Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Illustration: Title]
[Frontispiece: Fort]
[Illustration: Title page]
A Tale of the Summer Holidays
by
G. Mockler
Thomas Nelson and Sons.
1899
[Illustration: Contents headpiece]
CONTENTS
I. THE SECRET MEETING
II. A FRIEND IN NEED
III. HAL FINDS A FRIEND
IV. DISAPPOINTED HOPES
V. THE FORT IN THE WILDERNESS
[Illustration: Contents tailpiece]
[Illustration: Drusie with balls]
ILLUSTRATIONS
"_Jim scribbled the word 'yes' on his piece of paper._"
"_Jumbo began to wash his face and ears._"
"_I suppose you will own that you really are out this time?_"
"_The boy had thrown his lasso with deadly aim._"
[Illustration: "_Jim scribbled the word 'yes' on his piece of paper._"]
[Illustration: Chapter I headpiece]
CHAPTER I.
THE SECRET MEETING.
Two days after the holidays began, the four younger members of the
Danvers family received a note summoning them to a secret meeting at
half-past seven the next morning in the summer-house. Drusie, who had
written and delivered the notes, including one to herself, was the
first to reach the appointed place; and when, a few minutes later, the
other three arrived, they found her seated at the rustic table with a
sheet of paper and a pencil before her, and a glass of water at her
elbow.
"Good-morning," she said, rising and shaking hands with them all round.
"Helen, will you sit facing me, and Jim and Tommy at either side?"
In a solemn silence they obeyed; and then seating herself again, she
took a sip of water. Not that she was thirsty, but she was rather
nervous.
It was so long since the last meeting, and hitherto Hal had always been
the chairman. She stifled a sigh; it seemed so strange to hold a
secret meeting without him.
"Go ahead," said Jim, encouragingly; "or would you like me to be
chairman, Drusie?"
"Certainly not," she replied hastily. "I am the eldest here, and of
course I must be chairman. And you must be serious, Jim, for we have
got a lot to talk about this morning, and it won't do for Hal to come
out and find us here."
"He is asleep and snoring," said Helen, in a tone of great contempt.
"He has learned a lot of silly things at school, and one of them is
never to get up until he is called."
"Order, please," said Drusie, rapping on the table. "You must not
begin to discuss the subject until I have announced it." She rose,
gulped down a few mouthfuls of water, and said: "Ladies and gentlemen,
we are met here this morning to discuss a question of paramount
importance." She paused, partly for breath and partly to take note of
the effect of her words. She was proud of that beginning, which she
had learned from the report of a missionary meeting. She was pleased
to observe that Helen and Tommy looked decidedly impressed, but Jim was
grinning. Frowning at him, she resumed: "I may say that the matter
affects us all very seriously, and it is one that ought to be taken up
by the nation at large. But I regret to say that the people of England
are only too apt to shirk their very obvious, their very obvious--"
But at that point she stuck hopelessly fast. Though she had carefully
avoided glancing at Jim, she had seen his face out of the corner of one
eye, and the wide, fixed grin that ornamented it had put her out
dreadfully.
"Oh, come," he said, striking in; "aren't you laying it on rather
thick? Even though Hal has come back from school with so much side on
that he does not know what to do with himself, I don't see that the
nation at large is concerned."
"No, of course not," Drusie acknowledged; "but it said that in the
paper, you know, and it seemed a nice beginning."
"Well, suppose we skip that part," said Jim, "and get to the real
business, which is of course about Hal."
"Very well," said Drusie, though she rather regretted her long
sentences. "I called this meeting to talk about Hal," she said, "and
to ask what you all thought about the birthday. You know we have been
busy making the ammunition to storm the fort with; but if he doesn't
want to defend it, it won't be much good preparing any more cannon
balls. Of course, one of us could defend it; but a fight without Hal
wouldn't be any fun at all. At least, that is what I think; but what
do you say?"
