Chapter 14

Mother had blue flannel suits made for us, and dressed in these, with sailor hats that had little tapping ribbons at the sides, we scurried along the beach, climbed the rocks, or waded out into the salt water.

But we had on our very prettiest dresses in the evening, for the children were allowed to have the grand parlor, and dance to the music of the band until nine o'clock. This was a privilege we older ones talked of continually, and looked forward to all day. We were so dainty, genteel, and good-mannered for an hour, that it impressed even ourselves; and boys and girls became models of gentleness and polite behavior, and the effect of those delightful evenings has given growth and direction to many graces in our character.

But the little ones, like Gracie and her friends, really couldn't stand the excitement, and rolled around in odd corners on the floor, or sought the grateful obscurity behind the sofas, to indulge in naps, long before nine o'clock. I found Gracie, in her pink silk dress and violet slippers, lying curled up under the table, with her head on the back of Bosin, the great Newfoundland dog that had stolen into the parlor against rules.

Nelson Faber was a little boy, not much older than Gracie, and they seemed to enjoy each other's society very much. He too oftentimes succumbed to sleepiness when we wanted him to do his sailor dance; but when the morning came, they were as rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed as ever, and trotted along the pleasant walks with their hoops and pails, inseparable friends. It was fortunate for Gracie, too, that he preferred to play with her, rather than to go off with the boys, for one day after a boisterous night, the sea came up higher on the beach than we had ever before seen it; and unsuspecting Gracie was caught by a wave and thrown down, and as it retired it seemed to drag her along with it; we older ones lost our presence of mind entirely, and screamed and cried, and did nothing, but that heroic little fellow ran into the boiling surf and caught her dress, and with the dog's assistance, dragged her to a safe place. She said he was, "Very nice and dood."

One day, some of my girl companions proposed to visit the rocks that lay at the mouth of Green river, just where it gently met the ocean. Right there, no end of sea-weed and shells, and things thrown up by the ocean, could be found; and there were such curious rocks, with nooks and basins, where the water stayed in tiny pools, and there we went fishing, and brought lunch, setting it out on the most convenient flat rock we could find. I tell you, cold chicken, pickles, cheese, and sponge cake, with milk, tasted as they never did before or since, to our party of hungry children. We climbed and fell, and laughed, and chatted, with the salt breeze lifting our hair, and fanning our brown faces, and going out far on the point, we came upon a little shining lake, surrounded by rocks, upon which we could sit, and dabble our feet in the water. It was no place more than a foot deep, and we decided to wade round in it. It was a comical sight to see us navigating ourselves in procession through that water, but it was a very questionable joke, when Milly Sayre jumped and screamed, and ran like a frantic creature from the pool, and up the rocks.

"What's the matter, Milly," we cried. "Are you hurt? What did you see?" we breathlessly shouted.

"Oh! oh!" was all she could gasp, pointing to a place she had just left. We all scrambled out instantly, and peered over the rocks into the water.

What should we see but a little creature, grotesque and hideous, that made its way round in the water, with astounding celerity, throwing out legs or claws, or whatever they were, from every point of its circumference. Its body was flat and was a green color above and pink under, and to add to its alarming appearance, it looked at us with two black eyes, in a very sinister and uncanny manner. We looked at each other with blanched faces and speechless horror, and then kept a sharp lookout, lest it might take it into its head (we couldn't tell if it had any head, for the place where the eyes were, did not seem different from any other part of its body,) take it into its "internal consciousness," to crawl out on to the rocks and chase us. It got through the water in a distracting manner, which was really quite amusing after a few moments, and from being horribly frightened, we became interested when we found it did not attempt the offensive. We gave it some lunch and called it "Jack Deadeye," and for the whole afternoon he was the center of attraction.

"Let us take him back with us," I proposed. "We can get him into a pail, and then we can have him in some pool nearer home, and see what he'll turn into. I don't believe but what he'll be something else in a few days."

