THE VERY HAPPY SIX
“See, she’s tacked on that everlasting bag again, Molly,” whispered
Pauline, as the train started. “It always reminds me of a great tag
on a little parcel, as if Miss Evans had been done up to be sent by
express.”
That night they reached Besançon, an old Roman city just under the
wall of the Jura Mountains. The hotel at which they stopped was very
curious, with sleeping-rooms tucked away here and there, like swallows’
nests in a bank. Sometimes these rooms were entered from within the
house, sometimes from without, by sly, crooked stairways.
Molly and Pauline could see no beds in their apartment, and ran after
the porter to ask him where they were to sleep.
He smiled rather patronizingly, and threw open some unsuspected doors
in the partition, which had been concealed by the flowery wall-paper.
Inside were two single bedsteads, with maroon curtains of damask, and
on each bed was the usual little down quilt called a _duvet_, which
had an inconvenient habit of crawling off upon the floor whenever the
occupant of the bed turned over.
Altogether the hotel was very quaint, and so completely surrounded by
tall buildings that it rarely saw the sun.
“Papa says the house is centuries old,” said Molly, throwing up their
narrow window.
“Well, we might have known it,” replied the ready Pauline. “We might
have known it was built in the dark ages by the lack of light in it.”
“Papa says Victor Hugo was born in this city,” returned Molly. “We’re
all going by and by to see his old house, and we’ll photograph it.”
Next day the party drove in carriages through the lovely valley of the
Loire to the bewitching little village of Mouthier, where there are no
streets to mention, the houses being scattered around in clusters, “as
if,” as Kirke said, they had been “shaken out of a pepper-box.”
Here they visited a cheese-factory, in what had once been a convent,
and they declared they should never want any more French cheese; but
they forgot this afterward.
To tell of all their travelling experiences would weary you. How they
drove through tunnels and around the brink of precipices, to see the
Loire rush out from its mountain cave a full-grown river.
How in Switzerland they climbed the Alps on wise-looking little
donkeys, took a peep at the yellow stone city of Neuchâtel, once
peopled by the Lake-dwellers, and looked down into the bear-pits of
Berne.
How in Germany they spent weeks in Baden Baden, and Mr. Rowe was
benefited by the mud-baths, which in Weezy’s opinion were not at all
clean.
How in approaching Cologne they passed vast grain-fields, where the
wheat had been reaped and stacked into piles shaped like little
woodsheds.
How in Cologne they spent much time in its cathedral,--the finest
Gothic cathedral in the world. Paul and Molly never tired of gazing
at its graceful arches, its clustered columns and beautiful pictured
windows of stained glass.
Kirke and Pauline, however, were more fascinated by the scene in front
of their hotel, the Victoria.
It chanced to be market morning, and the peasant women had flocked
into the city before sunrise, pushing before them hand-carts filled
with fruit and vegetables. Large dogs were harnessed underneath many
of these carts, and trotted contentedly with their burdens to the
open square, where they either lay down to rest, or stood howling and
barking by fifties, while their mistresses chattered and laughed, and
spread out their wares to attract customers.
It was while still in Germany that the Americans took a carriage-drive
along the banks of the Rhine to visit a grim, feudal castle covered
with ivy and surrounded by a moat. The castle was the residence of an
absent count, and was kept open by servants, who, for a small fee,
would show the interior to visitors.
“What a lovely, mouldy old place!” exclaimed Pauline, when the horses
had stopped before it. And springing to the ground she hastened into
the court, across what formerly had been a drawbridge.
Miss Evans followed more slowly, pausing midway to peep over the
rail down into the sluggish water of the moat beneath her. Owing to a
vegetable growth upon its surface, this water was as green and velvety
as a meadow.
“I should think that pasture-y look would fool near-sighted cows,
shouldn’t you, Miss Evans?” said Kirke at her elbow; and he was
gratified that she positively laughed at his nonsense. This made
the second time she had laughed that day. Entranced by the beauty
and antiquity of the spot, she ran about the park with Weezy like a
gay young girl; stopped at the ponds to feed from her own luncheon
the gold-fish and swans; and on returning to the castle waved her
handkerchief from its highest turret.
“She actually looks happy, Polly,” observed Molly, answering the salute
from the bridge below.
“So she does. She must have forgotten herself,” responded Pauline with
a touch of sarcasm.
Pauline was right. Miss Evans _had_ forgotten herself, and for this
reason something very sad had occurred--something which little Miss
Weezy was the first to recognize.
She sat opposite Miss Evans in the carriage, and after they had driven
several miles toward Cologne suddenly exclaimed,--
“Why, how funny, Miss Evans! You haven’t brought your reticule!”
The young lady flashed a glance at her belt and threw up both hands
with a cry.
“What shall I do? What shall I do? I’ve lost my bag! I had it when we
started, and now it is gone!”
