"Look, mamma," exclaimed Bell, "it is green and grey, in those pretty broken stripes, and the edge is cut in lovely scollops and bound with green braid. Won"t it look pretty among the trees?"
Aunt Truth came out to join the admiring group.
"O-o-o-h!" screamed Polly. "There comes a piece of the floor.
They"ve sent it all made, in three pieces. What fun! We"ll have it all up and ready to sleep in before we blow the horn!"
"And here"s a roll of straw matting," said Phil, depositing a huge bundle on the ground near the girls. "I"ll cut the rope to save your teeth!"
"Green and white plaid!" exclaimed Bell. "Well! Mrs. Howard did have her wits about her!"
"Oh, do let me blow the horn!" teased the irrepressible Polly.
"Here are a looking-gla.s.s and a towel-rack and a Shaker rocking- chair," called Philip; "guess they"re going to stay the rest of the summer."
"Yes, of course they wouldn"t want a looking-gla.s.s if they were only going to stay a month or two," laughed Bell.
"Dear Aunt Truth, if you won"t let me turn a single decorous little hand-spring, or blow the horn, or do anything nice, will you let us use all that new white mosquito-netting? Bell says that it has been in the storehouse for two years, and it would be just the thing for decorating Elsie"s tent."
"Why, of course you may have it, Polly, and anything else that you can find. There! I hear d.i.c.ky"s voice in the distance; perhaps the girls are coming."
Bell and Polly darted through the swarm of tents, and looked up the narrow path that led to the brook.
Sure enough, Margery and Laura were strolling towards home with little Anne and d.i.c.k dangling behind, after the manner of children.
Margery carried a small string of trout, and d.i.c.k the inevitable tin pail in which he always kept an unfortunate frog or two. The girls had discovered that he was in the habit of crowding the cover tightly over the pail and keeping his victims shut up for twenty-four hours, after which, he said, they were nice and tame--so very tame, as it transpired, that they generally gave up the ghost in a few hours after their release. Margery had with difficulty persuaded him of his cruelty, and the cover had been pierced with a certain number of air-holes.
"Guess the loveliest thing that could possibly happen!" called Bell at the top of her voice.
"Elsie has come," answered Margery in a second, n.o.body knew why; "let me hug her this minute!"
"With those fish?" laughed Polly. "No! you"ll have to wait until day after to-morrow, and then your guess will be right. Isn"t it almost too good to be true?"
"And she is almost well," added Bell, joyfully, slipping her arm through Margery"s and squeezing it in sheer delight. "Mrs. Howard says she is really and truly better. Oh, if Elsie Howard in bed is the loveliest, dearest thing in the world, what will it be like to have her out of it and with us in all our good times!"
"Has she always been ill since you knew her?" asked Laura.
"Yes; a terrible cold left her with weakness of the lungs, and the doctors feared consumption, but thought that she might possibly outgrow it entirely if she lived in a milder climate; so Mrs. Howard left home and everybody she cared for, and brought Elsie to Santa Barbara. Papa has taken an interest in her from the first, and as far as we girls are concerned, it was love at first sight. You never knew anybody like Elsie!"
"Is she pretty?"
"Pretty!" cried Polly, "she is like an angel in a picture-book!"
"Interesting?"
"Interesting!" said Bell, in a tone that showed the word to be too feeble for the subject; "Elsie is more interesting than all the other girls in the other world put together!"
"Popular?"
"Popular!" exclaimed Margery, taking her turn in the oral examination, "I don"t know whether anybody can be popular who is always in bed; but if it"s popular to be adored by every man, woman, child, and animal that comes anywhere near her, why then Elsie is popular."
"And is she a favourite with boys as well as girls?"
"Favourite!" said Bell. "Why, they think that she is simply perfect!
Of course she has scarcely been able to sit up a week at a time for a year, and naturally she has not seen many people; but, if you want a boy"s opinion, just ask Philip or Geoffrey. I a.s.sure you, Laura, after you have known Elsie a while, and have seen the impression she makes upon everybody, you will want to go to bed and see if you can do likewise."
"It isn"t just the going to bed," remarked Margery, sagely.
"And it isn"t the prettiness either," added Polly; "though if you saw Elsie asleep, a flower in one hand, the other under her cheek, her hair straying over the pillow (O for hair that would stray anywhere!), you would expect every moment to see a halo above her head."
