The Keeper of the Spring-House 45 



so far was hearsay, to dig their way back in a 

 gravelly soil, with a worn-out fire shovel, till the 

 treasure should be revealed, a reward of both 

 merit and labor, a veritable prize, for barring the 

 eggs of the oriole ; no others were so hard to get. 

 Their education had not proceeded far enough 

 so they could get the stimulus of knowing that 

 they were digging like "badgers'* the animal on 

 the coat of arms of their state which was the 

 fact; but it is doubtful if even that creature, whose 

 burrowing ability is undoubted, would have as- 

 sayed a tunnel in the kind of soil in which they 

 were working. That beastly fire-shovel they 

 quickly christened it "Mr. Angleworm," for it 

 would double up in their hands and twist in any 

 direction, except straight ahead, when they at- 

 tempted to force it any distance in the stubborn, 

 sticky clay. They had scarcely half finished their 

 task, when they noticed that the sun no longer 

 looked squarely down upon them, but was watch- 

 ing them from over his right shoulder, to the west. 

 They had had no dinner but they did not know it. 

 They had forgotten the cries of the old birds, 

 were unmindful of their blistered hands, in fact, 

 those hands only itched for one thing, the joy of 

 grasping the white egg, that could be only a little 

 way ahead. They had been carrying the dirt out 

 in their hats, but they could do that no longer, 

 for they had commenced to strike pellets that 