This time Drusie had been heard with as much attention as she could
wish for. The matter really was a very serious one. In two days' time
it would be the twins'--Hal and Drusie's--birthday; and ever since they
had been big enough to throw straight, they had always celebrated this
double birthday with a big battle, followed by a feast in the
summer-house. Hal had always defended the fort, while Drusie led the
attacking party; and this year they had expected to have a really
splendid fight, for during the past fortnight they had spent all their
spare time in making ammunition, and the supply of cannon balls was
larger than ever before.
But if Hal was not going to take part in the fight, all these
preparations would be thrown away. It was really very difficult to
know what he would or would not do, for he was so altered by his one
term at school that he hardly seemed like the same boy. He did not
tease or bully them, but he simply took as little notice as possible,
and spoke to them in a lofty, superior sort of way, as though he were a
very grown-up person and they very little children. Sometimes,
however, he quite forgot to be dignified and condescending, and then
Drusie hoped he meant to take part in the birthday fight as usual. And
the awkward part of it was that Drusie could not ask him his
intentions, as it was against their rules to say one word to him about
the fight until the very day on which it was to take place.
"I suppose," said Helen, with a scornful little sniff, "he has grown
too grand to fight. He would call it baby-play."
"What about the feast?" asked Jim. "Weren't you going to say something
about that too, Drusie?"
"Oh yes," she said; and after she had drunk a little more water she
rose to her feet again. The chairman was always supposed to finish the
glass of water, and that was a part of her duties that Drusie did not
much relish when the meeting was held before breakfast. Under pretence
of moving it out of her way, Jim drew the tumbler towards him, and when
she was not looking he filled it up from a jug which he had hidden
under the table the evening before.
"The feast," she said earnestly, "is going to be a specially nice one.
I am making all the wine myself, and I taste it ever so many times a
day to see if it is still good. I won't tell you everything that is in
it; but you can guess how lovely it will be when I say that it was made
from apples, and pears, and prune juice, and sugar, and some tea that I
saved from breakfast. There are lots of other things in it, too," she
said, interrupting herself; "but that is a secret. The best of my wine
is that it hasn't cost anything, and so we shall have more money to
spend on other things. It is pocket-money day to-day, and it must all
go towards the feast. My sixpence and yours, Jim, and Helen's and
Tommy's threepences make one and sixpence. That is a lot of money, and
I am sure Hal will give us his shilling."
"I don't think he will," said Jim, biting his lips to keep from
laughing as he saw Drusie look down with mingled surprise and dismay at
her nearly full glass; "he is hard up. He borrowed a penny half-penny
from me the other day, and hasn't paid it back yet; and he told me that
he had got rather a big bill in the village."
"Well," Drusie continued, after she had bravely gulped down some more
water, "it doesn't matter very much if he doesn't give anything. We
have plenty. And now we must vote." Tearing the sheet of paper into
four pieces, she passed them round the table. "If you want to go on
preparing for the fight and the feast, you must each write 'yes;' if
you don't want to go on, you must write 'no.'"
Then she sat down, feeling rather proud of the clear way in which she
had spoken, and made another attempt to finish her glass of water.
Without the slightest hesitation Jim scribbled the word "yes" on his
piece of paper, and when Tommy saw what Jim had written he put "yes,"
too. Helen took longer to make up her mind. She could not help
thinking that if they went on with the preparations for the fight, and
Hal refused to have anything to do with it, they would look very silly.
For at the bottom of her heart Helen was rather impressed by the airs
that Hal gave himself, and would have liked very much to imitate them.
But knowing well that the other three would vote for going on with the
fight, she, too, wrote "yes," and put her folded slip with the others
into the hat which Jim passed round.
The chairman opened them hastily.
"They are all 'yeses,' so we must go on with the preparations just the
same," she said, rising once more to address the meeting; "and if Hal
gives us his shilling after breakfast, it will mean that he is going to
defend the fort. That is all, I think. I now declare this meeting
ended."
"Hear, hear!" said Jim. "But you must finish your water, Drusie. We
shan't think anything of you as a chairman if you leave a drop."
"I keep on drinking all the time," said poor Drusie, giving her
tumbler, still nearly full, a glance of strong distaste.
"Perhaps you only sip it," said Jim gravely. "Shut your eyes, and take
big mouthfuls. You _must_ finish it, you know."
