THE THREE GRAY BEANS.
Corny went ashore, but she did not stay there three minutes. From the
edge of the wharf we could see that Silver Spring was better worth
looking at than anything we should be likely to see on shore. The little
lake seemed deeper than a three-story house, and yet, even from where we
stood, we could see down to the very bottom.
There were two boys with row-boats at the wharf. We hired one of the
boats right off, and Corny gave me such a look, that I told her to get
in. After she was in the boat, she asked her mother, who was standing on
the deck of the steam-boat, if she might go. Mrs. Chipperton said she
supposed so, and away we went. When we had rowed out to the middle of
the spring, I stopped rowing, and we looked down into the depths. It was
almost the same as looking into air. Far down at the bottom we could see
the glittering sand and the green rocks, and sometimes a fish, as long
as my arm, would slowly rise and fall, and paddle away beneath us. We
dropped nickels and copper cents down to the bottom, and we could
plainly see them lying there. In some parts of the bottom there were
"wells," or holes, about two feet in diameter, which seemed to go down
indefinitely. These, we were told, were the places where the water came
up from below into the spring. We could see the weeds and grasses that
grew on the edges of these wells, although we could not see very far
down into them.
"If I had only known," said Rectus, "what sort of a place we were coming
to, I should have brought something to lower down into these wells. I
tell you what would have been splendid!--a heavy bottle filled with
sweet oil and some phosphorus, and a long cord. If we shook up the
bottle it would shine, so that, when we lowered it into the wells, we
could see it go down to the very bottom, that is, if the cord should be
long enough."
At this instant, Corny went overboard! Rectus made a grab at her, but it
was too late. He sprang to his feet, and I thought he was going over
after her, but I seized him.
"Sit down!" said I. "Watch her! She'll come up again. Lean over and be
ready for her!"
We both leaned over the bow as far as was safe. With one hand I gently
paddled the boat, this way and that, so as to keep ourselves directly
over Corny. It would have been of no use to jump in. We could see her as
plainly as anything.
She was going down, all in a bunch, when I first saw her, and the next
instant she touched the bottom. Her feet were under now, and I saw her
make a little spring. She just pushed out her feet.
Then she began to come right up. We saw her slowly rising beneath us.
Her face was turned upward, and her eyes were wide open. It was a
wonderful sight. I trembled from head to foot. It seemed as if we were
floating in the air, and Corny was coming up to us from the earth.
Before she quite reached the surface, I caught her, and had her head out
of water in an instant. Rectus then took hold, and with a mighty jerk,
we pulled her into the boat.
Corny sat down hard and opened her mouth.
"There!" she said; "I didn't breathe an inch!"
And then she puffed for about two minutes, while the water ran off her
into the bottom of the boat. I seized the oars to row to shore.
"How did you fall over?" said Rectus, who still shook as if he had had a
chill.
"Don't know," answered Corny. "I was leaning far over, when my hand must
have slipped, and the first thing I knew I was into it. It's good I
didn't shut my eyes. If you get into water, with your eyes shut, you
can't open them again." She still puffed a little. "Coming up was the
best. It's the first time I ever saw the bottom of a boat."
"Weren't you frightened?" I asked.
"Hadn't time at first. And when I was coming up, I saw you reaching out
for me."
[Illustration: "WE SAW HER SLOWLY RISING BENEATH US."]
"Did you think we'd get you?" said Rectus, his face flushing.
"Yes," said Corny, "but if you'd missed me that time, I'd never have
trusted you again."
The gentleman-with-a-wife-and-a-young-lady was in another boat, not very
far off, but it was nearer the upper end of the little lake, and none of
the party knew of our accident until we were pulling Corny out of the
water. Then they rowed toward us as fast as they could, but they did
not reach us until we were at the wharf. No one on shore, or on the
steam-boat, seemed to have noticed Corny's dive. Indeed, the whole thing
was done so quietly, and was so soon over, that there was not as much of
a show as the occasion demanded.
"I never before was in deep water that seemed so little like real
water," said Corny, just before we reached the wharf. "This was cold,
and that was the only thing natural about it."
"Then this is not the first time you've been in deep water?" I asked.
"No," said Corny, "not the very first time;" and she scrambled up on the
wharf, where her mother was standing, talking to some ladies.
"Why, Cornelia!" exclaimed Mrs. Chipperton, as soon as she saw the
dripping girl, "have you been in the water again?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Corny, drawing her shoulders up to her ears, "and I
must be rubbed down and have dry clothes as quick as lightning."
