As the day wore on, however, he found it difficult to keep up his antagonism to cheery Jem, who ignored all rebuffs, and chatted away in the most friendly as well as quaint manner—now about the sea, wondering why it changed its hue from blue to green and green to gray; and now about the fish-hawks circling overhead, and longing to be one of them, that he too might fly off to some warm Southern land before the cold, biting winter came on.
"What a queer un you are!" remarked Kit at length. "What makes you think of such things? Why, I'd a heap rather be a boy than a bird."
"Yes, 'cause you are so big and strong. You can make your way in the world, and your back isn't crooked, and your legs all drawed up. Now I, you see, am neither flesh nor fowl nor good red herring," and Jem cackled a feeble little laugh, but without a tinge of bitterness. How, too, he enjoyed the lunch eaten on the beach, and insisted that every one must taste the pie Eileen had made for him out of "two pertaties and a bit of a lemon."
For three days the weather was perfect, and the combers "made hay while the sun shone," gathering quite a profitable collection of old iron and nails, children's toys, small coins, and inexpensive pins and pieces of jewelry, while Bert Woolley had the good fortune to come upon a silver watch little the worse for its sojourn in the damp sand.
But on the fourth morning there came a change. Heavy clouds obscured old Sol from view, the sea roared with a low ominous undertone, and the wind blew raw and chill from the northeast, making the lads shake and shiver, and seeming to freeze weakly Jem to the very marrow and set his limbs to aching. Then in the night the storm broke, one of those fierce September gales which often sweep the coast, and for forty-eight hours roared and raged without, while the impatient urchins grumbled and raged within.
It was an exceedingly wet world that at last emerged, bright and glistening, after the deluge, but Kit Bundy was early astir and down on the shore to see what havoc the tempest had made. Dead fish, drift-wood, portions of wrecks, and other flotsam and jetsam strewed the beach, up which he slowly sauntered, kicking before him a round stone that bounded merrily across the sand. Presently, in front of the Naiad Hotel, a particularly vigorous kick sent it high in air, and then landed it in a deep hollow worn by the waves. Mechanically Kit paused to lift his improvised plaything from the hole, when something beside it caused him to fall on his knees with a low stifled gasp. Not another sound escaped him, but there was a new and curious expression on his face when he finally rose and almost ran to the boarding-house he and his father called "home." Later in the day the long line of beach-combers were electrified by the message that passed from mouth to mouth, "Kit is the lucky one; he has found the diamond earring."
From far and near the boys hastened to behold the jewel, about which there could not have been more interest had it been the Koh-i-noor itself, and the finder had to point out just where he discovered it in his section, deeply buried a foot from the surface.
"Not so dreadfully hoodooed after all, were you, Kit?" Bert could not resist remarking; but most of the lads swallowed their own disappointment, and congratulated him warmly, while Jem threw his hat in the air, piping,
"Hip, hip, hurrah for Bundy, the prize-winner!"
But the hero of the hour did not appear particularly pleased with these attentions. He grew very red, and turned away, muttering, "Oh, shut up, fellows! It isn't worth makin' such a fuss over."