My knowledge of natural history had always been lamentably meager, and more than once I had brought the laugh upon myself by my ignorance. So I forbore to predict what would be his ultimate form of beauty.

"A whale!" said Susie Champney.

"Oh, dear, no; whales don't have legs and claws," said Estella Bascom. "It's a tadpole."

"You're mistaken there," said Mamie Fitz Hugh; "tadpoles are just the little jokers that do have tails. I've seen hundreds of them, and this creature has no tail."

We all rushed again to the edge of the rocks to look at him, with added wonder.

"Well, we'll take that tad home on a pole, any way," said Nannie White, who was the cutest girl to say things in the whole crowd. She immediately ran off to secure a piece of drift that was tumbling about on the wet sand. But how to get him into a pail was the next problem. A committee of the whole was called. I thought we could obstruct his path by putting the mouth of the pail in front of him, and then when he sailed into it, we could instantly pull him out. This was decided upon; but how to get it down to him without falling in? A bright idea struck me. I whipped off my flannel sash, and running it through the handle, dashed it into the water; but that proceeding only frightened him--we must move more cautiously. We worked for an hour and had him in twice, but were so excited both times that he escaped.

First time, Totty Rainsford shouted, "We've got him!" and immediately rolled off the rocks, head first, into the water. We were all so scared, with the water splashing, and she screaming at the top of her voice, "Save me! Save me!" that Jack got away. She scrambled out pretty lively, and when we got him in again, we were all seized with another fit of laughing at Totty, who, in her moist predicament, was jumping round to dry herself, because she didn't want to go home, that he crawled out as leisurely as possible. But we secured him at last, safe in the pail; and to prevent his crawling out, I clapped my sailor hat over the top of it, and the elastic kept it down tight. We put the pole through the handle and Estella and myself took hold of the ends, and we came near losing him every few minutes, owing to the inequalities of the ground. The pail would slide down to either end, as the pole inclined, and Estella would drop it and scream when she saw the pail traveling noiselessly toward her, and if it hadn't been for my happy thought of putting the hat over him, he'd have got away to his "happy hunting grounds," or rather, waters, in short order.

We arrived at the hotel at last, with Jack all safe, and the rest of the girls went to dress for dinner, and left me to find the boys, to help me deposit him in a secure place, for we were sure we should very greatly astonish the boarders and achieve renown as having discovered a new species of marine beast.

The boys were in a perfect ecstacy of curiosity to see what the girls had caught. When I carefully took off the hat, I found the water had all leaked out, and his monstership lay kicking and crawling at the bottom.

"Ho! ho! ho!" shouted Willie, "is that what-cher call a curiosity?"

"Oh, Flossie! you have been dreadfully taken in," said Regy.

"Oh, no," I said, "it's this wonderful animal that's been 'taken in,' and he's going to be kept in, too."

I began to feel, though, that there was a great laugh somewhere in the future, and that it was coming at our expense.

"Why, Flossie! it's nothing but a baby crab," said Regy. "I can get a peck of them in an hour, over in the river."

I felt greatly chagrined, and blushed with mortification. The boys kept bursting out laughing every few minutes, asking such questions as:

"How many girls did it take to land him?" "Was he gamey, Flossie?" "Did ye bait him with a clam-shell, or an old boot? they'll snap at any thing."

"Oh! I'd given away my dinner to have been there!" and then Regy would stir him up with a stick, and turn him on his back, all of which caused me to scream every time, and sent tremors all over me.

"What-cher goin' to do with him?" inquired Willie.

"I shall study his habitudes, and improve my knowledge of the crustacea," said I, giving him a sentence directly out of my text-book. "I shall look at him every day."

"Yes, and he'll look at you every night. I have read a book that told about a traveler that offended a crab once, and he informed the other crabs, and they all made for him at night, and twenty thousand of them came that night and crept under his tent, and sat there and looked at him. And there he was in the middle of them, and you know their eyes are fastened in their heads by a string, and they can throw them out of their heads and draw them back again; and, at a signal, they all threw their eyes at him. He was so horrified that night, that he got insane and had to be sent to a lunatic asylum."