"I don"t believe it is because she is good that everybody admires her so," said Laura, "I don"t think goodness in itself is always so very interesting; if Elsie had freckles and a snub nose"--("Don"t mind me!" murmured Polly)--"you would find that people would say less about her wonderful character."
"There are things that puzzle me," said Polly, thoughtfully. "It seems to me that if I could contrive to be ever so good, n.o.body ever would look for a halo round my head. Now, is it my turned-up nose and red hair that make me what I am, or did what I am make my nose and hair what they are--which?"
"We"ll have to ask Aunt Truth," said Margery; "that is too difficult a thing for us to answer."
"Wasn"t it nice I catched that big bull-frog, Margie?" cried d.i.c.k, his eyes shining with antic.i.p.ation. "Now I"ll have as many as seven or "leven frogs and lots of horned toads when Elsie comes, and she can help me play with "em."
When the girls reached the tents again, the last article had been taken from the team and Manuel had driven away. The sound of Phil"s hammer could be heard from the carpenter-shop, and Pancho was already laying the tent floor in a small, open, sunny place, where the low boughs of a single sycamore hung so as to protect one of its corners, leaving the rest to the full warmth of the sunshine that was to make Elsie entirely well again.
"I am tired to death," sighed Laura, throwing herself down in a bamboo lounging-chair. "Such a tramp as we had! and after all, the boys insisted on going where Dr. Winship wouldn"t allow us to follow, so that we had to stay behind and fish with the children; I wish I had stayed at home and read The Colonel"s Daughter."
"Oh, Laura!" remonstrated Margery, "think of that lovely pool with the forests of maiden-hair growing all about it!"
"And poison-oak," grumbled Laura. "I know I walked into some of it and shall look like a perfect fright for a week. I shall never make a country girl--it"s no use for me to try."
"It"s no use for you to try walking four miles in high-heeled shoes, my dear," said Polly, bluntly.
"They are not high," retorted Laura, "and if they are, I don"t care to look like a--a--cow-boy, even in the backwoods."
"I"m an awful example," sighed Polly, seating herself on a stump in front of the tent, and elevating a very dusty little common-sense boot. "Sir Walter Raleigh would never have allowed me to walk on his velvet cloak with that boot, would he, girls? Oh, wasn"t that romantic, though? and don"t I wish that I had been Queen Elizabeth!"
"You"ve got the HAIR," said Laura.
"Thank you! I had forgotten Elizabeth"s hair was red; so it was.
This is my court train," s.n.a.t.c.hing a tablecloth that bung on a hush near by, and pinning it to her waist in the twinkling of an eye,-- "this my farthingale," dangling her sun-bonnet from her belt,--"this my sceptre," seizing a j.a.panese umbrella,--"this my crown," inverting a bright tin plate upon her curly head. "She is just alighting from her chariot, THUS; the courtiers turn pale, THUS; (why don"t you do it?) what shall be done? The Royal Feet must not be wet. "Go round the puddle? Prit, me Lud, "Od"s body! Forsooth! Certainly not!
Remove the puddle!" she says haughtily to her subjects. They are just about to do so, when out from behind a neighbouring chaparral bush stalks a beautiful young prince with coal-black hair and rose- red cheeks. He wears a rich velvet cloak, glittering with embroidery. He sees not her crown, her hair outshines it; he sees not her sceptre, her tiny hand conceals it; he sees naught save the loathly mud. He strips off his cloak and floats it on the puddle.
With a haughty but gracious bend of her head the Queen accepts the courtesy; crosses the puddle, THUS, waves her sceptre, THUS, and saying, "You shall hear from me by return mail, me Lud," she vanishes within the castle. The next morning she makes Sir Walter British Minister to Florida. He departs at once with a cargo of tobacco, which he exchanges for sweet potatoes, and everybody is happy ever after."
The girls were convulsed with mirth at this historical romance, and, as Mrs. Winship wiped the tears of merriment from her eyes, Polly seized the golden opportunity and dropped on her knees beside her.
"Please, Aunt Truth, we can"t get the white mosquito-netting because Dr. Winship has the key of the storehouse in his pocket, and so--may- -I--blow the horn?"
Mrs. Winship gave her consent in despair, and Polly went to the oak- tree where the horn hung and blew all the strength of her lungs into blast after blast for five minutes.
"That"s all I needed," she said, on returning; "that was an escape- valve, and I shall be lady-like and well-behaved the rest of the day."
CHAPTER VI: QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT