"Then," exclaimed the old circus dog, "you and Brighteyes shall have them. Get on your bathing suits and come down to the pond. When you get there you"ll find waves enough; I"ll guarantee that! Oh, my, yes, and a life-preserver besides!"
"How?" asked Buddy. "There are never any waves in that pond."
"Just you wait and see," said Percival.
Mrs. Pigg smiled, but she didn"t say anything, and went after the bathing suits, while Buddy and Brighteyes wondered what was going to happen. Percival ran out, winking first one eye and then the other, and not both together, like some dollies do when they go to sleep, and he gave three short barks and a long one, just to show how glad he felt to be doing something.
Well, it didn"t take Buddy and Brighteyes very long to put on their bathing suits. Then they hurried out of the back of the house and went toward the pond.
"Do you really s"pose there"ll be waves?" asked Buddy.
"I don"t know," answered his sister. "Percival is a very smart dog, you know."
Well, they ran down to the pond, and the first thing they saw when they got there were cords fastened to sticks driven down into the ground, just like the ropes at Asbury Park, you know--if you"ve ever been there.
The ropes are for the bathers to take hold of when the waves come.
"Well," remarked Buddy, "I see the ropes, but I don"t see any waves."
But, no sooner had he spoken than a big wave rolled, splish-splash-splosh, right up the sh.o.r.e of the pond, which was rather sandy, and it sprayed itself over the toes of Buddy and Brighteyes--the wave splashed, you understand--not the sand, of course.
"Whee!" cried Buddy, all excited-like. "There"s a wave!"
"Yes, and here comes another!" cried his sister, and, sure enough, another wave came sizzling and sloshing up out of the pond. And then another, and another, and another, until there were a dozen, or, maybe a dozen and a half of waves, one after the other.
"Oh, this is grand!" cried Buddy. "It"s almost as good as Asbury Park!"
and, really it was, I"m not fooling a bit. Of course the waves weren"t as big as those at the seash.o.r.e, but they were pretty good size. Well, Buddy and Brighteyes rushed into the water, keeping hold of the ropes, and the waves splashed all around them, and they splashed around in the waves, and pretty soon Buddy cried:
"Oh, I got a mouthful of water, and it"s salty, just like the ocean!"
"Sure enough it is!" agreed Brighteyes, taking a small mouthful to taste. "I wonder what makes it?"
"And I wonder what makes the waves, and I wonder where Percival is?"
went on Buddy, and just then there came such a big wave that it almost knocked him over, and he had to cling to the ropes. Then what should happen, but that at the far end of the pond, up rose old dog Percival, laughing as hard as he could laugh.
"I told you I would make waves!" he cried, and how do you s"pose he did it?
Why, he had a big, empty box, and he would raise that up and down in the water of the pond, as hard as he could, and this splashed, and made the waves; and Percival had a bag of salt, to make the water salty. Now, wasn"t he the smart dog though?
Well, he went on, making more salty waves, and Buddy and Brighteyes paddled around in them, and yelled and hollered, and held on to the ropes, and ducked each other, and splashed and had as good a time as if they had been at the seash.o.r.e; and so did Percival, too, I guess. Then, after a while they came out of the water and dried off, after thanking Percival.
Now, if our bathtub doesn"t freeze up so the canary bird can"t go in swimming I"ll tell you presently about Buddy building a sand house.
STORY XXVIII
BUDDY BUILDS A SAND HOUSE
The little guinea pig children had so much fun bathing in the pond, where Percival, the circus dog, made the salty waves for them, as I told you about in the previous story, that they went in swimming as many times as their mamma would let them.
Percival was only too glad to make the waves, and hold the bag of salt in the pond, to make it salty, just like the ocean. Sometimes the old dog would jounce a box up and down, to make the waves, and again, when he wanted larger ones, he would use a barrel. Then the waves of the pond would be over the heads of Buddy and Brighteyes, and they had to cling to the ropes with all their might.
One day Buddy was sitting in the sand, on the banks of the pond, when, all at once, he had an idea.
