Part 3 (1/2)
”Billy, think how silly of you to think that place is under the ground.
Think how men dig wells and mines, and things, and nothing ever happens, unless they cave in, or something like that, which doesn't count,” said Cricket, skipping and dancing on, as usual, while Billy shambled along by her side. ”I'm just ashamed of you.”
Billy looked crushed.
”I s'pose I'm a silly boy,” he said, meekly, for the poor old fellow was never anything but a boy in his own eyes. ”See here, don't say nothin'
to Mis' Maxwell, will you?” he added, anxiously.
Just then the children, who still stood, frightened yet curious, by the hole, caught sight of them coming. They both made a wild rush and caught Cricket's hands.
”I'm so 'fraid, Cricket,” half sobbed Helen. ”Zaidee digged for the Bad Place and we've most found it, and there's a feather of Mr. Satam's head, sticking right up, and I'm 'fraid he may bounce up and get us.”
Cricket doubled up with laughter.
”Oh, you silly children! You're thinking of a red Indian, I guess.
That's nothing but some bird's feather. If you dug long enough, you'd come to China, that's all.”
”But it got so hot, Cricket,” insisted Zaidee, ”an' Billy says it's awfully hot there.”
”'Course it's hot when you dig down, because the centre of the earth is all burning up, you know, but I don't think you'll get far enough to get scorched any. You're silly children, any way,” finished Cricket, with a very elder-sisterly air.
Nevertheless, Helen did not feel secure until Cricket had jumped into the hole and pulled up the feather, triumphantly.
”Now I'm going to dig myself,” with a deep-laid purpose in her mind, ”and you may dig, too. You start another hole, right here. I'll dig this big one out more, and I'll be an incubus”--meaning n.o.body knows what--”and live in it, and you be little crabs trying to get out of my way in these holes of yours.”
The children, quite rea.s.sured now as to the safety of their pet amus.e.m.e.nt, dug away merrily, while Billy, like an amiable Turk, sat cross-legged near by.
The s.h.i.+fting stretches of sand changed their shape year by year with the wind and rain, and Cricket had no definite idea of the exact locality of the spot where mamma and auntie had buried their money-bags, thirty years before. She enlarged the hole the children had begun, till it was quite an excavation, carrying on her game of ”incubus” with the children all the time. At last she concluded to sit down and rest. She planted herself in the bottom of the hole, with her curly crop not visible above the top of it. She pulled up her sleeve, plunging her hand idly in the dry, cool sand, till her arm was buried far above the elbow. Then her hand struck a resisting object.
”Oh, _oh_!” she shrieked, immediately, not daring to move her hand lest she should lose the object, which _might_ prove what she was searching for. It was too large to bring up through the weight of sand.
”Come here, Zaidee, quick,” she cried. ”Dig me out. Dig out my arm, quick.”
Helen looked fearfully into the hole, then set up a shriek in her turn.
”Mr. Satam's got Cricket's hand, and he's holding her down. Pull, pull, Zaidee,” and the child began tugging at Cricket's nearest shoulder, which she could reach without committing herself to the dreadful possibilities of that hole. Zaidee instantly jumped in, however, and, screaming, herself, added her small strength to pull up Cricket's arm, while Billy, startled by this sudden hubbub, ran distractedly from side to side, trying to find something to pull, likewise adding his peculiar ”Hi! Hi!” his expression of great excitement. Cricket laughed so at the general uproar that she could not explain.
”Oh, children,” she managed to cry at last. ”Stop pulling the sockets out of my arms--I mean the arms out of my sockets. Goodness, Zaidee, how you pinch! There isn't anybody down there, but I've got hold of something and I don't want to lose it. Just dig down around my arm, that's all. Stop crying, Helen. That's a good girl, Zaidee.” And so in a few minutes, by their united exertions, a hole was sc.r.a.ped around Cricket's arm, and she could bring up the object she was grasping.
”What is it?” cried the excited little twins. Cricket plunged both hands under the object, and, if you'll believe me, she actually brought up a little buckskin money-bag.
”Hoo-ray!” she shrieked, wild with delight at her discovery. ”It's mamma's bag, children, that she planted ever so long ago, when she was a little girl. There's money in it.”
The bag, indeed, had been perfectly preserved all these years in the sand. The sand-banks there were too high to be ever overflowed by the tides, and were very dry, even to the depth of many feet. But the string fell to pieces in Cricket's eager hands as she tried to unfasten it, and the pennies and dimes came to view.
A few minutes later, the young woman, breathless and excited, flew up the walk, with the twins toiling on behind. Auntie Jean and grandma were sitting on the porch, when suddenly a shower of dull-looking coins fell into auntie's blue lawn lap.
”I've found it!” Cricket cried, triumphantly. ”Knew I would. Won't I laugh at those girls now!”