TWO MARINERS AND SOME MIST
"There's one thing about those girls that always takes my breath away,"
said Mr. Evans, "and that is their ability to get up a show on a
moment's notice. The most common circumstance seems to be charged with
dramatic possibilities for them. And nothing seems too ambitious for
them to attempt." Having delivered this speech, Mr. Evans leaned back
against the cliff and watched with amused eyes the performance of the
"latest."
Mrs. Evans and Uncle Teddy and Aunt Clara, who were sitting with him,
agreed that "our girls," aided and abetted by "our boys," were equal to
anything.
The dramatic representation then in progress was another inspiration of
Katherine's, which had come to her when Sandhelo, getting lonesome in
his high pasture ground, had followed the others to the beach, walking
down a steep side of the cliff by a path so narrow and perilous that it
was never used by the campers. But Sandhelo, being a trick mule,
accomplished the feat without difficulty. The bathers watched his
descent in fascinated silence. They feared to shout at him and so make
him miss his step.
"Doesn't it remind you of that piece in the Fourth Reader about the
mule?" said Hinpoha. "The one that goes:
'And near him a mule bell came tinkling
Midway on the Paso del Mar.'
I forgot how it begins."
"Oh, you mean 'The Fight of the Paso del Mar,'" said Migwan. "The one
where the two fight and tumble over into the sea. I wore the page that
poem was on completely out of the book reading it so often, and wished
and wished I had been there to see it happen."
"So did I," said Hinpoha.
"Let's do it," said Katherine suddenly. "We have all the props. Here's
the mule, and the rocky shore--that low wedge around the base of the
cliff will do beautifully for the Paso del Mar. And 'gusty and raw is
the morning,' just the way the poem says, and if there isn't enough fog
to 'tear its skirts on the mountain trees,' we can pretend this light
mist is a real fog. Everything is here, even the bell on the mule. I'll
be Pablo of San Diego and, Hinpoha, you be Bernal."
"Migwan would make a better Bernal," said Hinpoha modestly. "No," said
Katherine decidedly, "you'll make a better splash when you fall into the
lake, and anyway, Migwan always wanted to see it done, not do it. Hurry
up and get your blanket, and get it wrapped gloomily around you.
Sandhelo and I will start out from the hills behind."
Hinpoha fetched a blanket and strode across the beach, her fair forehead
puckered into what she fondly believed to be a ferocious scowl, while
the bathers ranged themselves into an audience. Katherine, between
clucks and commands, designed to keep Sandhelo's feet in the straight
and narrow path, i.e., the low-jutting ledge of the cliff just above the
water line, raised her cracked voice in a three-part harmony and "sang
through the fog and wind." Sandhelo moved forward willingly enough.
Since Katherine had taken him seriously in hand that summer he had
learned to carry a rider without the accompaniment of music. If he
hadn't, Katherine would never have been able to make him stir, for he
certainly would not have classed her husky, bleating tones as music.
Bernal advanced cautiously onto the Paso del Mar, taking care not to
slip on the wet stones, and encountered the blithe Pablo midway on the
pass, holding tight to his mule's bridle strap with one hand and
covering up a rent in the waist of his bathing suit with the other.
"Back!" shouted Bernal full fiercely.
And "Back!" shouted Pablo in wrath, and then things happened. Sandhelo,
with the sensitiveness of his artistic temperament, thought that all
remarks made in his presence were intended to be personal. So when
Hinpoha looked him in the eye and shouted "Back!" and Katherine jerked
his bridle and screamed "Back!" he cannot be blamed if he did what any
gentleman would have done when commanded by a lady. He backed.
"Whoa!" shouted Katherine, taken unawares and nearly falling off his
small saddle area. But Sandhelo considered that his first orders had
been pretty definite and he continued to back along the narrow ledge.
"Stop!" screamed Katherine, while the audience roared with laughter,
"'We turn not on Paso del Mar!'"
