SANTA LUZIA
“Here comes Miss Hobbs, mamma, rolling along with the clothes-basket.”
Wednesday morning had arrived, and Kirke was upon the side porch
helping his mother strap her grip-sack. Miss Hobbs was bringing home
some starched clothes too fine to be laundered by Sing High, the
“wash-man;” and beside her walked her roly-poly niece and nephew, Essie
and Harry.
“I daren’t leave them at ’ome by their little selves, Mrs. Rowe,” she
wheezed in mounting the steps. “Hessie is that contriving of mischief,
an’ such an obstinate child.”
Essie hung her head, though not too low to see the banana that Mrs.
Rowe presently brought her.
“What do you say, Hessie? For shame! Can’t you thank the lady?”
“Tank oo,” mumbled Essie in the act of skinning the fruit with her
sharp little teeth.
“That’s a good gell, Hessie. You and ’Arry must heat your bananas ’ere
on the porch while I carry in the clothes.
“If you’ll believe it, Mrs. Rowe, that rogue of a Hessie ran away again
yesterday,” she continued, following Mrs. Rowe into the side hall. “A
beastly race she led us. She tired ’Arry hall out.”
“Harry looks delicate this summer,” remarked Mrs. Rowe, as she began to
sort the clothes into piles.
“’Arry’s fat, Mrs. Rowe, but he isn’t rugged. If I could lay ’ands on
the gold I’ve buried I’d take him away for his ’ealth.”
“Why can’t Miss Hobbs get her gold, mamma?” whispered Weezy, coming in
just then. “Can’t Kirke and I dig it up for her?”
“Miss Hobbs means, dear, that she has spent her money for land that she
cannot sell, and so she can’t afford to take Harry into the country
this summer.”
“You’d better let him go to Santa Luzia with the Rowe family,” laughed
Kirke, as his mother gave him some garments to carry up-stairs. “Let
him go, and I’ll see to him.”
“Thank you, Master Kirke,”--Miss Hobbs’s ample sides shook
merrily,--“but while you’re seeing to ’Arry who’ll see to you?”
Kirke looked nettled, especially when she went on to say, “No, no, your
ma’ll have enough young folks to keep steady without ’aving my ’Arry.”
[Illustration: “You’d better let him go to Santa Luzia.”
_Page 32_]
Mrs. Rowe smiled thoughtfully at these jesting remarks. A fortnight at
the beach would doubtless be a benefit to the ailing child. Could
this be arranged? She must consider the question.
“We are all fond of Harry,” she remarked, in handing Miss Hobbs the
empty basket. “He’s a good little boy.”
“Oh, ’Arry’s decent, Mrs. Rowe,” responded Miss Hobbs, with a
complacent glance at the hall clock.
“The clock is too fast, Miss Hobbs.”
“Is she? I _thought_ she must be quite a few minutes on; but we won’t
stay to hinder you.” And Miss Hobbs tied her sunbonnet.
“You’ll come around again this afternoon, Miss Hobbs, to close the
house?”
“For certain, Mrs. Rowe. I’ll close the ’ouse, and take charge of the
key.”
“Which key, Miss Hobbs? Hop Kee, or door-key?” asked Kirke, with mock
innocence.
“Not Hop Kee, you may rely on that, Master Kirke,” retorted Miss Hobbs,
putting on her shawl as if it had been a bandage. “I wouldn’t take
charge of a Chinaman for all the teapots he could break.”
“Hop Kee will work for the Bradstreets while we’re away, Miss Hobbs.”
“So there is where he’s going. I knew the captain’s housekeeper was
sick.”
“And when the family move into camp, they’ll take Hop Kee along with
them.”
Captain Bradstreet’s name had reminded Weezy of her old grievance.
“O Miss Hobbs! Captain Bradstreet has ’vited Kirke and Molly to go into
that camp thing, and he hasn’t ever ’vited me,” she complained, holding
the door ajar for Miss Hobbs to pass out. “I don’t think it’s fair.”
“Never mind, little woman! You’ll have your share of hinvitations
before many years,”--Miss Hobbs gave the others a wise look. “I’m
sorry to ’ave you all go; but I ’ope you’ll ’ave a good summer, and I
pray the Lord’ll keep you well and ’appy.”
“Oh! He will; He always does,” answered little Miss Weezy for the
family. “Good-by, Miss Hobbs.”
After that Harry and Essie came in with sticky hands and faces to make
their farewell speeches; and then their Aunt Ruth waddled homeward
between them like a plump mother-duck between two plump ducklings.
They were met at the corner by a handsome, dark-eyed Spanish boy. It
was Manuel Carillo, coming to take away Kirke’s burro and cart to keep
during vacation.
“You’ll be good to Hoppity, this summer, won’t you, Manuel?” said Kirke
playfully, as he helped him harness the sleek gray burro into the trig
gray cart. “You won’t be mad with him because he threw you and broke
your leg.”
