One day in August it happened that Ned"s father and mother, his big brother, his two sisters, and, in fact, most of the grown people in the hotel, went off on a picnic to White Gull Island, which was about seven miles out to sea. They started at ten in the morning, with a good breeze, and a load of very attractive-looking lunch-baskets; but at noon the wind died down, and did not spring up again, and when Ned"s bedtime came, they had still not returned. Their big sail could be seen far out beyond the islands. They were rowing the boat, Mr. Gale, the hotel-keeper, said; but unless the wind came up, he did not think they would be in much before midnight.
Ned had not gone with the others. He had hurt his foot a day or two before, and his mother thought climbing rocks would be bad for it. He had cried a little when Constance and the rest sailed away, but had soon been consoled. Mrs. Cabot had arranged a series of treats for him, a row with Nurse, a sea-bath, a new story-book, and had asked a little boy he liked to come over from the other hotel and spend the afternoon on the beach. There had been the surprise of a box of candy and two big peaches. Altogether, the day had gone happily, and it was not till Nurse had put Ned to bed and gone off to a "praise meeting" in the Methodist chapel, that it occurred to him to feel lonely.
He lay looking out at sea, which was lit by the biggest and whitest moon ever seen. Far away he could catch the shimmer of the idle sail, which seemed scarcely nearer than it had done at supper-time.
"I wish Mamma were here to kiss me for good-night," reflected Ned, rather dismally. "I don"t feel sleepy a bit, and it isn"t nice to have them all gone."
From the foot of the hill came a sound of small hoofs stamping impatiently. Then a complaining whinny was heard. Ned sat up in bed.
Something was wrong with Cloud, he was sure.
"It"s that bad d.i.c.k. He"s gone off and forgotten to give Cloud any supper," thought Ned. Then he called "Mary! Ma-ry!" several times, before he remembered that Mary was gone to the praise meeting.
"I don"t care!" he said aloud. "I"m not going to let my Cloudy starve for anybody."
So he scrambled out of bed, found his shoes, and hastily put on some of the clothes which Mary had just taken off and folded up. There was no one on the piazza to note the little figure as it sped down the slope.
Everybody was off enjoying the moonlight in some way or other.
It was, indeed, as Ned had suspected. d.i.c.k of the freckles had gone fishing and forgotten Cloud altogether. The moon shone full through the eastern windows of the store, making it almost as light as day, and Ned had no trouble in finding the hay and the water-pail. He watched the pony as he hungrily champed and chewed the sweet-smelling heap and sucked up the water, then he brushed out his stall, and scattered straw, and then sat down "for a minute," as he told himself, to rest and watch Cloud go to sleep. It was very pleasant in the old store, he thought.
Presently Cloud lay down on the straw too, and cuddled close up to Ned, who patted and stroked him. Ned thought he was asleep, he lay so still.
But after a little while Cloud stirred and got up, first on his forelegs and then altogether. He stood a moment watching Ned, who pretended to be sleeping, then he opened the slatted door of his stall, moved gently across the floor and went in behind the old blue counter.
"What _is_ he going to do?" thought Ned. "I never saw anything so funny.
Constance will never believe when I tell her about it."
What Cloud did was to take one of the gla.s.s jars from the shelf in his teeth, and set it on the counter. It was the one which held the gingersnap crumbs. Cloud lifted off the lid. Just then a clatter of hoofs was heard outside, and another horse came in. Ned knew the horse in a minute. It was the yellow one which Mr. Gale drove in his buckboard.
The yellow horse trotted up to the counter, and he and Cloud talked together for a few minutes. It was in pony language, and Ned could not understand what they said; but it had to do with the gingersnaps, apparently, for Cloud poured part of them out on the counter, and the buckboard horse greedily licked them up. Then he gave Cloud something by way of payment. Ned could not see what, but it seemed to be a nail out of his hind shoe, and then tiptoed out of the store and across the road to the field where the horses grazed, while Cloud opened a drawer at the back of the counter and threw in the nail, if it was one. It _sounded_ like a nail.
He had scarcely done so when more hoofs sounded, and two other horses came in. Horse one was the bay which went with the yellow in the buckboard, the other Mr. Gale"s sorrel colt, which he allowed no one to drive except himself. Cloud seemed very glad to see them. And such a lively chorus went on across the counter of whinnies and snorts and splutters, accompanied with such emphatic stamps, that Ned shrank into a dark corner, and did not dare to laugh aloud, though he longed to as he peeped between the bars.
