"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 pa.s.s 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, pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed, 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 pa.s.sed 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 compa.s.s such figures.
Mr. King"s party had made one or two pleasant little journeys to the Lauterbrunnen Valley, staying there and at Murren, 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 it seems to stick right into the blue sky, and there are lots and lots of other mountains--oh, awfully high,--and the sun shines up there a good deal, and it"s too perfectly lovely for anything, Phronsie Pepper."
"Then I want to go," decided Phronsie. "I do so want to see that white needle, Polly."
"Well, eat your breakfast," said Polly, "because you know we all have ever so much to do to-day to get off."
"Yes, I will," declared Phronsie, attacking her cold chicken and roll with great vigour.
"It seems as if the whole world were at Zermatt," said the parson, looking out from the big piazza crowded with the hotel people, out to the road in front, with every imaginable tourist pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing.
Donkeys were being driven up, either loaded down to their utmost with heavy bags and trunks, or else waiting to receive on their patient backs the heavier people. Phronsie never could see the poor animals, without such distress coming in her face that every one in the party considered it his or her bounden duty to comfort and rea.s.sure her. So this time it was Tom"s turn to do so.
"Oh, don"t you worry," he said, looking down into her troubled little face where he sat on the piazza railing swinging his long legs, "they like it, those donkeys do!"
"Do they?" asked Phronsie, doubtfully.
"Yes, indeed," said Tom, with a gusto, as if he wished he were a donkey, and in just that very spot, "it gives them a chance to see things, and to hear things, too, don"t you know?" went on Tom, at his wits" end to know how he was going to come out of his sentences.
"Oh," said Phronsie, yet she sighed as she saw the extremely fat person just being hauled up to a position on a very small donkey"s back.
"You see, if they don"t like it," said Tom, digging his knife savagely into the railing, "they have a chance to kick up their heels and unsettle that heavy party."
"O dear me!" exclaimed Phronsie, in great distress, "that would hurt the poor woman, Tom."
"Well, it shows that the donkey likes it," said Tom, with a laugh, "because he doesn"t kick up his heels."