FRIENDS ABOARD SHIP
"Hello, down there!" Nan stretched her head over the edge of her berth
and looked down to the bunk below where Bess was still sleeping. "Hello,
I say," she repeated a little louder when the first call brought no
response. Then she waited. She could feel the vibration of the great
ship as it forged ahead and hear faintly the steady throb of its
engines. It was nice to be getting someplace, she thought, even while
you were asleep.
"Hello!" Nan called again. "You awake?"
Bess rubbed her eyes and leaned out so she could see Nan above. "Of
course I am," she declared. "How long have you been awake?"
"Oh, for hours and hours," Nan responded. "I heard the first gong for
breakfast and then the second. After that I went back to sleep."
"You didn't either!" Bess was really awake now. "But if you did," she
continued half hopefully, "it's too late to get breakfast in the
dining-room, so we'll just have to ring that bell over there by the door
and ask the stewardess to bring our breakfast to the cabin. Just think
of being able to order anything you want and having it brought to you on
a big tray!"
Bess stretched luxuriously and then turned over on her side. "You know,"
she said, "I feel like a movie queen. My pajamas are of satin and fine
lace. My robe is long and trailing with marabou around the neck. These
bed covers are made of silk and down, and your bunk up there is not
really a bunk. It's the canopy of my bed."
Nan looked over the side. "I beg your pardon?" she asked as though she
hadn't heard.
Bess started to repeat, "Your bunk is the canopy"--but didn't finish,
for Nan was up and on her way down the ladder which stretched from the
floor to her upper berth.
"I can't sleep any longer on this canopy," she laughed. "Moreover, I'm
starved and a tray would never hold all I'm going to eat this morning.
You may stay here, my movie queen, and eat daintily from a tray while
your back is propped comfortably against pillows. I want bacon and
eggs," she finished, as she opened the wardrobe at the end of the berths
and took out a skirt and bright sweater.
"You may spend your morning in the cabin," she went on, washing and
dressing the while, "but I'm going out on the deck and see what's
doing." She combed her hair before the mirror over the washstands and
sat down at a small dressing table while she tied a three-cornered scarf
around her head. With a small hand mirror, she looked at it from all
sides, and then pulled a wisp of hair out at the front and looked again.
Satisfied, she put the mirror down, blew a kiss to her lazy chum, and
was off.
Not waiting for the elevator, she walked up the stairs, opened a door,
and stepped out. The morning sun was already high above the horizon, and
the deck was bright with its light. Nan squinted her eyes. Then, as she
became accustomed to the dazzle and opened them wide, she saw
approaching her a merry looking, pleasant person, the ship's hostess.
"You are--" the stranger paused and smiled at Nan.
"Nan Sherwood." With this Nan was introduced to a group of young people
her own age.
First, there was Hetty Warren, a young English girl whom Nan liked
right away. She had blond hair and blue eyes and a complexion even
fairer than that of most English girls. She had, she told Nan a little
wistfully, just left her parents in Washington, where her father was a
member of the English Embassy. Her grandmother was taking her back to
London to witness an event which she said, no grandchild of hers would
ever miss, the crowning of the new King and Queen.
Then, there was Jeanie MacFarland, a brown-eyed Scotch lass whose
father, she said proudly, was on the Edinburgh committee to buy a gift
for the king. And Maureen O'Grady, Irish as her name, headed first for
home and then for London. Her mother was helping to make the lace for
the Queen's train.
Oh, they all had stories, these girls. One had lived once in far away
India, in Bombay. Another, in the British colony in Shanghai. The father
of one was a caretaker at the King's favorite castle and the brother of
another, a lieutenant in His Majesty's Fleet stationed at Gibraltar.
They were coming from all corners of the world, Nan found, to be in
England in May, to see the King and Queen parade in a golden coach from
Buckingham Palace to Westminster Cathedral, to attend the balls and the
garden parties and the Colonial fairs, to see the King review the
British fleet at Spithead and hear the crowds cheer the pretty little
princess at her party for the English school children. Everyone, young
and old, Hetty's grandmother said, was to have a part in the joyous
week.
