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

never'd see him again."

Polly, feeling, if Pa were slipped in a pocket and carried off, it would be a calamity indeed, said heartily, "I'll get my jacket and cap and come right out."

"She looks honest; I guess I hain't done no harm to tell her about our buzzom pin," said the old woman to herself as Polly disappeared. Mamsie being asleep, Polly could say nothing to her, but feeling that she would allow it if she knew, she threw on her things and ran out to meet the old woman, with a shawl tied over her nightcap and a big long cape on.

"I tell you she's in highstrikes," said the old woman, going down the hall. "That's our room, 37, an' I've seen you an' your folks goin' by, so I feel in some ways acquainted. An' if I don't find Pa, I'll be flabbergasted myself."

"Do let us hurry," said Polly, her mind now only on Pa. So they went down the stairs and out by the door and up the rocky path just where the old woman said she and sister Car'line took when they went out to see the sunrise.

"An' I wish we'd kept in bed," ejaculated Polly's companion. "I most lost my teeth out, they chattered so; and so did Car'line hers. But that wouldn't 'a' been nothin' to losin' Pa, cause we could 'a' got more teeth; but how could we 'a' got him took when he was nineteen and so handsome? There! here we stopped, just at this identical spot!"

"Well, I think we shall find it," said Polly, consolingly. "How did the pin look?" she asked, for the first time remembering to ask, and beginning to poke around in the crevices.

"My land sakes! I never see such a girl for wanting to be told over and over," exclaimed the old woman, irritably, picking up first one ample gaiter and then another to warm her cold toes in her hands. "Haven't I told you he was awful handsome? Well, he had on his blue coat and big brass buttons for one thing, an' his shirt front was ruffled. And - "

"Was it gold around it?" asked Polly, poking away busily.

"Gold? I guess it was; and there was dents in it, where Car'line an' I bit into it when we were babies, 'cause mother give it to us when our teeth was comin' - 'twas better'n a chicken bone, she said."

"Oh," said Polly.

"Well, now you know," said Car'line's sister, "an' don't for mercy's sakes ask any more useless questions. I'm most sorry I brung you."

"I might go down and get the boys, Jasper and Tom - they'd love to help," said Polly, feeling that she was very much out of place, and there was no hope of finding Pa under the circumstances.

The old woman clutched her arm and held her fast. "Don't you say a single word about any boys," she commanded. "I hate boys," she exploded, "they're the worry of our lives, Car'line and mine, - they get into our garden, and steal all our fruit, and they hang on behind our chaise when we ride out, and keep me a-lookin' round an' slashin' the whip at 'em the whole livelong time; O my - boys! "

"What in the world is Polly Pepper doing up on those rocks?" cried Jasper, just spying her. "Come on, Tom, and let's see." And they seized their caps, and buttoned their jackets against the wind which had just sprung up, and dashed off to see for themselves.

"Ugh - you go right away!" screamed Car'line's sister, as their heads appeared over the point of rocks, and shaking both hands fiercely at them.

"Whew!" whistled Jasper, with his eyes in surprise on Polly.

"And what old party are you?" demanded Tom, finding it easy to talk to her, as she was by no means a girl. "And do you own this mountain, anyway?"

"Oh, don't," begged Polly. "And Jasper, if you would go away, please, and not ask any questions."

"All right," said Jasper, swallowing his disappointment not to know. "Come on, Tom, Polly doesn't want us here."

"An' I won't have you here," screamed the old woman, harder than ever. "So get away as soon as you can. Why, you are boys!"

"I know it." Tom bobbed his head at her. "We've always been, ma'am."

"An' boys are good for nothing, an' lazy, an' thieves - yes, I wouldn't trust 'em." So she kept on as they hurried back over the rocky path.

"That's a tiger for you!" ejaculated Tom. Then he stopped and looked back a little anxiously. "Aren't you afraid to leave Polly with her?"

"No," said Jasper; "it would trouble Polly to have us stay." Yet he stopped and looked anxious too. "We will wait here."

And after a while, down came the two searchers - the old woman quite beside herself now, and scolding every bit of the way, - "that she didn't see what bright eyes were for when they couldn't find anything - an' now that Pa'd gone sliding down that mountain, they might as well give up, she an' Car'line" - when a sudden turn in the path brought the boys into view waiting behind the rocks. Then all her fury burst upon them.

"See here, now," cried Tom, suddenly squaring up to her and looking at the face between the nodding cap-frills, "we are ready to take a certain amount of abuse, my friend and I, but we won't stand more, I can tell you."

"Oh, don't," began Polly, clasping her hands. "Oh, Tom, please keep still. She doesn't know what she's saying, for she's lost her pin with her father on."

"Hey?" cried Jasper. "Say it again, Polly," while Tom shouted and roared all through Polly's recital.

