Jimmie and Daisy, and Baby Dot were all staying for their holidays at
pleasant Sandown, in the Isle of Wight, and a fine time they were
having. The mornings were spent in building castles and digging wells on
the broad, yellow sands, and, when not _too_ hot, the afternoons
frequently passed in like manner; while in the cool sun-setting time
after tea, their father always took them for a nice walk over the cliffs
to Shanklin, or along the country lanes to Yaverland, or away to some
lovely inland meadow where they could pick big white marguerites and
golden buttercups as many as their hands could hold.
One morning Daisy was busily looking for nice pieces of seaweed and
pretty little stones to ornament a grotto she and Jimmie had built, when
she heard him calling, "Daisy! Daisy! _You_ don't know what _I've_ got!"
Of course she ran to look, and found Jimmie on his knees, watching with
great interest the movements of a tiny crab, who seemed to have come out
for a walk without his mother, and lost his way.
"Poor little thing!" said tender-hearted Daisy. "It doesn't like the hot
sun. Let's put it in some cool, shady place, where the sea will come up
to it."
"I'm going to take it home with me," answered Jimmie.
"What for? You haven't got a 'quarium."
"To play with, of course."
"Oh, Jimmie, it won't like that!" cried Daisy, in real anxiety. "It
wants to be in the water. You don't know how to feed it, or anything,
and it'll die!"
"No, it won't. You're silly--you're only a girl, and you're _frightened_
of it. _I_ know!" said Jimmie scornfully.
"I'm not afraid of it one bit!" Daisy protested. "I'd pick it up with my
fingers. But I'm sure it must be frightened of you. Oh, Jimmie, _do_ let
me put it in the sea again, there's a dear, good boy!"
Jimmie, however, lest he should lose his prize, caught it up in a
twinkling, and stuffed it in his pocket. "You go there!" he said. "And
if you nip, I'll pay you!"
Daisy's distress was evident, and tears were gathering in her blue eyes;
for she knew that everything which has life has feeling too, and she
could not bear to have even a baby crab made uncomfortable. But Jimmie,
I am sorry to say, was not so tender over her, nor enough of a man to
give up his own way in a little thing to make his sister happy. So, in
spite of her entreaties, poor wee crabbie was condemned to durance vile
in the hot and stifling pocket of Jimmie's knickerbockers, and Daisy had
a sorry spot in her heart for the rest of the morning.
When the children went indoors they found that their favorite uncle had
arrived from London, and was proposing an early dinner, and a trip to
Carisbrooke. In the pleasant excitement which this caused, everything
else was forgotten. Even when Jimmie's suit was changed, he never gave
one thought to the captive crab.
Their excursion to the old castle proved delightful. Jimmie, who had
only got as far as Richard II. in his history-book, and was not very
fond of learning, became quite eager to get on fast, and come to the
place where it told about King Charles and his imprisonment, and how he
tried to get out of the tiny window shown them by the guide. Somebody
remarked that "Liberty is sweet," and Jimmie remembered writing the very
same in his copy-book; but it did not occur to him to consider that it
is just as sweet in its way, to a little, sea-loving crablet as to a
king.
It must have been the unusual state of excitement in which Jimmie went
to bed that night that caused the events of the day to become oddly
mixed up in a horrible dream. He thought _he_ was a prisoner, not in a
castle, but in the sand grotto which he and Daisy had been making in the
morning, and that his jailor was a giant crab! A tiny hole in the side
of the grotto, about two inches square, was his only way of escape, and
unless he could manage to squeeze himself through that, he would be
crushed to death by a pair of great claws as thick as a man's body.
Nearer and nearer they came, harder and harder he struggled, and gurgled
and gasped. No wonder that at last his cries aroused his mother in the
next room, and that she came running to see what was the matter!
"Oh, that awful crab! Save me, save me! Oh--oh--oh!" yelled Jimmie, only
half awake. And then to his increased horror he found that his dream was
at least partly real, and that his own escaped prisoner was crawling
briskly over his pillow in the evident hope of finding the ocean
somewhere down on the other side. Having the creature come upon him like
that when he least expected it, and immediately after such a dream,
Jimmie fairly screamed with fright, and wouldn't lie down in bed again
until Daisy, who had been awakened by the commotion from a lovely dream
about the dear Carisbrooke donkey who works at the well, came and
fetched the wandering crustacean away, and put it among a lot of damp
seaweed in her tin pail, where it seemed very glad to stay.
First thing in the morning, before breakfast, Jimmie carried the poor
little creature down to the shore, and left it at the edge of the waves.
Moreover, he could not help thinking it very sweet of Daisy that she
never once said, "Served you right," and he privately made up his mind
that another time if she very much wanted him not to do a thing, he
wouldn't do it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------