MAX A STOWAWAY
Soon after breakfast, Gwen, looking for someone to play with, ran
across the broad piazza to where, pale and weary, Mrs. Deland sat.
"I want Max," cried Gwen, in her usual pert manner.
"Where is he? When is he coming out?"
Mrs. Deland uttered a low cry.
"He's lost, little Gwen! Haven't you heard? They are searching
everywhere for him, and they force me, his mother, to remain here, and
wait with what patience I may."
With a sudden impulse she threw her arms about Gwen, and held her
close, then more gently lifted her face so that their eyes met.
"You loved my little Max," she said. "Are you sorry that he is not yet
found? Stop a moment; you played with him yesterday. When did you last
see him? When were you two children last together?"
"Oh, you're hurting me, holding me so tight. Let go, and I'll tell
where I saw him," cried Gwen.
"Why, child, I didn't dream I was really hurting you. Now tell me."
"I saw him 'way over to Princess Polly's house," Gwen said slowly,
"and we,--we, oh, we quarreled some, and Max didn't stay with me."
"Well, where did he go when he left you?" Mrs. Deland asked eagerly.
A crowd had gathered about the two, and stood listening.
"He told me not to tell," said Gwen, shutting her lips firmly
together.
"What? You know where he is, and will not tell me, his own mother?
Why, child, I am sick with worrying. Tell me, this moment!"
Gwen made no reply.
She loved Max, but she had never liked his mother, and that she should
command her to tell made the little girl more stubborn than she had
ever been before.
"I wouldn't tell now even if Mrs. Deland and all those other women
stuck pins into me," thought Gwen.
It was in vain that they questioned her. Pleading, threatening,
coaxing were equally unavailing, and when Mrs. Harcourt, seeing the
group, came out upon the piazza, Gwen flew to her, saying that
everyone was teasing her.
"It is an outrage!" cried Mrs. Harcourt, her voice shrill with anger.
"I wonder what you can be thinking of? A half dozen grown people
tormenting one small girl."
"My dear Mrs. Harcourt, you don't at all understand," said a tall,
haughty-looking woman. "Your little daughter knows where the lost boy,
Max Deland, is, and, although his mother is nearly wild with anxiety,
she will not tell, that we may know where to find him."
Mrs. Harcourt hesitated. Then she looked at Gwen's flushed cheeks and
downcast eyes.
"Do you know where Max is?" she asked.
"No, I _don't_!" snapped Gwen.
Mrs. Harcourt turned and faced them. She extended her hands.
"There!" she cried. "You see, do you not, that it was idle to tease
Gwen? She does not know where he is."
"She certainly said that she knew where he went," said a stout lady.
"I do know where he _went_!" shouted Gwen, "but how do I know where he
is _now_?"
"Where did he go?" questioned Mrs. Harcourt.
"I promised him I wouldn't tell," said Gwen, "and I won't!"
She wriggled from her mother's grasp, and racing across the piazza,
fled up the stairway to her room.
"Gwen is too honorable to break a promise," sighed Mrs. Harcourt, as
she left the group of disgusted ladies, to follow her small girl to
her apartment.
"Too stubborn would be nearer the truth," muttered the stout lady.
"That child should be made to tell," said another.
"She shall be made to tell," Mrs. Deland said as she turned toward the
small room that served as an office.
Gwen, as stubborn as a little mule, refused to tell the proprietor of
the house, when he called her into his office, and after talking for a
half hour on the naughtiness of being stubborn, and the especial
naughtiness of not telling where Max went, and thus helping the
searchers to find him, she again flatly refused.
If it had been true honor in being determined to keep her promise that
made Gwen refuse, one could not but praise her courage, but her
impulse was wholly selfish.
Max had said that if he ever returned and found that she had told, he
would never speak to her again.
She valued Max's friendship above that of any of her playmates, and
she refused to tell where he went, because he had insisted.
* * * * *
There was great rejoicing at "The Syren's Cave."
The "coming in" of the ship that Captain Seaford had long been looking
for proved to be even more fortunate than he had dreamed.
Its cargo was indeed valuable, and as he obtained a much higher price
for it than he had expected, his kindly heart was filled with
gratefulness, and his eyes grew brighter, and he walked with a lighter
step.
