Izola L. Forrester

“ She looked down at the “Knob,” as they soon grew accustomed to calling the island. There was a fine incurved beach for bathing, with a great, tumbled mass of rocks at the farther end that rose higher and higher at the end pointing towards the bay. Young willow and scrub pine grew short and thick wherever they could get a footing in the rock crevices, and there was plenty of grass, but it was tall and sharp pointed and tinted queer colors from the tide.
“You can walk away out yonder into the water at low tide,” said Tom. “The beach is a fine one, better than we’ve got at Fair Havens. ”

“ Kate put in. “It’s the unknown danger that scares you.”
“I mean firemen, and soldiers, and life-savers—”
“And mothers and fathers, and heroes generally,” put in Polly, as she sat on a sofa cushion, her long, brown curls falling loosely around her, and her pink kimono slipped on over her night gown, for the nights were always cool on the bay. “I know what you mean, Ruth. It’s because they have so much else to think about that they haven’t time to worry. Tom’s all ready to make a business of being a hero, and he doesn’t realize it is being a hero. He thinks it’s lots of fun.” ”

“ All at once she knew that she was going to lose the race, and the strangest part of it was, she could see Nancy win, and feel a great wave of joy over it. As the Pirate’s boom passed her, she slackened her own main sheet, turned her head and smiled at Nancy, and the first cheer that went up for the winner of the Junior Cup, was when Polly stood up, and waved her hand with a clear,
“Hurrah! Hurrah!”
Tom promptly stood on his head, as the shouts rang out over the bay, and shore. The Admiral himself helped Nancy out as if she had been a queen. ”

“ Young girls are chosen to dive for the shells, generally the fairest and purest in the village and they poise themselves in the prow of the canoe and dive just as the sun rises.”
“I shall try it to-morrow morning,” said Polly promptly, her eyes dancing with mischief. “Ted and Sue shall play on their mandolins for me, and I will dive for pearls.”
“And you dare to call me vain,” teased Isabel. “I guess if anyone is to dive, I will.”
“Let’s all dive,” suggested Kate, the peacemaker, laughing. “Tell us some more, please, doctor, and don’t mind these giddy creatures.” ”

“ Just as Polly set her teeth, and tried to make straight for the other boat, the great white steamer, City of Portland, hove into sight, steaming up the channel. Then something that Polly had either read or heard flashed through her mind. A sailing vessel has the right of way. But Crullers did not know that, and when she saw that monster bearing straight down on her, all her courage and presence of mind left her. The one thing she did remember were the ring buoys in the lockers at the stern. ”

“ Polly walked down with them to the wide entrance gates, where Aunty Welcome waited, with a bouquet of fresh cut roses for each girl.
Up on the veranda the Admiral surveyed the scene with a good deal of satisfaction.
“They make me think of a lot of butterflies, Tan,” he told the old setter. “Or flowers, Tan, that’s the best simile, a garden of girls. It keeps the heart young just to listen to their laughter, old fellow.” ”

“ It was turned fairly to them, so they had a good view of the prow with its figure-head, a great golden sea-horse, curving proudly up from the waves.
“But its head looks like a dragon’s instead of a horse’s. I wonder how they travel through the water?” asked Ted.
“Just as easily as a jelly fish,” laughed Polly. “They don’t seem to help themselves at all, just go along with their heads held up high, as if they thought they owned the whole ocean. And they are such tiny things, that it seems comical. Think if a sea horse and a sea cow were to get into a quarrel. ”

“ This club has a real reason for its existence, a purpose, and we must make it worth while. It always seems to me as if girls could do so much better if they would hold hands, and work in unison—”
“Co-operate,” suggested Ruth.
“Yes, that’s just the right word,” Polly agreed, earnestly. “Boys always co-operate in their clubs. They seem to have the real feeling of fellowship. You know what I mean, Kate? Where all work together for the honor and glory of the whole, not just for yourself as a member.”
“Fraulein called it the esprit de corps,” said Ruth. ”

