A REMOVAL
The fire was finally put out without even the loss of Captain Ozias
Littlefield's spare artificial limb; but the kitchen ell was entirely
gutted.
Little but smoke-damage was done to the main part of the hotel; but
the whole house must be redecorated before it could be made really
habitable. And with the kitchen unusable the season was ruined for Mrs.
Truefelt and her son. They could not care properly for their guests.
They did not hurry away those who could not at once obtain new
lodgings; but most of the guests were able to get accommodations at
other hotels and boarding houses.
The new clerk was not in the hotel when the fire occurred. He had been
across the island with his family at Barzilla Ball's place; and he came
to Mrs. Cameron at once, when he arrived and heard what had happened,
to remind her of the fact that the Balls had room for other boarders if
she and Carolyn could get along without hotel accommodations.
"I had thought of Molly Ball," Carolyn's mother said. "After all, I
believe I should be just as contented there; and I am sure Mr. Cameron
would not mind."
"The Balls are very kind people," remarked the clerk.
"I agree with you. Do you suppose Molly would take us?"
"Why don't you go over at once and ask her? Somebody may get ahead of
you. My wife would be delighted to have you and your little girl for
company. I am very sorry this has happened. It is going to bother Mrs.
Bassett greatly, I fear, when she learns of it. She--she does not get
along as well as I hoped, Mrs. Cameron."
"I am sorry for that," Carolyn's mother returned. "Let us hope for
improvement."
Bassett was greatly disturbed, Mrs. Cameron could see, by the
catastrophe. As he had said, it seemed that he was playing in very hard
luck. Scarcely was he settled in his position as clerk of the hotel
when he was again out of work.
"Old Mr. Trouble seems camping close on my trail, Ben," he said to his
friend whimsically. "I am a Jonah."
Carolyn's mother prepared their possessions for removal and then
engaged Tommy Trivett (Captain Littlefield being busy) to drive her and
Carolyn and Prince over to the West Side. They reached the Ball place
before noon, bringing the first news of the hotel fire.
"And can you take us poor, burned-out people in, Molly Ball?" asked
Carolyn's mother. "Carolyn and me--to say nothing of the dog?"
"My soul and body!" ejaculated the capable island girl, "I'll take you
in, Miz Cameron, and do for you as best I can. But this ain't no St.
Regicide like you New York people are used to."
"But, Molly," laughed Carolyn's mother, "do you know, I never was in
the St. Regis? I promise not to compare your accommodations to their
disparagement even with those of the Truefelt House."
So an agreement was made, and the Camerons were established in two of
those very delightful old-fashioned rooms overlooking the sea at the
back of the cottage, out of the windows of which Carolyn had suggested
they might jump for a bath.
But the Ball cottage was not quite so near the edge of the bank as that
implied. The unfenced brink of the fifty foot precipice, however, was
only a few yards away. Along its ragged verge ran a hard path, deeply
worn by many feet. To the south was the West Side life saving station.
The surfmen followed this beaten path to the breach of the Great Salt
Pond where there was a key-box on a post. They could shout across the
strait there to the patrol from the new life saving station near Sands
Point. In the other direction they met the Old Harbour patrol at a
point on the South Side.
But Carolyn thought little of these coast guards just now. She was
running about getting more thoroughly acquainted than heretofore with
the immediate vicinity of the Ball cottage.
"Come on, Princey," she said to her dog blithely. "We've got to look
down and see where's the best path to the shore. Miss Molly says
sometimes the edge of this hill falls down on to the shore. We'll have
to be careful 'bout that."
However, it did not appear that the sea had bitten a mouthful out of
the bluff of late, although the edge was very ragged and broken. The
patrol path was not broken, and at present the sea at the foot of the
cliff seemed comparatively quiet.
They sat down on the edge of the cliff, the little girl and the dog,
and watched the sea hissing among the fallen boulders below. These
great and small stones--bushels of them the size of one's fist, but
many as large as a wagon, and several as big as moving vans or small
houses--littered the shore as far as Carolyn could see in either
direction.
The sands below high water mark were packed as hard and as smooth as
a road by the action of the tide. Above this mark the loose sand was
filled with all manner of rubbish--driftwood, much of which was the
remains of wrecked boats; big shells torn from the bottom of the sea in
storms and tossed here by the breakers; all manner of dried seaweeds
and other sea cultch.
Carolyn's eyes sparkled, while Prince sniffed the airs off the ocean
and found no scent of "good hunting" in them. But as they went back
around the house the two friends found something that promised real
sport to Prince.
Up out of a grass bed at the side of the house sprang a little creature
that amazed Carolyn quite as much as it did Prince--all bandy legs,
jerking head, and bleating voice. It started at a stumbling run away
from the newcomers, and naturally Prince wanted to investigate.
"Stop, Princey!" commanded his mistress. "Don't you chase that poor
little--little--well, whatever it is! It's got such a curly coat. And
hasn't it a funny, ugly black nose? I--never--did--see!"
"Baa-a-a!" bleated the hobbling creature, turning to stare at the
little girl and her dog with quite as much curiosity as they stared at
it.
Molly I. Ball suddenly appeared at the corner of the house.
"Don't let your dog chase Nebuchadnezzar," she cried.
"Goodness gracious me!" gasped Carolyn May, "is _that_ what he is? It
sounds too big for him, Miss Molly."
"What sounds too big?"
"That you called him," declared the little girl. "_Is_ he one?"
"Is he one what?" demanded the puzzled Molly.
"Why, a 'nebuchad--chad'--Well, whatever it was you called him?"
"Nebuchadnezzar?" repeated Molly Ball, laughing. "That's his name. But
he's a lamb. Didn't you ever see a lamb before?"
"A lamb? My!" cried the little city girl. "I never saw one before 'cept
in the butcher shop with all his--his clothes off. And then it don't
look like _that_."
"No. I imagine not," said Molly Ball. "Come here, Nebby! Coo! Coo! Coo!"
She approached the funny little creature that stood with all four long
legs braced apart, head down, and looking as though undecided whether
to run or to butt.
"I've seen goats up in the Bronx," murmured Carolyn May. "I've seen
the--the herd of sheep in Central Park. But I guess there weren't any
lambs with 'em. Oh, isn't he funny?"
"He gits around almost as graceful as Ozy Littlefield, don't he?"
laughed Molly Ball. "Here, Nebby!"
"Why did you call him that awful name? Nebuchad--What is it?"
"Nebuchadnezzar."
"That's it," smiled the little girl, who loved the sound of long words
even if she could not pronounce them. "Why did you?"
"Because he eats grass," declared Molly I., enigmatically.
"Oh!"
Carolyn May gave her close attention to the lamb. She made Prince
"lie down and be good" while she gathered a handful of juicy grass
and approached Nebuchadnezzar, who was now nuzzling in Molly Ball's
apron as she squatted down, and was letting her scratch his ears and
"buttons."
"See," said his mistress. "Those buttons will be horns some day. He's
going to have funny little curly horns, and if he gets old enough he'll
stamp his little hoofs when he is mad and will butt right into a stone
wall."
"Oh! He must have a temper almost as bad as Mr. Oly Littlefield's,"
murmured the astonished Carolyn.
"Shouldn't wonder," agreed Molly. "Now, you pat him, Carolyn."
"Won't he bite?"
"No. Nor butt. Not yet," laughed the island girl. "And by and by when I
salt 'em, you shall go with me and see our whole flock. Nebuchadnezzar
was a late spring lamb and his mother died. He's a cosset."
Carolyn's eyes grew big and she exclaimed emphatically: "Oh, Miss
Molly! Why, that can't be so!"
"What ain't so?"
"What you just said. This Nebu--Nebu--Well, what-you-call-him, can't be
a corset, for that's what ladies wear."
"Oh, bless you!" laughed Molly I. "Nebby ain't that kind of a corset.
He's a cosset lamb--brought up by hand. He was tagging me about the
kitchen and milk-room for two months. It's only lately he's lived out
of doors and I named him Nebuchadnezzar. I sartain sure was glad to see
him take to eatin' grass the way he done. He's a right smart lamb."
"Have you any more like him, Miss Molly?" asked the little girl.
"Not just like him. All this year's lambs are pretty well grown but
him. But they were like him when they were little. He looks all laigs
an' wool now; but he'll be a goodly sized critter next winter."
As she had been promised, Carolyn went late in the afternoon with
Miss Molly Ball to salt the sheep in a rocky hollow which was out of
sight of the house on the bluff. There were more than a score of the
grey-brown creatures cropping the short grass and the tall weeds that
grew between the rocks.
"If our sheep pasture had many more rocks in it," complained Molly I.,
"we'd have to file the sheep's noses so't they could feed between the
rocks."
"Amos Bartlett tried _that_," cried Carolyn. "He's got _such_ a big
nose, you know. But it only made his nose sore and bigger than ever."
Miss Ball chuckled. "Maybe it wouldn't do much good, child. And the
sheep clean up the pastures pretty good. That's what we keep 'em for
on the island--to have 'em eat up the wild carrot. They like it; but I
don't believe nothing else in the world does. It's all over the farm."
She showed the little girl the stalky plant, with its flat flowers.
Carolyn thought it very pretty.
"Pretty is, as pretty does," quoted Miss Molly. "That tarnal weed don't
look pretty to me. Comin' from church t'other Sunday I picked more'n
twenty dif'rent kinds of wild carrot. If it keeps on there won't be
nothin' else growin' on the island but it."
