"You go ahead, father," begged Jasper, "and we"ll all follow."
So old Mr. King, with Phronsie and a guide on her farther side, led the way, and the red stockings and the brown and the black, and some of indescribable hue, moved off upon the _Mer de Glace_.
"It"s dreadfully dirty," said Adela, turning up her nose. "I thought a glacier was white when you got up to it."
"Oh, I think it is lovely!" cried Polly; "and that green down in the creva.s.se--look, Adela!"
"It"s a dirty green," persisted Adela, whose artistic sense wouldn"t be satisfied. "O dear me!" as her foot slipped and she clutched Mrs.
Henderson, who happened to be next.
"Now, how about the woollen stockings?" asked Tom, while Polly and Jasper both sang out, "Take care," and "Go slowly."
Adela didn"t answer, but stuck the sharp end of her alpenstock smartly into the ice.
"Something is the matter with my stocking," at last said the parson"s wife, stopping and holding out her right foot.
The guide nearest her stopped, too, and kneeling down on the ice, he pulled it into place, for it had slipped half off.
"Now be very careful," warned Grandpapa, "and don"t venture too near the edge," as he paused with Phronsie and the guide. The others, coming up, looked down into a round, green pool of water that seemed to stare up at them, as if to say, "I am of unknown depth, so beware of me."
"That gives me the "creeps," Polly, as you say," Mrs. Henderson observed. "Dear me, I shall never forget how that green water looks;"
and she shivered and edged off farther yet. "Supposing any one _should_ fall in!"
"Well, he"d go down right straight through the globe, seems to me,"
said Tom, with a last look at the pool as they turned off, "It looks as if it had no end, till one would fetch up on the other side."
"I love to hop over these little creva.s.ses," said Polly, and suiting the action to the word.
"Something is the matter with my stocking again," announced Mrs.
Henderson to the guide, presently. "I am sorry to trouble you, but it needs to be fixed."
He didn"t understand the words, but there was no mistaking the foot thrust out with the woollen sock, now wet and sodden, half off again.
So he kneeled down and pulled it on once more.
Before they reached the other side, the parson"s wife had had that stocking pulled on six times, until at last, the guide, finding no more pleasure in a repet.i.tion of the performance, took a string from his pocket, and bunching up in his fist a good portion of the stocking heel, he wound the string around it and tied it fast, cut off the string, and returned the rest to his pocket.
"Why do you tie up the heel?" queried Mrs. Henderson. "I should think it much better to secure it in front." But he didn"t understand, and the rest were quite a good bit in advance, and hating to give trouble, she went on, the stocking heel sticking out a few inches. But she kept it on her foot, so that might be called a success.
The little Widow Gray was not going over the _Mauvais Pas_, neither was Mrs. Selwyn, as she had traversed it twice before. So, on reaching the other side, they were just about bidding good-by to the others, when, without a bit of warning, the parson"s wife, in turning around, fell flat, and disappeared to the view of some of them behind a boulder of ice.
All was confusion in an instant. The guides rushed--everybody rushed--pellmell to the rescue; Tom"s long legs, as usual, getting him there first. There she was in a heap, in a depression of ice and snow and water.
"I"m all right, except"--and she couldn"t help a grimace of pain--"my foot."
The little doctor swept them all to one side, as they seated her on one of the boulders of ice. "Humph! I should think likely," at sight of the tied-up stocking heel. "You stepped on that, and it flung you straight as a die and turned your foot completely over."
"Yes," said Mrs. Henderson. Then she saw the guide who had tied the stocking looking on with a face of great concern. "Oh, don"t say anything, it makes him feel badly," she mumbled, wishing her foot wouldn"t ache so.
Little Dr. Fisher was rapidly untying the unlucky stocking; and, whipping off the boot, he soon made sure that no ligaments were broken.
Then he put on the boot and the woollen sock, being careful to tie it in front over the instep, and whipping out his big handkerchief he proceeded to bandage the ankle in a truly scientific way. "Now, then, Mrs. Henderson, you are all right to take the walk slowly back to the hotel."
Parson Henderson took his wife"s hand. "Come, Sarah," he said, gently helping her up.
"Oh, you are going over the _Mauvais Pas_," she cried in distress at the thought of his missing it.
"Come, Sarah," he said gently, keeping her hand in his.
"I"ll go back with her too," said little Dr. Fisher.
"Oh, Adoniram!" exclaimed his wife, but it was under her breath, and no one heard the exclamation.
"I think Dr. Fisher ought to go with the other party; he will be needed there," Mrs. Selwyn was saying, in her quiet way. "And I will bathe Mrs. Henderson"s foot just as he says it should be done, so good-by,"
and any one looking down with a field gla.s.s from the Montanvert hotel, could have seen at this point, two parties, one proceeding to the _Mauvais Pas_ and the _Chapeau_, and the other of three ladies, the parson and a guide, wending their way slowly on the return across the creva.s.ses.
XXVI
"WELL, HERE WE ARE IN PARIS!"
Notwithstanding all the glory of the shops, and the tempting array of the jewellery and trinkets of every description therein displayed, after a few days of sailing on the exquisite lake, and some walks and drives, Polly, down deep in her heart, was quite ready to move on from Geneva. And, although she didn"t say anything, old Mr. King guessed as much, and broke out suddenly, "Well, are you ready to start, Polly?"
"Yes, Grandpapa," she answered. "I have the presents for the girls. I"m all ready."
"Why, Polly, you haven"t anything for yourself," Mother Fisher exclaimed, as Polly ran into her room and told the news--how Grandpapa said they were to pack up and leave in the morning. "You haven"t bought a single thing."
"Oh, I don"t want anything," said Polly. "I"ve so many things at home that Grandpapa has given me. Mamsie, isn"t this pin for Alexia just too lovely for anything?"
She curled up on the end of the bed, and drew it out of its little box.
"I think she"ll like it," with anxious eyes on Mother Fisher"s face.
"Like it?" repeated her mother. "How can she help it, Polly?"
"I think so too," said Polly, happily, replacing it on the bed of cotton, and putting on the cover to look over another gift.
Mrs. Fisher regarded her keenly. "Well, now, Polly," she said, decidedly, "I shall go down and get that chain we were looking at. For you do need that, and your father and I are going to give it to you."
"Oh, Mamsie," protested Polly, "I don"t need it; really, I don"t."
"Well, we shall give it to you," said Mother Fisher. Then she went over to the bed and dropped a kiss on Polly"s brown hair.
"Mamsie," exclaimed Polly, springing off the bed, and throwing her arms around her mother"s neck, "I shall love that chain, and I shall wear it just all the time because you and Papa-Doctor gave it to me."
When they neared Paris, Adela drew herself up in her corner of the compartment. "I expect you"ll stare some when you get to Paris, Polly Pepper."
"I"ve been staring all the time since we started on our journey, Adela, as hard as I could," said Polly, laughing.