ABOUT ARCTURUS
Lucy and Dora thought it was great fun to go to bed in the tent. They
were even willing to undress at their usual hour and not tease to be out
on the moonlit beach.
The only place to put their clothes was over the rope Uncle Dan had
stretched between the poles. They hung them there, and the clothes
immediately slid into a heap in the middle of the rope. Dora could not
make hers stay neatly at one end.
Olive did not go to bed with the children. She and Uncle Dan took the
trolley car which ran along the road behind the shack and went to another
beach where there was a Saturday night dance. Lucy and Dora did not
mind. The window of the room where Father and Mother were to sleep was
close at the end of the tent.
After Mother had tucked them into their cots, Lucy went quickly to
sleep but Dora lay with eyes wide open. Because of the moon the tent
was bright, and through its open flaps she could see the waves breaking
lazily on the shore, and hear the surge of the water. Across from the
moon came a path of light.
For quite a long time Dora watched the sparkles and then suddenly she
began to think about bears, not tiny silver bears like Arcturus, but real
ones, full-sized and covered with hair. This was not a pleasant thought.
Dora knew there were no bears anywhere near White Beach. Still, it seemed
possible that one _might_ walk into that open tent. And then she heard a
rustle outside.
Dora gave a little gasp. At first, she thought she would call Mother,
but she remembered that she had wanted to sleep in the tent and that
doing so was a part of camping. To be sure, she had not expected that
Lucy would be asleep when she wasn’t.
After that first gasp, Dora decided not to scream. She lay still, and
listened hard. In a minute, a cricket began to chirp.
When she heard the cricket, Dora felt much better. It surely would not be
chirping if a bear were walking round the tent. It would not dare to make
any noise. But she thought it would be comforting to have Arcturus for a
bed-fellow.
The suit-case was under Lucy’s cot, so Dora got up and pulled it into the
moonlight. Without any trouble she found the silver bear on his slender
chain and snapped it about her neck. Then she went back to bed and did
not think any longer about real bears.
Instead, she thought of fairies and of a poem she had once read in a
library book. She tried hard to remember how it went.
“When the moon shines bright on the pebbly beach
And the sea is half-asleep;
Heaving, heaving, evermore,
And the surf falls lazily along the shore,
And the whispering ripples creep.
Then the wet little fairies come out of the waves
And dance in the light of the moon.
With gossamer dresses of white sea-foam,
Brown seaweed sash and coral comb,
And spottled shells for shoon.”
While Dora was thinking about the poetry, she watched the edge of the
sea and thought she saw one fairy creep out and shake the spray from its
wings. She wasn’t quite sure, for it might have been a sandpiper. When
Olive came in softly, about midnight, Dora was as sound asleep as Lucy.
Next morning, the sun touched Dora’s cot rather than either of the
others, just as the moon had done. When she opened her eyes, the sun was
just above the horizon, its lower rim not clear from the water. Never
before had she seen it so tremendous! It looked a perfect elephant of a
sun.
A soft little breeze came into the tent, blowing straight from sea.
Sandpipers really were running along the edge of the foam and the beach
was washed hard and smooth. Not a trace was left of Dora’s house except
a huddle of the larger pebbles. Every footmark was gone. A perfectly new
and fresh playground lay before them.
Just then Lucy woke and she and Dora looked at the sunrise sky and talked
in whispers because Olive was still asleep. Her hand was tucked under one
cheek, and a long braid of hair lay across her pillow.
They decided to get up and dress very quietly. It was easy to be quiet
because the sand under foot muffled every step, and easy to be quick
because they had very few clothes to put on.
Just as they were dressed, Lucy stopped short. “O my!” she said in a
whisper, and stood on one foot.
Twisted about her bare toes was a little silver chain.
Dora looked at it. Then she put her hand to her neck. Arcturus and his
leash were gone. That was her silver chain tangled in Lucy’s toes, but
where was the bear? She gave a frightened sob, which woke Olive.
Olive sat up in her cot and looked from one to the other. “What’s the
matter?” she asked.
Between sobs, Dora explained that she had felt lonely after Lucy went to
sleep and had taken Arcturus into bed with her. When she awoke, she never
thought of him. There was the chain, but where was Arcturus?
Olive got up at once. She put on her kimono and her slippers. Then she
took the top blanket from her bed and spread it carefully on the sand.
Next, she took Dora’s blankets and shook them carefully over hers. If
Arcturus were hiding in the bed, he must come out. But he did not.
Olive shook Dora’s pillow and her mattress and her nightdress, and felt
the pockets of her dress and looked in the suit-case. She emptied the
suit-case and shook every garment. Trying not to cry, Dora watched Olive
and Lucy helped her. But Arcturus was not anywhere.
“I am afraid he is in the sand,” said Olive. “Show me just where you have
walked since you got up.”
“I have been right by my cot except when I washed myself,” choked Dora.
