Five Little Peppers Abroad, Margaret Sidney [best classic books to read TXT] 📗

looked from it to her with increasing perplexity. "Have the goodness to put a string around it, will you?" he said to the man who was regarding him stolidly, after satisfying himself that the coin Phronsie had drawn out of her purse and put in his hand was a good one.

"Yah, yah," said the man, and he brought out of one of his pockets a long piece of thick twine. This with much hard breathing accompanying the work, he proceeded to twist and interlace around the paper containing the little yellow cheese in such a way that when it was completed, Phronsie was carrying what looked like a little net basket, for there was a good strong twine handle sticking up, into which she put her small hand in great satisfaction.

When they all gathered in the living room of the house that had open doors into the cow-house and dairy, all being under one roof, they found a huge pile of photographs displayed of various views of the premises indoors and out.

"But they aren't half as nice as ours will be," whispered Jasper; "how many did you take, Polly?"

"Three," said Polly.

"Oh, Polly, didn't you get more than that?" said Jasper, quite disappointed for her, for Polly dearly loved to take photographs. "Oh, you've let Adela Gray take your kodak," he added; "it's a shame I didn't give you mine. Take it now, Polly," he begged, slinging off the leather strap from his shoulder.

"No, no," said Polly, "I don't want to, Jasper, and I wanted Adela to take it, and don't let her hear us, she may come back from the other room;" - for Adela had disappeared with the kodak; "and it's all right, Jasper," she finished up incoherently.

"Aren't these queer beds, Mrs. Fisher?" the parson's wife was saying, peering into the shelves against the side of the wall, boarded up, with doors swung open inviting inspection.

"The idea of sleeping in one of them!" exclaimed Mrs. Fisher, inspecting the interior with a sharp eye. "They're clean enough and as neat as a pink" - with a critical glance along the white lace spread and the immaculate pillow - "but to be shut up in a box like that. I should as soon go to bed in a bureau drawer."

"So should I," laughed the parson's wife; "and look at the artificial flowers hanging up over the head, and that picture pinned, above the foot. Well, well, well, and so that is a Dutch bed!"

"There are a good many kinds and sorts of Dutch beds, I suppose," observed Mrs. Fisher, turning away, "just as there are a good many American ones; but I hope there aren't many of this particular kind."

"Jasper," exclaimed Polly, as they all filed decorously out of the "Model Farm," "how I do wish you and I could race down to the boat-landing!"

Jasper looked longingly down the washed and shining road. "So do I, Polly," he said, "but I suppose it wouldn't do; we should shock these natives."

"I suppose so," assented Polly, ruefully. Just then Phronsie came up holding with both hands her paper-covered, twine-netted little round yellow cheese.

"What in the world has Phronsie got!" exclaimed Polly, catching sight of her. "Come here, Pet," she called.

Phronsie hesitated. On Polly's calling her again she drew near, but more slowly than was her wont.

"What have you got, Phronsie?" asked Polly, wondering and not a little hurt by her manner. "A little basket of string; isn't it funny, and where did you get it?"

"It isn't a basket," corrected Phronsie, "and I cannot tell you now, Polly," said Phronsie, shaking her head.

"Why, Phronsie," began Polly in surprise; and she couldn't help it, her voice quavered in spite of her.

When Phronsie heard that, she was equally distressed, and at once decided to present the gift then instead of carrying it back to the hotel for Polly as she had at first intended. So she cast her burden into Polly's hands and piped out, "It's for you, Polly, a sweet little yellow cheese; you said you wanted it," and stood smiling and triumphant.

"Oh, my goodness me!" exclaimed Polly Pepper, standing quite still. Then she did shock the natives, for she sat right down in the road, with the cheese in her hands.


XIV

THE ISLAND OF MARKEN


When the boat was nearing the island of Marken, the little yellow cheese had been presented with all due formality to one of the sailors who had been specially kind in the matter of securing good seats for Mr. King's party, Polly and Phronsie having held a whispered conference in a retired nook, to come out of it bright and smiling.

"And now it has made two people happy, Phronsie," Polly had said, when the presentation was well over, and she ended up with a kiss. "It made me happy in the first place because you thought of me, and then, just think, Pet, that poor sailor, how glad he will be to take it home."

"Will he, Polly?" asked Phronsie, in a rapture; "and do you think he has got any little girls?"

"Perhaps so," said Polly, "and at any rate, he can eat it himself. And he looks hungry enough."

"I'd rather he had some little girls, Polly," said Phronsie, thoughtfully, "and have him give them each a piece."

"Well, maybe he has some; we'll think so, anyway," Polly answered. "Oh, see, Jasper is calling us."

To be sure, there he was on the other side of the boat nearest Marken, with a big group of passengers, intently watching the Marken children running along in their clacking sabots, on the high bank, and holding out their arms, singing something all the while in a shrill, high key.

