"Us boys didn't know you lived here. We wouldn't have hurt a hair of
your head if we had knowed who you was." Then he added somewhat
shamefacedly, "I fetched ye a salmon. Maybe ye ain't never see a
salmon jest out of the water. They're pretty-colored, ain't they?"
And he held up to view the glistening pink fish.
"Oh, how beautiful it is. It seems too pretty to catch, doesn't it?"
said Polly bending over to examine the fish the boy laid on the grass.
He stared at her, not quite comprehending how any one could think any
fish too pretty to be caught. "They're awful good eatin'," he went on
to say, "but they don't often come in here."
"How did you happen to get this one?" asked Polly.
"It was in my father's pound this morning, and I begged him for it.
Shall I take it into the kitchen for you?" he added hastily.
"Oh, do you mean to give it to us? How very good you are," said Polly
appreciatively.
The boy gave a short laugh. "I wasn't very good last night, was I?" he
said, and Polly understood that this was a peace-offering.
That afternoon two younger lads were seen hanging around the house
bearing a mysterious something done up in a newspaper. "What in
conscience do them boys want?" said Luella, looking out of the kitchen
window. "It's Billy Laws and Horeb Potter. What are they peekin'
around here for I want to know." One of the boys now advanced toward
the house, but at the appearance of Miss Ada on the porch, he took to
his heels, and lurked in the distance where his companion was uneasily
waiting.
Luella went out to Miss Ada. "Them boys has got some errant here," she
said, "but they won't come in whilst they see you on the piazza." Miss
Ada reëntered the house. The three little girls peeped from the
windows, looking out from behind the blinds. In a few minutes the boys
came stealthily forth, tiptoed toward the house, halted fearfully, took
a few steps back, came on more quickly. He who bore the newspaper
package was suddenly pushed violently forward by the other and came on
with a trot, bolted into the kitchen, laid the package on the table
before Luella and exclaimed hastily: "It's for the little gals!" then
he took to his heels, not stopping till he was clear out of sight.
Luella came laughing into the living-room. "Here's another present,"
she announced. "You open it, Miss Ada."
"What can it be?" exclaimed the children, gathering around their aunt
who untied the string of the damp parcel, unwrapped it and disclosed to
view a huge lobster, fiery red, and still warm from recent boiling.
"Isn't he a monster?" exclaimed Miss Ada. "I don't believe I ever saw
a larger. We'll have him for supper, Luella. I hope you took half the
salmon to Mrs. Wharton, for we couldn't eat that and this, too.
Children, you will have to invite Grace over to have her share. I
suppose some of it is due to her anyhow."
"She ought to have it all," said Polly, "for she was the only one who
was hurt."
"I'm afraid she'd suffer more still if she attempted to devour this
entire lobster," laughed Miss Ada. "We'd better spare her little turn,
Polly, and help her eat this."
It was after such of the lobster as they could eat had been disposed
of, and the children with no desire for long wanderings, were safely
gathered around the fire, that a tap was heard at the door. Uncle Dick
arose to open it and received into his hands a large cold jar, while a
small lad piped out: "Jerry sent this to the little gals. They'll
keep." And then the figure vanished into the darkness.
"I don't know who Jerry is, nor what 'this' is," said Uncle Dick,
bearing in the glass jar and setting it on the table. "It's for the
'little gals' I was told. Great Caesar! It's clams, carefully
shelled. See here, Ada, we won't have to buy any more provender this
season at this rate. When we get short of provisions we can send out
our Arabs on the road, for behold the result of their evening's
migrations."
Every one laughed at this latest gift, and it was set away for the next
day's use. But the end was not yet. On the door sill the next morning
was discovered a splint basket. To the handle was tied a scrap of
paper on which was awkwardly written: "To the little gals." Molly was
the finder of this. "Hurry down all of you!" she called to the others.
"There is a present."
"Another one?" said Polly over the baluster. "What is it?"
"I haven't looked," was the reply.