The word "turn" seemed to give Sandhelo a brilliant new idea, and,
without warning, he rose on his hind legs, whirled around in a dizzy
semi-circle, and started back in the direction whence he had come.
Katherine, unable to check his inglorious flight, hung on grimly. He
left the narrow ledge and started climbing the hill, leaving the
black-hearted Bernal in full possession of the Paso del Mar. At the top
of the hill Katherine slid off Sandhelo's back, the soft grass breaking
her fall, and lay there laughing so she could not get up, while Sandhelo
raced on to his favorite grazing ground.
"To think it had to turn out that way, when I was dying to see the part
where you fall into the lake," lamented Migwan, when the cast had
collected itself on the beach. "It wasn't at all the real thing."
"Some of it was," said Sahwah. "The beginning was all right."
"And the mule did go home 'riderless' eventually," said Katherine,
rubbing her bumped elbow. "Didn't he make speed going around that
narrow, slippery ledge, though?" she went on. "I expected him to go
overboard every minute. But he tore along as easily as if he were
running on a velvetine road."
"On a what?" asked Slim.
"She means a corduroy road, I guess," said Gladys, and they all shouted
with laughter.
"Ho-ho-ho!" chuckled Slim, "that's pretty good. Velvetine road! Would
there be any binnacles on it, do you suppose?" he added teasingly.
"That's right, everybody insult a poor old woman what ain't never had a
chance to get an eddication!" sobbed Katherine, shedding mock tears into
her handkerchief. "What's the difference? Doesn't velvetine sound just
as good as corduroy? And, anyhow, it's better style this year than
corduroy."
"Hear the poor, ignorant, old lady talk about style," jeered Sahwah. "I
didn't think you ever came out of your abstraction long enough to know
what was in style."
"Even in her absentmindedness she seems to have a preference for fine
things, though," said Gladys, beginning to giggle reminiscently. "Do you
remember the time she walked out of Osterland's with a thirty-dollar hat
on her head?"
Katherine rose as if to forcibly silence her, but Sahwah held her back
and Gladys proceeded for the edification of the boys. "You see," said
Gladys, "she was in there trying on hats all by herself because the
saleswomen were busy with other people. She had put on a mink hat and
was roaming around looking for a handglass to see how it looked from the
back, when she suddenly got an idea for a story she was to write for
that month's club meeting. She forgot all about having the hat on her
head and started for home as fast as she could. Out on the sidewalk she
met Nyoda, who admired the hat. Then she came to."
"Mercy!" said Aunt Clara to Katherine, "weren't you frightened when you
discovered it?"
"Not she," said Gladys. "She walked right back inside, big as life,
hunted around until she found her own hat, and handed the mink one to
the saleswoman, who had just sent a store detective out after her. The
detective escorted her to the door that time, but it didn't worry her in
the least. She went right back into the store the next day and tried the
same hat on again and couldn't imagine why the saleswoman left another
customer and was so attentive to her. The simplicity of some people is
perfectly touching."
"I won't stay and be made fun of," said Katherine, and marched up the
hill with an injured air, calling back over her shoulder, "all people
who ordered fudge today might as well cancel their orders, because I'm
not going to make any, so there!"
"Oh, I say, don't get mad," said Slim in alarm, whereat everybody
laughed. He was the one for whom Katherine's words were intended, nobody
else having "ordered" any fudge.
"Honest, I forgot I promised not to tell about the binnacles," said Slim
pleadingly.
But Katherine was adamant and would not forgive him. Slim grunted
ruefully and exclaimed: "Shucks! I always manage to get in bad with her.
Always in bad," he repeated dolefully.
"We'll have to re-christen you 'In-Bad the Sailor!'" said Sahwah.
"Really!" said the Captain, making a grimace of comical surprise at her.
"Who would have thought the child was so deucedly clevah, bah Jove!"
But the name of In-Bad the Sailor struck the others as being such a good
one that they adopted it right away, and Slim had to answer to it half
the time for the rest of the summer.
