FISHING FOR WEEZY
Weezy’s fall had been to Harry like the rushing of a meteor across the
sky. He had seen a swiftly moving mass of gilt and blue dart past him
and vanish, and the next thing he knew he was standing alone upon the
wharf.
For a moment he was too dazed to move; then he scampered madly to the
shore, trailing the sculpin after him.
“Weezy’s tumbled! Weezy’s tumbled into the water,” he shrieked, running
toward The Old and New as fast as he could run.
The more direct way was by the one hundred steps which led to the
bluff; but Harry never thought of the steps, he toiled around by the
carriage-road. Twice he tripped, and measured his short length in the
sand; but fortunately his screams went on ahead of him, and reached
Mrs. Rowe up-stairs in her room.
“Are you hurt, Harry? What is it?” she cried, hastening to the brow of
the hill.
“Come, oh, please come!” sobbed the terrified little fellow. “She’s in
it. Oh, she’s in it!”
“Who’s in it? In what, Harry?”
“Weezy, Weezy’s in it--in the ocean! I didn’t push her in!”
“Where, Harry? Show me.”
“She tumbled in, she tumbled in her own self.”
Mrs. Rowe had seized the child’s hand, and was dragging him back to the
beach. Behind him still trailed the forgotten sculpin, now dead as a
door-nail.
“Help! help!” shrieked Mrs. Rowe, as she pressed on.
She was trembling all over. She dared not ask another question. A man
hauling seaweed from the shore left his horses standing in the middle
of the highway, and turned back with her.
Ah, the long, long hill! Should they never, never reach the foot of it?
Midway Harry tripped again and fell.
Mrs. Rowe rushed forward alone. She had caught a glimpse of a small
object floating near the beach. It was Weezy’s cap riding the waves
like a little skiff. Yes, certainly it was Weezy’s cap,--the blue cap
with gilt bands; but, alas! alas! where was the little girl who so
lately had worn it? Where, oh, where was Weezy herself?
Not to pain you needlessly, my little readers, I will tell you in
confidence that Weezy was out of the water, safe and well. But how
could poor Mrs. Rowe know this? She only knew that her darling was not
with the four other children now returning from Rocky Cove, and she
called distractedly to Harry,--
“Show me just where Weezy fell in.”
“Hoff there,”--he pointed at random along the pier,--“hoff there, by
the post.”
“Which post, my boy?” cried the ranchman. “There are forty or fifty
posts.”
Harry grew confused; he could not answer.
“I’ll row out a piece,” said the man, hurriedly untying a punt moored
to the beach.
“Why didn’t I call Edward! Oh, if Edward were here!” moaned Mrs. Rowe,
rushing upon the wharf, and peering over the side.
“There isn’t any kelp to hinder my seeing to the bottom, ma’am,” cried
the ranchman from the boat below.
Mrs. Rowe wrung her hands. “O Weezy, Weezy, my dear little daughter!”
“If I only knew just where she slipped in, I’d dive for her,” called
the pitying voice from beneath. “I’d get her for you if I could, ma’am.”
Meanwhile little Miss Weezy, the unconscious cause of all this anguish
and commotion, lay half asleep upon the neighboring bluff behind some
tall tufts of alfalfa.
She had scrambled out of the ocean almost as quickly as she had fallen
in. Then she had started to run home, but, at the top of the one
hundred steps, had become giddy and sunk down to rest. Oh, she was so
tired, so very, very tired! And it was so nice and warm on the bluff.
To go on to The Old and New seemed too great an effort; it was easier
to lie still in the sunshine. Besides, didn’t she want to dry her wet
clothes? What would mamma say to her because she had spoiled her pretty
dress? By and by she opened her eyes and blinked at the wharf below.
She saw her mother rushing up and down the planks, she saw the teamster
pushing off from shore.
“Wonder what makes mamma act so funny? Wonder what that man’s doing
with the boat?” she thought drowsily. But she was too languid really to
care; and in the act of wondering again closed her eyes.
She did not see Kirke race to the pier to learn what was the matter;
she did not hear her mamma cry,--
“Oh, Kirke, Kirke, your little sister’s in the ocean!”