The other children, joined by Miss Ada, came down as soon as possible,
their curiosity excited. Molly lifted the wet seaweed covering the
contents of the basket and they saw a pile of shining little mackerel.
"Tinkers!" cried Miss Ada. "What a nice lot of them! Oh, and there
are some butter-fish, too. They are all cleaned beautifully, and we
must have some for breakfast; it will take only a few minutes to cook
them. Yon children can run over to Grace with her share."
This the little girls were glad to do, but returned with their platter
full explaining that smaller lot had been left at the Whartons'.
But two more conscience offerings were received after this. Four thick
braids of sweet grass were found hanging on the door-knob, and, during
the day a man delivered a mysterious box slatted across one end. This
was found to contain a beautiful kitten of the variety called "Coon."
The children were wild over this last gift, the only drawback to their
delight being the difficulty of deciding which one should take it home.
Their Aunt Ada came to the rescue by telling them not to bother about
it till the time came and then to let circumstances settle it. Her own
little cat, Cosey, was not inclined to favor the intruder at first, but
in a few days she began to mother it and they soon became good friends.
"Are you glad that the boys scared us that night?" asked Polly one day
not long after the "day of gifts" as the children called it.
Molly weighed the subject. "When I think of the dear kitten and the
salmon and the tinkers."
"And the lobster."
"Yes, and the sweet grass, then I am, but when I think of how
dreadfully frightened we were, I'm not."
"I don't intend to remember the scare," said Polly philosophically.
"Neither do I," added Mary. "I'd be an Arab again for the sake of
finding out how really good-hearted those boys are," which showed that
Mary had a good heart, too.
_CHAPTER XI_
_The Roseberry Family_
The green grass of June had turned to russet; the bay berry bushes
began to look dingy, and the waxy cranberries in the bog were turning
to a delicate pink. It had been a dry season and the children could
safely traverse the bog from end to end without danger of getting their
feet wet. Ellis was their pilot to this fascinating spot, and the day
of their introduction to it was one long to be remembered.
It was one morning when Ellis came around to the back door to deliver
clams that they first heard of the bog. He added to the weekly order a
little bag of pinky-white cranberries. "I thought maybe you'd like
'em," he said. "Miss Alice Harvey says they're much better when
they're not quite ripe. Ora tried some and they were fine, but they
took a lot of sugar."
"Thank you for remembering us," said Miss Ada as she received the
offering. "How much, Ellis?"
"Nawthin'. They're easy to pick and there's plenty of 'em," he made
reply.
Miss Ada accepted the gift in the spirit in which it was intended.
"I'm sure we shall enjoy them," she declared. "Where is the bog,
Ellis? Is it very wet there?"
"'Tain't wet at all this year. This has been such a dry season. It's
down back of Cap'n Orrin's barn."
"Oh, is that the place?" Molly was peeping over her aunt's shoulder.
"I've always longed to go there but I was afraid it was all sloppy and
marshy; some one said it was."
"Would you like me to go there with you?" said Ellis bashfully. "I
know where the cranberries grow, and there's lots of other things down
there, the kind you city people like to get, weeds, we call 'em."
"Oh, may we go?" Molly appealed to her aunt.
"Why yes, I have no objection. It is perfectly safe if it's not wet.
I suppose you may encounter a garter snake or two, but you don't mind
them, Molly."
"Wait for us, Ellis," said the little girl speeding away for her
cousins with whom she returned in a moment. All three were
breathlessly eager to start on the voyage of discovery, for with Ellis
as leader, into what regions of the unknown might they not penetrate.
Over the hill they went, leaving Cap'n Orrin's mild-eyed cows gazing
after them ruminatively as they crept under the fence which separated
the pasture from the wild bottom land at the foot of the hill. On the
other side arose the ridge along which were ranged cottages looking
both coveward and seaward. A winding path led past runty little apple
trees and huge boulders, and finally was lost in the tangle of growth
overspreading the marsh.