Slim shadowed Katherine so closely and volunteered so gallantly to do
all her dinner chores that she relented in the middle of the afternoon
and brought out the brown and white "makin's" that Slim's sweet tooth so
delighted in. The Captain looked at them and jeered as he went past on
his way down to the landing.
"Slim would eat his words any day if he could roll them in a piece of
fudge," he called. Slim only smiled sweetly as he watched the
experimental spoonful being dropped into the cup of water. Nothing could
ruffle him now.
The Captain walked briskly down the hill and untied the small launch.
"Where are you going?" called Hinpoha from the log where she was sitting
all by herself reading.
"Over to St. Pierre, to mail a Special Delivery letter for Uncle Teddy,"
replied the Captain.
"Do you need any help getting it over?" asked Hinpoha.
"Why, yes," said the Captain, laughing, "come along if you want to."
Hinpoha tripped gaily over the beach and seated herself in the launch
with him.
"Hadn't you better wear your sweater?" asked the Captain, looking rather
doubtfully at Hinpoha's low-necked and short-sleeved middy. "There's a
raw wind today and cutting against it will make it worse."
Hinpoha shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not a bit cold," she replied
carelessly. "I always go like this; even in lots colder weather. I'm so
hardened down to it that I never catch cold. Besides, we're not going to
be out after dark, are we? You're just going straight over to St. Pierre
and back?"
"That's all," said the Captain. "Just to mail this letter and buy some
alcohol for Uncle Teddy and some peanuts for the chippies. Hadn't ought
to take more than an hour and a half altogether." He started the engine
and off they chugged. They reached St. Pierre in good time, mailed the
letter, bought the alcohol and the peanuts and a postcard with a picture
of a donkey on it to give to Katherine and some lollypops for Slim and
started back.
"What's happened to the sun?" asked Hinpoha. It had been feeble and
watery on the way over, but now it had vanished from the sky, and a fine
mist seemed to be falling all over. Hinpoha shivered involuntarily as
they started off.
"You really should have brought your sweater along," said the Captain.
"Here, spread this tarpaulin over you, it'll keep you warm a little."
Hinpoha declared she wasn't very cold, but, nevertheless, she availed
herself of the protection the tarpaulin afforded and was glad to have
it. The mist thickened until it looked like steam, and almost before
they knew it they were surrounded on all sides by a dense fog. They
could not see a boat length ahead of them.
"Nice pickle," said the Captain, buttoning his collar around his throat.
"How are we ever going to find our way back to Ellen's Isle in this
mess?"
Hinpoha strained her eyes trying to peer through the white curtain. "I
don't know," she said, "unless you can guide yourself by the fog horn in
the harbor of St. Pierre. Keep it behind us, you know."
"But the sound seems to come from all around," said the Captain.
"It will at first, but afterwards you can tell," said Hinpoha. "Nyoda
used to keep making us tell the direction from which sounds came and we
can almost always do it. The fog horn is behind us now."
The Captain kept on in the direction they had been going and ran very
slowly. "It'll take us all evening to get home at this rate," he said.
"If we don't run past the island," he added under his breath.
A few minutes later the chugging of the engine ceased and their steady,
if slow, progress was arrested. "What's the matter?" asked Hinpoha.
"I don't know," said the Captain in a vexed tone. "It can't be that
we're out of gasoline--I filled up before we left. The engine's gone
dead."
He struck match after match in an effort to see what the trouble was,
but they only made a feeble glare in the fog and he could not locate the
trouble. "What are we going to do now?" he exclaimed in a tone of
concern.
"Sit here until the fog lifts, I suppose," said Hinpoha calmly.
Finally, satisfied that he could do absolutely nothing to fix the
trouble until he could see, the Captain settled back to await the
lifting of the fog. The chill in the air was getting sharper all the
time, and, although Hinpoha did everything she could to prevent it, her
teeth chattered and the Captain could feel her convulsive shivers, even
under the tarpaulin.
"Here," he said, taking off his coat and putting it around her
shoulders, "put this on."
