BEING BEAVERS
things would be the slightest use. It is sometimes thus even with grown-up expeditions. So then Oswald, who is equal to the hardest emergency that ever emerged yet, said:
"Let's each get what we like. The secret store-house can be the shed in the corner of the stable-yard where we got the door for the raft. Then the captain can decide who's to take what."
This was done. You may think it but the work of a moment to fit out an expedition, but this is not so, especially when you know not whether your exploring party is speeding to Central Africa or merely to the world of icebergs and the polar bear.
Dicky wished to take the wood-axe, the coal hammer, a blanket, and a mackintosh.
H. O. brought a large faggot in case we had to light fires, and a pair of old skates he had happened to notice in the box-room, in case the expedition turned out icy.
Noël had nicked a dozen boxes of matches, a spade, and a trowel, and had also obtained—I know not by what means—a jar of pickled onions.
Denny had a walking-stick—we can't break him of walking with it—a book to read in case he got tired of being a discoverer, a butterfly net and a box with cork in it, a tennis-ball, if we happened to want to play rounders in the pauses of exploring, two towels and an umbrella in the event of camping or if the river got big enough to bathe in or to be fallen into.
Alice had a comforter for Noël in case we got
139