“Edward,” exclaimed Mrs. Rowe to her husband, “please ask the coachman
to turn the carriage about. We must drive back for the reticule at
once. I’ve told you of its valuable contents.”
“Family heirlooms probably,” reflected Captain Bradstreet. “What was
the girl thinking of to carry such trinkets about her person?”
“Do you recollect where you last saw the reticule, Miss Evans?” asked
Mr. Rowe, when the horses were retracing their steps.
“Oh, I can’t remember, Mr. Rowe!” Miss Evans’s face was ghastly white.
“I haven’t the remotest idea. How could I--how could I have forgotten
that reticule for one moment?”
“Don’t worry, Miss Evans; we’ll find it for you,” called Kirke from his
seat beside the coachman. “Paul and I will find it for you, if we kill
ourselves running.”
But though the boys hunted diligently, and the whole party aided in the
quest, twilight fell, and the reticule had not been discovered.
They had searched the highway leading to the castle; had searched the
castle itself, and questioned the apple-cheeked serving-maid, who had
just shown them its interior; had searched the park, and even the ponds
within it; and at last had met in despair upon the bridge that spanned
the moat.
“I think I must have dropped my reticule into this water when I
leaned over the rail here this afternoon,” said Miss Evans, her voice
quivering. “In that case, the manuscript would be spoiled before now.”
“Let’s take another look for it in the park; it’s lighter there,”
whispered Kirke to Paul; from no expectation of finding the coveted
object where it had been so patiently sought, but from a strong desire
to get out of the way before Miss Evans began to cry. Like boys in
general, he had a great aversion to seeing a woman in tears.
“Have you a copy of the book, Miss Evans?” asked Mrs. Rowe, as the boys
were walking away unobserved.
“Not one line, Mrs. Rowe. My father, by mistake, destroyed the rough
draft when he was burning up old papers.”
“I pity you with all my heart, dear friend,” said Mrs. Rowe, deeply
moved. “But don’t be discouraged. It is too dark to look longer now,
but we will come back to-morrow.”
“O Mrs. Rowe, if I had only listened to you, and sent it by express!”
wailed Miss Evans. “But I had too much sentiment. That book was my
father’s life-work, and I couldn’t bear to trust it out of my sight.”
“I’m very sorry for you, Miss Evans,” observed Captain Bradstreet,
adding mentally, “sorry, too, that you should have been so foolish.”
“It is too dreadful!” The young lady could no longer restrain her
tears. “O Captain Bradstreet, to think that the precious manuscript
should have been lost by me, papa’s own daughter!”
[Illustration: “I’VE FOUND IT!”
_Page 169_]
“Miss Evans had failed to make satisfactory arrangement for bringing
out the book in Paris, Captain Bradstreet,” explained Mrs. Rowe.
“Consequently, she was taking it to publishers in London.”
“It’s a sad loss, a sad loss,” returned the captain, as he helped the
ladies into the carriage. “But where are the rest of us?” he added. “We
can’t leave our boys.”
“They’re coming, they’re running like everything,” cried Weezy,
standing upon the wagon-seat to look. “Kirke is holding something up
high, and shaking it.”
“It’s a bag!” shouted Molly, clapping her hands. “I do believe it’s
Miss Evans’s bag!”
“I’ve found it! Found it just outside the park,” yelled Kirke, when
within hearing distance. “It’s all right. The dew hasn’t hurt it!”
It seems that in leaving the park Kirke had seen the glitter of steel
under the luxuriant ivy at its entrance, and stooping to brush aside
the vines, had touched the clasp of the lost reticule.
“I suppose the chain caught upon the fence when you squeezed through
that narrow gap, Miss Evans,” said he, in winding up his story.
“Yes, Miss Evans, it must have caught and twitched your bag off so
quickly that you didn’t know it,” added Paul, as the carriage rolled
on; “and then the bag fell into that tangle of leaves where nobody
noticed it but Kirke. His eyes are as sharp as a razor.”
“Fortunately for me, Paul!” Miss Evans was half-laughing, half-crying.
“O Kirke, I can’t be grateful enough to you for bringing this back to
me!”
Kirke blushed with pleasure, and Paul felt a momentary pang of regret
that he had not discovered the valued article himself.
He looked on with interest as Miss Evans drew from the alligator-skin
bag a parcel neatly encased in oiled silk. It was her father’s
manuscript, written in a fine clear hand, upon very thin commercial
paper.
“Untouched, uninjured! This is more than I deserve!” she exclaimed
joyfully.
“Good! Three cheers for the finder! Nine cheers for the owner!” cried
Paul, swinging his cap.
And The Happy Six joined in a gay hurrah.
We might follow the glad children over Europe and back again to their
sunny home on the Pacific; but perhaps it is better to leave them
right here, for then we end the book as we began it, with a chorus of
children giving three cheers.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized or underlined text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.