Cricket listened in rapt admiration.
"Why _can"t_ I do it?" she sighed.
"But, Mrs. Somers?" broke out Hilda, in amazement, "can they really whistle up a breeze?"
"No, indeed, dear. It"s only an old saying about sailors. The children do it for fun when we"re becalmed sometimes. Well, there"s no signs of it yet. I"ll tell you what I"ll do, children. While you"re whistling up the wind, I"ll write an adjective story for you."
"Oh, that will be fun!" exclaimed one and all. All, that is, but Hilda, who asked again:
"Now, what _is_ an adjective story?"
"I write a little story about anything," explained Mrs. Somers, giving her pencils to Will to be sharpened, "and I leave a s.p.a.ce before every noun. When I have written it, you each give me adjectives in turn to fill in the s.p.a.ces, and I write them just as you supply them. Of course they never fit, and a very funny hodge-podge is the result. Now, while I"m writing you must all be thinking up a good supply of adjectives, for I shall want a quant.i.ty."
So Auntie Jean took Cricket"s blank-book and began to scribble; she wrote busily for ten or fifteen minutes, and then announced she was ready for the adjectives.
"I call it the "Tale of the Shipwrecked Mariners,"" she said, when all the adjectives were duly written in. "And now for the tale."
"Once upon a time, in the pathetic town of Marbury, there lived a green and scrumptious lady with a wriggling troop of fantastic grandchildren, who made her life miserable. First of all was the eldest, the awful and weird William, who was quite intolerable. Next to him was the cute and sublime Archie, who was always jolly and superst.i.tious. They had a sullen and sarcastic sister, the entrancing Edna, whom they delighted to tease. One summer their delightful and sarcastic cousins, the mournful and flowery Eunice, and the melodious Cricket ["Auntie! you put that there on purpose," came reproachfully from the last-mentioned young woman.
"No, I didn"t, my dear. It really happened so."]
"The melodious Cricket, arrived to spend a long time with the dingy Somers family, much to their enjoyment. After various adventures, their ecstatic friend, the lively Hilda Mason, came to spend a few days. To entertain her, one day, they took her out in a wizened boat to sail over the garrulous bay. They dragged their silent auntie" [a howl] "with them, promising her a talkative day. All went well at first, but suddenly a gruesome storm arose, and beat upon their inky boat, which began to leak. The musical crew were all much frightened, and tried to bail out the ugly water, but it rose too fast, and soon the monkeyish boat began to sink. After it had sunk through the water about a mile, it struck plump on a rock, and then it glided into a dwarfish cave at the bottom of the sea. The grumpy and genial Cricket immediately fell out of the boat, in her surprise. Cunning Will jumped after her. The sugary party had come to a mountainous spot down below the sea, and they found a minute garden there, full of curly fruits. The aggravating Hilda, the indefinite Eunice, and the smooth Edna, seeing the proper Cricket"
[another howl] "struggling in the water with the contrary Will, immediately jumped out after them, leaving the rough Archie and forlorn auntie in command of the boat. Suddenly a bold gnome popped up his dainty head from behind a rock, saying, "Welcome, Englishmen! You are in the cave of accident. Look out for yourselves." As he spoke, his watery head fell off. He felt around but could not find it, since his eyes had gone with his head, so he said, politely, "Will some of you immense, raw people pick up my jealous head for me, and kindly put it on?" Snub-nosed Hilda" ["Ah, you"ve caught it now, young lady," from Archie] "being nearest, handed him his head, which had rolled to her idolatrous feet.
The hysterical gnome immediately clapped it on--wrong side before.
"Never mind," he said. "Now I can go _to_ school, or _from_ school, just as I like, and n.o.body will ever know what I"m doing." The dumpy party then went on their way exploring, leaving the squealing Archie and uncanny auntie calling after them, and weeping unmixed tears of terror, lest by some accident they should never come back. The n.o.ble gnome went along in front of them, when suddenly he began walking right up, in the water. When the others came up to the same place, to their surprise, they found themselves doing the same thing. They couldn"t possibly stay on the ground. "I don"t want to go up," said erratic Cricket, kicking, and shamefaced Will called to the sparkling gnome, to know what was the matter. "Nothing at all," he called back, cheerfully, "only gravity doesn"t happen to act just there. Sometimes it doesn"t and then you"re just as likely to go somewhere else."
""Let"s go back!" said prim Eunice.
""Very well. There"s nowhere to go but back," called back the rickety gnome. "Stand on your heads, and go the other way."