"I've heard your stories before, Regy, and I simply don't credit them. We girls are going to hunt up a pond to put him in, where we can pet him, and educate him."

"You'd best hunt up a frying pan to put him in; he's capital eating for breakfast, well browned, with hard-boiled eggs and parsley round him," said Reginald.

I told him if he couldn't do any better than to lie there and make an exhibition of his bad taste and ignorance, he'd better get up and work off the fit. I insisted upon his helping me to fill the pail with salt water, and hang him upon the rocks until we could make a future, permanent disposal of him.

That evening our parlor manners were somewhat less decorous and elegant, owing to the fact that Reginald and Willie had been industriously circulating the episode of the morning, with such additions as they thought would add point and piquancy, among the rest of the boys, and there was no end of innuendo and witticism indulged in, that caused the young gentlemen to retire in groups and laugh; and we could hear such remarks as, "Dick, there was a whale hooked on this coast this afternoon, did you know it?" Or, "I think Jack Deadeye is the most comical character in Pinafore, he's so crabbed."

The girls of our party stood it as they best could; and in the morning we stole out to look at our prize, after the boys had gone off, but the tide had swept Jack and the pail out to sea.

It was a long time before we heard the last of it, however.

MAX AND BEPPO.

Down by the lake they trotted, All the summer day; Max and Beppo never plotted Yet, to run away. Two little donkey pets, Oh, I loved them so! When I was in Switzerland, just a year ago.

How they liked bananas! And our apples sweet; They had lovely manners, Every thing they'd eat. Then, I'd rub their furry ears, and they'd shake their bells, While old driver Raspar, funny stories tells.

Max turns round and winks so pretty, Little, sharp round eyes; Beppo sings a jolly ditty, Quite to our surprise. Then we mount, and off we go, up and down the mall, Never do they careless trip, never make a fall.

Once, a princess royal Wanted little Max; How to part those friends so loyal, Her little brain she racks. She would give her gold and silver, in a little purse, Then throw in for measure good, her scolding English nurse!

Then she cried, and chattered All her pretty French, And her little feet she pattered, On the rustic bench. "My papa is king," she said, "and I'd have you know, I shall have the donkey, and to prison shall you go."

How their tiny feet would scamper, Up the valley blue, Carrying each his generous hamper, And his rider, too. Sure of foot, they'd clamber round the mountain spur Where the foot-sore tourist scarcely dared to stir.

In this bright, sunshiny weather, I remember with a sigh, We no more can play together, Beppo, Max and I. Never dearer friends exist, in this world below, Than I made in Switzerland, just a year ago.

PANSIES.

As I walked in my garden to-day, I saw a family sweet. Many wee faces looked up, From their cool and shady retreat. Some had blue eyes and golden curls, Some dark eyes and raven locks, Some were dressed in velvets so rare, And some wore quaint, gay frocks. I asked these babies so dear, To come and live ever with me! Then laughing so gaily they said; "We are _Pansies_, don't you see?"

MRS. L. L. SLOANAKER.

"COME, LITTLE BIRD!"

"Come, little bird, I have waited some time, Light on my hand, and I'll give you a dime. I have a cage that will keep you warm, Free from danger, and safe from storm."

"No, little lady, we cannot do that, Not for a dime, nor a brand new hat. We are so happy, and wild, and free, Chee-dee-dee! Chee-dee-dee!"

"Fly, pretty bird, fly down, and take Just a crumb of my Christmas cake; Santa Claus brought it to me, you know, Over the snow. Over the snow."

"Yes, we know of your home, so rare, And stockings hung in the fire-light there; We peeped through the window-blinds to see. Chee-dee-dee! Chee-dee-dee!

"We were on the button-ball tree, Closer than we were thought to be; Soon you may have us in to tea, Chee-dee-dee! Chee-dee-dee!"

