“I wanted to take home a handful of diamonds to Mary,” he said to himself. “How pleased she would be! Then we would all be rich. But I would give the handsomest diamond of all to Rose.”
Mr. Thornton was on the beach looking for them when they came in. He had been greatly worried because they had been gone so long; but he did not scold them when they told him what they had been doing.
“Tom thought that he had found Captain Kidd’s hiding-place, Papa,” said Kenneth wearily. “It looked just like the mound that Aunt Clare told us about; but there wasn’t any treasure at all, only some old stone things in a heap of shells.”
“Stone things in a shell-heap?” asked Mr. Thornton, pricking up his ears. “What do you mean by that?”
“We brought these home, Uncle Jack,” said Charlie, pulling out the stone things from under the seat of the dory.
“Hello! Some good Indian arrowheads and sinkers; a stone mortar for grinding corn; and this,—why! this is as fine an Indian plow as I ever saw. Which of you found this, boys?” cried Mr. Thornton excitedly.
“Tom found that,” said Kenneth without envy.
“Well, Tom, I must buy this of you. Boys, you have found a treasure indeed, though it is not the kind you were looking for. You must have come upon an Indian shell-mound, and I dare say there are still more things there to be discovered. But come now, you must be half starved. I know Mama and Aunt Clare are very anxious,—I dare say Tom’s mother is not the worrying kind. Let’s all go home and have some cold dinner. Then we will look at your treasures again. Tom, you ought to be proud of your morning’s work! I wish I had discovered that shell-mound myself!”
CHAPTER IX
THE BOX OF CANDY
ALTHOUGH the boys had been disappointed in the kind of treasure which they had found, the Indian relics proved a real treasure, after all. The next day Mr. Thornton went over to the island with them, and they brought back a few more stone things from the mound, but nothing so fine as Tom’s plow. However, Mr. Thornton said that there might be other interesting things there which they could dig up when they chose.