A BOAT-RIDE
Great was the rejoicing of the whole household when at last Marjorie
was able to come downstairs once more.
Uncle Steve assisted her down. He didn't carry her, for he said she was
far too much of a heavyweight for any such performance as that, but he
supported her on one side, and with a banister rail on the other she
managed beautifully.
And, anyway, her ankle was just about as well as ever. The doctor had
not allowed the active child to come downstairs until there was little
if any danger that an imprudence on her part might injure her again.
It was Saturday afternoon, and though she could not be allowed to walk
about the place until the following week, yet Uncle Steve took her for
a long, lovely drive behind Ned and Dick, and then brought her back to
another jolly little surprise.
This was found in a certain sheltered corner of one of the long
verandas. It was so built that it was almost like a cosy, little square
room; and climbing vines formed a pleasant screen from the bright
sunlight. To it Uncle Steve had brought a set of wicker furniture: dear
little chairs and a table and a settee, all painted green. Then there
was a green-and-white hammock swung at just the right height, and
containing two or three fat, jolly-looking, green pillows, in the midst
of which Puff had chosen to curl herself up for a nap.
There was a little bamboo bookcase, with a few books and papers, and a
large box covered with Japanese matting, which had a hinged lid, and
was lovely to keep things in. There was a rug on the floor, and
Japanese lanterns hung from the ceiling, all in tones of green and
white and silver.
Marjorie unceremoniously dislodged Puff from her comfortable position,
and flung herself into the hammock instead.
"Uncle Steve!" she exclaimed, grabbing that gentleman tightly round the
neck as he leaned over her to adjust her pillows, "you are the best man
in the whole world, and I think you ought to be President! If you do
any more of these lovely things for me I shall just--just SUFFOCATE
with joy. What makes you so good to me, anyhow?"
"Oh, because you're such a little saint, and never do anything naughty
or mischievous!"
"That's a splendid reason," cried Marjorie, quite appreciating the
joke, "and, truly, Uncle Steve,--don't you tell,--it's a great secret:
but I AM going to try to be more dignified and solemn."
This seemed to strike Uncle Steve as being very funny, for he sat down
on the little wicker settee and laughed heartily.
"Well, you may as well begin now, then; and put on your most dignified
and pompous manner, as you lie there in that hammock, for I'm going to
read to you until tea-time."
"Goody, goody!" cried Marjorie, bobbing up her curly head, and moving
about excitedly. "Please, Uncle, read from that new book you brought me
last night. I'll get it!"
"That's a nice, dignified manner, that is! Your Serene Highness will
please calm yourself, and stay just where you are. _I_ shall select the
book to read from, and _I_ shall do the reading. All you have to do is
to lie still and listen."
So Marjorie obeyed, and, of course, Uncle Steve picked out the very
book she wanted, and read to her delightfully for an hour or more.
Marjorie's porch, as it came to be called, proved to be a favorite
resort all summer long for the family and for any guests who came to
the house. Marjorie herself almost lived in it for the first few days
after she came downstairs, but at last the doctor pronounced her ankle
entirely well, and said she might "start out to find some fresh
mischief."
So the next morning, directly after breakfast, she announced her
intention of going down to see the boathouse.
"Just think," she exclaimed, "I have never seen it yet, and King told
me to go down there the very first thing."
"I suppose you'll come back half-drowned," said Grandma, "but as you
seem unable to learn anything, except by mistakes, go ahead. But,
Marjorie, do try not to do some absurd thing, and then say that I
haven't forbidden it! I don't forbid you to go in the boat, if Carter
goes with you, but I do forbid you to go alone. Will you remember that?"
"Yes, Grandma, truly I will," said Marjorie, with such a seraphic smile
that her grandmother kissed her at once.
"Then run along and have a good time; and don't jump off the dock or
anything foolish."
"I won't," cried Marjorie, gayly; and then she went dancing down the
path to the garden. Carter was in the greenhouse potting some plants.
"Carter," said Marjorie, putting her head in at the door, "are you very
busy?"