"They want some stuivers," cried Jasper. "Come, Polly and Phronsie, let us toss them some."

Whiz - spin - went the coins, to fall into the thick stubby grass on the bank. The children, stopping their song in mid-air, scrambled and sprawled all over each other in their efforts to secure the coveted money. So Jasper and Polly threw the bits next time in the other direction. Then there was a shout and a rush, and the same thing was repeated till only a tangle of arms and legs could be seen. But some one of them always got the money.

"Dear me! they've eyes just like birds!" exclaimed Parson Henderson; "to think of finding anything in that thick grass."

"Let them alone for that," laughed old Mr. King; "their wits are sharpened by practice."

"Look out, Phronsie!" exclaimed Jasper. "Your stuivers went into the water. Here, I'll hold you up, then you can throw it farther. There you go," swinging her to his shoulder. "Now, then" - he guided her hand, and away spun the coin.

"It did, it did," crowed Phronsie, from her high perch. "It did, Jasper, go right straight down in the grass just like yours and Polly's."

"So it did, Pet. Well, now, here is another."

"There's a little girl back there and she hasn't any," mourned Phronsie. "Oh, dear, I want to give her some."

"To be sure," said Jasper. "Well, we must give her some, and that's a fact." The small girl kept on at a dog-trot along the bank, her eyes fixed on the wonderful people who tossed out such magic wealth, and holding out her arms and singing her shrill song. But when the money was thrown, she was always a bit too late, and the other children, scrambling and scuffling, had pounced upon it, and had made off with it.

"Here, you boys, keep away; you've had enough; we're going to give this to the little girl," Jasper shouted to them as they threw coin after coin.

"They don't know what you are saying, my boy," said old Mr. King, laughing heartily at the performance, "and they wouldn't mind you in the least if they did."

"I suppose not," said Jasper in chagrin. "Oh, the mean little beggars!"

"Hold up your apron," screamed Polly to the little girl.

"That's a good idea," said Jasper. "Why didn't we think of it before?"

"She won't understand any better than the boys," said old Mr. King. "You forget, children, that these youngsters don't know our language."

"What a bother," exclaimed Jasper, "it is to have so many different languages, anyway!"

"And she hasn't any apron, Polly," corrected her mother; "that is her brown gown."

Polly was already going through the motions of holding up an imaginary apron. And at last the little girl understood by gestures what she could not possibly get into her head by words, so she picked up the skirt of her gown in her sturdy little fists, and one, two, three clinking coins fell safely into it. But the boys racing along in advance soon discovered this successful trick, and completely swarmed around her, howling dreadfully, so she hastened off, happy in her prize, which she huddled up in her gown as she ran.

"Isn't this just richness?" exclaimed Polly, gazing all about her in an ecstasy. "Oh, Jasper, what pictures we'll take - and do see that woman's cap! and those pot-hooks of hair over her eyes, and that funny, long dangling curl!"

"Take care, Polly, you almost stepped off backward down the bank," warned Adela, pulling her back, as they got off the steamboat and stopped a bit to look around.

"Dear me, did I?" said Polly. "Well, it's enough to make any one step backward to see such funny clothes; and they are hay-making, Adela Gray, as sure as you live."

"Didn't you suppose they would be?" answered Adela, composedly. "Why, that's one of the things I specially wanted to see."

"Yes, so did I," said Polly. "Well, it's too, too splendid for anything. I'm going to begin to take pictures right straight off." Then she stopped and looked at Adela. "You may first," she said.

"No, I'm not going to," declared Adela.

"Yes, yes," said Polly, "I'd rather you did first; I truly had, Adela." She ran after her, for Adela had retreated down the bank, and made as if she were going to follow the party. "Now, Adela, be good and listen to reason."

But Adela ran off.

"Now that's too bad," mourned Polly, "for I'm afraid she'll keep away from me all the while we're on this island, and then I can't get a chance to give her my kodak at all."

"She had it at the 'Model Farm,'" said Jasper, by way of comfort, for Polly's face fell.

"Oh, that was nothing," said Polly, "such a little bit of a while doesn't count."

"Well, let us take pictures as fast as we can," suggested Jasper, "and then when we do come up with Adela, why you'll have yours done."

So Polly roused out of her dejection and set to work, and presently the hay-makers, and the Marken boys and girls, the funny little houses that looked as if they dropped down pellmell from the clouds and settled where they had dropped - the high ridges along which the men and boys, walking in their full baggy trousers, looked as if they were blown up, and formed a Dutch perspective perfectly awful - all these queer, delightful things were presently imprisoned in the two kodaks.

Jasper looked up. "There, that's my last picture," he declared. "At any rate, for now."

"Oh, one more! I must get a good picture of those girls raking hay." Polly ran off a