It was a Saturday afternoon, and our friends were trying to
convince us to gamble. “Come on!” My new best friend, Sarah Dickens, was dragging me to the gambling
hall. “It’s for a good cause.” “Which is…?”I
responded. “Getting money?” “You have a great
sense of humor,” I said, and we entered the gambling hall. All around
us were miners drawing cards or rolling dice, all of them increasing or
decreasing their amount of gold nuggets. Gambling was how miners spent their
Saturdays because that is one of our only ways of entertainment. Sarah and her
brother, John, sat down in front of the dealers. Out
of her gold pouch she took 100 gold nuggets. “We are betting on ace,” she said.I
was shocked. She was betting all of her savings on an ace coming up before a
two. If anyone else had done that, I would have questioned them. But Sarah knew
what she was doing. The
answer came up on the first card. It was an ace! I will never understand how
she walked away with two hundred gold nuggets in her pocket, but it happened,
and that is all that matters.
It
was our turn now. Our mining company was betting on a three coming up before a
king, but only for 15 gold nuggets. The
dealer shuffled the cards and cut the deck. “It’s a multiple of three,” he
said, inspecting the card. Then he showed it to us. It was a six. I let out a breath that I
hadn’t noticed that I was holding.The dealer showed us the second card. It was a face card. A
jack. My
hand gripped the table. With a smile on his face, the dealer showed us the last card.A king. We had
lost. I sank into my chair. It was only fifteen gold nuggets, but it still hurt to
lose. We were glad that we didn’t walk out of the gambling hall empty handed
though. Although gambling is fun, things like that can happen.