"Busy, indeed! I have enough work here with these pesky plants to keep
me steady at it till summer after next. Busy, is it? I'm so busy that
the bees and the ants is idle beside me. Busy? Well, I AM busy!"
But as the good-natured old man watched Marjorie's face, and saw the
look of disappointment settling upon it, he said: "But what matters
that? If so be, Miss Midget, I can do anything for you, you've only to
command."
"Well, Carter, I thought this morning I'd like to go down to see the
boathouse; and I thought, perhaps,--maybe, if you weren't busy, you
might take me for a little row in the boat. Just a little row, you
know--not very far."
It would have taken a harder heart than Carter's to withstand the
pleading tones and the expectant little face; and the gardener set down
his flower-pots, and laid down his trowel at once.
"Did your grandmother say you could go, Miss Midget?"
"She said I could go if you went with me."
"Then it's with ye I go, and we'll start at once."
Marjorie danced along by the side of the old man as he walked more
slowly down the garden path, when suddenly a new idea came into her
head.
"Oh, Carter," she cried, "have my seeds come up yet? And what are the
flowers? Let's go and look at them."
"Come up yet, is it? No, indeed, they've scarcely settled themselves
down in the earth yet."
"I wish they would come up, I want to see what they'll be. Let's go and
look at the place where we planted them, Carter."
So they turned aside to the flowerbed where the precious seeds had been
planted, but not even Marjorie's sharp eyes could detect the tiniest
green sprout. With an impatient little sigh she turned away, and as
they continued down toward the boathouse, Marjorie heard somebody
calling, and Molly Moss came flying up to her, all out of breath.
"We were so afraid we wouldn't catch you," she exclaimed, "for your
Grandma said you had gone out in the boat."
"We haven't yet," answered Marjorie, "but we're just going. Oh, Carter,
can we take Molly, too?"
"And Stella," added Molly. "She's coming along behind."
Sure enough, Stella was just appearing round the corner of the house,
and walking as sedately as if on her way to church.
"Hurry up, Stella," called Marjorie. "Can we all go, Carter?"
"Yes, if yees'll set still in the boat and if the other little lady
gets here before afternoon. She's the nice, quiet child, but you two
are a pair of rascally babies, and I don't know whether it's safe to go
on the water with ye. I'm thinkin' I'll take little Miss Stella, and
leave ye two behind."
"_I_ don't think you will, Carter," said Marjorie, not at all alarmed
by the old man's threat. "_I_ think you'll take all three of us, and
we'll sit as still as mice, won't we, Molly?"
"Yes," said Molly; "can we take off our shoes and stockings and hang
our feet over the sides of the boat?"
"Oh, yes," cried Marjorie, "that will be lots of fun!"
"Indeed you'll do nothing of the sort," and Carter's honest old face
showed that he felt great anxiety concerning his madcap charges. "Ye
must promise to sit still, and not move hand or foot, or I'll go back
to my work and leave yees on shore."
This awful suggestion brought about promises of strictly good behavior,
and as Stella had arrived, the party proceeded to the boathouse.
Stella was mildly pleased at the prospect of a row, and walked demurely
by Carter's side, while the other two ran on ahead and reached the
boathouse first.
As the door was locked, and they could not open it, Marjorie, who was
all impatience to see the boat, proposed that they climb in the window.
Molly needed no second invitation, and easily slipped through the
little square window, and Marjorie, with a trifle more difficulty,
wriggled her own plump little body through after.
As the window was not on the side of the boathouse toward which Carter
was approaching, he did not see the performance, and so when he and
Stella reach the boathouse a few moments later, they could see nothing
at all of the other two girls.
"Merciful powers!" he exclaimed. "Whatever has become of them two
witches?"
"Where can they be?" cried Stella, clasping her hands, and opening her
eyes wide in alarm.
Old Carter was genuinely frightened. "Miss Marjorie!" he called,
loudly. "Miss Molly! Where be ye?"