"It is dry enough now," said Mary exultantly, setting her foot on a
tuft of dry grass. "Where are the cranberries, Ellis? I want to see
those first."
"You are standing right over some," he said smiling.
Mary looked down, but only a mass of weeds and grass greeted her eyes.
"I don't see them," she declared.
Ellis laughed, bent over and parted the grass to disclose the delicate
wreaths of green, and the pretty smooth cranberries, tucked away in the
dry grass.
"As if they were afraid of being picked," remarked Mary. "You will not
escape me that way." And down on her knees she went in search of the
pink fruit.
Molly meanwhile had gone further afield, and was gathering flowers
strange to her, and grasses as lovely as the blossoms. Earlier in the
season, she had delighted in the rosy plumes of the hard-hack, the
sweet pinky-white clover, the wild partridge peas, but here were new
acquaintances which were not to be found outside the marsh, and upon
them she pounced eagerly.
It was Polly, however, who discovered the Roseberry family, for Polly,
who had spent her life far from cities, had developed her imagination,
and could fashion from unpromising material the most fascinating
things, and though she, too, picked her share of cranberries, she also
gathered a lot of roseberries which she declared were the biggest she
had ever seen. These she bore away in triumph, while Molly carried her
bouquet with a satisfied air and Mary was quite content with having the
largest showing of cranberries. So they returned, well pleased, to the
cottage.
"We had the splendidest morning," said Molly, setting her flowers in a
large vase. "I never knew that bogs could be so perfectly fine. What
are you doing, Polly?"
Polly was seated on the floor industriously picking off her roseberries
from the twigs. "Wait and you will see," was her answer. "Do get me
some pins, Molly, a whole lot. Aunt Ada will give you some."
Molly's curiosity being aroused, she rushed off to her aunt, returning
with a paper of pins. She squatted down on the floor by Polly's side.
Mary, meanwhile, had gone to the kitchen to superintend Luella's
cooking of the cranberries. Polly stuck a pin in one side of the
biggest, fattest roseberry, then another in the other side. "This is
Mr. Roseberry," she said, "and these are his two arms. Now his head
goes on, and then his legs. I use the pins, you see, because you can
bend them so as to make the people sit down." She held up the
completed mannikin. "Now I must pick out some berries for Mrs.
Roseberry, and then I'll make the children."
"Polly, you are so ridiculous," said Molly in a tone of admiration,
"but do you know, they are awfully funny with their little round heads
and bodies." Polly worked away industriously till she had completed
her entire family. "Now what?" said Molly. "What in the world is
that?"
"It is a lamp," returned Polly, deftly fitting a base to her red globe.
"Now, if I had some pasteboard I could make some furniture, and we'd
play with the Roseberry family this afternoon."
"Dinner is nearly ready now," said Molly, "but it will be fun to play
with them this afternoon. We could have two or three families. What
can I name mine?" She watched Polly interestedly as she put the last
touch to a vase in which she stuck a bit of green.
"You might call them Pod," said Polly. "These are really the seed pods
of the wild roses, you know. They are like little apples, aren't they?"
"Oh, I'll call them Appleby," said Molly.
"We know some people named that. Save that tiny one for the baby,
Polly."
"The cranberries are perfectly delicious," said Mary, coming in from
the kitchen, "but they have to cool before we can eat them. Luella
says they take so much sugar that they will keep perfectly for me to
take some home. Oh, what curious little figures."
"This is the Roseberry family," Polly told her, indicating the dolls on
the right, "and these," she pointed to those on her left, "these are
the Applebys."
"You must have some, too, Mary," said Molly. "What shall you call
yours?"
Mary had picked up one of the little figures. "Why, they are made of
hips, aren't they?"
"What are hips?" asked Molly.
"That is what we call the berries of the briar-rose, and in England the
hawthorn berries are haws."
"Hips and haws," sang Molly. "Don't they go nicely together? Shall
you call your people Mr. and Mrs. Hips?"
