amber.

"There are different ways of getting it. I told you how it comes
drifting in on the waves when the winds are high and the water is
rough. But on the pleasant summer days, when the sea is smooth and
calm, the men go out a little way from the shore in boats. They
float about, looking earnestly over the sides of the boats to the
bottom of the sea.

"All at once, they see something. Down go their long hooks through
the water. A moment afterward, they begin to tow a tangle of stones
and seaweed to the shore. As soon as they land, they begin to sort
out the great mass. Perhaps they will rejoice in finding large
pieces of amber in the collection.

"There is still another way of getting amber. I know Hans will be
most interested in what I am going to say now. It has more of danger
in it, and boys like to hear anything in the way of adventure."

Hans looked up and smiled. His father knew him well. He was a
daring lad. He was always longing for the time when he should grow
up and be a soldier, and possibly take part in some war.

"Children," their father went on, "you have all heard of divers and
of their dangerous work under the sea. Gretchen was telling me the
other day about her geography lesson, and of the pearl-divers along
the shores of India. I did not tell her then that some men spend
their lives diving for amber on the shores of our own country.

"They wear rubber suits and helmets and air-chests of sheet iron."