ANCIENT HISTORY
Marjorie Eaton said, “Can you be serious for five minutes?”
“How long?” Warde asked her.
She said, “Long enough to tell us something about the scouts.”
“You want a serial story about them?” Brent asked her.
“We want a serious story about them,” she said.
“That’s different,” I said. “Do you like pirate stories about them?
Because there is buried treasure hidden in Black Lake. That’s no joke,
it’s true—absolutely, posilutely. There’s a tin box at the bottom of
Black Lake containing about three hundred dollars. The people that
started Temple Camp sank a lot of money in the enterprise. We have
buried treasure and everything else at Temple Camp.”
“You’re fooling,” Stella Wingate said.
I said, “A scout’s honor is to be toasted; it’s positively true. There’s
a diagram in Administration Shack telling where it is—or isn’t, I don’t
know which.”
Just then Brent Gaylong kind of touched me on the shoulder and I could
see that he winked at Pee-wee and Warde. He kind of put his arm over my
shoulder and led me away and said, “For goodness’ sake, don’t start that
buried treasure stuff, Roy. You’ll have Hervey diving in the middle of
the lake for it. You know how he is.”
“He must know about it,” I said.
“I don’t think he does,” Brent said. “Anyway, you know Tom Slade and
Uncle Jeb and the trustees want the fellows to forget about it. Whatever
you do don’t get Hervey started on that, whether he knows about it or
not. You know he can’t obey instructions, he just can’t, he’s built that
way.
“The first thing you know he’ll be drowning himself or getting himself
dismissed from camp and we’ll be to blame. It’s like waving a red flag
in front of him. Nix on the buried treasure stuff; there’s plenty of fun
without that. I’m sorry you mentioned the diagram.”
“All right,” I said, “let it go at that. I was just trying to get the
girls interested.”
He said, “Well, let’s get them started on something else.”
“Suits me,” I said; “one subject is as good as another if not better.
I’m sorry I put my foot in it.”
“No harm done,” he said, “only let’s not follow it up. The buried
treasure is buried; let’s not follow it up.”
“You mean follow it down,” I said. “It’s not troubling my innocent young
life, I know that.”
That’s the way it is with Brent, he’s always thinking about what’s best
for other fellows. And, gee whiz, he knows Hervey Willetts like a book.
He was always a good friend to Hervey. Lots of times Hervey would have
gotten into trouble with his recklessness if it hadn’t been for Brent.
Tom Slade and the trustees liked Hervey well enough and they admitted he
was brave and reckless. But they were kind of sore at him because they
couldn’t manage him, and, gee whiz, you couldn’t blame them. Hervey was
kind of on the outs at camp except with just us few fellows and that’s
why he stuck with us.
Now I’ll tell you about the buried treasure—that’s what we always called
it. It was a kind of a joke till little Skinny McCord nearly got drowned
trying to fish it up. Then the trustees said we should all forget it.
They put a notice on the bulletin board that there should be no more
fishing for it.
That was two summers ago. It was before Hervey ever came to Temple Camp.
It was only just kind of like ancient history when he got there. I had
forgotten all about it because I have no use for ancient history
anyway—that and civil government.