MIDSUMMER EVE
“Oh dear! I forgot my fern-seed!” cried Nancy, as they reached Round
Robin. “Why didn’t you remind me, Cicely, when we were getting the
sweet grass? The clam-bake was so exciting I quite forgot about
to-night.”
“I think it’s too early for fern-seed,” said Cicely. “I haven’t seen
any this year. But if there is any to be found, surely it would have
been on that mysterious island, where there seems to be pretty nearly
everything else.”
“Including witches,” laughed Dick.
“And a buried treasure of clams, Reddy,” added Hugh.
“Perhaps Patsy will help me find some fern-seed,” said Nancy, running
up the path to greet the stay-at-home. “He knows everything, I
believe. He must be hungry for his dinner--Patsy, Patsy!” Nancy began
to call through the woods and to give the little shrill whistle which
the white cat always understood and answered with his agreeable
_miaou_.
But this time there was no answer. Patsy did not come. Patsy was not
to be found. Not even the lure of lobster set appetizingly out for
his supper, nor the tempting sound of a plate being scraped with a
knife, which had hitherto been an unfailing charm, recalled the white
kitten to his mistress.
What was to be done? The camp was in an uproar. Never had Patsy been
out at night. It could not be allowed! The Twins went off in one
direction, the boys in others. The girls scattered through woods and
along the shore. Nancy knew his favorite haunts. But Patsy was not
under the great beech tree where the squirrels chattered. He was not
cushioned in the fragrant cedar-bushes over the wall in the country
of the field-mice. The dell under the great pine told no news of him.
Dick found no print of little feet in the mud of the brook, or in the
sand of the bathing beach.
“Patsy! Patsy!” the woods rang with the anxious cry; the evening
bird-chorus seemed to take it up with a mocking cadenza. For they had
no cause to love Patsy the prowler.
Finally the Camp gave him up for the night. Nancy could hardly eat
her supper she was so worried. “I shall never see my kitten again!”
she wailed. “The foxes will get him. Or he will tumble into the sea
and be drowned. Or he may stray off into the deep woods and become a
wild cat!”
“You needn’t worry,” soothed her mother. “Patsy can take care of
himself, like any native. I’m sure of that.”
“But he never was out alone all night,” lamented Nancy. “And this is
Midsummer Eve, of all times! Who knows what may happen to him?”
“If Patsy is a fairy cat he will surely be safe,” Cicely comforted
her cousin. This thought alone seemed to give Nancy a little hope.
She forgot all about fern-seed and the charms she had intended to try
on this magic night. After supper she and Cicely retired early to
their tent in the Fairy Ring.
“What a fuss about a cat!” thought some of the campers. But most of
them were as sorry as could be. For they loved the beautiful Patsy.
“I sha’n’t sleep all night,” Nancy declared.
“Nonsense!” Cicely retorted, being a practical common-sense person.
“What good will that do Patsy?”
“He might come home in the night,” said Nancy dubiously.
“Well, if he does, he will be sure to tell you,” said Cicely
sleepily. And that was the last she knew for a long time.
In the middle of the night, Cicely suddenly opened her eyes and sat
up in bed. The woods outside were very still; but something was
moving in the tent.
“Nancy! Are you asleep?” whispered Cicely. The moon shone in through
the door-flap and Cicely saw her cousin creeping mysteriously about
the floor. “What is the matter, Nancy?” asked Cicely again.
“I’m trying to find my moccasins. I’m going out to look for Patsy.
I’m sure I can find him in the moonlight,” Nancy answered in the
same whisper. “I can’t stand it, Cicely!”
“But it’s the middle of the night!” Cicely’s voice faltered. “Wait
till morning, Nancy, do.”
“I can’t wait till morning,” Nancy said; and Cicely knew she had been
crying by the sound of her voice. “I must go now.”
“Then I’ll go too,” sighed Cicely, loyal, though her heart balked at
the idea of braving this American wilderness in the dead of night.
The two girls slipped moccasins on their bare feet and threw on their
dressing-gowns; then stole out of the tent into the moonlight, which
silvered everything with a magic touch. The whole lit-up world looked
wonderfully beautiful. But the shadows were blacker than ever, by the
same charm. It did not seem like the world they knew by day.
