THE SEA URCHINS' CLUB.
"'Twas here where the urchins would gather to play,
In the shadows of twilight or sunny midday."
Isobel found her namesake waiting for her on the beach next morning.
"I thought you'd be coming out soon," announced Belle, "so I just
stopped about till I saw you. We're all starting off to play cricket
again on the common down under the cliffs, and I want you to go with us.
I've taken _such_ a fancy to you! I told mother I had, and she laughed
and said it wouldn't last long; but I _know_ it will. I feel as if you
were going to be my bosom friend. You'll come, won't you?"
"Of course I will," replied Isobel, accepting the offered friendship
with rapture. "Mother told me to do what I liked this morning."
"Let us be quick, then. The others have run on in front, but we'll soon
catch them up."
"Are you going to the same place where you were playing yesterday?"
asked Isobel.
"Yes; we call it our club ground. We mean to have matches there almost
every day. It'll be ever such fun. You see there are several families of
us staying at Silversands that all know one another, so we've joined
ourselves together in a club. We call it 'The United Sea Urchins'
Recreation Society,' and it's not to be only for cricket, because we
mean to play rounders and hockey as well, and to go out boating, and
have shrimping parties on the sands. We arranged it last night after
tea. There are just twenty of us, if you count the Wrights' baby, so
that makes quite enough to get up all sorts of games. Hugh Rokeby's the
president, and Charlie Chester's secretary, and Charlotte Wright's
treasurer. We each pay twopence a week subscription, and at the end of
the holiday we're going to have what the boys call a 'regular blow-out'
with the funds--ginger beer, you know, and cakes, and ices if we can
afford it. I wanted to make the subscription sixpence, but Letty Rokeby
said the little ones couldn't give so much. I'll ask them to elect you a
member. You'd like to join, wouldn't you?"
"Immensely. But I haven't any money with me now."
"Oh, never mind! You can give it to Charlotte afterwards. Here we are. I
expect they're all waiting. I see they've put the stumps up. You don't
know anybody except me, do you? I'll soon tell you their names."
The party of children who were assembled upon the green patch of common
certainly appeared to be a very jolly one. First there were the Rokebys,
a large and tempestuous family of seven, who were staying at a farm on
the cliffs by the wood.
"A thoroughly healthy place," as Mrs. Rokeby often remarked, "with a
good water supply, and no danger of catching anything infectious. We've
really been so unfortunate. Hugh and Letty took scarlet fever at the
lodgings in Llandudno last year, and I had the most dreadful time
nursing them; Winnie and Arnold had mumps at Scarborough the year
before; and the three youngest were laid up with German measles at
Easter in the Isle of Man; so it has made me quite nervous."
Just at present the Rokebys did not seem in danger of contracting
anything more serious than colds or sprained ankles, for a more reckless
crew in the way of falling into wet pools, climbing slippery rocks, or
generally endangering their lives and limbs could not be imagined. It
was in vain that poor Mrs. Rokeby dried their boots and brushed their
clothes, and implored them to keep away from perilous spots; they were
full of repentance, and would vow amendment with the most warm-hearted
of hugs, but in half an hour they had forgotten all their promises, and
would be racing over the rocks again as wet and jolly as ever.
"I really do my best to keep them tidy," sighed Mrs. Rokeby pathetically
to Mrs. Barrington. "Their father grumbles horribly at the bills, but
they seem to wear their clothes out as fast as I buy them. Bertie's new
Norfolk suit is shabby already, and Winnie's Sunday frock isn't fit to
be seen. As to their boots, I sometimes think I shall have to let them
go bare-foot. Other people's children don't seem to give half the
trouble that mine do. Look at them now--dragging Lulu down the sands,
when I told them she mustn't get overheated on any account! The doctor
said we were to be so careful of her, and keep her quiet; but it seems
no use--she _will_ run after the others. Oh dear! I can't allow them to
turn her head over heels like that!"
And Mrs. Rokeby flew to the rescue of her delicate youngest,
administering a vigorous scolding to the elder ones, which apparently
made as little impression upon them as water on a duck's back. The
untidy appearance and unruly behaviour of her undisciplined flock were
really a trial to Mrs. Rokeby, since they generally managed to compare
unfavourably with the Wrights, a stolid and matter-of-fact family who
were staying in rooms near the station.