“ For men must work and women must weep,
And there’s little to earn, and many to keep,
Though the harbor bar be moaning.” “Oh, Polly, don’t, please,” cried Ruth and Isabel together. “It makes the cold chills run down your back.”
“Well, now, I never feel that way about it,” said the Captain, contentedly. “Our times are in His hands, do you mind? Our times are in His hands. Don’t you ever forget that. When I was a youngster like you girls and Tom here, I used to reason along those lines too, and I’d be hoping I’d die this way and that way, and I’d be wishing for a chariot and some angels. ”

“ Nancy was walking beside her, and she wondered whether a true sportsman ever allows sentimental reasons to outweigh his sense of fairness, whether it was wrong for her to hope with all her heart that she might win the race when Nancy had set all her hopes on it.
“Father says that if I should win the Cup,” Nancy whispered, happily, as she slipped her arm through Polly’s, “he’ll build me a knockabout for next year just like Tom’s. And just think, if you girls hadn’t let me come into your club, I couldn’t have raced at all. Aren’t things queer, Polly?” ”

“ If the H. S. Club had possessed a coat-of-arms, there would have been a chafing-dish rampant on a field of fire as part of its symbolism. It had been Polly’s Christmas present to the club. She had smuggled it in, all unknown to Miss Calvert or the other girls, and had beguiled Annie May, the colored cook, to hide it. On special occasions it made its appearance at feasts, wonderful feasts, prepared with the help of Annie May, when the Hungry Six foregathered behind locked doors, with the chafing-dish in the place of honor. ”

“ The hotel flaunted flags wherever a flag could be placed to advantage, and all along the beach, the cottages had out bunting and flags too. At the landing at Fair Havens, one huge flag was unfurled with dignity to the morning breeze.
“Oh, dear, I wish we had thought to buy a lot of flags too,” cried Isabel.
“There’s a whole week of it,” Polly answered. “We can buy them to-day over in the village. Don’t worry over anything at all, girls. Let’s be just as happy as we can while it lasts.” ”

“ So after dinner they gathered in the cabin, and Mrs. Yates played for them on the piano, while out in the moonlight the Admiral paced the deck with the Senator, and put his head inside the door every now and then to suggest some favorite.
“Isn’t it queer, Polly?” Isabel said softly, as she watched them, the Senator in his white flannels and Mrs. Yates all in white too, with her soft, fair hair worn in a single coronet braid about her head. “Isn’t it queer that the nicest people are always the simplest in their ways, and the most unaffected. ”

“ Aunt Cynthy’s bouquets, freshened up after a good drink of water, made a pretty centerpiece, with the blue and gold yacht club pennant waving above it. The Admiral insisted on Polly taking the head of the table with Kate, as club chaperon, at the foot.
“I am merely a guest,” he said, “and will sit at the Commodore’s right hand, if she will permit.”
Long after the sun went down, the little dinner party went on, until the moon rose, and the bay lay like a sea of quicksilver and jet below them. ”

“ Last year and once when I was a youngster just out of college, and bent on globe-trotting. Ceylon, you know, is the great pearl market of the world, and yet the season of the catch lasts only six weeks. But during those six weeks, instead of a long, jungle-fringed beach, there rise the tents and houses of the pearl seekers, like a city of magic. Every morning you can see the long boats go out, hundreds of them, and each carrying from sixty to seventy men.”
“Divers?” asked Polly. ”

“ She would always be more precise than the other girls, more attentive to the formalities of life, as Miss Calvert expressed it, but the hearty, daily companionship and example set by the rest had filed down many sharp little points in her character. At Calvert Hall both Ted and Sue had loved to tease her, but someway she did not mind it any more. She could laugh back at them like Kate or Polly now, and it was rarely that one of “Isabel’s grumbles” was heard. “Lady Vanitas” she would always be, for she dearly loved pretty clothes and dainty things. ”

“ Polly smiled at the big white club house across the bay quite as if she expected it to nod back at her. “The Tidy Jane is just as fine a catboat as there is on the bay, and so are all our boats. Nancy’s going to race the Pirate, Tom’s knockabout, and the other afternoon when we sailed to the inlet and back, I had the best of her all the way. Of course I shall race.”
“Is there a prize?” asked Crullers, the practical. The girls all broke into a peal of laughter, and Ruth declared that Crullers never could see anything in empty glory. There had to be a tangible goal for her to exert herself. ”

