The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree

“Well, then,” Lizzy said, “if there’s no other business, the chair will entertain a motion to adjourn, so we can go out front and plant our sign.” Zeke still hadn’t gotten around to it.

A few moments later, they were all gathered out front. Bessie brought a shovel. Lizzy had her Kodak. Beulah and Verna placed the sign where it was supposed to go, and marked the spots where Bessie could dig the holes. Everybody else stood around and offered suggestions and encouragement as Bessie began to dig.

“Well, that was easy enough,” Bessie said, when the first hole was completed. She had dug about eighteen inches down. She handed the shovel to Lizzy. “Your turn, Liz.”

“Sure,” Lizzy said, and gave her Kodak to Verna to hold. She pushed the point of the shovel into the dirt, then cut out a small circle of turf. That done, she began to dig the hole, dumping the dirt off to the side. The job went easily until her shovel struck something. She put her foot on the shovel and pushed harder. It didn’t budge.

“A rock,” Alice Ann suggested.

“Doesn’t feel like a rock,” Lizzy said. “It’s a root, I think.”

“Probably a cucumber tree root,” Bessie said fondly, looking up at the tree overhead.

“Magnolia acuminata,” Miss Rogers corrected.

Lizzy got down and began to pull the dirt out with her hands. “Yes, it’s a root. Must be huge.”

“Oh, dear,” Beulah said distractedly. “Will we have to put the sign somewhere else?”

“Maybe,” Lizzy said, still digging. “Or maybe—” She looked up. “I don’t think it is a root, after all. It looks like a box. A wooden box.”

“A box?” the Dahlias exclaimed, in unison.

And that’s what it was. The hole had to be enlarged, which required quite a bit more digging. Verna took over from Lizzy and Mildred Kilgore took over from Verna, and by the time Mildred handed the shovel over to Earlynne, they were nearly ready to lift it out. It was square, about two feet by two feet, and about eighteen inches deep.

A few moments later, the box, rotten and splintering, was sitting on the grass. Eager hands were opening it—carefully, for it was obviously very old. And when the lid was lifted, there was a collective chorus of awed ohs and ahs.

“Why, it’s the Cartwright silver!” Bessie cried in great excitement.

That’s exactly what it was: a set of thirty-six place settings of sterling silver flatware, Gorham’s Chantilly pattern, engraved with an ornate C. It was stained black from nearly seven decades underground but otherwise undamaged. And when they began to look more carefully, they found several pieces of old-fashioned jewelry—a bracelet set with a square-cut emerald, a pair of pearl earrings, and a small diamond ring—and a bag of twenty-dollar gold coins. Ten gold coins. Two hundred dollars’ worth of double eagles, still as perfect as the day they were minted, in 1852.

“Yankee money,” Earlynne Biddle said, and sniffed. Earlynne’s mother had been a charter member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and Earlynne had inherited her distaste for all things Yankee—even money.

“It’s Cornelia’s legacy,” Bessie said in a reverential tone. “Right where she said it was. Under the cucumber tree.”

“It’s Magnolia acuminata,” Miss Rogers said sharply.

“It’s our roof,” Aunt Hetty Little said happily. “Glory be, it’s our roof!”





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