Three Little Cousins by Amy Ella Blanchard (e book free reading txt) 📕

his heels, not stopping till he was clear out of sight.

Luella came laughing into the living-room. "Here's another present," she announced. "You open it, Miss Ada."

"What can it be?" exclaimed the children, gathering around their aunt who untied the string of the damp parcel, unwrapped it and disclosed to view a huge lobster, fiery red, and still warm from recent boiling.

"Isn't he a monster?" exclaimed Miss Ada. "I don't believe I ever saw a larger. We'll have him for supper, Luella. I hope you took half the salmon to Mrs. Wharton, for we couldn't eat that and this, too. Children, you will have to invite Grace over to have her share. I suppose some of it is due to her anyhow."

"She ought to have it all," said Polly, "for she was the only one who was hurt."

"I'm afraid she'd suffer more still if she attempted to devour this entire lobster," laughed Miss Ada. "We'd better spare her little turn, Polly, and help her eat this."

It was after such of the lobster as they could eat had been disposed of, and the children with no desire for long wanderings, were safely gathered around the fire, that a tap was heard at the door. Uncle Dick arose to open it and received into his hands a large cold jar, while a small lad piped out: "Jerry sent this to the little gals. They'll keep." And then the figure vanished into the darkness.

"I don't know who Jerry is, nor what 'this' is," said Uncle Dick, bearing in the glass jar and setting it on the table. "It's for the 'little gals' I was told. Great Caesar! It's clams, carefully shelled. See here, Ada, we won't have to buy any more provender this season at this rate. When we get short of provisions we can send out our Arabs on the road, for behold the result of their evening's migrations."

Every one laughed at this latest gift, and it was set away for the next day's use. But the end was not yet. On the door sill the next morning was discovered a splint basket. To the handle was tied a scrap of paper on which was awkwardly written: "To the little gals." Molly was the finder of this. "Hurry down all of you!" she called to the others. "There is a present."

"Another one?" said Polly over the baluster. "What is it?"

"I haven't looked," was the reply.

The other children, joined by Miss Ada, came down as soon as possible, their curiosity excited. Molly lifted the wet seaweed covering the contents of the basket and they saw a pile of shining little mackerel.

"Tinkers!" cried Miss Ada. "What a nice lot of them! Oh, and there are some butter-fish, too. They are all cleaned beautifully, and we must have some for breakfast; it will take only a few minutes to cook them. Yon children can run over to Grace with her share."

This the little girls were glad to do, but returned with their platter full explaining that smaller lot had been left at the Whartons'.

But two more conscience offerings were received after this. Four thick braids of sweet grass were found hanging on the door-knob, and, during the day a man delivered a mysterious box slatted across one end. This was found to contain a beautiful kitten of the variety called "Coon." The children were wild over this last gift, the only drawback to their delight being the difficulty of deciding which one should take it home. Their Aunt Ada came to the rescue by telling them not to bother about it till the time came and then to let circumstances settle it. Her own little cat, Cosey, was not inclined to favor the intruder at first, but in a few days she began to mother it and they soon became good friends.

"Are you glad that the boys scared us that night?" asked Polly one day not long after the "day of gifts" as the children called it.

Molly weighed the subject. "When I think of the dear kitten and the salmon and the tinkers."

"And the lobster."

"Yes, and the sweet grass, then I am, but when I think of how dreadfully frightened we were, I'm not."

"I don't intend to remember the scare," said Polly philosophically.

"Neither do I," added Mary. "I'd be an Arab again for the sake of finding out how really good-hearted those boys are," which showed that Mary had a good heart, too.


CHAPTER XI


The Roseberry Family

The green grass of June had turned to russet; the bay berry bushes began to look dingy, and the waxy cranberries in the bog were turning to a delicate pink. It had been a dry season and the children could safely traverse the bog from end to end without danger of getting their feet wet. Ellis was their pilot to this fascinating spot, and the day of their introduction to it was one long to be remembered.

It was one morning when Ellis came around to the back door to deliver clams that they first heard of the bog. He added to the weekly order a little bag of pinky-white cranberries. "I thought maybe you'd like 'em," he said. "Miss Alice Harvey says they're much better when they're not quite ripe. Ora tried some and they were fine, but they took a lot of sugar."

"Thank you for remembering us," said Miss Ada as she received the offering. "How much, Ellis?"

"Nawthin'. They're easy to pick and there's plenty of 'em," he made reply.