If Carolyn had been busy while she stayed at the hotel, now her time
was even more fully occupied. It was quite surprising how much there
was to do and to see and to talk about around the little house on the
bluff.
The Balls had a horse and a cow and chickens and turkeys, as well as
Nebuchadnezzar and all his relations. There were a surprising number of
things Carolyn and Prince could "help" about.
The little girl soon learned how to feed the flock of poultry which
Molly I. kept fenced in for the good of their souls and the garden. The
turkeys ran at large, of course. But turkeys do not scratch and they
can be trusted to chase bugs through the garden rows without destroying
the crops.
She watched Barzilla curry Beppo, the old horse, named for a Portuguese
fisherman who had once lived near Dorris Cove. When Molly I. milked the
cow, Carolyn stood by and watched the milk stream into the pail as she
had watched Aunty Rose Kennedy milk the cow at the Corners.
On the mornings that Barzilla Ball went out in the _Snatch It_ to the
fishing grounds, he and his sister got up while it was still pitch
dark and Molly made him coffee and put up a big lunch of cooked food,
for neither Barzilla nor the man who went with him as "crew" on the
double-ender, would have time to cook much after they got outside.
Carolyn May awoke and pattered out into the kitchen in her bedroom
slippers and bathrobe to watch sleepily these preparations, to drink a
sip of Barzilla's coffee, and be kissed by him when he went away with
his oilskins, the basket, and other "gear" over his arm, while the
stars were burning still brightly in the velvet sky.
Then she would cuddle into Molly I.'s bed with the island girl and go
to sleep again until it was time for "all hands and the cook" to be
called, as Molly expressed it.
All these joys were in addition to being with the pale lady and Mamma
Cameron for part of every day, and wheeling Baby Laird out in the
carriage that had been purchased for that little man.
The pale lady did not go far with the baby, and she rested much of the
day. It did seem (and even Carolyn May remarked it) that the good
Island air, and Molly Ball's cooking, and the quiet existence they all
enjoyed, did not do the baby's mother very much good. The baby himself,
however, grew rosy and hearty as the days passed.
Carolyn had become so fond of her little cousin at the Corners, Carolyn
Amanda, that she missed her sorely. Now she revelled in the delights of
Baby Laird's bath, of his being dressed fresh and sweet afterward, in
the getting of him to sleep after his bottle, and finally in pushing
him about in his carriage.
It was while she was engaged in this last occupation one day, soon
after she had taken up her abode in the cottage on the bluff, that
she met again the man and his wife who had already so puzzled and
interested her.
She had wheeled Baby Laird down the long lane to the public road, and
with Prince was about to turn around and retrace her steps, when a
two-seated carriage drawn by a pair of sleek horses and driven by the
liveried negro whom Carolyn had previously seen pushing the wheelchair
on the sands, came suddenly into view around a spur of Beacon Hill. She
knew the carriage came from one of the larger hotels.
On the back seat were the man with whom she considered herself quite
well acquainted, and his very unhappy looking wife. It seemed to the
sunny-hearted Carolyn as though the poor lady needed cheering up, and
she smiled up at her as the carriage came near with her very bravest
smile.
The woman in the carriage, who had been so languid and so distrait the
moment before, became suddenly interested in Carolyn and the baby, and
even the man sat up with quick attention and signalled the driver to
stop.
"Hullo!" the man said. "So I find you again, do I? Let me see: Your
name is Carrie, isn't it?"
"Carolyn May, if you please, sir," the little girl said.
"To be sure! Carolyn May. And do you live away over here with your
mamma?"
"We do now, sir. Since the hotel got burned," explained the child.
"Why! the little girl must have been turned out of the Truefelt House,"
said the woman, showing some interest. "And the baby!"
"Oh, no, ma'am," said Carolyn May, politely but firmly. "Baby Laird
wasn't in our hotel when it got burned. He was right up there, where
mamma and I are staying now," and she pointed to the Ball cottage.
"What a quaint old place," said the woman. But her gaze came back to
the baby, who was awake and playing in his carriage. "Whose child is
that, little girl? Is it your brother?"
"Oh, no, ma'am. He's just a friend of mine," explained Carolyn May.
The baby laughed up into the woman's face. He even dropped his rubber
dog and put out his hands as though to be taken up. The woman in the
carriage leaned forward, and for the moment the mask of discontent
seemed to drop from her countenance. Even Carolyn saw the change and
wondered.
"The dear!" murmured the woman. "What an attractive child!" she added
to her husband. "Do you know, he reminds me--Ah, see him laugh! Just as
friendly as--as my baby used to be. Not afraid of strangers at all, is
he?"
The stern man looked straight ahead, over the horse's ears, and across
the fourteen-mile stretch of blue water to where the sun shone on the
white staff of the old Montauk Light.