"Why, yes, I can. I think that would be a very good name. Are we
going to play with them?"
"After dinner we are, if Polly can find anything to make furniture of."
Polly's ingenuity did not fail her here, for, by the use of some match
ends, birch bark and a needle and thread she contrived all sorts of
things and then each girl hunted up a box for a house, so that these
new playthings proved to be very fascinating.
But at last the every-day commonplaces grew too dull for Polly, and she
suddenly exclaimed: "I'm tired of just visiting and talking about
measles and nurses and mustard plasters! I'm going to take the
Roseberry family down to the shore. They're going to have an
adventure."
"Oh, Polly, what? Can ours go, too?" cried Molly. "I would like to
have the Applebys meet an adventure, too."
"And I'd like Mr. and Mrs. Hips to have one," echoed Mary.
"Are they very wicked, black-hearted people?" asked Polly, darkly.
"Why--why----" Mary hesitated and looked to Molly for her cue.
"Do they have to be wicked to have an adventure?" asked Molly.
"If they join the Roseberries, they'll have to be, for the Roseberries
are wreckers and smugglers." Polly spoke impressively, and at this
flight of fancy Molly and Mary gazed at her admiringly. Yet they were
not quite willing that their families should give up their morals to
too great an extent.
"What do they have to do?" asked Mary, determined to find out the worst.
"Mine have a cave," said Polly, mysteriously. "It is on an island--I
know what island I am going to have--and there they hide their
treasures. They are counterfeiters, too," she added to their list of
crimes, "and they have chests of counterfeit money--sand dollars."
Molly laughed and Polly looked at her reproachfully. "It is as good as
any other counterfeit money," she remarked.
"Never mind the money. Go on, Polly." Molly was enjoying her cousin's
inventions.
"Well, they go out in a boat on stormy nights and when a vessel is in
distress, instead of helping, they don't do anything but just wait till
the vessel is wrecked and then they help themselves, to what they can
get. They have, oh, such a store of diamonds and rubies and precious
stones in their cave, and they have their own vessel that flies a black
flag."
"Then they're pirates," said Mary recoiling. "I don't want the Hips to
be pirates."
"They don't have to be," Polly calmly assured her. "They can be as
good as they want to, and can be on one of the vessels that gets
wrecked."
"Then they'll all get drowned."
"No, they needn't; they can cling to a raft and go ashore on some
desert island."
Having saved the lives as well as the reputations of the Hips family,
although they would probably lose everything else, Mary was satisfied,
but Molly was ready to compromise. A little spice of wickedness seemed
necessary to make her Applebys interesting. "My family can be
smugglers," she announced, "but I don't want them to be pirates and I
don't want them wrecked either. Smugglers aren't so wicked as pirates;
they only bring in things that you ought to pay duty on, Uncle Dick
told me, and Mary's father told her that in England almost everything
comes in free, and that the United States is as mean as can be about
making people pay for what is brought into the country. A lady, Molly
saw on the steamer when they came over, had an awful time about a
shabby old sealskin coat she'd had for years, and just because she wore
it ashore from the steamer, they made an awful fuss about it."
"Well, I don't understand about it, but if the United States said it
was wrong, of course it must have been; they are always right," said
Polly loyally. "I don't exactly know about smuggling," she confessed,
"however, the Roseberries are going to be smugglers."
"Uncle Dick was telling us about smugglers the other night."
"Yes, I know, that is what made me think of it. He showed me the
island where there used to be a smuggler's cave."
"I remember it; we saw it when we were out sailing one day."
"We must build a birch bark ship for the Hips family," said Polly,
changing the subject. "Your Applebys can live on my island and if they
don't want to associate with the Roseberries they can have a cave to
themselves."
"Roseberry is such a nice pleasant name for wicked people," remarked
Mary. "Why don't you call them something else?"