SIRENA'S TROUBLE.

Adalina Patti was a doll of most trying disposition. You wouldn't tell, when she woke up, what distracting thing she'd do first. I've known her, when seated at the breakfast table, in her high chair, next to Sirena, her little mamma, I have known her to jerk suddenly forward, and plunge her face right into a plate of buttered cakes and syrup.

This necessitated the removing of her from the table and a good deal of cleansing and re-dressing on the part of Bidelia, the hired girl.

She had movable eyes; they were very lovely, but, if you'll believe it, she'd screw them round, just to be contrary, so that she'd look cross-eyed for hours together. No sweet persuasion or threat of punishment could induce her to look like a doll in her right mind.

This was not quite so bad though, as the outlandish noises she made when she didn't want to say "mamma," which she could do very distinctly when she first arrived, at Christmas.

But a crisis in her petulant obstinacy came, when she wouldn't sit still to have her hair combed, and it looked like a "hurrah's nest," her brother Bob said. All her naughtiness came right out then. She rolled one eye entirely up in her head, and left it there, and stared so wild with the other, that Sirena gave her a pretty lively shake, but she only dropped that eye and rolled up the other.

This made her little mamma pause and meditate. She got provoked as she looked at her, and then she gave her a double shake; then that bad doll rolled up both her eyes, and nothing could induce her to get them down again.

Oh, dear! How many dreadful things she looked like. There was a vicious parrot in the park that made its eyes look just like Adalina's did, just before it stuck its head through the bars of its cage to bite people. And there was a stone lady, that was named "Ceres," on one of the paths in the same park, and she kept her eyes rolled up all the time, greatly to the terror of Sirena and Bidelia, who had to pass her in coming home in the twilight. And down street there was a tobacconist's sign that represented a fairy queen, with butterfly wings, taking a pinch of snuff, and the weather had taken all the paint off her eyes and she looked simply hideous; and Sirena grasped Bidelia very tight, till they got round the corner. Now here was her lovely French doll looking like them and cutting up worse. She'd go to mamma with this trouble as she did with all others.

She put her doll down with her face against the carpet, and taking hold of her pink kid arm, dragged her, not very gently, over the carpet to her mother.

At that moment in bounced Rob, who, immediately taking in the situation of affairs, exclaimed,--"Oh, don't be so cruel to Adalina! Is she just horrid? You know, Rena, that's what you are, sometimes, yourself. What's the matter any way? What makes you look so glum?"

"This doll is acting dreadful; just look at her eyes!" said Sirena.

"You can't tell any thing by any one's eyes, yours look like the 4th of July, now, and you're a delightful little girl, everybody says; you don't whack things round, and scream, when the flowers bloom in the spring."

He was to be repressed immediately. Sirena looked at her mother.

"He wants to be funny, Sirena," said her mother, soothingly.

"Then he isn't funny; he's never funny," said Sirena, drawing herself up with dignity.

"Totty Belmont says you're the teasenest, hatefulest boy she knows! So there," remarked Sirena.

"Oh, ho! I don't wonder the doll is scared. Why don't you treat that pretty creature with some consideration? Dragging her over the carpet, and spoiling her pretty dress! Now you'll see, just as soon as she comes to me, because I'm good-looking and nice, she'll put her eyes down and smile at me as lovely as ever."

He took the doll and jumped it up and down in the air, dancing about and singing, "Tra-la."

As sure as the world! Down came the eyes, and Adalina was her charming self again.

"Now you see," said Rob, "if you want people to be good to you and love you, you must not be rude and ill-natured yourself. This doll is French, and particular, and she just won't look at cross little girls; so there!"

"I think," said her mamma, "that Sirena will not get so angry with her doll again. She looks as if she were ashamed of it now. However disagreeable we may think people are, it's best to watch ourselves, lest in finding fault with them, we fall into the same errors."

LADY VIOLET.