"You never see Charlotte Wright with her dress torn to ribbons, or her
hair in her eyes," she would remonstrate with Letty and Winnie. "Both
she and Aggie can wear their sailor blouses for three days, while yours
aren't fit to be seen at the end of a morning."
"The Wrights are so stupid," replied Winnie, "you can hardly get them to
have any fun at all. They spend nearly the whole time with that
mademoiselle they've brought with them. They're so proud of her, they do
nothing but let off French remarks just to try to impress us. She's only
a holiday governess too--they don't have her when they're at home--so
there's no need for them to give themselves such airs about it. I
believe their French isn't anything much either, they put in so many
English words."
"Arthur Wright actually brings his books down on to the shore," said
Letty, "and does Greek and Euclid half the morning. He says he's working
for a scholarship. You wouldn't catch Hugh or Cecil at that."
"I'm afraid I shouldn't," sighed Mrs. Rokeby. "To judge from their bad
reports at school, it seems difficult enough to get them to learn
anything in term time. As for mademoiselle, you might take the
opportunity to talk to her a little, and improve your own French."
"No, thank you!" said Winnie, pulling a wry face. "No holiday lessons
for me. I loathe French, and I never can understand a single word that
mademoiselle says, so it's no use. If the Wrights like to sit on the
sand and 'parlez-vous,' they may. They're so fat, they can't rush about
like we do. That's why they keep so tidy. Charlotte's waist is exactly
twice as big as mine--we measured them yesterday with a piece of
string--and Aggie's cheeks are as round as puddings. You should see how
they all pant when they play cricket. They scarcely get any runs."
"And they really eat far more even than we do, mother," said Letty.
"Aggie had five buns on the shore yesterday, and Eric took sixteen
biscuits. I know he did, for we counted them, and he nearly emptied the
box."
"The Chesters are five times as jolly," declared Winnie. "Both Charlie
and Hilda went out shrimping with us this morning, and got sopping wet,
but they didn't mind in the least, and Mrs. Chester only laughed when
they went back. She said sea water didn't hurt. She's far nicer than
Mrs. Barrington. I wouldn't be Ruth Barrington for all the world. She
and Edna never have any breakfast, and they're made to do the queerest
things."
The unlucky little Barringtons were possessed of parents who clung to
theories which they themselves described as "wholesome ideas," and their
friends denounced as "absurd cranks." Many and various were the
experiments which they tried upon their children's health and education,
sometimes with rather disastrous results. Being at present enthusiastic
members of a "No Breakfast League," which held that two meals a day were
amply sufficient for the requirements of any rational human being, they
had limited their family repasts to luncheon and supper, at which only
vegetarian dishes were permitted to appear; and the poor children,
hungry with sea air and with running about on the sands, who would have
enjoyed an unstinted supply of butcher's meat and bread and butter, were
carefully dieted on plasmon, prepared nuts, and many patent foods, which
their mother measured out in exact portions, keeping a careful record in
her diary of the amount they were allowed to consume, and taking the
pair to be weighed every week upon the automatic machine at the railway
station. Their costumes consisted of plain blue over-all pinafores and
sandals, and they wore neither hats nor stockings.
"It's all right for the seaside," grumbled Ruth to her intimate friends,
"because we can go into the water without minding getting into a mess;
but we have to wear exactly the same in town, and it's horrible. You
can't think how every one stares at as, just as if we were a show.
Sometimes ladies stop us, and ask our governess if we've lost our hats,
and hadn't she better tie our handkerchiefs over our heads? We shouldn't
dare to go out alone even if we were allowed, we look so queer. We went
once to the post by ourselves, and some rude boys chased us all the way,
calling out 'Bare-legs!' It's dreadfully cold in winter, too, without
stockings, and when it rains our heads get wet through, and we have to
be dried with towels when we come in again. I wonder why we can't be
dressed like other people. I wish I had Belle Stuart's clothes; they're
perfectly lovely!"
