"What does he do, Mitchie?"
"He's a preacher."
The revivalist was stunned, and he looked at Mitch and kind of started to get away from him. Then Mitch says: "My pa debated baptism with another preacher last winter and beat him. I believe in sprinklin'. I've been sprinkled, and I will let it stay that way until I'm convinced."
Then the revivalist says: "Take your chance, my little friend," and went away. The meeting ended and we went home. To-morrow was Saturday, and we were going to dig for treasure.
CHAPTER IV
Mitch and I had dug under pretty near every dead limb in Montgomery's woods and hadn't found a trace of any treasure. We began in April when the winds sang as they did in March. There were blackbirds around then and that bird that sings "spring day." Mitch's father knew the names of all the birds; but outside of crows, robins, jay-birds and things like that we didn't know 'em—neither Mitch nor I. We didn't care, for what's the use of knowing names of things? You can't pronounce 'em anyway, and I've noticed people get queer studying such things, like Homer Jones who gathered weeds and flowers and pinned long names on 'em.
When we began to dig, the sap was flowing out of the maple trees. And once George Montgomery saw us digging. He had come over to empty his buckets of sap to make some maple sugar. And he said, "What are you boys doing?" and laughed and said—"Don't bother my buckets. If you want a taste of sap take it, but don't get the buckets askew so they will spill."
Mitch called back to him, "What do you say, George, if we find a tea-kettle of money buried here sommers, buried by old Nancy Allen?" And George said, "Take it along—but you'll dig the whole world up before you do."