m a
little way, and had seen a water-rat and shied a stone or two at him,
harmony was restored. We did not hit the rat.

You will understand that we were not the sort of people to have lived so
long near a stream without plumbing its depths. Indeed, it was the same
stream the sheep took its daring jump into the day we had the circus.
And of course we had often paddled in it--in the shallower parts. But
now our hearts were set on exploring. At least they ought to have been,
but when we got to the place where the stream goes under a wooden
sheep-bridge, Dicky cried, "A camp! a camp!" and we were all glad to sit
down at once. Not at all like real explorers, who know no rest, day or
night, till they have got there (whether it's the north pole, or the
central point of the part marked "_Desert of Sahara_" on old-fashioned
maps).

The food supplies obtained by various members were good, and plenty of
it. Cake, hard eggs, sausage-rolls, currants, lemon cheese-cakes,
raisins, and cold apple dumplings. It was all very decent, but Oswald
could not help feeling that the source of the Nile (or north pole) was a
long way off, and perhaps nothing much when you got there.

So he was not wholly displeased when Denny said, as he lay kicking into
the bank when the things to eat were all gone:

"I believe this is clay: did you ever make huge platters and bowls out
of clay and dry them in the sun? Some people did in a book called _Foul
Play_, and I believe they baked turtles, or oysters, or something, at
the same time."

He took up a bit of clay and began to mess it about, like you do putty
when you get hold of a bit. And at once the heavy gloom that had hung
over the explorers became expelled, and we all got under the shadow of
the bridge and messed about with clay.

"It will be jolly!" Alice said, "and we can give the huge platters to
poor cottagers who are short of the usual sorts of crockery. That would
really be a very golden deed."

It is harder than you would think when you read about it, to make huge
platters with clay. It flops about as soon as you get it any size,
unless you keep it much too thick, and then when you turn up the edges
they crack. Yet we did not mind the trouble. And we had all got our
shoes and stockings off. It is impossible to go on being cross when your
feet are in cold water; and there is something in the smooth messiness
of clay, and not minding how dirty you get, that would soothe the
savagest breast