Elizabeth Weston Timlow

“ Would you like to live there?"
"Oh, how lovely!" sighed Edna. "Let's go there! Think of having no one to tease you."
"Or pull your hair," said Cricket, feelingly.
"Or call you names," said Hilda, severely.
"Or hide your things," added Eunice, reproachfully.
"Or take you sailing, or teach you to wrestle, or write things for your old 'Echo,' or harness the ponies when Luke is not round, and look out for you generally," said Archie, in a breath. "If boys are barrelled in that place, girls ought to be—"
"Hung," said Edna, sweetly. "Please pass me the syrup." ”

“ After a time Zaidee and Helen, with Kenneth lagging after, came disconsolately around to the front piazza. Zaidee's soft, silky, black hair lay in wet streaks, plastered down on her forehead, while Helen's golden locks were as tightly curled as grape-tendrils.
"We can't find Cricket any more, for she's runned away," announced Zaidee, aggrieved.
"We've hunted and hunted," said Helen. "We heard her calling once, but when we got where she was, she wasn't there any more."
"She'll be back in a moment," said Eunice, mopping off the little hot head with a practised hand. "You sit still and get cool. ”

“ The dry seaweed draped the rough stones, and Kenneth's shells were arranged about it.
"Now we must begin to offer sacrifices," said Cricket. "We must have dishevelled hair, Eunice, as the women always do in stories. I can't muss mine up much more than it always is," regretfully, "but you can take your braid out, and throw your hair all around. Oh, that's lovely!" as Eunice loosened her heavy, dark braid, and threw the long, straight masses all about. "How beautifully dishevelled you are!" ”

“ It takes so long to get used to the tide. I do wish it would settle upon some time of day, and keep to it. Don't you? It's a great nuisance."
"I guess I do," replied Edna, with inelegant emphasis. "If I had my way, the tide shouldn't go out but once a day, and that's at night. These ugly old mud-flats that have to be seen some time during every day are the one thing that spoil Marbury. It's so pretty when the bay is full. But, Eunice, we've got to make up our minds to stay here and broil, this whole afternoon. Even if Cricket should start this minute, she couldn't get here. ”

“ Eliza sat in the doorway crocheting. The older girls climbed the ladder to a high beam, and then would shoot off on to the soft hay far below. Zaidee ambitiously tried to follow. But half-way up the ladder her courage invariably failed her, and she would sit still and shriek till one of her sisters came and carried her down.
"Zaidee, don't climb up this ladder again," said Eunice, sharply, after she had rescued her small sister for the tenth time. "If you do, I'll leave you there. It's too high for you, and you're always afraid." ”

“ There was much applause at Cricket's forethought.
"Wise child," said auntie, approvingly, "I am glad to see that 'though on pleasure you are bent you have a'—literary mind. We might illustrate proverbs."
"Oh, I can't draw," said Eunice, quickly.
"So much the better. You need not draw well, for it's much more fun if you don't. I'll tear these leaves in two, Cricket, to make them long and narrow. Now, we must each illustrate some proverb at the bottom of the slip, or some line of poetry, if you prefer. ”

“ Eunice and Cricket shouted with laughter.
"She means, 'We beseech Thee to hear us,'" cried Cricket, choking, quite as if she never made any mistakes on her own account. But other people's mistakes are so different from our own. Helen, her sensitive feelings dreadfully hurt, instantly retired under her apron, and refused to be comforted. They always had to be careful about laughing at Helen, whereas Zaidee never seemed to mind. ”

“ Where is Cricket?"
"The tide is going out very fast," said Edna, anxiously. "Look at the high-water mark. If we're not off here in less than half an hour we have to wait till the tide is up again. That's a nice prospect, too, to stay here and broil all the afternoon."
"Horrors!" cried Eunice. "I like to stay here when I want to, but I don't want to be made to. When could we get off, then?" for Eunice knew much less accurately the times and tides than Edna, who always spent her summers at Marbury. ”

“ Touch her, Archie. Begin, Eunice."
"The hardest part is to think of questions," said Eunice, turning around and meditating. "Let me see. Auntie, when do you think we will get home?"
"When we are on a teakettle, it is never safe to say," answered auntie.
"On a teakettle—on a boat—that doesn't fit," meditated Eunice. "Will, why don't you make Archie scull now?"
"Because he's such a lazy beggar. When he goes teakettling, he won't do anything else."
"Edna, is the moon made of green cheese?" ”

“ I'm so afraid he'll die of getting wet and cold before we can save him!" cried Cricket, anxiously, flopping the bucket about. "Do take hold of it, George! dear George, do!"
But Cricket's most coaxing tones availed nothing. George only meowed and meowed in accents that grew more pitiful every minute.
"Do run and tell Marm Plunkett that the kitten's in the well, Hilda," said Cricket, at last. "Perhaps she'll know something to do. Look out, children! don't lean over so far, else the first thing you know you'll be down there, too. Oh, George Washington, please take hold!" ”