Mrs. Seaford went about the little house, singing at her work, and
Sprite, happy, laughing Sprite, danced upon the beach, played in the
surf, or rocked in her boat, singing, always singing of the water
sprites, the mermen and mermaids of whom she never tired of hearing.
Princess Polly and Rose were both delighted when they heard of the
Seafords' good fortune, but of the disappearance of Max they had not
heard, because they had been away on a little ocean trip.
It happened, on the day that Max decided to run away, that no steamer
lay at the wharf, nor was there so much as a ship in sight.
There was, however, a coal barge, and Max, determined to go on that
very day, watched his chance, and at the first opportunity slipped
aboard, where in frantic haste he looked for a hiding place.
Steps approaching set him into panic, and an empty barrel standing in
a shadowy corner of the little cabin seemed his only refuge.
"There's only a few er these ol' pertaters, so I'll chuck 'em inter
this barrel in the cabin," shouted a gruff voice, and in they went
onto Max's head and shoulders. Not a sound did he make, although the
potatoes felt decidedly hard, and evidently had been thrown in with
none too gentle a hand.
It seemed to the boy in his cramped position as if the coal barge
would never start.
At twilight, however, he felt the motion, and knew that he was sailing
away from Cliffmore, the empty barge to return with another load of
coal, but he, Max Deland, to keep straight on in search of a land
where a fellow didn't have to mind his mother, but could seek and
easily find a fortune, and then return sufficiently independent to
have his own way.
It happened that Max had been seen sneaking aboard the vessel, and a
bit later jumping into the empty barrel to hide, and the sailors had
first thought of putting him ashore with a sharp warning to keep away
from the barge in the future.
Then it occurred to them that a better lesson could be given him by
letting him remain on board for a few days, and then placing him
aboard of the first fishing smack that they met, bound for Cliffmore.
The potatoes had not been carelessly thrown in upon him. It had been
done intentionally, to act as a part of his punishment.
Long before anyone on board was asleep, Max was wishing that he had
never thought of running away.
He thought of the fine dinner that had been served at Cliffmore hours
before, and here was he, Max Deland, in an old and dirty barrel that
vegetables had been stored in, very hungry, and with no way of
obtaining anything to eat.
After a time, his cramped position became unbearable, and slowly but
surely he crept out of the barrel, and upon the cabin floor, where,
because he was so weary, he fell into sound sleep.
At daylight a group of sailors were looking down at the sleeping boy.
The captain of the barge spoke.
"Good-looking little chap, but he must learn not to try this trick
again. Let him lie there until he wakes. Then give him some breakfast,
hard tack and water, remember, and then give him the task I set for
him. When the first fishing smack, bound for Eastville appears, start
him for home."
"Aye, aye, sir!" was the prompt reply, and the boy stirred as if he
had heard it.
"Come now! Step lively!" cried the mate. "No loitering on shipboard."
Max, hardly awake, barely grasped the meaning of the words, and
scrambled to his feet.
"Now, then, forward march if you want something to eat."
Max marched. He dared not refuse, but he did rebel when he saw what
was offered for his breakfast.
"I can't eat that!" he said angrily.
"All right! Forward, march! We'll let ye work on an empty stomach if
ye really hanker to."
All sorts of tasks were set for him, and for the next few days he was
kept exceedingly busy.
He learned to do as he was told, and to do it promptly; to eat what
was given him without grumbling, and there was something else that he
learned by his hard experience. He learned what a fortunate boy he had
always been; to appreciate all the good things that had always been so
freely given him, and above all these, he longed for his mother's
love.
He thought what a good boy he'd be if ever he reached the shore, and
he resolved never to run away, whatever happened that displeased him.
A happy boy was Max when a passing smack stopped long enough so that
he could be taken on board, and then headed straight for Cliffmore.
Max thought nothing had ever looked so beautiful as the cliffs from
which Cliffmore took its name, when in the early morning they sailed
into the bay, and saw the warm sunlight kissing land and sea.
Ah, he would never run away again, for now he knew the value of home
and love.
He ran all the way from the wharf, and up the beach and climbed the
great ledge on which sat the house where with his mother he had been
staying. He rushed up the steps to the piazza, wildly crying:
"Where are you? Where is everybody? I've come home! I've come home!"
They came at once, and from every direction, like ants from an ant
hill, and swarmed around him, asking more questions than he could
answer.