They crept carefully by the sleeping tents. In the door of the third
one stood a little figure, white and fairy-like, looking out into
the woods with big eyes. “Why, it’s Anne Poole!” Nancy whispered to
Cicely who clung to her hand. “She isn’t asleep, either!”
Anne joined them immediately. “You are going to look for Patsy?” she
said. “I thought of doing that, too. But I wouldn’t have dared go
alone. May I come? He is such a darling kitty!”
Nancy’s heart warmed to the Golden Girl. “Ah, do!” she said. “Let’s
get out into the woods.” She felt the two girls shiver at the words.
But they were both bound to the adventure. “I have a feeling that
Patsy is in the woods,” whispered Nancy.
Step by step, gingerly at first, then more confidently as they grew
accustomed to the shadows, the three girls walked down the path into
the woods. “Patsy! Patsy!” called Nancy in the littlest of voices,
so as not to waken the Camp. But nothing answered. To Anne, fresh
from the City, the stillness was almost _loud_. She could hear her
heart beat, _thump thump_. In the woods were strange little noises;
the snapping of twigs, tiny rustles; now and then a smothered chirp.
The night was not empty, but full of life that they could not see. It
gave a strange feeling to know this. A hundred little eyes might be
looking at them this minute! A white cat is not easily hidden. But
Patsy did not appear.
[Illustration: but nothing answered]
“Let’s follow the brook down to the shore,” whispered Nancy,
squeezing Cicely’s hand before she let it drop; for they had to go in
single file down the path. “If I don’t find him there I will go back,
I promise. Patsy isn’t likely to cross the brook. Cats don’t like
running water, you know.”
“Neither do fairies!” murmured Cicely,
“I was thinking of that, too,” said Nancy. But Anne Poole said: “He
might be up in the top of a tree.”
They crept through the silvery meadow, along the little path that
Patsy loved, for by day it was full of pleasant crawling, creeping,
hopping things. The girls did not like to think of this just now.
They kept calling the cat under their breath. But no Patsy answered.
No little white furry shape came running to meet them, as he always
did when they chanced to pass his ambush.
“We shall see him right away if he is here,” said Nancy eagerly, as
they came out on the shore, almost as bright as day in the moonlight.
Here the brook trickled down over the rocks in a baby waterfall,
a favorite spot of Patsy’s, where he was accustomed to vary his
hunting trips with a drink. But no Patsy was there, and Nancy gave a
groan. “I give up!” she said.
Just then Cicely clutched her cousin’s arm and drew her back behind
a screen of elder bushes. At the same moment Anne seized her hand.
“There is somebody under that tree!” she whispered.
Sure enough. Under a drooping fir tree a figure was crouched, her
knees drawn up to her chin. By her side was a bundle.
“It looks like a witch!” murmured Nancy. And Cicely thought so too.
But Anne knew better. “It’s the Indian woman,” she said, “Sal Seguin.”
“So it is!” The girls stared. And Anne had a dreadful thought. “Maybe
she has Patsy in that bundle. Maybe she took him for his beautiful
fur!” But she did not tell this thought to Nancy.
The old woman sat with her shawl drawn over her head, apparently
dozing. The girls watched her, without moving--five, perhaps ten
minutes. Then Sal Seguin stirred and glanced over her shoulder,
almost as if she felt someone was looking at her. Presently she got
up and went down to the water’s edge, taking her bundle with her.
They saw her get into her canoe and paddle silently away towards the
Harbor. Her skilful strokes made no sound.
“What do you suppose she was doing down here?” asked Cicely, the
first to speak.
“I hope she hasn’t got Patsy in that bundle!” shivered Anne, unable
to conceal her fear any longer.
“Patsy! Oh, she couldn’t keep him in there!” cried Nancy. “He is too
full of life and temper. You would know if you had ever tried to put
him in his traveling basket, Anne.”
But Anne thought about that silky white fur, and was not convinced.
They did not need the North Star, or the bright Cassiopea’s Chair
that stood over the camp, to show them the way back. The path was as
plain as day. The thought of that old woman behind them made them
glance over their shoulders now and then as they crept silently back
up the hill, and perhaps made them walk a little faster.
“I wish Beverly had been here,” said Nancy when they were almost at
the top of the slope. “Perhaps she would have dared to speak to the
Indian and ask if she had seen Patsy.”
