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"We need to build something."

Paulus shook his head. "Forget it. The sewing machine has been done. The washing machine has been done. As have the typewriter and the bicycle. A steam car would take a machine shop, which we cannot afford. It's already being worked on, anyway. Anything we can do that can be done, has been done. Sure, we can make wooden toy planes in the open shop time after school and sell them to Woody's so he can sell them by the gross but we won't get rich that way. We won't even make a good living at it.

"What is left will take lots of money. We do not have a room full of dolls or a garage full of plastic bottles to sell and no one is going to lend us large amounts of money. So even if you come up with the next great invention we cannot build it anyway."

Peter sighed. He knew Paulus was right. It just didn't seem fair. All summer, and every weekend now that school was in session, he pushed a food cart around town selling ice cream sandwiches. Shortly, when the weather got cold, the company would go back to selling hot food. The man he worked for was only a few years older than he, and the guy had been plucking chickens down at the market until he started making dumplings. Now he was rich. "Surely we can come up with some way to make a fortune."

"Peter," Paulus countered, "I didn't say we couldn't. All I said was that if it's easy or obvious, it's already been done. The only people in Grantville who aren't trying to get rich already are rich. There are so many students wanting to take the business program they have to have more than one class, and every student in there is dreaming of getting rich."

"Not everybody," Ebert chirped. "Some people are just trying to save enough money to go home."

"Shut up, Ebert." Paulus said.

Peter knew what Paulus' kid brother was talking about. If their father had the money to go home and open a cobbler's shop, he'd do it. Even knowing he couldn't compete with the shoes in the catalog and would go broke eventually, he would still try it. He was a cobbler and that was the life he knew.

Peter also knew he didn't have room to talk. If his own father had the money they would go back to the village and farm. When they fled, and the village was looted and burned, his dad shared a half-farm with his uncle, so they had a quarter-farm, and did a bit of blacksmithing on the side. Right now his uncle was farming the whole half-farm and doing all the smithing the village needed and he was just getting by.

Papa dreamed of having the money to lease a whole farm. There were two still idle in the village. But it would take a lot to get started and the landlord wouldn't provide any help.

Peter nodded. "I don't want to go home and farm. That's no way to get rich. It's not even a good way to make a living." He paused. "We need something. Shoveling snow is not going to get-er-done." Two winters ago clearing sidewalks had been a big deal and seemed like a lot of money at the time.

Ludwig looked up from his lunch. "What we have got to do is figure out what is being overlooked. What do we see that no one else has thought of yet?"

"Well, what ever it is it has to be something that doesn't take a lot of money to get started," Paulus said.

Peter scooped the last of his cold soup out of the plastic bowl, put the lid back on tight to keep the dribbles from leaking out, and put it back into his lunch pail. A bowl of soup and a heel of bread was lunch five days a week when there was leftover soup. Otherwise lunch was just the bread, even though the school served a good lunch menu at a very good price. They actually sold lunch for less than it cost to make, but it still wasn't in the family's budget. "The people making paper bowls are getting rich. The guy who is steaming horn in a pressure cooker and using a press to make fake plastic spoons is getting rich, even if he isn't passing them off as being up-time plastic any more." He put the lid back on his lunch bucket. "The tinkers aren't getting rich but they are making a good living. It's too bad we can't make paper bags."

"Yeah!" Ludwig replied.

Paulus mumbled around his apple. "Paper bags, paper bowls, plastic spoons, plastic bottles . . . they had so much money they could throw it away."

"I wish we could go to a dump and dig them up," quiet little Ebert, Paulus' kid brother, squeaked.

Peter looked at Ebert, the youngest of the gang of four and probably the brightest. He was studying over his age level. "Ebert, you're a genius. Sometimes. But there isn't a dump in Grantville. I've heard a bunch of up-timers complain about that. Besides, my brother worked with the Garbage Guys for awhile, before he joined the army. Less and less is getting put in the trash cans and what is, is all getting sorted and recycled now."

"Hey, didn't Hermann say there used to be a coal mine on the farm where his family works?" Paulus asked.

Ludwig got excited. "Yeah! He said when the coal ran out they started using it for a dump. But it isn't very big."

"Right, and you know good and well Hermann isn't about to share it with us," Peter answered.

Ludwig slumped. "Yeah." Then his eyes got big. "That's it. That is what we know that everyone else is overlooking. Do you remember that abandoned mine we found when we were looking for mushrooms? What if it got used as a dump?"

"Old mines are dangerous," Peter said. They had a lecture about it in class once. The point being that they should stay out.

"Yeah, they can blow up if you light a candle," Ebert said.

"So?" Ludwig reasoned. "We take a flash light. There is one at the house. It needs new batteries but we can afford to buy them. There's rope in the garage. We can go out there Saturday."