"Nobody ever does call them that," returned Polly readily. "The father
is the leader of the gang, and he is Bold Ben. His three sons are
One-eyed Peter, Crooked Tom, and Sly Sam. They call his wife Old Mag,
and then there are two cousins, twins; they are Smiling Steve and
Grinning Jim."
"Oh, Polly, how do you think of such names?" said Molly delightedly.
"What does Old Mag do?"
"She pulls in things from the wreck and she cooks the meals. Then,
when the men are all away smuggling, she sits in the cave and spends
her time looking at the jewels and letting them drip through her
fingers."
"Jewels can't drip," observed Mary in a matter-of-fact way.
"Well, they look as if they could," returned Polly. "The diamonds are
like drops of water, the pearls like milk and the rubies like blood."
"I know where you found that," said Molly; "in the fairy tale we were
reading the other day."
Polly admitted the fact and the ship being now ready to launch, they
proceeded to the shore where Polly pointed out the island. This was a
large rock, nearly covered at high tide, but now showing quite a
surface above the water. Its rugged sides held caves quite large
enough for persons of such size as the Roseberry family, and they were
presently hidden behind their barnacled barriers. In a little pool the
Hips family were set afloat while the Applebys contented themselves
with gathering stores of supposed precious stones from the little beach.
The Hips family had hardly set sail before Polly invoked a storm and
stirred to monster waves the waters in their pool, so they were in
great danger. "Oh, dear, the youngest Hips is floating away and I
can't save him," cried Mary.
"Never mind, let him go; there are plenty more of them," returned Polly
heartlessly banging her stick up and down in the water so the ship
would rock more violently. "They've got to be wrecked, you know," she
added. "I'll drive them on that rock, then you can grab them before
they sink and get them on the raft."
Mary managed to rescue all but one more of the family, and these were
set adrift on a piece of birch bark to which Polly tied a string that
they might not go beyond return. She also allowed the storm to cease,
but this was because the gang of wreckers had to haul up the ship and
gather in their plunder. She kept up so lively an account of their
doings that Molly left the Applebys to their own devices and Mary drew
the Hipses to shore that she might listen to Polly's blood-curdling
account of Bold Ben and the rest. Polly did not have to draw
altogether from her imagination, for her brothers had been too often
her playmates for her not to be ready with tales of plunder and
adventure.
Time passed very quickly and the children became so absorbed in the
manoeuvres of the gang that they did not notice the stealthy rise of
the tide till Mary exclaimed, "Oh, the Hipses have floated off and they
were quite high on the beach!"
Polly looked around her. "No wonder," she said; "the tide is rising.
We'd better start back." Leaving Bold Ben and his comrades to their
fate, she ran to the further side of the rock, but here she hesitated.
The sea was steadily making in, sending little cascades over the
weed-covered ledges each time it retreated.
"Can't you get across?" asked Molly, as she came up with her Applebys,
and saw Polly standing still.
"I'm almost afraid to jump," said Polly, "for if a big wave should come
in suddenly it might wash in over my feet and the sea-weed is so
slippery I'm afraid to trust to it, where it is shallower." Molly
looked up at the rocky shelf jutting out above her. "If we could only
get up there," she said.
"But we can't; it is too far to climb to that first jutty-out place,
and we can't crawl under and then up, like flies."
Mary bearing the sole survivor of the unfortunate Hips family now came
up. "I had to let the rest go," she said. "They were beyond reach. I
fished this one out of the water just in time. What is the matter?
Why don't you go on, Polly?"
For answer Polly pointed silently to the creeping waves at her feet.
"What are we going to do?" asked Mary in alarm.
"Stay here till the tide goes down, I suppose. This rock is never
covered," said Molly.
"But we may get dreadfully splashed," returned Mary.
"I hadn't thought of that," said Polly dubiously. She looked at the
rock above her, and then at her two cousins. "Which of you two could
stand on my shoulders and get hold of that rock so as to draw herself
up and go for help?"
"Oh, I never could do it in the world," said Mary, shrinking back.