School children throughout the Empire were to have seven days of
vacation. "Boy Scouts from Australia and India and British South Africa
are even now," she told Nan, "coming on boats to act as a special guard
for the little prince. Others, in England and Scotland have charge of
the tremendously big bonfires that will be lighted on each hilltop the
night after the king and queen are crowned. These beacon fires will
proclaim to everyone that a new King and Queen have come to the throne.
And, with the lighting of the fires, the people all over the British
Empire will sing 'God Save the King.'"
"Yes, and the Girl Scouts," Hetty went on, "are having a big party in
the gardens of Buckingham Palace. The little princess will be there and
the Queen too. A thousand poor children have been invited and the
princess has a gift for each one. They have a gift for the princess too,
and one for the Queen. Oh, I can hardly wait until the big day arrives."
"And," Jeanie contributed, "All over Scotland, the wee lassies and
laddies have each given a tuppence piece to their school teachers. When
the King and Queen come to Edinburgh after the golden crowns have been
put on their heads, all this money will be put in a golden bag and
presented to the Queen. Her Majesty will use it to help the children
whose fathers were killed in the wars. An orphan from one of Her
Majesty's orphanages will present it at a banquet which the Lord Mayor
will give."
"Will you be there?" Nan was wide-eyed,
"If I only could." Jeanie's voice was full of longing.
"If we only could," Hetty echoed the statement and included everybody.
"But it's not for the likes of us," Maureen shook her head as everyone
fell silent. "It's for the great ladies, they who live up in the castles
on the hills and in the palaces in the cities. They were born to such
things. No, it's not for the likes of us," she repeated.
"Don't, Maureen," Hetty said earnestly. "Don't say that. Don't say it
isn't for the likes of us!"
Hetty's grandmother smiled at the seriousness of her grand-daughter.
"Hetty is remembering," she said, "the time the Queen stopped at our
country cottage."
"Were you there?" The girls all looked at Hetty.
"No, it was before she was born," the bright-eyed old lady went on. "It
was back in the days of the good Queen Victoria before people drove
around in gasoline buggies." She stopped as though she had finished, but
Nan saw a twinkle in her eye.
"Please go on," she begged. "Please tell us all about it."
"Now, Grandmother," Hetty laughed, "you know you want to."
The old lady ruffled her grand-daughter's hair playfully, as she
continued, "We were sitting in the kitchen, my mother and I. She, like
the model housewife she was, God bless her soul, was scouring pots and
pans and giving me a few instructions on the proper behavior of a young
lady.
"'Mind what I say about your curiosity,' she was telling me, when a
crash outside interrupted. She dropped everything, making such a clatter
as I've never heard since and nearly fell over me in her anxiety to get
to the window.
"'Glory be!' I heard her exclaim and ran after her. There, in front of
the house a big coach had broken down. Two coachmen had climbed down
from their high seats and were helping three ladies out the door and up
the path to our house.
"My mother whisked off her blue checked apron, smoothed down her hair
and opened the door. I stood back--afrighted, as the three grand ladies
came into the front parlor. Then I disappeared back into the kitchen.
Mother made tea and gave them shortbread and was so a-flutter herself
that she broke one of her company dishes.
"They wanted to pay for it, but she wouldn't let them. She said it was
nothing at all. After they went, I saw her wiping a tear out of her eye
and she scoured the pans harder than she ever scoured them before. That
night she told my father that she was never going to pay any attention
to any big coaches again.
"But weeks later when another big coach stopped in front of the house,
she was at the door again. This time a man came and left a big box.
Mother said it wasn't for her, but he insisted it was. Finally, she
accepted it, and he had hardly driven away, before she and I were
opening it." The old lady paused here to enjoy the eager faces of the
young girls around her. Then she cleared her throat and went on.
"Inside we found a dozen dainty cups and saucers and a card. Our
visitors had been two princesses and Her Majesty, Queen Victoria!"
"And great-grandmother always said," Hetty added, "that the great Queen
herself painted the cups. So, Maureen," she ended triumphantly, "you
don't know, really, what there is for the likes of us."
"No, you don't," her grandmother agreed, "so make the most of today.
Now, begone with you all, and gather up the news of the ship and bring
it all back to me. There are many strange people aboard," she ended,
closing her eyes and so dismissing the girls.