, when of course he never
did it; 'twas some other little boy.

"I want to go with Jimmum," said he, stoutly. "You ought to not go
'thout me! _I_ shan't talk to that mine. _I_ shan't say, 'Come, little
mine, Eddo won't hurt oo.' No, no, not me! I shan't say nuffin', and I
shan't fall in the hole needer. So there! H'm! 'm! 'm!"

It was not easy to resist his pleading. Perhaps Aunt Vi saw how matters
were, for she appeared just then, bearing the news that she and Uncle
James were going to drive, and would like to take one of the children.

"And Eddo is the one we want. He is so small that he can sit on the seat
between us. Aren't the rest of you willing to give him up just for this
morning? He can go to walk with you another time."

So they all said they would try to give him up, and he bounded away with
Aunt Vi, his dear little face beaming with proud satisfaction.

III

LUCY'S GOLD MINE

The other children strolled leisurely along toward a place that looked
like a long strip of sand.

"A sand beach," said Kyzie.

"No," said Nate; "it isn't a beach and it isn't sand."

"What _can_ you mean? What else is it, pray?"

She stooped and took up a handful of something that certainly looked
like sand. The others did the same.

"What do you call that?" they all asked, as they sifted it through their
fingers.

Nate smiled in a superior way.

"Well, I don't call it sand, because it isn't sand. I thought it was
when I first saw it; I got cheated, same as you. But there's no sand to
it; it's just _tailings_."

"What in the world is tailings?" asked Kyzie, taking up another handful
and looking it over very carefully. Strange if she, a girl in her teens,
couldn't tell sand when she saw it! But she politely refrained from
making any more remarks, and waited for Nate to answer her question. He
was an intelligent boy, between eleven and twelve.

"Well, tailings are just powdered rocks," said Nate.

"Powdered rocks? Who powdered them? What for?" asked Edith.

"Why, the miners did it years ago. They ground up the rocks in the mine
into powder just as fine as they could, and then washed the powder to
get the gold out."

"Oh, I see," said Edith. "So these tailings are what's left after the
gold's washed out."

"Yes, they brought 'em and spread 'em 'round here to get rid of 'em I
suppose."

"Is the gold all washed out, every bit?" asked Jimmy. "Seems as if I
could see a little shine to it now."

"Well, the