บทที่ บทที่ 2 · CHAPTER 2. DIGGING FOR TREASURE

. CHAPTER 2. DIGGING FOR TREASURE

I am afraid the last chapter was rather dull. It is always dull in books

when people talk and talk, and don’t do anything, but I was obliged to

put it in, or else you wouldn’t have understood all the rest. The best

part of books is when things are happening. That is the best part of

real things too. This is why I shall not tell you in this story about

all the days when nothing happened. You will not catch me saying, ‘thus

the sad days passed slowly by’--or ‘the years rolled on their weary

course’--or ‘time went on’--because it is silly; of course time goes

on--whether you say so or not. So I shall just tell you the nice,

interesting parts--and in between you will understand that we had our

meals and got up and went to bed, and dull things like that. It would be

sickening to write all that down, though of course it happens. I said

so to Albert-next-door’s uncle, who writes books, and he said, ‘Quite

right, that’s what we call selection, a necessity of true art.’ And he

is very clever indeed. So you see.

I have often thought that if the people who write books for children

knew a little more it would be better. I shall not tell you anything

about us except what I should like to know about if I was reading the

story and you were writing it. Albert’s uncle says I ought to have put

this in the preface, but I never read prefaces, and it is not much good

writing things just for people to skip. I wonder other authors have

never thought of this.

Well, when we had agreed to dig for treasure we all went down into the

cellar and lighted the gas. Oswald would have liked to dig there, but

it is stone flags. We looked among the old boxes and broken chairs and

fenders and empty bottles and things, and at last we found the spades we

had to dig in the sand with when we went to the seaside three years ago.

They are not silly, babyish, wooden spades, that split if you look at

them, but good iron, with a blue mark across the top of the iron part,

and yellow wooden handles. We wasted a little time getting them dusted,

because the girls wouldn’t dig with spades that had cobwebs on them.

Girls would never do for African explorers or anything like that, they

are too beastly particular.

It was no use doing the thing by halves. We marked out a sort of square

in the mouldy part of the garden, about three yards across, and began

to dig. But we found nothing except worms and stones--and the ground was

very hard.

So we thought we’d try another part of the garden, and we found a

place in the big round flower bed, where the ground was much softer. We

thought we’d make a smaller hole to begin with, and it was much better.

We dug and dug and dug, and it was jolly hard work! We got very hot

digging, but we found nothing.

Presently Albert-next-door looked over the wall. We do not like him very

much, but we let him play with us sometimes, because his father is dead,

and you must not be unkind to orphans, even if their mothers are

alive. Albert is always very tidy. He wears frilly collars and velvet

knickerbockers. I can’t think how he can bear to.

So we said, ‘Hallo!’

And he said, ‘What are you up to?’

‘We’re digging for treasure,’ said Alice; ‘an ancient parchment revealed

to us the place of concealment. Come over and help us. When we have

dug deep enough we shall find a great pot of red clay, full of gold and

precious jewels.’

Albert-next-door only sniggered and said, ‘What silly nonsense!’ He

cannot play properly at all. It is very strange, because he has a very

nice uncle. You see, Albert-next-door doesn’t care for reading, and he

has not read nearly so many books as we have, so he is very foolish and

ignorant, but it cannot be helped, and you just have to put up with it

when you want him to do anything. Besides, it is wrong to be angry with

people for not being so clever as you are yourself. It is not always

their faults.

So Oswald said, ‘Come and dig! Then you shall share the treasure when

we’ve found it.’

But he said, ‘I shan’t--I don’t like digging--and I’m just going in to

my tea.’

‘Come along and dig, there’s a good boy,’ Alice said. ‘You can use my

spade. It’s much the best--’

So he came along and dug, and when once he was over the wall we kept him

at it, and we worked as well, of course, and the hole got deep. Pincher

worked too--he is our dog and he is very good at digging. He digs for

rats in the dustbin sometimes, and gets very dirty. But we love our dog,

even when his face wants washing.

‘I expect we shall have to make a tunnel,’ Oswald said, ‘to reach the

rich treasure.’ So he jumped into the hole and began to dig at one side.

After that we took it in turns to dig at the tunnel, and Pincher was

most useful in scraping the earth out of the tunnel--he does it with

his back feet when you say ‘Rats!’ and he digs with his front ones, and

burrows with his nose as well.

At last the tunnel was nearly a yard long, and big enough to creep

along to find the treasure, if only it had been a bit longer. Now it was

Albert’s turn to go in and dig, but he funked it.

‘Take your turn like a man,’ said Oswald--nobody can say that Oswald

doesn’t take his turn like a man. But Albert wouldn’t. So we had to make

him, because it was only fair.

‘It’s quite easy,’ Alice said. ‘You just crawl in and dig with your

hands. Then when you come out we can scrape out what you’ve done, with

the spades. Come--be a man. You won’t notice it being dark in the tunnel

if you shut your eyes tight. We’ve all been in except Dora--and she

doesn’t like worms.’

‘I don’t like worms neither.’ Albert-next-door said this; but we

remembered how he had picked a fat red and black worm up in his fingers

and thrown it at Dora only the day before. So we put him in.

But he would not go in head first, the proper way, and dig with his

hands as we had done, and though Oswald was angry at the time, for he

hates snivellers, yet afterwards he owned that perhaps it was just

as well. You should never be afraid to own that perhaps you were

mistaken--but it is cowardly to do it unless you are quite sure you are

in the wrong.

‘Let me go in feet first,’ said Albert-next-door. ‘I’ll dig with my

boots--I will truly, honour bright.’