“Mad? Oh, no! that’s all right.”
Manuel grinned, and slapped the limb in question to show how strong it
was.
“Hoppity ought to help you carry around your newspapers to pay for that
bad trick of his. Now, oughtn’t you, Hoppity?” said Kirke, giving the
little beast a parting love-pat.
Kirke was glad to lend Manuel the burro. It seemed one way of making
amends for the sad accident of the year before that had been caused
partly by his own recklessness.
When Kirke returned to the house the family were sitting down to
an early luncheon. Molly made room for him beside herself, saying
cheerily,--
“Manuel drove by the window just now, smiling all over his face. How
much he does think of you, Kirke!”
“I don’t know about that, Molly, but he thinks a good deal of Hoppity.
He’ll have a splendid time with the little trotter while we’re away.”
“Kirke has made many friends at Silver Gate City,” remarked his
mother. “Harry Hobbs for one.” Then, turning to Mr. Rowe, she added,
in a sprightly tone,--“Kirke proposes doing a little missionary work
during vacation, papa. Have you any objection to his taking care of a
‘fresh-air child’ for a fortnight?”
“A ‘fresh-air child,’ my dear? I don’t quite understand.”
“Well, Harry Hobbs, for instance. Harry is in need of a change of
scene. Do you approve his coming to Santa Luzia by and by?”
“O papa! I was only in fun,” exclaimed Kirke in hot haste. “I don’t
want Harry to come; really and truly I don’t. Paul and I have planned
no end of good times there on the beach by ourselves.”
“And you think Harry wouldn’t enjoy those good times? Is that it, my
son?”
“No, papa; Harry would enjoy them fast enough,” Kirke laughed and
blushed; “the bother is that Paul and I wouldn’t enjoy _him_. The
little kid would be frightfully in the way with his mud-pies, and his
tagging, and his chattering. Don’t you see, papa?”
“Then, Miss Hobbs dresses Harry so oddly, papa,” added Molly, as her
father did not reply. “She makes him look for all the world like one of
Mr. Palmer Cox’s brownies; and people at Santa Luzia wouldn’t know but
Harry was one of our family.”
“What a shocking thought, Molly!” cried Mr. Rowe, vastly entertained by
her expression of deep distress. “In the face of a danger like this it
never will do for us to take Harry.”
“You’re laughing at me, papa; but you don’t understand how girls feel
about such things. Kirke doesn’t understand, either.”
“Girls have too many feelings, I think,” said Kirke, not very politely.
“They’re always afraid of doing something queer.”
“I wish boys were a little more like them, then,”--Molly pushed back
her plate with a saucy air, “boys never care a fig what is said of
them.”
“That’s because they’re independent, Molly.”
“It’s because they don’t know what is proper, _I_ say,” retorted Molly
between fun and earnest. “Why, I’ve seen boys that would walk into
church with monkeys on their backs and never blush.”
“I’m afraid Kirke will consider you rude, Molly,” interposed her mother
gently. “Aren’t we wandering very far from Harry?”
“The farther the better,” was Molly’s secret comment, as Mrs. Rowe
continued,--
“I hoped you children would want to do something nice for Harry. His
aunt is not able to give him many pleasures.”
“She gave him a _Caroline_ cooky yesterday, mamma,” put in Weezy; “full
of seeds, it was. Harry let me bite.”
“But, mamma, we _can’t_ take Harry with us,” exclaimed Molly, elated by
the sudden thought; “Miss Hobbs can’t possibly get him ready in time
for the train.”
“As to that, Molly, she can send him next month by Captain Bradstreet.”
“May be Mrs. Kitto won’t have room for Harry,” suggested Molly faintly.
Kirke dashed this hope to the ground. Harry, he affirmed, could be
rolled into any corner like a foot-ball.
“The question is simply this, children,” said Mrs. Rowe, buttering a
biscuit for Donald to eat on the car; “will you devote a part of your
vacation to your little neighbor, or will you spend the whole of it in
amusing yourselves? You shall decide.”
“O mamma! please don’t leave it that way. Don’t put us on our honor,”
entreated Molly, with a shrug.
“Because, when you put us on our honor, we have to do a thing, even if
we hate it like poison,” added Kirke, groping under the sideboard for
the yellow kitten.
Kitty’s basket was ready, with a slice of roast beef at the bottom, and
a smart blue bow on top; and now at the last moment Ginger had refused
to be put in.
“Head her off, Molly. Shut the door, Weezy. Look out, Don, or I shall
run over you!”
Kirke shouted his orders like a general in battle. Everybody jostled
against everybody else, and Ginger was no sooner captured than the
carriage came to take them all to the station. Then followed the
excitement of the journey and of the arrival at Santa Luzia; and for
several days nothing further was said about Harry Hobbs.