There was a man who loved books. His wife and family would shake their heads when he would return from the yard sales on Saturdays with his latest acquisitions. They didn’t like to read. They didn’t see any value in such things. So the man would come home and find places for each and every precious find. The books filled all the book shelves, they also filled the attic and the stairs to the attic and every nook along the way. No one, other than the man, would so much as touch, let alone read, any of them.

He didn’t trust the banks after the crash of 1929. He took his pay and stored it in old coffee cans that he buried in the dirt floor of the garage. Year after year, he smiled and assured his wife that they had treasure to tide them over in their old age. One day the man didn’t wake up. The family did all that you do and he was buried with the others who had gone before him. Once he was laid to rest, they began to dig.

But they only found about half of what they expected. They smoothed out the garage floor and began to search everywhere for the money they knew should be there. They stayed up all night and got into fights over what was their share. They emptied the book shelves, fanning every page, hoping to see money fall. The longer they looked, the angrier they got until one cousin had had enough.

“I’m done” He said.

“I don’t care about the stupid money. He loved books and I’d like a few to remember him by, if that’s okay with all of you”.

They looked back and forth at each other and the books strewn all over the floor, even kicking one or two. A couple of the cousins sneer smiled. The assembled scavengers didn’t care about the books.

“You can have all of them for all I care” said the dead man’s wife.

“He just cluttered up the house with those silly things of his”.

The young man got some boxes and packed the books up carefully. He couldn’t take them all, so he just took the ones he had heard of but had never read. The family ignored him, thinking he was a bit tetched in the head. They went back to their labors looking for the pennies left by the dead. Never having any interest in books because they never read.

After a few days, the chosen books were unpacked. The young man couldn’t decide which one to read first. He opened each one and saw that they were signed by the authors. Some were quite old, some not. He began to really look at each book and wondered why there were so many first editions. He shrugged. He didn’t know much about books, but he had heard of Tom Sawyer and his adventures. He opened it and had to double check because it was signed by someone named Samuel L. Clemens, and that was not the name of the author.

As he followed along with Tom and Huck looking for buried treasure, he wondered what his uncle had meant when he said there was treasure in the house. The family never did find the money that was missing.