The Story of the Treasure Seekers | Page 6

should think we could
easily earn twenty pounds a week each. That would do us very well.
We'll try some of the other things first, and directly we have any money
we'll send for the sample and instructions. And I have another idea, but
I must think about it before I say.'

We all said, 'Out with it--what's the other idea?'
But Dicky said, 'No.' That is Dicky all over. He never will show you
anything he's making till it's quite finished, and the same with his
inmost thoughts. But he is pleased if you seem to want to know, so
Oswald said--
'Keep your silly old secret, then. Now, Dora, drive ahead. We've all
said except you.'
Then Dora jumped up and dropped the stocking and the thimble (it
rolled away, and we did not find it for days), and said--
'Let's try my way NOW. Besides, I'm the eldest, so it's only fair. Let's
dig for treasure. Not any tiresome divining-rod--but just plain digging.
People who dig for treasure always find it. And then we shall be rich
and we needn't try your ways at all. Some of them are rather difficult:
and I'm certain some of them are wrong--and we must always
remember that wrong things--'
But we told her to shut up and come on, and she did.
I couldn't help wondering as we went down to the garden, why Father
had never thought of digging there for treasure instead of going to his
beastly office every day.
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