Michael didn’t answer. There was a whimsical smile on his tanned face as he stood watching Hamish clumsily manipulating the heavy shovel. After a few shovelsful of dirt had been piled in a heap on the grass with little to show for the effort except the steadily mounting color of Hamish’s face and the steam on his glasses, Michael offered, “Like me to take a hand?”
And still with that whimsical smile Michael set to work. And now the earth began to fly to some effect and the hole, which before had seemed to fill up almost as fast as the earth came out, now began to grow quite sizable. Hattie May stood at the very edge and watched each shovelful as it came out. I thought, “She’s going to be awfully let down if we don’t find anything.”
Five minutes went by—ten. Michael was breathing hard now, perspiration streaming down his face. “Better let me take it now,” Hamish said but the other shook his head.
Deeper and deeper. Finally Michael stopped to wipe his face. “If I was going to bury a blue emerald,” he remarked with a grin, “or even a green one, I wouldn’t bother to go much deeper than that!”
Hamish knelt down and thrust one of his lately manicured hands deep into the hole. “Feel anything?” his sister asked hopefully.
He shook his head. “It’s a washout,” he said disgustedly. “I don’t believe there ever was any bally old treasure!”
“Sure you got the measurements right?” Michael inquired with faint irony. The difference between his attitude and Hamish’s was that Hamish was in deadly earnest, while with Michael it was almost as if he was playing a game.
So perhaps it was only fair that it should be Hamish who was wielding the shovel when it finally did strike something. We all heard the impact. Hattie May screamed and began to jump up and down. Hamish dropped the shovel and dived, almost literally head first into the hole. “There goes his shampoo, too!” I thought.
“There—there’s something!” he gasped. “Some—something hard——!”
I giggled, I couldn’t help it. It was partly nervous excitement and partly the sense which had been with me all along of the ridiculousness of the whole proceeding. “That,” I said, “will be the iron bound chest full of doubloons and pieces of eight, no doubt!”