INTO MISCHIEF AND OUT
The cockatoo looking man, as Carolyn May often called Mr. Oly
Littlefield, was for once stricken dumb, as well as helpless. His
hat had flown off his head and followed his cane, the basket, the
groceries, and the bouncing lemons down the hill. But he was stuck
right where he had landed in the sand and the avalanche was piling up
around him.
He sat in such a position, with his left leg completely buried and his
right drawn up, that he could not of his own strength drag his body out
of the sand. He might just as well have tried to lift himself out by
his bootstraps!
The old fellow's face was really growing pale. The situation was
not laughable in the least to him. And as far as the children were
concerned, they were very much frightened.
The sand was still sliding down all about him, and he was slowly being
buried, deeper and deeper. He could not see anybody to help him, for
from this angle of the hill no dwelling was in sight.
At Dorris Cove were two fish houses, and he could see their roofs, and
the dories drawn well up on the shore. The poundmen, however, had drawn
the traps long since and gone home. Aside from the two little girls and
the dog, Mr. Oly Littlefield was alone.
"In the name o' the Dancin' Doolittles!" he groaned. "I'm complete'
swamped here and no two ways about it. How'm I ever goin' to get out?"
It did look as though his chance for escape was very slim. The sands
kept running down, and the more he struggled the deeper he seemed to
slide--just as though he were in a quicksand.
"What ever shall we do?" cried Edna. "Oh, Carolyn, he's going to be all
buried up!"
"He mustn't! He mustn't!" shrieked Carolyn quite as loudly, and she ran
toward the half-entombed man.
Her light feet did not greatly disturb the sliding sand. Besides, she
addressed herself to the cockatoo man from the side of the path where
the hill had not fallen. Edna followed her friend's example, and both
little girls seized upon his right hand and dragged at him, while he
fought with his left to loosen his body from the engulfing sand.
Even Prince helped. He seized Mr. Oly Littlefield by the tail of his
short linen coat. He almost dragged the coat over the man's head; but
the buttons held and the dog was of some aid in pulling the cockatoo
man out of the pit.
He managed to raise himself a little and then fell sideways, prying his
wooden leg from the sand. The little girls, with screams, fell over
backward as the cockatoo man came free. Prince lost his hold on the
coat and slithered half way down the hill.
"Oh! _Oh!_ OH!" shrieked Edna in crescendo.
"It's all over!" Carolyn gasped.
"What the Dancin' Doolittles!" ejaculated the old fellow. "And _now_
who's to go back and git more groceries, I want to know? I wish't I'd
let Ozy do it in the first place."
Carolyn expected him to turn his wrath upon, them--especially upon
Prince. She stood off a little, clutching Edna's hand, and staring at
him. The cockatoo man turned his head stiffly, where he sat on the
hillside with his wooden leg sticking straight out before him, and
blinked at the children and the dog.
"I declare to man!" he said. "You young 'uns was good to me. Even that
dog, I reckon he meant well by me, though I think he's tored the coat
purt' near off my back. I thank ye! Merciful--Dancin'--Doolittles!" as
he rose to an erect position. "How'll I git my basket--_an'_ my cane?"
He really was much subdued, and Carolyn May began to feel sympathetic.
"Oh, sir! we'll help you if you'll let us," she cried.
"I ain't in a position to object, I reckon," returned Mr. Littlefield
dryly.
They ran after the basket and his cane, and even picked up the lemons.
But most of the dry groceries he had bought were under the loose sand
that was still pouring down the hillside in various little streams. Mr.
Littlefield accepted his possessions with good grace and thanked the
little girls.
"I'll hobble on to the shack and wait for Ozy to come back from the
fishin'. I declare! I ain't able now to make another v'y'ge to Peleg
Rose's store and back again--nossir! Much obleeged to you, I'm sure,
leetle gals. Good-bye."
He hobbled down the path toward the cabin on the shore. Edna grabbed
Carolyn's arm and shook her.
"Oh, Carolyn May! _Now_ is the time to ask him."
"Ask him what?"
"How he came to have that wooden leg?"
"Oh, no," Carolyn said thoughtfully. "I wouldn't ask him that _now_.
Maybe Mr. Littlefield wouldn't like to talk about his wooden leg just
when it got him into so much trouble," she added with tact. "I guess
we'd better ask Mr. Cap'n Littlefield first."
They did not, however, have the opportunity to put the query to the
captain at that time. He was not at the shore cabin, and his cousin was
in no mood to entertain visitors.
So the little girls and Prince plodded home again. Knowing the way by
the highroad, they followed that instead of the patrol path, although
it was longer. The dusty road brought them around by Barzilla's sheep
pasture which at one end was separated by a stone wall only from the
highway.
"Oh, dear, me, Car'lyn!" exclaimed Edna. "Look at all those sheep."
A flock of a score or more was milling in the road. A black-faced old
ewe was trying to lead the flock over or through the stone wall into
the Ball pasture.
"My goodness, won't Miss Molly be sot all aback!" cried Carolyn,
repeating an expression she had lately learned and thought well of.
"Those are all Nebuchadnezzar's relations."
"How do you know?" asked her friend.
"Of course they are. Don't you see they've all got black faces? And
they are trying to get into our pasture! And they can't, the poor
things!"
"That big sheep is going to push that rock over. If it can do it," Edna
said as "judgmatically" as Aunt Ardelia Dodge would have said it, "they
can all go through the wall."
"Let's help 'em," Carolyn suggested.
"Let's," agreed Edna promptly.
So, telling Prince to stay back and behave, the children ran up along
the toppling stone wall. The old ewe backed away and stamped her feet.