The sorrel colt seemed to want a great many things. He evidently had the shopping instinct. Cloud lifted down all the jars, one by one, and the colt sampled their contents. The cream-of-tartar he did not like at all; but he ate all the brown sugar and the cracker crumbs, tasted an olive and let it drop with a disgusted neigh, and lastly took a bite of the mouldy cheese in the red trap, and expressed his opinion of it by what seemed to be a "swear-word." Then he and the bay-horse and Cloud went to the end of the store where a rusty old stove without any pipe stood, sat down on their haunches before it, put their forelegs on its top, and began, as it seemed, to discuss politics; at least, it sounded wonderfully like the conversation that had gone on in that very corner in Mr. Harrison"s day, when the farmers collected to predict the defeat of the candidate on the other side, whoever he might be.
They talked so long that Ned grew very sleepy, and lay down again on the straw. He felt that he ought to go home and to bed, but he did not quite dare. The strange horses might take offence at his being there, he thought; still, he had a comfortable feeling that as Cloud"s friend they would not do him any real harm. Even when, as it seemed, one of them came into the stall, took hold of his shoulder, and began to shake him violently, he was not really frightened.
"Don"t!" he said sleepily. "I won"t tell anybody. Cloud knows me. I"m a friend of his."
"Ned! wake up! Ned! wake up!" said some one. Was it the red horse?
No, it was his father. And there was Mamma on the other side of him. And there was Cloud lying on the straw close by, pretending to be asleep, but with one eye half open!
"Wake up!" said Papa; "here it is, after eleven o"clock, and Mamma half frightened to death at getting home and not finding you in your bed. How did you come down here, sir?"
"Cloud was crying for his supper, and I came down to feed him,"
explained Ned. "And then I stayed to watch him keep store. Oh, it was so funny, Mamma! The other horses came and bought things, and Cloud was just like a real storekeeper, and sold crackers to them, and sugar, and took the money--no, it was nails, I think."
"My dear, you have been dreaming," said Mrs. Cabot. "Don"t let him talk any more, John. He is all excited now, and won"t sleep if you do."
So, though Ned loudly protested that he had not been asleep at all, and so could not have dreamed, he was put to bed at once, and no one would listen to him. And next day it was just as bad, for all of them, Constance as well as the rest, insisted that Ned had fallen asleep in the pony"s stall and dreamed the whole thing. Even when he opened the drawer at the back of the counter and showed them the shoe-nail that Cloud had dropped in, they would not believe. There was nothing remarkable in there being a nail there, they said; all sorts of things were put in the drawers of country stores.
But Ned and Cloud knew very well that it was not a dream.
PINK AND SCARLET.
"It"s the most perfect beauty that ever was!"
"Pshaw! you always say that. It"s not a bit prettier than Mary"s."
"Yes, it is."
"No, indeed, it isn"t."
The subject of dispute was a parasol,--a dark blue one, trimmed with fringe, and with an ivory handle. The two little girls who were discussing it were Alice h.o.a.re and her sister Madge. It was Madge"s birthday, and the parasol was one of her presents.
The dispute continued.
"I wish you wouldn"t always say that your things are better than any one else"s," said Alice. "It"s ex-exaspering to talk like that, and Mamma said when we exasperated it was almost as bad as telling lies."
"She didn"t say "exasperate." That wasn"t the word at all; and this is the sweetest, dearest, most perfectly beautiful parasol in the world, a great deal prettier than your green one."
"Yes, so it is," confessed candid Alice. "Mine is quite old now. This is younger, and, besides, the top of mine is broken off. But yours isn"t really any prettier than Mary"s."
"It is too! It"s a great deal more beautiful and a great deal more fascinating."
"What is that which is so fascinating?" asked their sister Mary, coming into the room. "The new parasol? My! that is strong language to use about a parasol. It should at least be an umbrella, I think. See, Madge, here is another birthday gift."
It was a gilt cage, with a pair of Java sparrows. "Oh, lovely!
delicious!" cried Madge, jumping up and down. "I think this is the best birthday that ever was! Are they from you, Mary, darling? Thank you ever so much! They are the most perfectly beautiful things I ever saw."
"The parasol was the most beautiful just now," observed Alice.
"Oh, these are much beautifuller than that, because they are alive,"
replied Madge, giving her oldest sister a rapturous squeeze.
"I wish you"d make me a birthday present in return," said Mary. "I wish you"d drop that bad habit of exaggerating everything you like, and everything you don"t like. All your "bads" are "dreadfuls,"--all your pinks are scarlets."
"I don"t know what you mean," said Madge, puzzled and offended.
"It"s only what Mamma has often spoken to you about, dear Madgie. It is saying more than is quite true, and more than you quite feel. I am sure you don"t mean to be false, but people who are not used to you might think you so."
"It"s because I like things so much."
"No, for when you don"t like them, it"s just as bad. I have heard you say fifty times, at least, "It is the horridest thing I ever saw," and you know there couldn"t be fifty "horridest" things."