Hinpoha shoved it away resolutely, shaking her head. She could not speak
articulately. But the Captain was determined and made her put it on in
spite of her protests.
"Y-you'll t-t-take c-c-c-cold," she said.
"No, I won't," said the Captain, "but you will." Hinpoha made him take
the tarpaulin as she began to warm through in the coat.
"It's kind of fun," she said in a natural voice again. "It's a new
experience."
"Is there anything you girls don't think is fun?" asked the Captain in
an admiring tone. "Most girls would be wringing their hands and
declaring they would never go out in a boat again. Aren't you really
afraid?"
"Not the least bit," said Hinpoha emphatically.
"You're a good sport," said the Captain.
"'Thank you kindly, sir, she said,'" replied Hinpoha. But she was
pleased with the compliment, nevertheless, because she knew it was
sincere. The Captain never said anything he did not mean.
They sat there drifting back and forth with the current for several
hours, and then suddenly there was a break in the white curtain and two
bright eyes looked down at them from above. "It's the Twins!" cried
Hinpoha delightedly. "The Sailors' Stars. They have come to guide us
back. Don't you remember, they're always directly in front of us when we
come home from St. Pierre in the evening."
The fog was breaking and drifting away before a fresh breeze which had
sprung up and first one star and then another came into view. Soon they
could see a bright red light in the distance and knew it was a signal
fire, which the folks on Ellen's Isle had built to guide them. Hinpoha
held her little bug light down while the Captain searched for the
trouble in the launch engine and he was not long in discovering that it
was nothing serious. A few pokes in her vitals and the launch began
chugging again.
The whole family was lined up on the beach awaiting their arrival and
they were welcomed back as though they had been gone a year. It was
nearly nine o'clock. They had been out on the lake more than four hours.
"Stop hugging Hinpoha, Gladys," bade her mother, "and let her eat
something. Those blessed children must be nearly starved."
This was not quite true, because they had eaten the two quarts of
peanuts and the half dozen lollypops originally consigned to the camp,
which had saved them from starving very nicely.
The clearing wind, which had dispelled the fog, came from the north and
blew colder and colder as the night wore on. In the morning the Captain
woke stiff and chilled and with a very sore throat. "I'm all right," he
protested when Aunt Clara came in to administer remedies, but his voice
was a mere croak. Aunt Clara felt of his head and found a high fever.
She promptly ordered him to stay in bed and set herself to the task of
breaking up the cold. Hinpoha wandered around distracted all day.
"It was my fault, all my fault," she wailed. "If I had only had sense
enough to take my sweater he wouldn't have made me take his coat. Is he
very sick, Aunt Clara?"
By night the Captain was very much worse. He had developed a bad case of
bronchitis and his breath rattled ominously.
Hinpoha, crouching anxiously at the foot of a big tree near the tent,
overheard a low-voiced conversation between Uncle Teddy and Aunt Clara,
who were standing in the path. "It would be pretty serious if he were to
develop pneumonia out here," said Uncle Teddy in an anxious tone.
"We're doing our best," said Aunt Clara, "but he's a very sick boy. In
the morning you must bring the doctor from St. Pierre."
They passed on and Hinpoha heard no more. But her heart sank like a lump
of lead. The Captain was going to have pneumonia and it was all her
fault! If he died she would be a murderer. How could she ever face Uncle
Teddy again? She was afraid to go back with the rest, but sat crouched
there under the tree almost beside herself with remorse until Aunt Clara
herself found her and made her go to bed.
In the morning Uncle Teddy brought a doctor from St. Pierre who stayed
on the job all day and by night announced that there was no danger of
pneumonia, although the Captain had had a very narrow escape.
"_Now_ what are you crying for?" demanded Katherine, coming upon
Hinpoha all by herself in the woods.
"Be-c-cause I'm s-so g-glad," said Hinpoha from the depths of a thankful
heart.
"You make me tired," said Katherine, and brushed a tear out of her own
eye.