Repairing the Damage
When Rumple, perched on the back of Rockefeller, had crept quietly away
into the darkness, the three elders sat straining their ears into the
night for some sound that should let them know help was coming. Once or
twice they spoke to each other in whispers, but for the most part they
were quite silent. The two younger boys had drowsed off to sleep, while
Ducky lay in a profound slumber, her warm little body seeming in some
strange way to bring comfort and courage to Sylvia, in whose arms she
lay. An hour dragged away, and then, to the unspeakable joy and relief
of the watchers, a grey light stole over the hills, then broadened and
spread until it was full dawn. There was no crimson flush of sunrise
this morning, the sky was too heavy with clouds that had been blown up
from the south-east; but at least it was daylight, and the comfort of
being able to see what was going on made them all feel better.
The children woke up then, clamorous for breakfast. Only, as provisions
were so scanty it was necessary to have a little council of ways and
means straight away.
"We could make some porridge, for here is some corn-meal in a tin!"
cried Nealie, who had been industriously stirring among their overturned
goods and chattels since daylight came to brighten the prospect.
"But we have no wood for a fire, and we can't make porridge without a
fire," objected Sylvia.
"Ducky and the boys can get us some twigs and little bits of wood from
those bushes just over the hill," said Nealie. "We shall all feel better
for having something warm to eat, as the weather is so uncomfortable
this morning, and while they are looking after the fire we three can
clear the things from the wagon in readiness for having it set right way
up once more. Never, never will I be so careless again as to leave it
standing on a slope at night!"
"I should not grieve overmuch about that if I were you, for I fancy the
wagon being on its side last night saved us from things more unpleasant
still," replied Rupert; and then Nealie shivered and said no more about
regretting her carelessness, which, after all, had not been so much
carelessness as overcarefulness, because she had been so anxious that
they should be stationed where the wind would not trouble them.
By the time Ducky and the boys had got a fire going, and the porridge--a
kind of mush--safely on in course of preparation, the three elders had
got the wagon cleared of all it contained and were ready to do their
best to get it on its feet, or rather on its wheels again. But without
Rockefeller to help this appeared to be a task quite beyond their power
to accomplish, although they tugged and tugged with all their might.
"Whatever shall we do?" cried Sylvia in despair. "If only Rumple would
come back with the horse we might manage it."
"I know," said Nealie, and, struck with a sudden bright idea, she rushed
off to the heap of properties lying at a little distance, and selecting
a stout iron bar which had been used as a stay for the rack at the back
of the wagon she came running back with it.
"What are you going to do now?" asked Rupert curiously, failing to see
what possible help the iron bar could be to them.
"I am going to use the bar as a lever and jack the wagon up. You see, we
can lift it a little piece and poke something under; there are plenty of
big stones and boulders lying about that will do, and if we lift it a
few feet we may then be able to drag it over; at least we can try that
plan, and if it does no other good it will keep us warm, and I am most
dreadfully chilly," said Nealie, who was secretly very anxious lest
Rupert should get a chill in the cold wind, and was also weatherwise
enough to know that it might rain at any minute now.
"The mush is ready; will you have breakfast first?" called Don, who was
cook-in-chief, while the others ran hither and thither doing his
bidding.
"We will get the wagon up first, and then the mush will be the reward
for our exertions," replied Nealie. She was bustling about with feverish
anxiety now, for she had felt a spot of rain, and it was too dreadful to
think what might happen if a downpour began before their belongings
could be got under shelter.
"Yes, we will get the wagon up first," echoed Rupert, for he too had
felt a spot of rain and was as anxious as Nealie to get the wagon right
way up once more. "Leave Ducky to look after the mush and do you two
come and help us here, for every ounce tells, you know."
Don and Billykins came at a run and collected stones, which Rupert
wedged under the wheel every time Nealie and Sylvia managed to jack it a
trifle higher. But what hard work it was! The perspiration poured from
the faces of the two girls, and Rupert panted with haste and exertion as
he struggled with the stones which Don and Billykins brought in lavish
abundance.
"Hurrah, she rises!" cried Sylvia in a jubilant tone.
"We can pull her up now, if we are careful!" yelled Rupert, who was to
the full as much excited; and then, calling to the small boys to come
and pull, the three of them hung on to the rope, putting all their
strength into the task, while Nealie and Sylvia, chanting a funny
refrain:
"Heave ho, my boys, heave ho,
With strength of arm, and might and main,
Heave ho, my boys, heave ho!"
bent to the task of lifting with the iron bar. The wagon shivered and
trembled like a live thing, swayed, rocked, and finally with a jarring
crash settled on its four wheels once more, while ringing hurrahs broke
from the hard-working five, which were echoed in Ducky's shrillest
treble.
It was at this moment that Rumple hove in sight again, clinging in a
very undignified fashion to the neck of Rockefeller, while the old horse
came on at a lumbering trot, warranted to stir up the most sluggish
liver.
"What is all the row about?" he demanded, when Rockefeller, stopping
short with disconcerting suddenness, pitched him off anyhow on to a pile
of mattresses, tinware, and other miscellaneous properties.
"We are so delighted to see you back, for one thing, and for another we
are rejoicing to have our house on wheels standing erect on all-fours,"
said Nealie, just stopping to give him a big hug, and then, running up
to the horse, she dropped a resounding kiss on his nose, held a lump of
sugar out for the wise animal to eat, and then, slipping the hobbles
back on his legs, sent Rocky off to forage for himself.
