l
foolin' around in the woods and dreamin' and not watchin' what you're
doin', one of them will bite you. Now look here, you go home and get in
the wood and help around the house." So Mitch says, "Come on, Skeet, and
help me, and for company." So I went and helped Mitch with his work.

CHAPTER IX

After that Saturday that we made garden, we tried our best to get out to
Old Salem on Saturdays, but something always happened, except one
Saturday. One time I had to make garden again, one time I had to help
Mitch make garden, another time pa and ma went to Pleasant Plains to a
picnic and I had to stay and take care of Little Billie, for Myrtle
went, because I had gone with pa and ma somewhere, I forget where it
was, and it was Myrtle's time. Somehow Myrtle was always in my way, but
ma said I was selfish and I suppose I was. Finally on the Saturday
before school let out, we went to Old Salem, taking two shovels and two
picks. We didn't do much, just looked around, and found a lot of
foundations where buildings had been when the village was there, and got
the lay of the land. We left our tools with the miller at the mill. He
said all right, but told us to wait for the next rainbow, and then
follow it up and get a bag of gold. "Never you mind," said Mitch.
"Others have found treasure and so can we." He told the miller we were
digging in the woods, because he said to me if it leaks out we're after
these old cellars and places, there'll be a slough of diggers out here
lookin' for treasure, and they'll get it before we do.

But first after school was out something interfered with our goin' on.
It was this: Robbins' Circus had come to town, and his son, who was
awful handsome, was a bareback rider, and had set the town wild, and
Zueline came to Mitch and made him get up a circus. That took time, for
we had to practice.

We went to the real circus, Mitch and me, and earned the money
ourselves. It was this way: Pa said, "You boys spend so much time
foolin' around about treasures, why don't you earn some money?" So
Mitch's pa made up a lot of pop-corn balls and we sold 'em on the street
and got money that way to see the show. It was the most beautiful circus
in the world--such lovely ladies, and a clown who sang "Never Take the
Horseshoe from the Door."

Then we got to work to get up our circus. Zueline had her Ayrdale and we
cooped him up for a lion; we put the cat in a box for a tiger, and the
rooster for an ostrich, a