“ Presently, all the others, grandma, auntie, old Billy, and the children, were seen to gather there. The boys ran up and down the beach, then all the figures clustered together, evidently holding a council of war.
"There's just nothing to be done," sighed Edna, "except to wait for the water."
"Wait for the water, and we'll all take a ride," sang Eunice. "It's really much harder for them to be anxious about us, and about Cricket, than for us to be here. And hardest of all for Cricket. For pity's sake! what is the child doing?" ”

“ Has some horrid boy been abusing you?" cried Cricket, making a dive for it, but dropping it, when she caught it, with equal promptness, as its sharp claws tore her hands. "Why, stop! you dreadful little thing! How you hurt me!"
"Pick it up, boys," begged Edna, as the cat resumed its backward way. "Do get that can off. How did any one ever get it on, do you suppose? Here, kitty! kitty!"
"Curiosity killed a cat, they say," said Will, watching his chance at it. "I suppose it wanted to see the inside of that can, and now that it has seen it, it isn't satisfied. There's no suiting some people. ”

“ I think it's the editor's business, anyway."
"We'll each do a few. That won't be hard," suggested Eunice.
"Suppose nobody dies, or gets married, that we know of?" asked literal Edna.
"Make them up, child," answered Cricket, with a funny air of superiority. "In a paper you can make up anything. It doesn't have to be true. Don't you know how often papa says 'that's only a newspaper story?'"
"Making them up is just the trouble," persisted Edna. "If anybody really died, or married, or anything, it would be easy enough to write of it, of course. How silly people are who make real newspapers. ”

“ Emmons would be delighted to come and spend the day with grandma, it proved, so the plans for Wednesday instantly began, as if they did not have a whole day before them. The hour of the start must be settled at once. As it would be low tide at eleven, they must be off at eight in the morning, to get well over the mud-flats before they were exposed. They would go outside the point for a little cruise, if it was not too rough, and then come back and land at the Gurnet, and show all the sights there to Hilda, and eat their luncheon either before or after, as they liked. ”

“ You'll have Edna, Eunice, and I'll have Hilda."
"What do you suppose would happen if it should chance to be a rainy week, and I should have you all on my hands to entertain in the house, now, while grandma is laid up? Would there be any house left?" asked Auntie Jean.
"The cellar," said Eunice. "But I'd be sorry for you, auntie."
"And I for myself. But I don't think it will rain, and you'll probably have a lovely time together."
"Don't expect too much," advised Will. "Anticipation is always better than reality, you know." ”

“ See how far the Gurnet Lights are behind us."
"Yes, but look at the distance ahead of us, to be sculled over yet," said Auntie Jean, "and here it is four o'clock," consulting her watch. "Come, Archie, it's time to whistle up the wind."
"I will!" said Edna, breaking out again into her blackbird whistle.
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. ”

“ Here, Cricket, take it in the table-cloth, there. Better give it something to eat. It's a stray cat, and probably half starved, and that's why it tried to eat tomato cans, like a goat."
Cricket bore off her charge to the kitchen, where she fed and soothed it with such good effect that, when she came back, half an hour later, the little black cat cuddled down on her arm, purring like a teakettle in spite of its wounded neck.
"Isn't it a dear?" she said, admiringly. "I think grandma will let me keep it. We haven't any cat in the house since Wallops died, and I love them." ”

“ Why do they ever make up anything, when real things are happening all the time?"
"It's more fun to make things up," answered Cricket, from the depths of her experience. "But we can write about that old red hen, and about poor little Wallops"—referring to a little black cat, lately deceased. "Then each of you must send me in some things besides your stories, and I'll make some up myself. Let's appoint next Tuesday for a meeting, if I can get the paper done. If I don't, we'll have it as soon as I can get it ready."
"Shall that be a rule?" laughed Eunice. ”

“ The children, quite reassured now as to the safety of their pet amusement, dug away merrily, while Billy, like an amiable Turk, sat cross-legged near by.
The shifting stretches of sand changed their shape year by year with the wind and rain, and Cricket had no definite idea of the exact locality of the spot where mamma and auntie had buried their money-bags, thirty years before. She enlarged the hole the children had begun, till it was quite an excavation, carrying on her game of "incubus" with the children all the time. ”

“ Hilda flatly refused.
"You are the most untiresome creature," she said. "I should think you'd be ready to drop. I am, I know. I'm going to get into the hammock, and I'm not going to stir till dinner-time. Do come and sit down yourself, and rest."
"Sit down and rest," repeated Cricket, with much scorn. "As if a little ride like that tired me. Well, if you won't go to row, come to walk!"
"I'm going to sit still, I say," returned Hilda, firmly, seating herself comfortably in the hammock. "I'll row this afternoon, perhaps, if it isn't too hot. Here come Eunice and Edna. ”