“Beverly is sound asleep,” said Anne. “Nothing seems to disturb her.
I tumbled over my camp-stool, but she didn’t hear.”
“Thank you for coming,” said Nancy, touching Anne’s hand as they
parted at the Fairy Ring.
“I’m sorry we didn’t find him,” said Anne earnestly. “Maybe he will
come yet.”
Nancy shook her head. “No,” she said, “I haven’t any hope now.”
At breakfast the three girls came in looking rather pale and very
sleepy. Patsy was still missing. They could hardly make the others
believe that they had really gone down the pasture by moonlight. And
when they told about Sal Seguin, Dick insisted that they must have
been dreaming. But when they mentioned Sal’s bundle, Hugh thought, as
Anne had done, about Patsy’s white fur. “I wish we had never seen
that old Indian!” he said.
Nancy had stolen away as soon as possible to make a last despairing
search for her pet. And while the others were still talking about the
adventure of the night before, questioning Cicely and Anne, as they
wiped the breakfast dishes, the Twins set up a shout.
“Here she is! Nancy has Patsy in her arms.”
Breathless Nancy was toiling up the slope, carrying the great ball of
fluff. Her eyes were shining and she laughed out loud with happiness
as she shouted “I’ve got him! I’ve got him! The prodigal son!”
“Where did you find him, Nancy?” asked Anne dropping her dish towel
and running to stroke the soft white fur of the blinking cat.
“Right in the middle of the path!” said she. “I went down the same
way we took last night, to the shore. And there he lay just above
the spot where we saw Sal Seguin, under a little juniper bush, right
in the path. He just lay there, too tired to move. He couldn’t drag
himself up the slope, but he answered when I called. Such a weary,
worn, limp cat! What do you suppose he had been doing to get so
tired? Where do you suppose he had been all night?”
“_Nobody knew where Kilmeny had been_”
said Cicely, quoting the old ballad about the girl who went to visit
the Fairies.
“Did you go off with the Fairies, Patsy?” asked Nancy, putting her
face close to that of the white cat.
“_Mi-aou!_” cried Patsy dolorously.
“I believe he did!” whispered Nancy to Cicely Vane.
“I’m glad he’s safe,” said Anne, and the white cat licked her cheek
feebly. He was almost too tired to be polite.
“Anyway, Sal Seguin didn’t carry him off,” said Hugh. “That was what
I suspected.”
“Perhaps she did, and he found his way back,” suggested Anne. “That
was what _I_ was afraid of, too.”
“I believe he was there all the time and we didn’t see him,” declared
Nancy. “I believe he found the fern-seed that we missed, ate it, and
became invisible.”
Anyway, wherever he had been, Patsy slept all that day on Nancy’s
bed, the most exhausted kitten ever seen. And he never told the Club
what adventures he had experienced on Midsummer Eve.
Hugh and Victor met Captain Sackett that morning when they went to
the Harbor for the mail, and they asked him if he had seen an old
Indian woman in the neighborhood.
The Captain scratched his head thoughtfully. “Why yes,” said he, in
his nasal drawl, “did see an old woman in a shawl early this mornin’,
when I went haulin’. Yes, she had a bundle in her canoe. I guess it
was grass, or herbs or somethin’. She’s quite a character. But I
haven’t seen her around for some time till this mornin’. They say
her tribe owned this whole shore once. But not in my time, nor in my
father’s or grandfather’s, I guess. The Indians were treated pretty
mean, sometimes.”
“Where do you suppose she is now, Cap’n?” queried Hugh. The Captain
shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows?” said he. “We can’t keep tabs on
everything that goes on along this coast full of islands. I guess
I’ll run up and take a look at Idlewild this afternoon. Mr. Poole
asked me to kinder keep an eye on it. Say, has the little girl been
up there yet? Little Anne, I mean?”
The boys said No, she hadn’t had time yet. The old man sighed. “I
hope she’ll come to see me too,” he said. “But I don’t want you to
tell her so.”
Hugh laughed. “Whatever you tell her, she is likely to do the
opposite thing,” he said. “She’s a spoiled kid, Cap’n.”
Again the Captain sighed. “I guess she is,” he said.
But Victor put in a good word for the newcomer. “She’s awfully fond
of animals, anyway,” he said.
“A little cat!” laughed Hugh.