"We must get these things put back before we have breakfast; for it is
going to rain, and it will never do to let the bedding get wet," she
said decidedly, and, hungry though they were, they came to the task
without a murmur, only Ducky remained stationary at the fire, carefully
stirring the mush, which was slowly cooking there.
But although everyone worked their hardest, the rain was coming down
steadily before they had done, and they were all rather damp when they
climbed into the wagon, carefully carrying the pot of mush, which was
all that could be mustered for breakfast, owing to their stock of
provisions having run out.
"Now, Rumple, let us hear your adventures?" said Nealie, who was
reclining at ease on a rolled-up mattress at the back of the wagon,
while Rupert acted as master of the ceremonies and served out the mush
in such fragments of basins as were not too smashed up in the disaster
of the night, and on tin plates, his own portion being eaten from the
inverted lid of the one saucepan contained in the wagon outfit.
They all made a great deal of fun of that saucepan lid, and the
favourite diversion of Sylvia and Rumple was continually to ask Rupert
to pass them something, because it was so funny to see him have to
balance his awkward plate carefully on the top of the saucepan before he
could do what was required of him.
Then Nealie came to the rescue with her question about Rumple's
adventures, and at once the hero rose to the occasion, puffing out his
chest with such an air of unconscious importance that Sylvia at once
called him a pouter pigeon, to his great disgust; for he said it always
made him feel sick to look at those conceited birds.
"Never mind the pigeons, they will keep; tell us what you did while you
were away," said Rupert, eating in a great hurry, so as to get done
before anyone required anything more at his hands.
"I was precious careful when I rose the hill to lie along Rocky's neck,
so that anyone who noticed us would only think that it was a horse out
on the feed," said Rumple. "But I put the old horse along when we went
down the next slope, only I kept on the grass, for I could hear the men
ahead of me, and I did not want them to know that I was following. Then
there came a long hill and I could see them ever so far ahead of me, as
it was beginning to get light. Luckily they disappeared over the crest
of the hill before it was full daylight, or I guess that they would have
spotted me, though I was lying along the horse like a sack of meal. When
I got to the top of that hill, and it is something like a hill too, the
sort of thing that will work the starch out of poor old Rocky if we take
the wagon that way, the men had disappeared and there was no one in
sight for miles and miles. Presently I saw someone coming towards me
mounted on a jolly fine horse, and I felt quaky from my hat right down
to my boots. Then I caught a gleam of buttons, and I was sure that it
was a mounted policeman; so I cooeyed for all I was worth and he rode
up at a smart gallop to ask me if I had run away from home or what was
the matter."
"What an impudent person!" cried Sylvia wrathfully.
"I don't think that he meant to be impudent," said Rumple, shutting his
eyes with a languid air. "But I suppose it is not a common thing to see
a kid like me doing extraordinary things!"
"Hear him!" cried Nealie, with derisive laughter, clicking her spoon
against her tin plate.
"Well, I suppose that it is a little out of the ordinary for a boy of my
size to do detective work on the track of a mob like those fellows who
rode past us in the night," said Rumple, with edifying modesty.
"Anyhow, he sat up and treated me with real respect when I told him
what I was doing, and at once offered to take the job on for me; to
which, as you may guess, I hadn't the ghost of an objection. So I told
him all that we knew about them, and then I turned round and came back
while he rode off after the men."
"But didn't you see anything of the cattle which bowled us over so
neatly last night?" asked Sylvia.
"No, I didn't, and I can tell you it puzzled me no end, for I went miles
and miles and I did not see so much as the swish of a tail," answered
Rumple, with a dramatic flourish of the broken basin from which he had
been eating his portion of mush.
"Mrs. Warner told me that stampeding cattle will run sometimes for many
miles without stopping, and sometimes they kill themselves by their
exertions," Nealie said as she wriggled into a more comfortable position
against the mattress.
"It struck me as just wonderful what a lot Mrs. Warner knew about
cattle," remarked Sylvia, with a yawn. "Her knowledge made me feel quite
tired; for beyond the fact that a cow had four legs, two horns, and a
tail, I had never realized that there was anything to know about
cattle."
"There is something to know about everything; just see what a lot Mr.
Wallis knew about horses," replied Rupert.
"Yes, and about other things too; but I do wonder what he will say when
he hears how nearly I wrecked his beautiful wagon," said Nealie, with a
sigh, for the thought of her shortcomings worried her a good deal.
"He won't trouble, or, if he does, he knows that Mr. Melrose will see
that everything is put straight," said Sylvia.
"I do not like being indebted to the promiscuous charity of strangers,
and Mr. Melrose was hardly more than a stranger to us," Nealie put in a
little primly. Being the eldest, it was natural she should be a little
more conventional than the others.
"Oh, Mr. Melrose likes being kind to people! Mrs. Warner told me so,"
remarked Rumple, with the air of knowing all that there was to be known.
"He is most awfully rich, too, and he came into his money quite by a
fluke."
"What is a fluke?" demanded Billykins, who was catching rainwater in the
tin dish in which he had been eating his breakfast, so that he could
have a wash-up after his feed.
"A fluke is what happens," explained Rumple vaguely. "It was a fluke
that toppled our wagon over last night."
"There was not any money in that," said Don decidedly.
"Very much the reverse, I should say," laughed Nealie. "Think of the
broken basins, the waste of marmalade and pepper, not to say anything of
the damage to our clothes, and all the rest of it. There are flukes and
flukes, and our kind, unfortunately, was not the sort that pays. But, do
you know, I don't believe that it rains as fast as it did, and so I am
going to harness Rocky, and then we will crawl ahead for a few miles;
for if we stop here we shall starve, and I want some dinner."