"What do you need a rope for?" Ebert asked. "You might want a shovel, though."

Peter answered, "A rope might come in handy, and a shovel is a good idea." Peter pictured the spot in a ravine on a hillside, near one of the high edges of the Ring Wall, where an opening to a closed dog mine had been exposed. There was a spring farther up the hill and there had once been a small dam for some reason. When it gave way, from neglect, the flash flood had wallowed out the ravine and washed away enough of the dirt covering the opening to the mine so the boys could wiggle through. They knew it was a coal mine. The short shaft was small. It was supported with timbers. But the sunlight did not penetrate very far. Before they'd had a chance to go back with candles for a second look, the lecture on safety warned them off. Now, though, they weren't going just for the fun of it. Now, there might be a fortune in up-time trash down there. Now was different.

"I've got to work Saturday," Peter said. He was the oldest of the crew. He was also the farthest behind in school. This didn't stop him from being the leader of the pack. "I'll buy the batteries. That will cover my share. Then if you find anything I can quit my job and we can go to work for ourselves."

****

Peter pushed the ice cream cart up the hill to the garage attached to the caterer's kitchen. It had been a long day and he was tired. He could see his friends waiting for him at one of the picnic tables in the side lot next to the kitchen. When they saw him, Ludwig stayed with the backpacks on the table. The others hurried down the hill to help him. He really didn't need help, but they were excited and in a rush.

"You found something," Peter said. It wasn't a question. There was no need to ask. Their body language was screaming loud and clear.

Ebert looked at Paulus and giggled. "Some glass jars."

"Shush," Paulus said, glaring at his younger brother.

"Glass?" Peter asked, disappointed. Of the up-time relics, glass bottles were the least marketable.

"You'll like these," Paulus said. "You've seen the big half-gallon canning jars with metal rings and lids, right?"

Peter perked up. Canning jars were worth more than old bottles, especially if they still had a useable lid. "How many?"

Ebert giggled again. "Four hundred."

"Ebert, shut up!" Paulus hissed.

Now Peter knew why they were excited. Or at least, he thought he knew. "What can we get per jar from Old Solomon?"

Ebert giggled again.

Before he could say a word, Paulus said, "I said, shut up Ebert. We don't know what he will give us for them, Peter. I don't think we want to sell them to Solomon."

"Why not? Of all the relic buyers in town, Solomon pays the best price for junk."

"This is a bit outside of his field." Paulus said. "You'll see. Let's get you checked in and then we can talk about it."

****

At the house, where their families each had a sleeping-room with privileges—they shared the kitchen, bathroom, living and dining rooms—the boys retreated to the tree house in the back yard. The shared residence had brought them together. All three of their fathers worked in the coal mine and dreamed of returning to a past that was gone forever. The boys had a different dream. Ebert's tote was handed up and the rest of the baggage was left on the ground.

"Okay, let's see it," a very excited Peter demanded.

Ebert lifted a jar out. It was full of mushrooms.

"Mushrooms?" Peter asked.

"Hey," Ebert said, "My mother likes them."

Paulus stuck his hand in the bag. "There were a few growing down there, so Ebert brought them home. That's not important. There was a slight breeze when we first got in, so we followed it and found a place where we could see daylight. We couldn't stand up and the sides, they looked caved in. The beams holding the roof up didn't look too good, either. There was a streak of light twenty or thirty feet long and no more than a foot or so wide, but there was a drop off. So we tied the rope to Ebert and he squirmed out to the edge. Good thing we did too, because the lip gave away and we had to pull him back."

"Yeah, and it was long way down too," Ebert chipped in.

Paulus continued, "So we went back to where there was an electrical line."

"That should be worth something," Peter said.

"We would have brought the wire but we found something better."

Well, we can get it later, I guess."

"Yeah, anyway, we followed the wire. You can stand up doing that. And the worst of the beams looked like they'd been replaced and the floor was mostly clear. So we followed the line to see where it went and to make sure nobody owned it. Scavenging is okay, but we're not thieves."

The boys nodded.

"The tunnel ended in daylight, high over the lake. So we followed it back the other way and more wire went down a side tunnel. There was a lot of new wood holding the roof up and we found where the wire was going."

"Yeah," Ebert butted in. "And there was buried water hose that went back to where we came in."

"Ebert . . ." Paulus voice was full of annoyance. "We think that's where it went," Paulus said, squashing his little brother's enthusiasm. "We didn't dig it up all the way, but it looked like that was where it was going.

He pulled out a second half-gallon canning jar with a half burnt stick in it, which didn't account for the weight. At a second glance, Peter could see it was full of a nearly clear liquid.

"Is that . . . ?" Peter let the question hang unfinished.

Three heads nodded.

"It was in the mine?"

