“Perhaps he intended it as a quiet hint to show those who were in a hurry to get rich the true source of wealth. The plough is that, you know; so the copy-books all say, at any rate.”
“Well, I’m glad we’ve got even this. It makes archæologists of us. We’ll make it a present to the Museum, The doctor’ll be delighted. Perhaps he’ll give us an extra holiday. Every scale of rust will be precious in his eyes; and he’ll paste a nice label on it, with all our names immortalized, and the date of the discovery. It will be the chief treasure of the Museum. Where’ll David Diggs’s crystal be, or Billymack’s moss agate, or Jiggins’s petrifactions, beside our plough?”
“I wonder if we couldn’t find something else, so as to make a handsome thing out of it. An old rusty nail would be better than nothing.”
“That’s a capital idea,” cried Bruce, seizing his pickaxe again. “Never say die, boys. We’ll go back covered with glory, after all, and our names will be handed down to future generations of boys yet to come to the old place.”
Saying this, Bruce began working away once more with his pickaxe; and the others, excited by this new idea, and the prospect of gaining some kind of a reward for all their toil, took their shovels again, and waited till Bruce should loosen the earth sufficiently for them to dig it.
At length this was done, and they began to shovel it out. They had not worked five minutes before Tom cried,—
“Hallo! here’s something, at any rate.”
Saying this, he stooped down and picked something out of the ground, which he showed the boys. They examined it eagerly, and saw that it was a colter, probably belonging to the plough, from which the ploughshare had been taken. Scarcely had he handed this to the boys than he saw lying at his feet an iron bolt. This encouraged them all the more. The colter and the bolt were placed beside the ploughshare, and they worked on vigorously, each one hoping to make some discovery of his own.
In a little while Bruce struck something, which, on examination, proved to be the end of a chain. After diligent labor he succeeded in detaching it all from the ground, and laid it down upon the grass. It was an ox chain, about six feet long.
This, of course, only increased their excitement; so they all went to work again.