"Do you s'pose it'll bite, Carolyn?" murmured Edna, stopping and
preparing to withdraw at any further sign of antagonism on the part of
the black-faced ewe.
"Certainly not," declared Carolyn. "It's got only one set of teeth,
anyway."
"The poor thing! Is it as old as all that?" queried Edna, who was not
as familiar with the split-hoof herbivorous animals as Carolyn claimed
to be. "It must be as old as old Mrs. Junkins at home, for she hasn't
got but a few teeth left, and she says they don't hit!"
"This sheep'll never hurt you," Carolyn bravely declared, and she
approached the stone on the wall. Seeing that it was already wabbling,
she managed to push it over into the pasture without any great
difficulty. It rolled down a little gully, and several other stones
followed it, for the wall was built in a very haphazard fashion.
She stepped back, and at once the old ewe dashed for the opening. She
plunged through, and the other sheep, old and young, crowding and
bleating, followed after.
"I s'pose," said Carolyn, seriously, "we ought to stop up that place
again so that they can't get out."
"But we can't lift those stones," objected Edna. "We've done enough,"
the little visitor added, taking credit for what Carolyn had really
accomplished alone.
"I guess that's so. Well, let's hurry and tell Miss Molly. She can lift
them. Miss Molly's awful strong."
The sheep were now feeding composedly, and were heading down the
hollow, the other end of which could not be seen from the roadside. The
little girls quickened their steps and turned up the Ball lane. As they
approached the cottage Molly I. came out to ask:
"Did you children see Abel Mott's sheep along the road anywhere?
They've broke out again."
"Oh, no," Carolyn assured her. "We only saw your sheep. They had got
out of the pasture."
"Nonsense, child!" said Molly I. "I saw our sheep grazin' up in this
end of our pasture not ha'f an hour ago."
"Oh, no, Miss Molly, you couldn't," Carolyn said earnestly. "They
were all out in the road and trying their hardest to get into your
pasture-lot. So I helped 'em."
"You helped 'em?"
"Yes. I threw down a stone so that they could get through the wall, and
they all went through--just as slick! But Edna and I couldn't put up
the stone again. It was too big."
"For the land's sake!" exclaimed Molly I., and she started across the
fields toward the pasture, dishcloth in hand. The little girls trotted
with her, realizing that something was wrong but not understanding what.
They came in sight of the upper end of the pasture. There were the two
flocks of sheep feeding together, and hopelessly mixed!
"Now you _have_ done it, children," said Molly Ball, in despair. "It'll
take Barzilla a full day to separate them an' git Abel Mott's out into
the road again. Abel will never lift his hand to sort 'em out. His
pasture is poor anyway, and he don't mind how long his sheep stay away
from home, if they come back with their fleece on. He's mighty careful
'bout foldin' them when it comes shearin' time."
"Oh!" gasped Carolyn, at last. "Did--did I let in the wrong sheeps?"
"I cal'late you did. But they likely would ha' broke in somewhere,"
said the island girl more mildly. "Don't fret about it, child."
But Carolyn May was a good deal chagrined that she should have made
such a mistake.
"Sheeps are so much alike," she complained to Edna. "Even
Nebuchadnezzar is getting to look like all his relations. And those
sheeps of Mr. Abel Mott acted just like they belonged in that pasture."
"Next time," Edna said, solemnly, "I wouldn't turn a herd of giraffes
into one of these lots."
"But goodness!" cried Carolyn, "you wouldn't find giraffes on Block
Island."
Nobody scolded them much for the mistake, and everybody was vastly
amused by the little girls' account of Mr. Oly Littlefield's mishap.
Baby Laird's papa was no longer going to the Old Harbour daily, for
there was nothing more he could do for Mr. Ben Truefelt about the
hotel. He began to go out with Barzilla in the _Snatch It_, and they
were sometimes gone the better part of two days.
The pale lady, as Carolyn always thought of her friend, continued to
look worried and Carolyn heard now and then hints of the departure of
the trio for some distant place. The thought of losing the pale lady
and Baby Laird made the little girl feel very sad. To stop to think of
unpleasant possibilities, however, was not Carolyn May's way. She had
a firm belief in the silver lining to every cloud. She hoped her pale
lady and Baby Laird and his father would not be obliged to go so far
away that she could not see them _some_ times.
"Don't you s'pose I could come in the cars to see you at Arizona?" she
asked the baby's mother wistfully. "You know, I went all the way to
Sunrise Cove alone once; and I came back home from there by myself--me
and Princey. I'm sure I wouldn't lose my way."
"Ah, but Arizona is much, much farther away than your uncle's house,"
sighed the pale lady.
"Oh! Farther away than Block Island is from New York?"
"Yes, my dear."
"Then Arizona must be almost as far as Heaven!" gasped Carolyn. "And
Aunty Rose Kennedy says that's a 'fur ways.' Won't I see you and Baby
Laird, ever, again?"
"I cannot say, my dear--I cannot say," said her friend faintly. "I feel
that if we go we shall leave what few friends we have--and all hope,
even--behind."
The little girl was moved by the pale lady's sorrow; but she did not
understand just what this speech meant. And there really was so much
to enjoy that she could not always give her thought to her friends'
troubles.
Here was the picnic, for instance, which had been set for the next
morning. How could Carolyn remember much else when she and Edna went to
bed that night in Carolyn's little room at the back of the Ball cottage?
The surf grumbled on the shore below the window. She only had to sit
up in bed beside the sleeping Edna to see the blinking lamps of the
lighthouses on the Long Island shore. The stars spattered the firmament
thickly.
"Oh, it's going to be a clear day tomorrow," whispered Carolyn May with
a happy little bounce. "We'll have a nawful nice time at the picnic."