Olive felt all about in the sand by Dora’s bed and sifted it through her
fingers. Then she sat back against the cot, for she really did not know
what else to do. She was very sorry for Dora, and Dora knew it. She crept
into Olive’s arms and cried softly, so as not to wake the people in the
shack.
Arcturus had certainly run away, but after her cry Dora felt better. Lucy
and Olive both were hugging her tightly and though it was hard to lose
her dear bear, she still had those who loved her.
“Perhaps we shall find him yet,” said Olive. “Let’s think so, Dora, and
don’t let it spoil your nice time at the beach. Perhaps Dan will know
something more to do. Perhaps Arcturus has just gone to be a sand-bear
for a little while.”
At this Dora smiled through her tears. She kissed Olive. Of course it
would not be right to spoil things by being sad, and she would hope for
the best. There might be a worse fate for Arcturus than being a jolly
little sand-bear.
So they all got up from the rag rugs and Lucy picked up Olive’s pretty
rose-trimmed hat which had slipped from the nail where she tried to hang
it.
“You might put that under my cot, Lucy,” said Olive. “It won’t stick on
that nail, and I don’t believe I shall wear it here. I like my ribbon one
better for the beach.”
Lucy tucked the hat under Olive’s bed and then she and Dora went down on
the shore. Olive said that she knew it would be hard for Dora to speak
about Arcturus, so she would do it for her. She would ask the others not
to say very much about him, only to look for him everywhere they went.
This made it easier for Dora to come to breakfast. She could even smile
when they all called her Theodora. Usually, only Mother remembered that
on Sundays she wished to have her whole name used. This morning even
Uncle Dan thought about it.
The tide was going out, and away to the right were some shining
mud-flats. Uncle Dan and Olive said they were going to dig clams and
Lucy and Dora went with them to pick up the clams after they were dug.
There was only one clam-fork, but Mr. Merrill found an old spade which he
thought he could use. They all put on their bathing suits.
When Dora reached the clam-flat, she did not like it very well. She had
not known that clams chose to live in such queer mud. It seemed much
dirtier than ordinary wet earth, and after Dora and Lucy had sunk into it
far above their ankles, they told Olive that they would let her pick up
the clams. If she needed help, she might call, and they would come, but
it did not look as though three people would be needed to collect clams
for Father and Uncle Dan.
Olive thought she could manage all the clams, so Lucy and Dora went back
to the hard beach and made some more houses. Lucy’s had a great many
large rooms and long halls with plenty of windows. Dora made a small one
which was just like the brown cottage she lived in on Main Street.
Father and Uncle Dan heard what Olive and the children were saying about
the clams, and so they dug very hard and very fast. The clams were not so
many that Olive needed help to pick them up, but there were plenty for
a chowder and for steaming, which was much more than either she or Mrs.
Merrill had expected. They decided to have the steamed clams for dinner
and to make the chowder for supper.
When the clams were dug, Mr. Merrill carried the basket home and Lucy and
Dora saw Uncle Dan and Olive coming up the beach. Olive was carrying a
heavy shovel and Uncle Dan had a queer-looking thing over his shoulder.
Even when he came up to the shack the children did not know what the
thing could be. It was a large oblong frame of wood, with a wire screen
bottom, and was tilted up on one end.
“We are going to look for Arcturus,” said Olive, as Uncle Dan dumped the
frame beside the tent. “Some men have been getting gravel from the ridge
and using this. We have borrowed it for a little while.”
Neither Lucy nor Dora could guess how this frame was to help find the
silver bear. Uncle Dan and Olive took out of the tent the three cots and
the single chair. Olive shook each rag rug carefully.
Then Uncle Dan carried the frame into the tent. He set it up and lifted
a shovelful of sand and threw it against the screen bottom. All the sand
went straight through, but the pebbles, even some smaller than Arcturus,
fell back in a pile. It would not be possible for Arcturus to go through
that wire screening.
Uncle Dan took every single bit of loose sand from the space covered
by the tent, and threw it against the screen. Olive and Lucy and Dora
watched the pebbles which fell back. Arcturus could not escape three
pairs of eyes. But finally there was no more loose sand, only a kind of
stiff dry clay, and no Arcturus.
Dora tried hard not to cry but she felt much grieved. It did not seem
possible that the bear could evade a search like that. She managed to
thank Uncle Dan, who was as sorry as Olive that it had been of no use.
They smoothed the sand floor and Uncle Dan returned the screen and the
shovel. No, there was nothing left but to think of Arcturus as being a
sand-bear now, enjoying himself by the sea.
Then they went swimming, and how Uncle Dan and Father Merrill did laugh
at Olive. Olive said that it was Sunday morning and that she usually went
to church instead of into the ocean. She should take with her a cake of
salt-water soap and call it a bath. She wasn’t sure it was quite right to
go swimming just for fun. She should feel more comfortable about it if
she took the soap.
Mrs. Merrill did not laugh at Olive. She said she was glad that Olive
liked to keep Sunday different from other days.