Free The Grub-And-Stakers House a Haunt by Charlotte MacLeod, Alisa Craig Page B

or something to keep the dirt from trickling back into the hole and clogging the pump. Once we get a pump, that is. Don’t any of the rest of you do any more digging here till we find out how the water department wants it done.”
    “Furthermore, it might not be safe,” said Dot. “We don’t want anybody caved in on.”
    “Except one or two I won’t mention,” Zilla amended with a menacing glance at a couple of teenagers who were acting the way teenagers all too often do. “All right then, Dittany, let’s go. Anybody who wants to come back and dig some more tomorrow will be more than welcome.”
    Joyous shouts of acquiescence were conspicuously lacking, people were already casting wistful glances at their cars or their companions. “I’ll bet you any money there won’t be a soul left here twenty minutes from now,”
    Zilla grunted as soon as she and the Monks were well away from the garden area.
    “Of course there won’t,” Dittany agreed. “You and Osbert played that scene quite nicely. Zilla, you don’t really believe Hiram managed somehow to change his gold into currency?”
    “Well, he’d have had to, I expect, if he’d been planning to spend any. Gold pieces aren’t legal tender any more, are they? Frankly, I don’t know whether I believe in that gold or not. There was the spring and there was the trunkful of money. Not quite the way Hiram described it to me but, darn it all, what’s a person to think? It seems awfully far-fetched that two similar trunks could have been buried near the same spring, but I suppose it won’t kill us to look.
    Though we’d better wait till after dark, just in case.”
    “It’ll be dark anyway pretty soon,” said Osbert. “I’m just hoping we don’t get a bunch of sightseers out here messing around, falling in holes and breaking their legs and blaming it on us.”
    “No fear,” said Dittany. “This is hoedown night at the high school, there’s a bean supper and social at the United Church, the Madrigal Society’s meeting at the Burberrys’, and of course they’ll be holding the usual Saturday night euchre tournament down at the fire station. Who’s going to have time for sightseeing? Oh, gosh, Hazel Munson must be out from under the dryer by now. I’d meant to catch her at the Twirl and Curl and show her Hiram’s photograph. I told Mr. Glunck I’d get back to him about the display cases before the museum closes.”
    “Hazel will be home by now, then,” said Zilla. “Call her up and invite her for tea.”
    “We’re awfully low on molasses cookies. The twins take up so much of my time that I don’t get around to baking the way I used to.”
    “I could bring you some tofu.”
    “No you couldn’t, Osbert won’t eat tofu. He says it’s just a lot of squish.”
    “Well, he’d better learn to like it before his arteries start backing up on him.”
    “Osbert’s arteries are clear as a bell. Aren’t they, darling?”
     
    “Yes, darling. I keep hearing this little tinkle, tinkle, tinkle as the blood burbles merrily on its way like Tennyson’s brook. I think it was Tennyson’s. Somebody’s brook, anyway. Speaking of brooks, I wonder whether our water hole out there might actually be not just a spring but part of an underground stream.”
    “Osbert!” groaned Zilla. “You mean Hiram’s gold might be someplace else along the route and we’ve got to go back and dig up the whole darn field till we come to it?”
    “But if the spring’s a brook, how come the dowsing rod didn’t keep dipping every time Polly James crossed over?” Dittany argued.
    “I don’t know, dear. It seems to me I’ve read someplace that you can dowse for metal as well as for water.
    Maybe Polly’s rod has an affinity for fancy brass trimmings.”
    “I’ll bet it does! I noticed part of it was brass. What if we got Polly back out there and had him hang a gold ring on the end?”
    “How about a gold tooth?” snarled Zilla. “I think the less we go shooting