Meanwhile, the two girls inside the boathouse had carefully scrambled
down into the boat and sat quietly on the stern seat. There was a
strong breeze blowing, and as the boat swayed up and down on the
rippling water, its keel grating against the post to which it was tied,
and the doors and windows being tightly shut, they did not hear
Carter's voice. They really had no intention of frightening the old
man, and supposed he would open the door in a moment.
But Carter's mind was so filled with the thought that the children had
fallen into the water that it didn't occur to him to open the
boathouse. He went to the edge of the pier, which was a narrow affair,
consisting only of two wooden planks and a single hand rail, and gazed
anxiously down into the water.
This gave Stella a firm conviction that the girls were drowned, and
without another word she began to cry in her own noisy and tumultuous
fashion. Poor Carter, already at his wits' end, had small patience with
any additional worry.
"Keep still, Miss Stella," he commanded; "it's enough to have two
children on me hands drowned without another one raising a hullabaloo.
And it's a queer thing, too, if them wicked little rats is drownded,
why they don't come up to the surface! My stars! Whatever will the
Missus say? But, havin' disappeared so mortal quick, there's no place
they can be but under the water. I'll get a boat-hook, and perhaps I
can save 'em yet."
Trembling with excitement and bewildered with anxiety, so that he
scarcely knew what he did, the old man fitted the key in the lock. He
flung open the boathouse door and faced the two children, who sat
quietly and with smiling faces in the boat.
"Well, if ye don't beat all! Good land, Miss Marjorie, whatever did ye
give me such a scare for? Sure I thought ye was drownded, and I was
jest goin' to fish ye up with a boat-hook! My, but you two are terrors!
And how did ye get in now? Through the keyhole, I suppose."
"Why, no, Carter," exclaimed Marjorie, who was really surprised at the
old man's evident excitement; "we were in a hurry, and the door was
locked, so we just stepped in through the window."
"Stepped in through the window, is it? And if the window had been
locked ye'd have jest stepped in through the chimley! And if the
chimley had been locked, ye'd have stepped into the water, and ducked
under, and come up through the floor! When ye're in a hurry, ye stop
for nothin', Miss Midget."
The old man's relief at finding the children safe was so great that he
was really talking a string of nonsense to hide his feelings.
But Stella, though she realized the girls were all right, could not
control her own emotions so easily, and was still crying vociferously.
"For goodness' sake!" exclaimed Molly, "what IS the matter with Stella?
Doesn't she want to go boating?"
"Why--yes," sobbed Stella, "b-but I thought you two were drowned."
"Well, we're not!" cried Marjorie, gayly. "So cheer up, Stella, and
come along."
Leaving the two girls, as they were already seated, in the stern of the
boat, Carter carefully tucked Stella into the bow seat, and then took
his own place on the middle thwart. This arrangement enabled him to
keep his eye on the two mischievous madcaps, and he had no fear that
Stella would cut up any tricks behind his back.
He could not reprove the mischief-makers, for they had done nothing
really wrong, but he looked at them grimly as he rowed out into the
stream.
"Oh," exclaimed Marjorie, "isn't this just too lovely for anything!
Please, Carter, mayn't we just put our hands in the water if we keep
our feet in the boat?"
"No," growled Carter; "you'll be wantin' to put your heads in next. Now
do set still, like the nice young lady behind me."
Anxious to be good, Marjorie gave a little sigh and folded her hands in
her lap, while Molly did likewise.
Carter's eyes twinkled as he looked at the two little martyrs, and his
heart relented.
"Ye may just dangle your fingers in the water, if ye want to," he said,
"but ye must be careful not to wobble the boat."
The children promised, and then gave themselves up to the delight of
holding their hands in the water and feeling the soft ripples run
through their fingers.
The row down the river was perfect. The balmy June day, with its clear
air and blue sky, the swift, steady motion of the boat impelled by
Carter's long, strong strokes, and the soothing sensation of the
rushing water subdued even the high spirits of Midge and Molly into a
sort of gentle, tranquil happiness.