And with this, she and her mother hurried on board the steam-boat.
Rectus and I went back on the lake, for we had not gone half over it
when Corny went into it. We had rowed about for half an hour or so, and
were just coming in, when Corny appeared on the deck of the steam-boat,
with a handkerchief tied around her head.
"Are you going to take a walk on shore?" she called out.
"Yes!" we shouted.
"All right," said she; "if you'll let me, I'll go with you, for mother
says I must take a good run in the sun. I look funny, don't I? but I
haven't any more hats."
We gave her a good run, although it was not altogether in the sun. The
country hereabout was pretty well wooded, but there were roads cut
through the woods, and there were some open places, and everywhere,
underfoot, the sand was about six inches deep. Rectus took Corny by one
hand, and I took her by the other, and we made her trot through that
sand, in sunshine and shade, until she declared she was warm enough to
last for a week. The yellow-legged party and some of the other
passengers were wandering about, gathering the long gray moss,--from
limbs where they could reach it,--and cutting great palmetto leaves
which grew on low bushes all through the woods, and carrying them about
as fans or parasols; but although Corny wanted to join in this fun, we
would not stop. We just trotted her until she was tired, and then we ran
her on board the boat, where her mother was waiting for her.
"Now, then," said Mrs. Chipperton, "immediately to bed."
The two disappeared, and we saw no more of Corny until supper-time. Her
mother was certainly good at cure, if she didn't have much of a knack at
prevention.
Just as the boat was about to start off on her return trip, and after
she had blown her whistle two or three times, Mr. Chipperton appeared,
carrying an immense arm-load of gray moss. He puffed and blew as he
threw it down on deck. When his wife came out and told him of Corny's
disaster, he stopped dusting his clothes, and looked up for an instant.
"I declare," said he, "Corny must keep out of the water. It seems to me
that I can never leave her but she gets into some scrape. But I'm sure
our friends here have proved themselves good fellows, indeed," and he
shook hands with both of us.
"Now then, my dear," said he to his wife, "I've enough moss here for the
parlor and sitting-room, and the little back-room, upstairs. I didn't
get any for the dining-room, because it might blow about and get into
the food."
"Do you mean to take that moss all the way home?" asked Mrs. Chipperton,
in surprise. "Why, how will you ever carry it?"
"Of course I mean to take it home," said he. "I gathered this with my
own hands from the top of one of the tallest trees on the banks of this
famous Silver Spring."
"Mr. Chipperton!" exclaimed his wife.
"To be sure, the tree was cut down, but that makes no difference in the
fact. It is both an ornament and a trophy of travel. If necessary, I'll
buy a trunk for it. What did you do with Corny after they got her out?"
Our journey home was very much like our trip up the river, but there
were a few exceptions. There was not so much firing, for I think the
ammunition got pretty low; we saw more alligators, and the yellow-legged
party, which had joined us at Pilatka, went all the way to St.
Augustine with us. There was still another difference, and that was in
Rectus. He was a good deal livelier,--more in the spirit that had
hatched out in him in the cemetery at Savannah. He seemed to be all
right with Corny now, and we had a good time together. I was going to
say to him, once, that he had changed his mind about girls, but I
thought I wouldn't. It would be better to let well enough alone, and he
was a ticklish customer.
The day after we returned to St. Augustine, we were walking on the
sea-wall, when we met Corny. She said she had been looking for us. Her
father had gone out fishing with some gentlemen, and her mother would
not walk in the sun, and, besides, she had something to say to us.
So we all walked to the fort and sat down on the wide wall of the
water-battery. Rectus bestrode one of the cannon that stood pointing out
to sea, but Corny told him she wanted him to get down and sit by her, so
that she wouldn't have to shout.
"Now then," said she, after pausing a little, as if she wanted to be
sure and get it right, "you two saved my life, and I want to give you
something to remember me by."
We both exclaimed against this.
"You needn't do that," said I, "for I'm sure that no one who saw you
coming up from the bottom, like the fairy-women float up on wires at the
theatre, could ever forget you. We'll remember you, Corny, without your
giving us anything."
"But that wont do," said she. "The only other time that I was ever
really saved was by a ferryman, and father gave him some money, which
was all right for him, but wouldn't do for you two, you know; and
another time there wasn't really any danger, and I'm sorry the man got
anything; but he did.
"We brought scarcely anything with us, because we didn't expect to need
things in this way; but this is my own, and I want to give it to you
both. One of you can't use it by himself, and so it will be more like a
present for both of you together, than most things would be." And she
handed me a box of dominoes.