"Was it an old fright with a long nose in a blue coat and ruffles, and as big as a turnip?" he asked between the shouts. While Polly tried to say, "Yes, I guess so," and Miss Car'line's sister so far overcame her aversion to boys as to seize him by the arm, Tom shook her off like a feather. "See here, old party," he cried, "that ancient pin of yours is reposing in the hotel office at this blessed moment. Jasper and I," indicating his friend, "ran across it on the rocks up there more than an hour ago, and - "

"Oh, Pa's found!" exclaimed the old woman, in a shrill scream of delight, beginning to trot down to the hotel office.

"Yes, it would have been impossible for Pa to have got off this mountain without making a landslide," said Tom, after her.


XXIII

IN THE SHADOW OF THE MATTERHORN


They had been days at dear Interlaken, walking up and down the
Hoheweg , of which they never tired, or resting on the benches under the plane and walnut trees opposite their hotel, just sitting still to gaze their fill upon the Jungfrau . This was best of all - so Polly and Jasper thought; and Phronsie was content to pass hour after hour there, by Grandpapa's side, and imagine all sorts of pretty pictures and stories in and about the snow-clad heights of the majestic mountain.

And the throng of gaily dressed people sojourning in the big hotels, and the stream of tourists, passed and repassed, with many a curious glance at the stately, white-haired old gentleman and the little yellow-haired girl by his side.

"A perfect beauty!" exclaimed more than one matron, with a sigh for her ugly girls by her side or left at home.

"She's stunning, and no mistake!" Many a connoisseur in feminine loveliness turned for a last look, or passed again for the same purpose.

"Grandpapa," Phronsie prattled on, "that looks just like a little tent up there - a little white tent; doesn't it, Grandpapa dear?"

"Yes, Phronsie," said Grandpapa, happily, just as he would have said "Yes, Phronsie," if she had pointed out any other object in the snowy outline.

"And there's a cunning little place where you and I could creep into the tent," said Phronsie, bending her neck like a meditative bird. "And I very much wish we could, Grandpapa dear."

"We'd find it pretty cold in there," said Grandpapa, "and wish we were back here on this nice seat, Phronsie."

"What makes it so cold up there, Grandpapa, when the sun shines?" asked Phronsie, suddenly. "Say, Grandpapa, what makes it?"

"Oh, it's so far up in the air," answered old Mr. King. "Don't you remember how cold it was up on the Rigi, and that was about nine thousand feet lower?"

"Oh, Grandpapa!" exclaimed Phronsie, in gentle surprise, unable to compass such figures.

Mr. King's party had made one or two pleasant little journeys to the Lauterbrunnen Valley, staying there and at Mürren, and to Grindelwald as well; but they came back to sit on the benches by the walnut and the plane trees, in front of the matchless Jungfrau. "And this is best of all," said Polly.

And so the days slipped by, till one morning, at the breakfast table, Mrs. Selwyn said, "Tomorrow we must say good-by - my boy and I."

"Hey - what?" exclaimed Mr. King, setting his coffee-cup down, not very gently.

"Our vacation cannot be a very long one," said Tom's mother, with a little smile; "there are my father and my two daughters and my other boys in England."

Tom's face was all awry as Mr. King said, "And you mean to say, Mrs. Selwyn, that you really must move on to-morrow?"

"Yes; we really must," she said decidedly. "But oh," and her plain, quiet face changed swiftly, "you cannot know how sorry we shall be to leave your party."

"In that case, Mrs. Fisher," - old Mr. King looked down the table-length to Mamsie, - "we must go too; for I don't intend to lose sight of these nice travelling companions until I am obliged to." Tom's face was one big smile. "Oh, goody!" exclaimed Polly, as if she were no older than Phronsie.

Jasper clapped Tom's back, instead of wasting words.

"So we will all proceed to pack up without more ado after breakfast. After all, it is wiser to make the move now, for we are getting so that we want to take root in each place."

"You just wait till you get to Zermatt," whispered Polly to Phronsie, who, under cover of the talk buzzing around the table, had confided to her that she didn't want to leave her beautiful mountain. "Grandpapa is going to take us up to the Gorner Grat, and there you can see another mountain, - oh, so near! he says it seems almost as if you could touch it. And it's all covered with snow, Phronsie, too!"

"Is it as big as my mountain here?" asked Phronsie.

"Yes, bigger, a thousand feet or more," answered Polly, glad that she had looked it up.

"Is it?" said Phronsie. "Every mountain is bigger, isn't it, Polly?"

"It seems to be," said Polly, with a little laugh.

"And has it a little white tent on the side, just like my mountain here?" asked Phronsie, holding Polly's arm as she turned off to catch the chatter of the others.

"Oh, I suppose so," answered Polly, carelessly. Then she looked up and caught Mamsie's eye, and turned back quickly. "At any rate, Phronsie, it's all peaked on the top - oh, almost as sharp as a needle - and