So we let him get in feet first--and he did it very slowly and at last

he was in, and only his head sticking out into the hole; and all the

rest of him in the tunnel.

‘Now dig with your boots,’ said Oswald; ‘and, Alice, do catch hold of

Pincher, he’ll be digging again in another minute, and perhaps it would

be uncomfortable for Albert if Pincher threw the mould into his eyes.’

You should always try to think of these little things. Thinking of other

people’s comfort makes them like you. Alice held Pincher, and we all

shouted, ‘Kick! dig with your feet, for all you’re worth!’

So Albert-next-door began to dig with his feet, and we stood on the

ground over him, waiting--and all in a minute the ground gave way, and

we tumbled together in a heap: and when we got up there was a little

shallow hollow where we had been standing, and Albert-next-door was

underneath, stuck quite fast, because the roof of the tunnel had tumbled

in on him. He is a horribly unlucky boy to have anything to do with.

It was dreadful the way he cried and screamed, though he had to own it

didn’t hurt, only it was rather heavy and he couldn’t move his legs. We

would have dug him out all right enough, in time, but he screamed so we

were afraid the police would come, so Dicky climbed over the wall, to

tell the cook there to tell Albert-next-door’s uncle he had been buried

by mistake, and to come and help dig him out.

Dicky was a long time gone. We wondered what had become of him, and all

the while the screaming went on and on, for we had taken the loose earth

off Albert’s face so that he could scream quite easily and comfortably.

Presently Dicky came back and Albert-next-door’s uncle came with him. He

has very long legs, and his hair is light and his face is brown. He has

been to sea, but now he writes books. I like him.

He told his nephew to stow it, so Albert did, and then he asked him if

he was hurt--and Albert had to say he wasn’t, for though he is a coward,

and very unlucky, he is not a liar like some boys are.

‘This promises to be a protracted if agreeable task,’ said

Albert-next-door’s uncle, rubbing his hands and looking at the hole with

Albert’s head in it. ‘I will get another spade,’ so he fetched the big

spade out of the next-door garden tool-shed, and began to dig his nephew

out.

‘Mind you keep very still,’ he said, ‘or I might chunk a bit out of you

with the spade.’ Then after a while he said--

‘I confess that I am not absolutely insensible to the dramatic interest

of the situation. My curiosity is excited. I own that I should like to

know how my nephew happened to be buried. But don’t tell me if you’d

rather not. I suppose no force was used?’

‘Only moral force,’ said Alice. They used to talk a lot about moral

force at the High School where she went, and in case you don’t know what

it means I’ll tell you that it is making people do what they don’t want

to, just by slanging them, or laughing at them, or promising them things

if they’re good.

‘Only moral force, eh?’ said Albert-next-door’s uncle. ‘Well?’

‘Well,’ Dora said, ‘I’m very sorry it happened to Albert--I’d rather it

had been one of us. It would have been my turn to go into the tunnel,

only I don’t like worms, so they let me off. You see we were digging for

treasure.’

‘Yes,’ said Alice, ‘and I think we were just coming to the underground

passage that leads to the secret hoard, when the tunnel fell in on

Albert. He _is_ so unlucky,’ and she sighed.

Then Albert-next-door began to scream again, and his uncle wiped his

face--his own face, not Albert’s--with his silk handkerchief, and then

he put it in his trousers pocket. It seems a strange place to put a

handkerchief, but he had his coat and waistcoat off and I suppose he

wanted the handkerchief handy. Digging is warm work.

He told Albert-next-door to drop it, or he wouldn’t proceed further

in the matter, so Albert stopped screaming, and presently his uncle

finished digging him out. Albert did look so funny, with his hair all

dusty and his velvet suit covered with mould and his face muddy with

earth and crying.

We all said how sorry we were, but he wouldn’t say a word back to us. He

was most awfully sick to think he’d been the one buried, when it might

just as well have been one of us. I felt myself that it was hard lines.

‘So you were digging for treasure,’ said Albert-next-door’s uncle,

wiping his face again with his handkerchief. ‘Well, I fear that your

chances of success are small. I have made a careful study of the whole

subject. What I don’t know about buried treasure is not worth knowing.

And I never knew more than one coin buried in any one garden--and that

is generally--Hullo--what’s that?’

He pointed to something shining in the hole he had just dragged Albert

out of. Oswald picked it up. It was a half-crown. We looked at each

other, speechless with surprise and delight, like in books.

‘Well, that’s lucky, at all events,’ said Albert-next-door’s uncle.

‘Let’s see, that’s fivepence each for you.’

‘It’s fourpence--something; I can’t do fractions,’ said Dicky; ‘there

are seven of us, you see.’

‘Oh, you count Albert as one of yourselves on this occasion, eh?’

‘Of course,’ said Alice; ‘and I say, he was buried after all. Why

shouldn’t we let him have the odd somethings, and we’ll have fourpence

each.’

We all agreed to do this, and told Albert-next-door we would bring his

share as soon as we could get the half-crown changed. He cheered up a

little at that, and his uncle wiped his face again--he did look hot--and

began to put on his coat and waistcoat.

When he had done it he stooped and picked up something. He held it up,

and you will hardly believe it, but it is quite true--it was another

half-crown!

‘To think that there should be two!’ he said; ‘in all my experience of

buried treasure I never heard of such a thing!’

I wish Albert-next-door’s uncle would come treasure-seeking with us

regularly; he must have very sharp eyes: for Dora says she was looking

just the minute before at the very place where the second half-crown was

picked up from, and _she_ never saw it.