But when Kirke took in the full meaning of his mother’s words and
shouted, half beside himself,--
“O Molly, O Paul, Weezy’s drowning! Weezy’s drowning in the ocean!”
then Weezy sprang to her feet wide awake,--
“O Kirke Rowe, that’s a fib, that’s a dreadful fib!” she cried,
whirling about, and waving her arms like an excited windmill. “I’m not
drowned one bit! Why, see me, here I am, right here!”
I wish you could have heard the shout that answered her from the shore.
I wish you could have seen the sudden rush from the wharf, and the dash
up those wooden steps!
Regardless of salt and sand, Mrs. Rowe clasped her dripping child to
her breast, and then passed her about like some choice relic to be
kissed and adored.
“You did fall in the _hocean_ though, Weezy; I saw you!” cried Harry,
evidently bent on clearing himself from any suspicion of having lied.
Weezy turned to her mother with a most contrite air,--
“I didn’t mean to, mamma, truly I didn’t! That wiggly old fish jumped
at me and knocked me off!”
“Bless my sweet little girlie!” exclaimed Mrs. Rowe, taking the child
again in her arms, “did you think mamma was going to scold you?”
Weezy looked very happy. In place of the chiding she had expected for
losing her cap and soiling her gown, she had received hugs and kisses.
The reason for this strange state of things she did not in the least
understand; but she knew that she liked it. That she had been in danger
of drowning never once occurred to her.
“Walk as fast as you can, darling,” cried her mamma, leading her on
toward the boarding-house. “You must have a hot bath and a good rubbing
at once, or you’ll take cold.”
“My shoes go _quish, quish_, every step I take,” complained Weezy,
pressing forward with lagging feet.
“Wait, we’ll carry you, Weezy. Kirke and I will make a queen’s chair
and carry you,” exclaimed Paul.
[Illustration: “The boys bore the child onward.”
_Page 75_]
“To be sure we will, little water-soaked girl; why didn’t I think of
it?” returned Kirke, wheeling about to clasp hands with his comrade.
Mrs. Rowe lifted Weezy into the seat thus formed, and the boys bore the
child onward. The others followed.
“This doesn’t look much like Weezy’s hair, does it, Pauline?” said
Molly, wringing the moist locks that straggled down her little sister’s
back. “It looks more like seaweed than hair.”
“Or more like wet sewing-silk, Molly. Not a speck of curl in it.”
“You must have gone to the very bottom, Weezy,” said Kirke tremulously,
as they neared The Old and New. “How on earth did you manage to paddle
out?”
“Oh, when I came up, you know, I just climbed into the punt.”
“The punt! Why, the punt was ever so far from the shore, Weezy,”
interrupted Molly. “I remember ’twas tied by a long rope.”
“Yes, pretty long,” said Weezy.
“Then how did you get from the boat to the beach, Weezy, so far off?”
persisted Kirke.
“Oh, _that_ was as easy as pie,” said Weezy, highly flattered at
finding herself the object of so much interest. “I just took hold of
the rope, you see.”
“Do you mean to say, Weezy, that you slid from the bow of the boat into
the water, and then worked yourself ashore by that rope?”
“Yes; why not, Kirke? The rope was right there.”
“She has no idea she did anything remarkable,” exclaimed Molly in
Kirke’s ear. “Just think what might have happened! We ought to have
kept those children in sight every minute.”
Kirke nodded penitently.
“That’s so; but Weezy would have done well enough if Harry hadn’t
been there. Why did we bring him?” he whispered. Then aloud, “I can’t
imagine now how the little witch got to land. It isn’t as if she had
actually learned to swim.”
“Oh, I pinched the rope, and kind of jiggled along,” explained Weezy
coolly; “that wasn’t anything.”
“No, of course it wasn’t anything,” said Paul and Pauline in chorus,
clapping their hands and laughing.
But the drenched little girl who had performed so grandly on the tight
rope was growing more exhausted now with every step she took; and the
moment she entered the house was glad to be undressed, and put to bed
like a baby.
When it was the hour for the train the other children left her
sleeping, and stole off to the station together to meet “Auntie David.”
Harry trudged behind, hugging Weezy’s damp cap, which had been rescued
from the billows.
“Little John Bull has nothing to say,” remarked Kirke to Pauline, who
walked beside him. “I think he misses Weezy.”
“We all miss her,” responded Pauline, with a glance over her shoulder.
“Harry makes up the number five; but he doesn’t take Weezy’s place in
the least. Without Weezy we can’t be ‘The Merry Five.’”