“ Ruth seemed to read her thought as their glance met across the table, and instinctively she shook her head, with its close bands of brown braids, bound around like a laurel crown.
“But we really need you, Ruth,” persisted Polly. “Kate will be the ship’s husband—”
“The what?” laughed Kate. “This is all news to me. Isn’t it just like Polly, girls, to arrange all our destinies, and then placidly break the tidings to us at the last minute.”
“Miss Calvert says I am a born organizer,” Polly declared, decidedly, “and how on earth can one organize if one lets every member have her own way? ”

“ They rose early, any time between five and six. Nobody except a clam could have slept with the sun coming up like a great, golden blossom behind Bald Bluff, and the sea running along the beach with little waves like dancing feet, calling to one to come and play too.
They tried over and over again to divide each day systematically, but, as Polly said, “current events tripped them up.” Aunty Welcome protested that she would do the washing, ironing, cooking, and kitchen work, but not a tap more; so each took care of her own room, and Polly looked out for the living-room besides. ”

“ Even at that distance it appeared as if the larger yacht had the best chance.
“I’m sure they could crowd on more sail,” Dorothy said, helplessly. “Why don’t they do it? Tom says there’s always room for another reef some place on a sloop.”
“That’s just what’s happening this minute,” Kate said. “The Thistle has every inch on she can carry, and there’s still over a mile to go.”
“Polly, if that old New York boat should win, I shall lie down on the sand, and simply, simply—” Isabel hesitated for lack of an apt expression, but Ted filled it in for her calmly. ”

“ Crullers was always the last to get started from the landing. Yachting with Jane Daphne Adams, as Polly said, was a serious matter, and she gave it her undivided attention. Her sail was different from those on the other boats. It was shorter and wider, and ribbed crosswise like a junk boat’s sails. Tom told them that Phil and Jack, Polly’s cousins, had put it on, just as a freakish notion, and it surely was freakish to look at; but it was easy to handle and Crullers liked it. There was no cabin, but the cockpit was roomy and had several lockers underneath the seats. ”

“ Once when Welcome marched forcibly into my study and placed this person with the freckles in my arms, and again to-day. And yet it may be true. It is quite like Penrhyn to do such a thing. For a man in his sixty-sixth year he is the most irresponsible, child-like creature I ever knew. Polly, did you say orange marmalade?”
Polly nodded her head emphatically.
“He’s had six jars out of the ten we brought with us,” she replied, solemnly. “Aunty declares it can’t hurt him one bit, but we don’t believe he eats it himself. We think he uses it as bait to catch—what is it, girls?” ”

“ Ted agreed, pushing back her red curls restlessly. “Fraulein called it the personal quality in art, the gift of expression. What was that old painter’s name who used such a wonderful red in his pictures, and when he died they found it was his heart’s blood he had been painting with. I guess that’s personal expression, isn’t it? I haven’t any, Miss Calvert says. I haven’t any artistic sense.”
“We all have it,” Polly insisted. “You cannot help but have it, because it’s the gift of yourself. What do you like to do more than anything else in the world?” ”

“ The broad veranda looked very cool and restful that afternoon. Polly and Kate had spread all the available mats and had carried out the round table from the sitting-room, dropping new magazines over it invitingly, with a pitcher of fruit lemonade and a plate of hermits to nibble on.
“Hermits, do you call these?” asked Bess, as she bit into her third one. “I never heard of them, but they’re just dandy.”
“Well, there are hermits and hermits,” Polly explained. “But Aunty Welcome’s are the best we’ve ever had, much better than Annie May’s at the Hall. How do you make them, Aunty?” ”

“ A HOME ON THE ROLLING DEEP At ten o’clock sharp the next morning the girls saw the Captain’s dory round the curve of the bay shore from Fair Havens, and make for the Knob. Nancy waved her hand to them, her face shaded by a pink sunbonnet. The girls were already in the water, paddling around in their new swimming suits, and splashing one another. Ted, Kate, and Polly, could just manage to keep their chins above water, and float, but the rest kept at waist-deep limits. ”