“We played ‘Buried Treasure’ last summer,” said Rose. “Aunt Clare showed me how. It is a very good game for a sandy beach, and I found ten cents.”
“Oh!” cried Susan Prout eagerly. Ten cents seemed to her a great deal of money.
“Pooh!” said Kenneth. “That was a silly game. We will go and find real treasure,—gold and jewels and things like that. And we will be rich as anything.”
“Hurrah!” shouted Tom. Bill and Bob echoed, “Hurrah!”
“First we’ll form a pirate band,” went on Kenneth. “Now there are so many of us it will be jolly to play pirate. I’ll be Bloody Dick. Tom, you can be Slippery Joe. We will think up names for all the little ones,—and for the girls, too. The girls will have to play so that we can have a good big band.”
“Of course we shall play!” said Rose stoutly. “We shall be the best pirates of all, shan’t we, Mary?”
And Mary said, “Perhaps, when we know how.”
“I say, Tom, you know where the pirate cave is, don’t you?” asked Kenneth.
“You mean the cave down by Black Rock?” asked Tom. “We don’t call it that, though. We call it just ‘The Oven.’”
“Pirate Cave is a much better name,” said Kenneth. “Well, Mama says that we can have a picnic there some day. We children will all be pirates, and the cave is our den. Papa and Mama and the baby will be just ordinary sailors with a treasure,—that’s the luncheon, of course. And we will capture them and take them to the cave. Then we will have the picnic. Won’t that be fine?”