The sense of duty was strong in Drusie, and so she shut her eyes and
made one more heroic effort. The instant her eyes were closed, Jim
filled up her glass as she drank. He had hoped to make her finish the
entire jugful, but he shook so with suppressed laughter that instead of
pouring it into her glass he poured it on to her nose.
"O Jim!" she said reproachfully, as the truth burst upon her; "how much
have I drunk?"
"Four tumblers full," he said triumphantly. "You make a splendid
chairman, Drusie."
She couldn't help laughing, too, when she saw the nearly empty jug.
She dried her face, scolded Jim, and then forgave him in the same
breath, for a sweeter-tempered child than Drusie never lived. After
that the meeting broke up, and a few minutes later the bell rang for
breakfast.
Hal was already seated at the table when they reached the nursery. He
was a nice-looking boy, taller than Drusie by a couple of inches, and
well grown for his years, which would be twelve on the following
Tuesday.
"Hallo!" he said, as they all trooped in; "what have you been up to? I
know," he said, catching sight of the tumbler now really empty at last
in Drusie's hand. "A secret meeting. You might have asked me. What
was it about?"
[Illustration: Hal at table]
Drusie flushed up and looked guilty. She could not tell him that the
meeting had been about himself. But just then Helen interposed.
"Why, you wouldn't have cared to come," she said. "You said yesterday
that secret meetings were baby things."
So he had, but it nevertheless was a pity that Helen reminded him of it
just then. He had come down to breakfast that morning inclined to drop
back into his old place among them, and his tone and manner were
friendly and pleasant. But Helen's speech rubbed him up the wrong way
at once, and in an instant he became the lofty and contemptuous
school-boy brother again.
"And so they are baby things, Miss Helen," he said; "but it is rather
amusing, you know, to watch babies at play. That is why I should have
liked to be told of this important secret meeting in time."
That that was not the reason Drusie knew as well as he did. And he
felt rather ashamed when he saw the hurt expression that came to her
face. But Helen really must be taught that there was a great
difference between a little girl of eight who had never been away from
home in her life and a boy of twelve who had been to school. But it
was not always easy to snub Helen.
"You are silly, Hal," she said. "Just because you have been to school
for one term, you fancy that you are too big to play with us. Such
nonsense."
Well, of course, that led to a sharp answer from Hal. Helen replied
again, and a hot wrangle went on across the breakfast table.
"Come, come, Master Hal," said nurse at last--for though Helen had
certainly begun this quarrel, it was generally Hal who had done so
since he came home--"what would your father and mother say if they were
at home and heard you? They would not think that you had been very
kind to your brothers and sisters since you came back."
"I wish they were at home," said Hal, suddenly flaming out, "and then I
should have my meals with them, instead of being shut up with all of
you. I hate having my meals in the nursery. I am not a little boy any
longer, and I don't see why I should."
There was a moment's dead silence after this outburst, and all the
others gazed wonderingly at Hal. They were astonished that he should
have dared to speak in that rebellious tone to nurse. She, however,
looked neither surprised nor angry.
"Very well, Master Hal," she said; "if that is all your grievance, it
is easily put to rights. You shall have your meals in the schoolroom,
if you like. I can't let you have them in the dining-room, because it
would make extra work, and the parlour-maid is away. But Ann can
easily carry in what I send you from here."
[Illustration: Tommy]
That was not at all what Hal wanted. He was too proud, however, and
also far too sulky, to say any more on the subject. He was glad when
nurse rose and said grace, and he was at liberty to leave the nursery.
"One minute, Master Hal," she said, as he was hurrying to the door;
"have you forgotten that this is Saturday and pocket-money day? Wait
while I get out my purse and pay you all."
Drusie watched him anxiously. Would he remember the birthday feast,
and hand her the shilling, or would he keep it himself? Alas! Jim had
been right, and she wrong. He received the shilling with a muttered
word of thanks, and slipping it into his pocket left the room.
"I wonder," said Tommy, in an awestruck, thoughtful voice, "what Hal
will do with a _whole_ shilling? Will he spend it all at once, do you
think?"
[Illustration: Chapter I tailpiece]
[Illustration: Chapter II headpiece]