"The humble party upset themselves, and got along very nicely, and soon found themselves on the ground again.
""I don"t like to walk all sorts of ways," said flighty Hilda. "I like to go on my grateful feet best." So they decided to go back to the boat as best they could. But when they came to the suave boat it wasn"t there, for the ground had opened accidentally, and cowardly Archie and generous auntie had fallen right through the earth, to China, probably, if nothing happened to stop them. This was quite a disappointment to the naughty party, who didn"t know what to do next. So they decided to do nothing at all, and, as far as the present dramatic and inconvenient historian knows, that is just what they are doing at the present time.
Here ends the swaggering story of the mellow and gruff shipwrecked mariners."
"Is that all?" "What fun!" "Didn"t the adjectives come in funny!" "Write another one!" came the various comments.
"Hurrah for Mumsey!" shouted Archie. "You"re a regular Alice in Wonderland."
"I wish I were, and I would raise the wind," said Auntie Jean.
"Slang, madam!" both her sons instantly announced.
"Is it? Then I beg its pardon, and yours, and everybody"s," answered Auntie Jean, promptly. "No, Edna, I will _not_ write another one, till the next time we are becalmed. Isn"t there a sign of a breeze, Will?"
"None yet, but we are making way slowly, with the sculling and the tide. We"re half across the bay now."
"Guess this rebus," said Cricket, presenting a paper on which she had been drawing for a moment. There was a capital letter B,--a very wild and inebriated looking letter it was, too,--and beside it was another B, with beautiful, regular curves, lying flat on its back.
"It"s one word," hinted Cricket.
""How doth the little busy B Improve each shining hour,""
suggested Auntie Jean, instantly.
"No, that"s good, but it isn"t right; it"s what we are now."
"B-calmed," said Archie. "And you"re right. That B needed calming badly, you little Gloriana McQuirk." For every separate hair of Cricket"s curly crop, having been wet in her involuntary bath, and afterward rubbed dry, stood out in a separate and distinct curl from all the others, making a veritable halo around her head.
"This is the way you look, Cricket," said Archie, seizing a pencil, and in a moment his clever fingers had drawn a head in which nothing was to be seen save a very wide smile, and a cloud of hair.
"I look very well, then," said Cricket, calmly. "It"s like all those pictures in papa"s "Paradise Lost," where the angels all have halos, you know. It would be very convenient to have a halo, really, wouldn"t it, auntie? A saint could fry his own eggs right on his halo, for instance, if he wanted to, couldn"t he?"
"That _would_ be a practical use for a halo," laughed auntie. "And that brings up a suggestion of more lunch. Let us eat up the fragments. It"s five o"clock."
"And here"s a bit of a breeze coming," said Will, suddenly, wetting his finger, and holding it up. "Whoop-la! She"s coming! Let"s give her the call!" And all the vigorous young lungs joined in a wild salute of "Wah-who-wah! wah-who-wah! Come, little breezes! wah-who-wah!"
"I"ll stop sculling, and eat in comfort now," said Will, shipping his oar, and taking a sandwich. "She"s safe to come, now."
And the breeze did not belie his confidence, for in ten minutes more the sail began to flap, and then to fill. The boat instantly responded, and Archie took the helm. The breeze steadily freshened, and in two minutes more the _Gentle Jane_ was skimming along like a bird. And so, not long after six, they landed at the dock.
CHAPTER XX.
A NEW HIDING-PLACE.
The four girls were in an unusually energetic frame of mind the next day, owing to so many hours confinement on the sailboat.
"Let"s do something wild to-day," said Cricket, at the breakfast-table.
"I"d like to ride a crazy horse."
"Are you tired of this world?" asked Will. "If you are, I"ll go and borrow Mr. Gates"s Josephus,--his new horse. He"s only half broken, and that"s the wrong half."
"Cricket, I put my foot down on your doing anything of the kind," said auntie, in alarm, not feeling at all sure of Cricket. "Remember you"re strictly forbidden to mount anything but Mopsie."
"And the sawhorse?" broke in Archie.
"Yes, I"ll except the sawhorse," conceded his mother.
"Why, auntie, I rode Columbus all around the field, bareback, the other day," said Cricket. "I didn"t know you didn"t want me to."
"_Columbus!_ you crazy child! He"s not at all safe even for a man to ride him. Understand, my dear, that"s tabooed."
"Oh, auntie!" cried Cricket, clasping her hands, tragically, "If you"ve any filial affection for me, you won"t say that! I do so love to ride a horse bareback. Mopsie is dear, but I like something _fiercer_."