"I know what I"m going to do!" he exclaimed. "I"m gong to build a sand house. I wish Brighteyes was here to help me," but his sister had gone in the pen to help her mamma get dinner ready, for Mrs. Pigg expected company that day; Mr. and Mrs. Bushytail were coming. So Buddy had to start to build the house all alone. He piled a lot of sand in a heap, together with stones, and sticks and bits of duck-weed, and then he started in.
First he scooped out a hollow place, and that was for the cellar. Then he stuck sticks up around the edges of the hole, and began to pile up the sand, to make the walls of the house. Just as he was doing this, what should he hear but footsteps running along the sand. He looked, up and gave a shout of delight.
"h.e.l.lo, Billie and Johnnie Bushytail!" he cried, as he saw the two little squirrel boys. "You"re just in time! Come on and help me build this sand house!"
"Sure!" agreed Billie and Johnnie, as they frisked their tails, just as the cook sometimes frisks the dusting brush when she wants to knock the crumbs from the table to the floor. "Can you stay long?" asked Buddy.
"As long as papa and mamma do," answered Johnnie. "They are in your house now, and so is Sister Sallie. We"re going to stay to dinner, but first we"ll help you build the sand house."
So they all three got busy. They piled and scooped the sand up around the upright sticks, and, pretty soon, believe me, if it really didn"t begin to look like a real house. It was about as big as a big box, and nearly as high; and the cellar was quite large.
"What will we do with the house when we"ve finished it?" asked Billie Bushytail.
"We"ll go in it and play we"re robbers," suggested Johnnie, as he patted the sand with his paws, to make it smooth.
"No, we"ll be pirates," decided Buddy. "Pirates always stay near salt water, and this is salt water, because Percival emptied a whole bag of salt in it."
"All right," agreed the squirrel boys, so they went on building the house. They put little pebbles all around it for a fence, and laid a gravel walk up from the pond to the front door, and stuck up little sticks for trees in the front yard, and made a garden, because Buddy said, even if they were pirates, they would have to have something to eat, and they planted duck-weed in the garden and made believe it was radishes and lettuce and cabbage and ever so many things; even apples and pears and peaches.
Well, pretty soon the sand house was finished; that is, all but the top.
"What will we have for a roof?" asked Billie.
"I"ll show you," said Buddy, so he laid sticks across the top of the sand walls, and on top of the sticks he placed duck-weed. Then, on top of the weed he and the squirrel boys put sand, until it was really the nicest house of its kind you could find if you walked a mile, or, maybe even two miles.
"That certainly is one fine, dandy house!" exclaimed Johnnie, as he stepped back to admire it.
"Yes, and now let"s get inside and pretend we"re robbers," proposed Billie. "I"ll be the head robber and you two can work for me."
"No, we"re going to be pirates, and I"m the chief one," insisted Buddy.
"We must begin to pirate right away and do all sorts of things."
"First, let"s see if we can get in the house," said Johnnie. "Go in very carefully."
So they went in, very slowly and carefully through the front door, so as not to knock the sand down, and honestly the sand house was just big enough for those three, and not a bit bigger. They even had to hold their breaths, and not all breathe at once, or they never would have fitted in it.
"Now," said Buddy, "we"ll pretend we"re pirates, and we"ll bury all the gold and diamonds we have."
So they played that game, and buried gold (make-believe you know) in the cellar, and they were having a lovely time, when all at once, without a word of warning, the roof of the sand house fell right in on top of them! I suppose it was because Pirate Chief Buddy gave such a loud shout.
Anyway, the roof caved in, and part of the walls, and there those three pirates were, buried under the sand. They tried to yell, and call for help, but their mouths were full of the dirt, and they couldn"t speak.
Then they tried to scramble out, and they couldn"t do that, and I really don"t know what would have happened to them, if at that moment Brighteyes Pigg and Sister Sallie hadn"t come out of the pen where their mammas and papas were talking, to see what the boys were doing.