The Story of the Treasure Seekers

‘Let’s ask the poor Indian to come to dinner with us to-morrow.’ I should have said it myself if she had given me time.

We got the little ones to go to bed by promising to put a note on their dressing-table saying what had happened, so that they might know the first thing in the morning, or in the middle of the night if they happened to wake up, and then we elders arranged everything.

I waited by the back door, and when the Uncle was beginning to go Dicky was to drop a marble down between the banisters for a signal, so that I could run round and meet the Uncle as he came out.

This seems like deceit, but if you are a thoughtful and considerate boy you will understand that we could not go down and say to the Uncle in the hall under Father’s eye, ‘Father has given you a beastly, nasty dinner, but if you will come to dinner with us tomorrow, we will show you our idea of good things to eat.’ You will see, if you think it over, that this would not have been at all polite to Father.

So when the Uncle left, Father saw him to the door and let him out, and then went back to the study, looking very sad, Dora says.

As the poor Indian came down our steps he saw me there at the gate.

I did not mind his being poor, and I said, ‘Good evening, Uncle,’ just as politely as though he had been about to ascend into one of the gilded chariots of the rich and affluent, instead of having to walk to the station a quarter of a mile in the mud, unless he had the money for a tram fare.

‘Good evening, Uncle.’ I said it again, for he stood staring at me. I don’t suppose he was used to politeness from boys—some boys are anything but—especially to the Aged Poor.

So I said, ‘Good evening, Uncle,’ yet once again. Then he said—

‘Time you were in bed, young man. Eh!—what?’

Then I saw I must speak plainly with him, man to man. So I did. I said—

‘You’ve been dining with my Father, and we couldn’t help hearing you say the dinner was shocking. So we thought as you’re an Indian, perhaps you’re very poor’—I didn’t like to tell him we had heard the dreadful truth from his own lips, so I went on, ‘because of “Lo, the poor Indian”—you know—and you can’t get a good dinner every day. And we are very sorry if you’re poor; and won’t you come and have dinner with us to-morrow—with us children, I mean? It’s a very, very good dinner—rabbit, and hardbake, and coconut—and you needn’t mind us knowing you’re poor, because we know honourable poverty is no disgrace, and—’ I could have gone on much longer, but he interrupted me to say—‘Upon my word! And what’s your name, eh?’

‘Oswald Bastable,’ I said; and I do hope you people who are reading this story have not guessed before that I was Oswald all the time.

‘Oswald Bastable, eh? Bless my soul!’ said the poor Indian. ‘Yes, I’ll dine with you, Mr Oswald Bastable, with all the pleasure in life. Very kind and cordial invitation, I’m sure. Good night, sir. At one o’clock, I presume?’

‘Yes, at one,’ I said. ‘Good night, sir.’

Then I went in and told the others, and we wrote a paper and put it on the boy’s dressing-table, and it said—

‘The poor Indian is coming at one. He seemed very grateful to me for my kindness.’

We did not tell Father that the Uncle was coming to dinner with us, for the polite reason that I have explained before. But we had to tell Eliza; so we said a friend was coming to dinner and we wanted everything very nice. I think she thought it was Albert-next-door, but she was in a good temper that day, and she agreed to cook the rabbit and to make a pudding with currants in it. And when one o’clock came the Indian Uncle came too. I let him in and helped him off with his greatcoat, which was all furry inside, and took him straight to the nursery. We were to have dinner there as usual, for we had decided from the first that he would enjoy himself more if he was not made a stranger of. We agreed to treat him as one of ourselves, because if we were too polite, he might think it was our pride because he was poor.

He shook hands with us all and asked our ages, and what schools we went to, and shook his head when we said we were having a holiday just now. I felt rather uncomfortable—I always do when they talk about schools—and I couldn’t think of anything to say to show him we meant to treat him as one of ourselves. I did ask if he played cricket. He said he had not played lately. And then no one said anything till dinner came in. We had all washed our faces and hands and brushed our hair before he came in, and we all looked very nice, especially Oswald, who had had his hair cut that very morning. When Eliza had brought in the rabbit and gone out again, we looked at each other in silent despair, like in books. It seemed as if it were going to be just a dull dinner like the one the poor Indian had had the night before; only, of course, the things to eat would be nicer. Dicky kicked Oswald under the table to make him say something—and he had his new boots on, too!—but Oswald did not kick back; then the Uncle asked—

‘Do you carve, sir, or shall I?’

Suddenly Alice said—

‘Would you like grown-up dinner, Uncle, or play-dinner?’

He did not hesitate a moment, but said, ‘Play-dinner, by all means. Eh!—what?’ and then we knew it was all right.

So we at once showed the Uncle how to be a dauntless hunter. The rabbit was the deer we had slain in the green forest with our trusty yew bows, and we toasted the joints of it, when the Uncle had carved it, on bits of firewood sharpened to a point. The Uncle’s piece got a little burnt, but he said it was delicious, and he said game was always nicer when you had killed it yourself. When Eliza had taken away the rabbit bones and brought in the pudding, we waited till she had gone out and shut the door, and then we put the dish down on the floor and slew the pudding in the dish in the good old-fashioned way. It was a wild boar at bay, and very hard indeed to kill, even with forks. The Uncle was very fierce indeed with the pudding, and jumped and howled when he speared it, but when it came to his turn to be helped, he said, ‘No, thank you; think of my liver. Eh!—what?’

But he had some almonds and raisins—when we had climbed to the top of the chest of drawers to pluck them from the boughs of the great trees; and he had a fig from the cargo that the rich merchants brought in their ship—the long drawer was the ship—and the rest of us had the sweets and the coconut. It was a very glorious and beautiful feast, and when it was over we said we hoped it was better than the dinner last night. And he said:

‘I never enjoyed a dinner more.’ He was too polite to say what he really thought about Father’s dinner. And we saw that though he might be poor, he was a true gentleman.

He smoked a cigar while we finished up what there was left to eat, and told us about tiger shooting and about elephants. We asked him about wigwams, and wampum, and mocassins, and beavers, but he did not seem to know, or else he was shy about talking of the wonders of his native land.

We liked him very much indeed, and when he was going at last, Alice nudged me, and I said—‘There’s one and threepence farthing left out of our half-sovereign. Will you take it, please, because we do like you very much indeed, and we don’t want it, really; and we would rather you had it.’ And I put the money into his hand.

‘I’ll take the threepenny-bit,’ he said, turning the money over and looking at it, ‘but I couldn’t rob you of the rest. By the way, where did you get the money for this most royal spread—half a sovereign you said—eh, what?’

We told him all about the different ways we had looked for treasure, and when we had been telling some time he sat down, to listen better and at last we told him how Alice had played at divining-rod, and how it really had found a half-sovereign.

Then he said he would like to see her do it again. But we explained that the rod would only show gold and silver, and that we were quite sure there was no more gold in the house, because we happened to have looked very carefully.

‘Well, silver, then,’ said he; ‘let’s hide the plate-basket, and little Alice shall make the divining-rod find it. Eh!—what?’

‘There isn’t any silver in the plate-basket now,’ Dora said. ‘Eliza asked me to borrow the silver spoons and forks for your dinner last night from Albert-next-door’s Mother. Father never notices, but she thought it would be nicer for you. Our own silver went to have the dents taken out; and I don’t think Father could afford to pay the man for doing it, for the silver hasn’t come back.’

‘Bless my soul!’ said the Uncle again, looking at the hole in the big chair that we burnt when we had Guy Fawkes’ Day indoors. ‘And how much pocket-money do you get? Eh!—what?’

‘We don’t have any now,’ said Alice; ‘but indeed we don’t want the other shilling. We’d much rather you had it, wouldn’t we?’

And the rest of us said, ‘Yes.’ The Uncle wouldn’t take it, but he asked a lot of questions, and at last he went away. And when he went he said—

‘Well, youngsters, I’ve enjoyed myself very much. I shan’t forget your kind hospitality. Perhaps the poor Indian may be in a position to ask you all to dinner some day.’

Oswald said if he ever could we should like to come very much, but he was not to trouble to get such a nice dinner as ours, because we could do very well with cold mutton and rice pudding. We do not like these things, but Oswald knows how to behave. Then the poor Indian went away.

We had not got any treasure by this party, but we had had a very good time, and I am sure the Uncle enjoyed himself.

We were so sorry he was gone that we could none of us eat much tea; but we did not mind, because we had pleased the poor Indian and enjoyed ourselves too. Besides, as Dora said, ‘A contented mind is a continual feast,’ so it did not matter about not wanting tea.

Only H. O. did not seem to think a continual feast was a contented mind, and Eliza gave him a powder in what was left of the red-currant jelly Father had for the nasty dinner.

But the rest of us were quite well, and I think it must have been the coconut with H. O. We hoped nothing had disagreed with the Uncle, but we never knew.

CHAPTER 16. THE END OF THE TREASURE-SEEKING

Now it is coming near the end of our treasure-seeking, and the end was so wonderful that now nothing is like it used to be. It is like as if our fortunes had been in an earthquake, and after those, you know, everything comes out wrong-way up.

The day after the Uncle speared the pudding with us opened in gloom and sadness. But you never know. It was destined to be a day when things happened. Yet no sign of this appeared in the early morning. Then all was misery and upsetness. None of us felt quite well; I don’t know why: and Father had one of his awful colds, so Dora persuaded him not to go to London, but to stay cosy and warm in the study, and she made him some gruel. She makes it better than Eliza does; Eliza’s gruel is all little lumps, and when you suck them it is dry oatmeal inside.

We kept as quiet as we could, and I made H. O. do some lessons, like the G. B. had advised us to. But it was very dull. There are some days when you seem to have got to the end of all the things that could ever possibly happen to you, and you feel you will spend all the rest of your life doing dull things just the same way. Days like this are generally wet days. But, as I said, you never know.

Then Dicky said if things went on like this he should run away to sea, and Alice said she thought it would be rather nice to go into a convent. H. O. was a little disagreeable because of the powder Eliza had given him, so he tried to read two books at once, one with each eye, just because Noel wanted one of the books, which was very selfish of him, so it only made his headache worse. H. O. is getting old enough to learn by experience that it is wrong to be selfish, and when he complained about his head Oswald told him whose fault it was, because I am older than he is, and it is my duty to show him where he is wrong. But he began to cry, and then Oswald had to cheer him up because of Father wanting to be quiet. So Oswald said—

‘They’ll eat H. O. if you don’t look out!’ And Dora said Oswald was too bad.

Of course Oswald was not going to interfere again, so he went to look out of the window and see the trams go by, and by and by H. O. came and looked out too, and Oswald, who knows when to be generous and forgiving, gave him a piece of blue pencil and two nibs, as good as new, to keep.

As they were looking out at the rain splashing on the stones in the street they saw a four-wheeled cab come lumbering up from the way the station is. Oswald called out—