortly she was back.  The light from the lantern did help a bit.  I lay on my stomach, after moving several big rocks, and reached down into the hole.  My arm was down in there almost up to my elbow.  Slowly I moved my fingers and felt around.

            "Ah Ha!  I feel something."  I closed my fingers and pulled.  Slowly, slowly my arm moved up.  My fingers were squeezed between the object in my hand and the closely packed sides of the hold.  One more pull.

            "Here it is!  Look!  A glass canning jar all stuck up with dirt, but with a very tight lid."

            "How do we get it open?"

            I pulled on the strong metal sealing the lid of the canning jar.  I pulled.  I pulled. It didn't budge.

            Suddenly a large shadow covered us and the hole.  We looked up.

            "Oh, Father,"  shouted Hannah.

            "You got here at just the right time.  Help us.  We can't get this open."

            He took it, looked for a minute and said, "Come on.  Let us go to my workshop."

            He pulled out several tools, tinkered a bit and then, "Wow, it's open."

            We peeked inside.  He slowly turned the jar upside down and carefully dumped the contents into his big, rugged, work-encrusted hand.

            There is was, Grandpa Giles Fitch's big, gold watch.  Hannah's father, Jabez, stood as if transfixed, said nothing, and then turned to show us, up close, the treasure he held in his hands.

            As he stood, there I am sure I saw several tears roll down his cheeks as he held the watch, almost as it if were a precious child.  He turned back to the bench where the canning jar lay and gently put the watch inside, securely replaced the cover, and without saying a word, picked up the jar and started to walk.   We followed.  Down the hill, around the curve, and way over to the farthest spot on the property we went.  The big stone was easy to see now.   He went over, put the jar way down in the hole, gave it an extra push to be sure it was all the way down , and pulled his hand out.  He pushed the loose dirt back into the hole, packed it down and added a bit more soil that he stomped smooth with his boots.  The rock was replaced.  He had done this so skillfully, it wasn't at all possible to tell which rock had been moved.

            Hannah and her father went back up to the house.  We grabbed our tin buckets and went on down the dirt road to the berry patch.  It as much warmer now, so fewer birds were chirping.  Large white, wispy clouds floated in front of the pure blue sky.  The frogs were quietly sun-bathing.  it was eerily quiet as we started dropping raspberries into our tine buckets one by one.

**Giles Fitch died in 1848 at 87 years old and is buried in St. John's Cemetery.  Col Jabez Fitch died in 1829 at 72 years old and is buried in Locust Grove Cemetery.