Again three heads nodded. "Along with four hundred others, just like it, all stacked in boxes!" Ebert volunteered. "And that's the full ones. There are hundreds more empty ones."

Paulus saw the question in Peter's eyes and nodded a confirmation of Ebert's statement.

"We are rich." Ebert giggled.

"But it belongs to someone," Peter objected.

"I don't think anyone knows it's there. Everything was covered in dust or bat droppings. There were no footprints at all. Well, no people prints anyway.

"There were overhead lights and an electric range like the old one that was out in the garage before the landlord hauled it off for scrap when he rented the garage out for storage. There is a big copper still, sitting on all four burners. But the first thing we saw was over a dozen dried-out old beer barrels.

"Whoever it belonged to was left up-time, Peter. This batch has been sitting there for at least four years now. We've found it; I figure it's ours."

Ludwig and Ebert were both nodding like bobble heads.

Peter thought it over. "Let's take this one down to the Gardens and ask what it's worth."

"Why not?" Peter asked.

****

At the back door to Grantville's most popular bar, the boys asked to speak to the manager.

"What about?" a cook asked.

"Whiskey." Ebert giggled.

"He won't sell it to kids," the cook said. "Beer is one thing, hard stuff, though, will get the up-time crazy women picketing the place."

"We want him to buy it, not sell it," Peter said.

"He's got a regular supplier. He don't need something you kids have cooked up. Try across the street."

****

At the back door to Club 250, Julio yelled, "You kids get out of here. You don't need to be hanging around."

"We want to talk to the manager," Peter said.

"Yeah, well he don't want to talk to you," Julio growled.

"Yes, he does." Peter lifted the jar out of the tote.

"Get los—" Julio stopped in mid-word. "You boys wait right there. I'll get Ken."

****

Ken looked up when Julio stepped in from the backroom without a load of glasses.

"Ken, I'll cover the bar. You need to talk to some boys at the back door."

"Julio, you know I don't sell out the back door, especially to kids. You want to get us shut down?" Ken shuddered. "Remember the League of Women Voters? Damn, those broads are scary."

"You do remember old man McAdams, don't you." It wasn't a question. Old Jack died in a car crash caused by a heart attack, or a heart attack caused by a car wreck. Either way, it happened years ago. "His property taxes were due so he was raising some cash money. The trunk of his car was full of moonshine he was carrying into Pittsburg."

Ken nodded. "How could I forget?"

"You remember how he sold it in half-gallon canning jars with a toasted piece of oak so it would taste like it was aged in barrels." Again, it was not a question.

Ken looked a bit dreamy. "Oh, yes."

"Well the boys you need to talk to just showed me what I think is one of McAdams' jars."

Ken's eyes widened just a hair. Running a rowdy bar takes a good poker face.

"Nobody ever did find where he kept his still," Julio said. "I'll cover the bar. You go talk to the kids."

Ken handed Julio the bar towel. "If you're right and someone has found Jack McAdams' stash, anything they found has to be over ten years old. McAdams was the best. Pure corn liquor, no sugar, or other grains."

McAdams, Ken knew, didn't even use brewer's yeast, just corn malt, corn, and spring water. Jack was one of the old-timers who appreciated the art, took pride in his craftsmanship, and usually only sold his product to people he knew. Other bootleggers bought his stock when they wanted something to drink and weren't about to drink their own product. If someone had turned up the fabled lost McAdams' stash, Ken's financial salvation might be to hand.

The bar was falling on hard times. His customer base kept shrinking as people moved away or left with the army or got too cozy with the locals and did their drinking elsewhere. Ken was hanging on, but pretty soon he was going to have to open the private club up to the general public Yes, that meant letting krauts drink in Club 250. If they would come, considering everything. Like his son and that kraut girl. And that whole business with Dreeson. Ken was going to have to do it, though, or go out of business.

But having the only supply around of aged corn liquor would make a difference. It might even bring in enough business to make enough of a difference to stay open without compromising too much. Ken hoped so. His wife was hinting that he really should shut down and let her turn the club into a beauty parlor since she had more business than she could handle running it out of the front room of their home.

****

Ken looked at the jar. It sure looked like what McAdams used to sell. A two-quart canning jar with a one by four inch charred oak stick floating in it. That was practically McAdams' trademark. Best of all, the stick wasn't floating at the top like it would if this was newly made liquor. Old Jack didn't sell it until the stick was floating free without touching the top. This stick was touching the bottom. He held it up to the late sunlight. It wasn't water clear, new white lighting. It was the slightly amber shade of charcoal-aged whisky.

"Can I taste it?" Ken asked.

"Are you going to buy it?" one of the boys countered.

"If it is what I think it is, yeah, I'm going to buy it."

"Sure, go ahead."

Ken twisted the top off, sniffed the contents like it was brandy, then took a sip. He rolled it over his tongue, then closed his eyes. He could feel the smile on his face, and took a long hit. It went down as smooth as . . . in his mind he could hear old Jack's voice . . . "as smooth as a baby's bottom on wash day."

"Where did you get this, boys?"

"We found it."

"Where?"

The boy shrugged.

"How much do you have?"

"We've got four more."

"Kid, let's cut the bullshit. If you can get more of these—" He held up the jar. "—then, I know who made this." Ken could see the boys looking at each other and getting ready to run. He took another sip. Ten-year-old McAdams corn liquor was just plain good.

"Now he's dead and gone and ain't none of his kin in town. All the kids and grand kids moved off to Detroit years and years ago. The old home place wasn't much and the family sold it off after Jack died. It was over the line anyway, so it stayed up-time.

"If I didn't have this in my hands, and someone claimed to have found it, I wouldn't have believed them. It's a local legend, like the lost Dutchman's gold mine, but you wouldn't know about that. I can tell you this much, I can't count the number of people over the years who've gone looking for it. Some of them were cops, and some of them were moon shiners. The cops generally swear up and down that it doesn't exist. The shiners claim it was hidden by the devil himself. There's even supposed to be a map. But I always figured it was a fake. Jack sure didn't need it. So, if you found it, good for you. As far as I'm concerned it's yours."

The boys relaxed.

"Now, I don't know how you found it, but if you didn't find over a hundred of these, then keep looking because there's at least that many, probably more. Maybe a lot more. And I want every last one of them." Ken named a price and hid his smile while the young men's eyes tried to pop out of their faces and swallow their heads.

"That price is good for all you can find." Ken paused. "But only if you promise not to sell any of it anywhere else. I'm paying top dollar. I don't need this turning up with the competition. Do we have a deal?" Ken stuck out his hand.

The oldest-looking boy shook on it, then turned to the youngest ones. "Go get the other six."

The two younger boys left at a dead run.

Ken caught the discrepancy. "Six? I thought you said you only had four."

"We wanted the other two to shop around. But you're going to buy them all so we don't need to keep a sample."

Ken smiled at the boy, took another sip, fished the charcoal stick out of the jar and put the lid on. "Good." That one word described the moonshine he just bought, the deal he just made, and his opinion of the kid he'd just made it with.

****

After they delivered six jars to Ken and pocketed the money, Peter got in touch with Friedrich to cover for him with the ice cream cart. Then they went shopping and bought two big backpacks, one for Peter and one for Paulus. Ebert inherited his brother's old one.

Sunday morning, dark and early, Paulus and Ebert stirred about.

"Where are you two getting off to?" their mother asked. "It's Sunday." Meaning they needed to go to mass as a family.

"We went last night, Momma," Paulus said.

"Well, you still haven't said where you're going."

"Back to where we found the mushrooms, Momma. I want to see if we can find any more," Ebert answered.

"Let them go," their father said. "If they went to mass last night, then it's all right."

****

When they brought in the second load from the hidden cave, the Club 250 was open, so they stopped there instead of taking it to the tree house, like they had the first trip. Ken counted forty jars, which was all they could get in the backpacks. At somewhere close to five pounds a jar, it was a brutal load to be humping up and down the steep West Virginian hillsides. "Let me get you the money," he said.

"Why don't you wait until the end of the day?" Peter suggested. "I don't want to carry the money around."

"I can do that."

****

At the end of the day, with the fifth trip behind them and the light of day fully spent, they had delivered a hundred and sixty jars. The first forty were still in the tree house, it was nine o'clock at night and the lads were dragging. For twelve hours they had argued and dreamed, schemed and planned, discussed and priced one option after another. Through the long day of debate over how to spend the money; no one said a word about stopping. It was more money than they knew what to do with, more money than they had dreamed of having. They wanted the golden liquid out of the mine where it belonged to anyone who found it, and safely turned into hard cold cash.

With the last of the bottles counted, Ken said, "You're calling it a night, right?" It wasn't really a question. He could see they were beat and while he didn't know where they were going, other than the fact it wasn't much less than a three-hour round trip, he was worried about them trying to hike up and down the hills in the dark. "Let me write you a check. I don't have this much cash on hand."

****

On Monday right at twelve noon the pack train was back. It was their second trip of the day. Now there were eighty jars in the tree house. "What are you kids doing?" Ken demanded. "It's Monday. You're supposed to be in school."

"Yeah, but if the treasure is ours because we found it, then it could belong to anyone else who finds it before we get it out."

Ken couldn't argue with the logic. Still he had visions of the cops complaining that he was contributing to truancy. "How much more do you have to go?" Ken asked.

"There's not quite a hundred more full jars," Ebert volunteered. "We figure to ...