My little love, with soft, brown eyes, Looks shyly back at me, Beneath the drooping apple bough, She thinks I do not see. I cannot choose, I laugh with her, I catch her merry glee; Or stay you near, or go you far, Oh, little love, how sweet you are!

A hue, like light within a rose, Is dimpling on her cheek, It wins a grace, it deepens now With every airy freak; A love-light in the rose like this, Ah, you may vainly seek; It shines for me, no shadows mar, Oh, little love, how fair you are!

My heart clings to her pretty words, They will not be forgot; My happy brain will not discern, If they be wise or not. To ever be so charmed, so blessed, Ah, this were happy lot. My own, shine ever like a star Upon my life, so true you are.

ON TRIAL.

Little Hal Keys was pretty sure to throw a stone at every pussy cat he saw, and so all the cats around used to have a great deal to say about him as they sat together on the back fences, or when they had a party in the big barn. At last the cats determined to do something about it, and so they said: "We will have him up for trial before Judge Thomas White." He was the wisest and oldest of all the cats in town, and wore spectacles that made him look even wiser than he was. Eleven of the most learned cats said they would be lawyers, and get other cats to be witnesses, to tell what Hal had done, and try to get him punished. One of the eleven said: "For the sake of Hal's mother, who has always been kind to me from the time I was a little kitten, I will be his lawyer, and try to get his punishment made as light as I can."

Twelve cats had to be found who could say that they were not quite sure that Hal was such a bad boy as he seemed to be. They were stay-at-home cats, who did not know what was going on outside of the comfortable houses where they lived. These twelve cats were to be the jury, and it was their duty to hear all that the lawyers and the witnesses had to say about Hal's doings, and then to tell whether or not they thought he ought to be punished.

At last the day of the trial came; Judge Thomas White sat down in his big chair and took his pen; the lawyers took their places; the twelve jury cats were brought in, and put in a high box, so they could not jump out and run away. Hal was brought in and put in the prisoner's box, as they call it; and Christopher Gray, his mother's old cat, took his place beside Hal. Three cats, called "reporters," came in with pockets full of paper and pencils, to write down all that is said; to print in the newspapers, for all cats in the world to read.

The first witness to tell all the bad she knew about Hal was his sister Alice's little Dolly Varden. How saucy she looked, with the blue ribbon tied around her neck, as she sat on the witness stand telling how Hal chased her from cellar to garret; and stepped on her tail; and gave her saucer of milk to the dog Jack whenever he got a chance. "Cruel, cruel boy," said Dolly Varden, "he teases his sister almost as much as he teases me."

Hal trembled from head to foot when he heard what Dolly Varden said, for he knew it all was true, and he was much afraid that a very hard punishment would be given to him. Then the old black cat, on whom Hal had thrown a dipper of hot water, was called to the witness stand. Poor old thing! the hot water had taken the fur off his back. Then came another cat, limping up to the witness stand, whose leg had been broken by a stone which Hal had thrown. There were so many witnesses that it would make my story too long to tell about them all. All that Christopher Gray could say in Hal's favor was: "He has a good mother."

"The more shame for him," said one of the lawyers.

When the jury had heard all that was to be said, they went out of the room together; in five minutes they came back; all agreed that Hal should be punished. Then Judge Thomas White, in his most solemn tone, said: "Albert Keys, you are found guilty of great cruelty to good cats everywhere. I must, therefore, pronounce sentence upon you. You must go with us to Cat town for two days and one night."

There were tears in Hal's eyes, but the Judge had no pity on him, and he called in some of the strongest cats to take him. Oh! what a long, hard way it was; over fences, under houses, and through the barns. It was hard work for Hal to keep up with them, but they made him. What a time he had after he got to Cat town. All of the cats gathered around him, and howled at him, and scratched his face and hands, and made him wish he was any place but there. At last when he was set free, he never could have found his way home, if pretty little Dolly Varden had not forgiven him, and shown him the way back.

Hal was never known after that to throw a stone at a cat, or to treat one badly in any way.

TWO LITTLE GIRLS.