A tall, handsome woman rushed across the piazza, her eyes bright with
hope.
"Stand aside!" she cried. "It is Max! My little Max! I know his voice!
Oh, let me reach him!"
The crowd parted, and the boy was instantly clasped in his mother's
arms.
"My own! My darling!" she sobbed.
"I won't ever run away again!" he responded, his arms about her neck.
"Come!" said one of the crowd that had gathered. "Let them be alone
together for a while," and as with one accord the group melted, the
guests going far from the two who, for the time being, needed no other
company than each other.
Of course, a bit later Max told his story to eager listeners, and when
he had finished the little tale, he said: "And you folks ought to know
that Gwen was a regular brick, to keep the secret I told her not to
let out. Any girl but Gwen would have told it first thing, but Gwen
is a brick. Don't all of you think so?"
A gentleman on the outskirts of the little crowd proposed cheers.
"Three cheers for Max and his brick!" he shouted, and they gave them
with a will.
On the same morning that the little fishing smack brought Max home to
Cliffmore, the beautiful steam yacht, _Dolphin_, sailed into the bay,
with its owner, Captain John Atherton, and his beautiful bride
standing together on the deck, and returning the salutes of the host
of friends who awaited them on the wharf.
Handkerchiefs were waved by the ladies, hats were swung by the men,
and foremost in the waiting crowd stood little Rose Atherton, a basket
of roses to offer them, and the housekeeper close beside her, lest in
her excitement she might actually be swept off the pier.
"Oh, I'm so glad, so glad!" cried Rose. "Dear Uncle John, and
dear----" she paused.
What should she call this lovely young woman?
Iris laughed.
"You must learn to call me 'Aunt Iris,'" she said, stooping to kiss
the little blushing face.
"I'll love to," Rose said, "and I won't have to learn, same's I won't
have to learn to love you, for I love you now, you are so sweet, so
lovely."
"Oh, John, was there ever a sweeter welcome? I am so happy."
At the reception a week later, Rose stood beside the dear, new aunt,
and felt very proud and happy "helping to receive."
Princess Polly and Sprite were delighted that Rose was now to be so
happy.
"Of course it is dearest to have one's own mamma," Polly said, "but
Rose had neither papa nor mamma, so lovely Mrs. Iris is next best, and
I do truly think she is dear."
"So do I," agreed Sprite, "and of course if Rose was happy with her
Uncle John she'll be just so much happier with her new aunt, but who
told you to call her 'Mrs. Iris'?"
"No one," said Polly, "but for that minute I couldn't think of
Atherton, and I couldn't call her Mrs. Captain John. Of course she is
Mrs. Atherton now."
"Oh, yes," agreed Sprite, "and my mamma says she's almost an angel.
She did truly say that this morning, and Pa said:
"That's just what she is, and Captain John Atherton is a lucky man and
I'm glad for him."
Already, plans were being made for the return to Avondale, and Rose,
Princess Polly and Sprite were looking forward to the opening of
school when, with Harry and Leslie, Lena and Rob, Vivian, and all the
other playmates, they would be having the pleasant school days, and
the good times that were always enjoyed at Avondale.
Gyp was to be "indoor man" on Captain Atherton's place, and study in
evening classes, taking a business course that would fit him for a
better position that the captain assured him should surely be his, if
he excelled in his class work.
Sprite was indeed to be happy. The year before she had spent at the
Avondale school, making her home with Princess Polly and Rose. She
had been happy with them, but of course, at times, she was somewhat
homesick.
This year would be so different. Captain Seaford's good fortune
enabled him to rent a small apartment for the Winter at Avondale, and
there Sprite could enjoy her school, and merry playmates, and yet be
with her parents.
Gwen Harcourt was telling all whom she met at Cliffmore that she was
very tired of living at Avondale, and that she did not think she
should live there much longer. She said that if she fussed enough
about it, her mamma would take her somewhere else. All who knew Gwen
felt reasonably sure that she would "fuss."
Rose knew that her home at Avondale would now be perfect. Uncle John
would love her as he always had loved her, and of her new aunt she
was already very fond.
Surely it promised to be a bright and happy Winter for Princess Polly
and her friends, the merry playmates at Avondale, where good times and
gay spirits prevailed and kind and happy hearts worked with equal zeal
at study and at merry-making.
THE END
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