SECRET BURIED TREASURE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20782, 17 July 1937, Page 13 (Supplement)

SECRET BURIED TREASURE

UNCLE lAN’S BROKEN KNIFE AND A HALFPENNY Uncle lan stopped suddenly and like a conspirator, looked quickly up and down the street. Peggy and Peter halted, too, wondering. "A secret!” whispered Uncle lan, darkly. “Beneath that house.” "Which house?" asked Peter quickly. “Ssh!” answered Uncle lan. “The house called the Cedars—the one with the single poplar. Beneath that house "What?” asked Peter and Peggy. "Buried treasure!” replied Uncle lan. “Let us move on.”

“How do vou know there’s treasure?” demanded Peggy, as they continued their walk.

“Because,” said Uncle lan slowly, “the hoard Is mine! Listen! When I was a boy this estate was just waste land, and many a grand game we had on it. And, of course we played at pirates. That was what started the buried treasure idea. One of our games was to bury something, then exchange maps and codes, and try to find each ether’s cache. Well, I had a special little hidey-hole of my own where I kept my treasure in a tin box. Nobody except me knew anything about that place. “After one summer holiday I came home, you can imagine my disgust at finding builders busy on the waste land and my consternation at seeing a gigantic pyramid of bricks on top of my secret treasure. It nearly broke

my heart. I hung around that stack! I probed in its crevices; I was chased by the watchman; I watched bricks removed and calculated when the pyramid would disappear; but more and more bricks kept arriving and I grew desperate. “I pottered round, the pile so often and so long that eventually I attracted the attention of the foreman. He’d already threatened me several times, but at last he asked outright what my worry was. I told him of the treasure below; he laughed; he told his pals; they roared; then, catching my miserable eye, the foreman came across and slipped sixpence into my hand with, ‘Now, be off! And bury that!” I shot off before further questions were asked, and in future watched the pyramid only from a safe distance.” “Did you recover your treasure?” asked Peter. “It’s still beneath that house,” he said.

“What sort of treasure was it?” Peggy inquired. "Oh. odds and ends,” replied Uncle lan sadly; "a broken knife, a spring, a couple of old golf balls; but—there was money, too!" "How much?” asked Peter and Peggy together.” "A ha'p'ny,” sighed Uncle lan. “Just a ha’p’ny."