Miss Ada accepted the gift in the spirit in which it was intended. "I'm sure we shall enjoy them," she declared. "Where is the bog, Ellis? Is it very wet there?"

"'Tain't wet at all this year. This has been such a dry season. It's down back of Cap'n Orrin's barn."

"Oh, is that the place?" Molly was peeping over her aunt's shoulder. "I've always longed to go there but I was afraid it was all sloppy and marshy; some one said it was."

"Would you like me to go there with you?" said Ellis bashfully. "I know where the cranberries grow, and there's lots of other things down there, the kind you city people like to get, weeds, we call 'em."

"Oh, may we go?" Molly appealed to her aunt.

"Why yes, I have no objection. It is perfectly safe if it's not wet. I suppose you may encounter a garter snake or two, but you don't mind them, Molly."

"Wait for us, Ellis," said the little girl speeding away for her cousins with whom she returned in a moment. All three were breathlessly eager to start on the voyage of discovery, for with Ellis as leader, into what regions of the unknown might they not penetrate.

Over the hill they went, leaving Cap'n Orrin's mild-eyed cows gazing after them ruminatively as they crept under the fence which separated the pasture from the wild bottom land at the foot of the hill. On the other side arose the ridge along which were ranged cottages looking both coveward and seaward. A winding path led past runty little apple trees and huge boulders, and finally was lost in the tangle of growth overspreading the marsh.

"It is dry enough now," said Mary exultantly, setting her foot on a tuft of dry grass. "Where are the cranberries, Ellis? I want to see those first."

"You are standing right over some," he said smiling.

Mary looked down, but only a mass of weeds and grass greeted her eyes. "I don't see them," she declared.

Ellis laughed, bent over and parted the grass to disclose the delicate wreaths of green, and the pretty smooth cranberries, tucked away in the dry grass.

"As if they were afraid of being picked," remarked Mary. "You will not escape me that way." And down on her knees she went in search of the pink fruit.

Molly meanwhile had gone further afield, and was gathering flowers strange to her, and grasses as lovely as the blossoms. Earlier in the season, she had delighted in the rosy plumes of the hard-hack, the sweet pinky-white clover, the wild partridge peas, but here were new acquaintances which were not to be found outside the marsh, and upon them she pounced eagerly.

It was Polly, however, who discovered the Roseberry family, for Polly, who had spent her life far from cities, had developed her imagination, and could fashion from unpromising material the most fascinating things, and though she, too, picked her share of cranberries, she also gathered a lot of roseberries which she declared were the biggest she had ever seen. These she bore away in triumph, while Molly carried her bouquet with a satisfied air and Mary was quite content with having the largest showing of cranberries. So they returned, well pleased, to the cottage.

"We had the splendidest morning," said Molly, setting her flowers in a large vase. "I never knew that bogs could be so perfectly fine. What are you doing, Polly?"

Polly was seated on the floor industriously picking off her roseberries from the twigs. "Wait and you will see," was her answer. "Do get me some pins, Molly, a whole lot. Aunt Ada will give you some."

Molly's curiosity being aroused, she rushed off to her aunt, returning with a paper of pins. She squatted down on the floor by Polly's side. Mary, meanwhile, had gone to the kitchen to superintend Luella's cooking of the cranberries. Polly stuck a pin in one side of the biggest, fattest roseberry, then another in the other side. "This is Mr. Roseberry," she said, "and these are his two arms. Now his head goes on, and then his legs. I use the pins, you see, because you can bend them so as to make the people sit down." She held up the completed mannikin. "Now I must pick out some berries for Mrs. Roseberry, and then I'll make the children."

"Polly, you are so ridiculous," said Molly in a tone of admiration, "but do you know, they are awfully funny with their little round heads and bodies." Polly worked away industriously till she had completed her entire family. "Now what?" said Molly. "What in the world is that?"

"It is a lamp," returned Polly, deftly fitting a base to her red globe. "Now, if I had some pasteboard I could make some furniture, and we'd play with the Roseberry family this afternoon."

"Dinner is nearly ready now," said Molly, "but it will be fun to play with them this afternoon. We could have two or three families. What can I name mine?" She watched Polly interestedly as she put the last touch to a vase in which she stuck a bit of green.

"You might call them Pod," said Polly. "These are really the seed pods of the wild roses, you know. They are like little apples, aren't they?"

"Oh, I'll call them Appleby," said Molly.

"We know some people named that. Save that tiny one for the baby, Polly."

"The cranberries are perfectly delicious," said Mary, coming in from the kitchen, "but they have