"I give it to you because you're the oldest, but, remember, it's for
both of you."
Of course we took it, and Corny was much pleased. She was a good little
girl and, somehow or other, she seemed to be older and more sensible
when she was with us than when she was bouncing around in the bosom of
her family.
We had a good deal of talk together, and, after a while, she asked how
long we were going to stay in St. Augustine.
"Until next Tuesday," I said, "and then we shall start for Nassau in the
'Tigris.'"
"Nassau!" she exclaimed, "where's that?"
"Right down there," I said, pointing out to sea with a crook of my
finger, to the south. "It's on one of the Bahamas, and they lie off the
lower end of Florida, you know."
"No," said she; "I don't remember where they are. I always get the
Bahamas mixed up with the Bermudas, anyway. So does father. We talked
of going to one of those places, when we first thought of travelling
for his lung, but then they thought Florida would be better. What is
there good about Nassau? Is it any better than this place?"
"Well," said I, "it's in the West Indies, and it's semi-tropical, and
they have cocoa-nuts and pineapples and bananas there; and there are
lots of darkeys, and the weather is always just what you want----"
"I guess that's a little stretched," said Corny, and Rectus agreed with
her.
"And it's a new kind of a place," I continued; "an English colony, such
as our ancestors lived in before the Revolution, and we ought to see
what sort of a thing an English colony is, so as to know whether
Washington and the rest of them should have kicked against it."
"Oh, they were all right!" said Corny, in a tone which settled that
little matter.
"And so, you see," I went on, "Rectus and I thought we should like to go
out of the country for a while, and see how it would feel to live under
a queen and a cocoa-nut tree."
"Good!" cried Corny. "We'll go."
"Who?" I asked.
"Father and mother and I," said Corny, rising. "I'll tell them all about
it; and I'd better be going back to the hotel, for if the steamer leaves
on Tuesday, we'll have lots to do."
As we were walking homeward on the sea-wall, Rectus looked back and
suddenly exclaimed:
"There! Do you see that Crowded Owl following us? He's been hanging
round us all the afternoon. He's up to something. Don't you remember the
captain told us he was a bad-tempered fellow?"
"What did he do?" asked Corny, looking back at the Indian, who now stood
in the road, a short distance from the wall, regarding us very
earnestly.
"Well, he never did anything, much," I said. "He seemed to be angry,
once, because we would not buy some of his things, and the captain said
he'd have him told not to worry us. That may have made him madder yet."
"He don't look mad," said Corny.
"Don't you trust him," said Rectus.
"I believe all these Indians are perfectly gentle, now," said Corny,
"and father thinks so, too. He's been over here a good deal, and talked
to some of them. Let's go ask him what he wants. Perhaps he's only
sorry."
"If he is, we'll never find it out," I remarked, "for he can only speak
one word of English."
I beckoned to Crowded Owl, and he immediately ran up to the wall, and
said "How?" in an uncertain tone, as if he was not sure how we should
take it. However, Corny offered him her hand, and Rectus and I followed
suit. After this, he put his hand into his pocket, and pulled out three
sea-beans.
"There!" said Rectus. "At it again. Disobeying military orders."
"But they're pretty ones," said Corny, taking one of the beans in her
hand.
They were pretty. They were not very large, but were beautifully
polished, and of a delicate gray color, the first we had seen of the
kind.
"These must be a rare kind," said Rectus. "They are almost always brown.
Let's forgive him this once, and buy them."
"Perhaps he wants to make up with you," said Corny, "and has brought
these as a present."
"I can soon settle that question," said I, and I took the three beans,
and pulled from my pocket three quarter-dollars, which I offered to the
Indian.
Crowded Owl took the money, grinned, gave a bob of his head, and went
home happy.
If he had had any wish to "make up" with us, he had shown it by giving
us a chance at a choice lot of goods.
"Now," said I, reaching out my hand to Corny, "here's one for each of
us. Take your choice."
"For me?" said Corny. "No, I oughtn't to. Yes, I will, too. I am ever so
much obliged. We have lots of sea-beans, but none like this. I'll have a
ring fastened to it, and wear it, somehow."
"That'll do to remember us by," said I.
"Yes," said Rectus, "and whenever you're in danger, just hold up that
bean, and we'll come to you."
"I'll do it," said Corny. "But how about you? What can I do?"
"Oh, I don't suppose we shall want you to help us much," I said.
"Well, hold up your beans, and we'll see," said Corny.