Ruth's rather pathetic little face always bore the injured expression of
one who cherishes a grievance. She was a thin, pale child, who did not
look as though she flourished upon her peculiar system of bringing up,
which seemed to have the unfortunate effect of completely spoiling her
temper, and making her see life through an extremely blue pair of
spectacles. This summer she certainly thought she had a just cause of
complaint, since her two schoolboy brothers, instead of spending their
holidays as usual at the seaside, had been dispatched on a walking-tour
to Switzerland with a certain German professor, who, in accordance with
the latest educational fad, was conducting a select little party of boys
on an open-air pilgrimage, the main features of which seemed to be to
walk bare-foot by day and to sleep in a kind of wigwam at night, which
they erected out of alpenstocks and mackintoshes.
"It's too disgusting!" said Ruth dolefully. "Just when Edna and I had
been looking forward all the term to the boys coming home, and making so
many plans of what we would do and the fun we would have, some wretched
person sent father a copy of _The Educational Times_, with a long
account of this horrid walking-tour, and he said it was the exact thing
for Clifford and Keith, and insisted upon arranging it at once. I think
mother was really dreadfully disappointed. I believe she wanted to have
them home as much as we did, because she said they ought to go to the
dentist's, and she must look over their clothes, and she should like to
give them some phosphates tonic; but father said they could have their
teeth attended to at Geneva, and she could send the tonic to the
professor, and ask him to see that they took it. I know the boys will be
furious; they hate taking medicine: they generally keep it in their
mouths, and spit it out afterwards. They'll have to talk German all day
long too, and they can't bear that. You've no idea how they detest
languages. I had a picture post-card from Clifford yesterday, and he
said his feet were horribly sore with walking bare-foot, and his tent
blew away one night, and he was obliged to sleep in the open air."
No greater contrast could be found to the Barringtons than the Chester
children. Charlie, the elder, a lively young pickle of twelve, was on
terms of great intimacy with all the fishermen and sailor boys whose
acquaintance he could cultivate, talking in a learned manner of
main-sheets, fore-stays, jibs, gaffs, booms and bowsprits, and using
every nautical term he could manage to pick up. He had a very good idea
of rowing, and would often persuade the men to let him go out with them
in their boats, taking his turn at an oar, much to their amusement, and
setting log lines with the serious air of a practised hand. His jolly,
friendly ways won him general favour, and he was allowed to make himself
at home on many of the little fishing smacks, learning to hoist sails,
to steer, and to cast nets, though sometimes a too inquiring mind led
him to interfere on his own account in the navigation, with the result
that he would be unceremoniously bundled back to shore again, with a
warning to "keep out of this" in the future.
He was the envy of his eight-year-old sister Hilda, who would have liked
to follow him through thick and thin, but the sailors drew the line at
little girls, and would politely request "missy" to "return home to her
ma," as there was no place for her "on this 'ere craft," much to her
indignation. She consoled herself, however, by organizing the games of
the younger Wrights and Rokebys, making wonderful sand harbours with
their aid, and sailing a fleet of toy boats with as keen an enthusiasm
as if they were real ones.
At the end of a morning on the common Isobel found herself on quite an
intimate footing with the Wrights, the Rokebys, the Barringtons, and the
Chesters, besides being a duly elected member of "The United Sea
Urchins' Recreation Society."
"I've never had such fun in my life," she confided to her mother at
dinner-time. "We played cricket, and then we went along the shore,
because the tide was so low. I picked up the most beautiful screw
shells, and razor shells, and fan shells you ever saw. I had to put them
in my pocket handkerchief because I hadn't a basket with me. Bertie
Rokeby got into a quicksand up to his knees, and Lulu sat down in the
water in her clothes. You must come and see our club ground, mother,
when you can walk so far. We have it quite to ourselves, for it's right
behind the cliff, and none of the other visitors seem to have found it
out yet; and if anybody else tries to take it, the boys say they mean to
turn them off, because we got it first. They're all going to carry their
tea there this afternoon, and light a fire of drift-wood to boil the
kettle. So may I go too, and then we shall play cricket again in the
evening?"