The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Chinese Kitten

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Chinese KittenThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The Chinese KittenAuthor: Edna A. BrownIllustrator: Antoinette InglisRelease date: July 29, 2018 [eBook #57600]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttp://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from imagesgenerously made available by The Internet Archive)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHINESE KITTEN ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The Chinese KittenAuthor: Edna A. BrownIllustrator: Antoinette InglisRelease date: July 29, 2018 [eBook #57600]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttp://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from imagesgenerously made available by The Internet Archive)

Title: The Chinese Kitten

Author: Edna A. BrownIllustrator: Antoinette Inglis

Author: Edna A. Brown

Illustrator: Antoinette Inglis

Release date: July 29, 2018 [eBook #57600]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttp://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from imagesgenerously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHINESE KITTEN ***

THE CHINESE KITTEN

BOOKS BYEDNA A. BROWNFICTIONTHAT AFFAIR AT ST. PETER’SJOURNEY’S ENDFOR BOYS AND GIRLSFOUR GORDONSUNCLE DAVID’S BOYSWHEN MAX CAMEARNOLD’S LITTLE BROTHERARCHER AND THE “PROPHET”THE SPANISH CHESTAT THE BUTTERFLY HOUSERAINBOW ISLANDROBIN HOLLOWFOR YOUNGER READERSTHE SILVER BEARTHE CHINESE KITTENWHISTLING ROCKTHREE GATESPOLLY’S SHOPLOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON

BOOKS BYEDNA A. BROWN

FICTION

FOR BOYS AND GIRLS

FOR YOUNGER READERS

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON

Wrapped in bright red paper so she could not fail to see it, was a small box, tied with a white ribbon—Page 89.

Wrapped in bright red paper so she could not fail to see it, was a small box, tied with a white ribbon—Page 89.

Illustrated title page imageTHECHINESE KITTENBYEDNA A BROWNILLUSTRATED BYANTOINETTE INGLISBOSTONLOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.

THECHINESE KITTEN

BYEDNA A BROWN

ILLUSTRATED BYANTOINETTE INGLIS

BOSTONLOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.

Copyright, 1922,By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.

All Rights Reserved

The Chinese Kitten

Printed in U. S. A.

To Muff, the Dearest Kitten

“I think,” said Lucy Merrill in a whisper to her sister Dora, “that Uncle Dan has a surprise for us.”

Dora was industriously setting the table for supper. Lucy, at the kitchen dresser, was peeling peaches. Lucy had on a big apron belonging to her mother, and it covered both her and the stool on which she sat. Dora wore a pink apron over her checked pink-and-white dress, and Dora’s apron was just like the big one, only the right size.

Lucy owned a proper-sized apron also, but Lucy had been unlucky enough to upset the blueing bottle when she took a dish from thekitchen closet. Her apron wasn’t hurt a bit, but Mrs. Merrill had rinsed it out and now it was flapping on the line in the back yard. The closet floor was bluer than the apron and not so easy to wash.

“What makes you think there is a surprise?” asked Dora, standing back from the table to see whether she had remembered everything that anybody could use during supper. No, she had forgotten the pulverized sugar for the peaches.

“Because,” said Lucy, “he keeps following Mother everywhere she goes, and I know he is teasing her to do something. I heard him say something about the beach.”

Dora stopped in the pantry doorway, her eyes big and blue. “Do you think we can be going to the beach?” she asked eagerly.

“My, I hope so!” said Lucy. “We haven’t been away this summer. And Fathersaid last night that the press was going to shut down for the week after Labor Day.”

Dora looked out of the window across the street at the low brick building where Father Merrill worked in the printing office.

“We had better not ask too many questions,” she said wisely. “Perhaps Uncle Dan is going to take us to White Beach for a day. But we did go to the vacation school, Lucy, and that was a great deal of fun.”

“It was,” agreed Lucy. “And it cost a dollar a week. But just one day at the beach would be lovely. I wish the Sunday-school picnic had gone there.”

Dora didn’t agree with Lucy. That annual picnic had been held at World’s End Pond. Even the salt water could not be nicer than that place.

Just as Lucy finished the last peach, Mrs. Merrill came in. Dora brought the sugar-bowlfrom the pantry and looked hard at her mother. Sometimes it was possible to tell by Mother’s face how she felt about things.

Mrs. Merrill did not seem disturbed, but neither did she look as though she was thinking of anything especially pleasant. She put the rest of the supper on the table and told Lucy to call her father and Uncle Dan.

It was Uncle Dan who told the secret. Right in the middle of supper he turned to his sister.

“You know, Molly,” he began, “Jack says I may have his tent and we should need only one.”

“Dan!” said Mother Merrill, and everybody was still. The children looked at Uncle Dan. Then Father Merrill laughed.

“A tent!” shrieked Lucy. Dora jumped right out of her chair and ran around the table to her uncle.

“Are we going, too?” she asked quite breathlessly. “Can I sleep in a tent? I never did, you know.”

Mr. Merrill laughed again, and this time Dan laughed with him.

“You’ve done it now, Dan,” said his sister. “You may as well tell them.”

But Uncle Dan didn’t explain. “Oh, Molly, then youwillgo?” he asked as eagerly as the little girls.

“I suppose I shall have to,” said Mrs. Merrill, but she didn’t look as though she would find it very hard work.

“What is it? What is it?” Dora was asking with her arms around her young uncle’s neck.

“Quit choking me,” said Dan. “Go back and eat your supper.”

Dora gave him one last hard hug before returning to her chair. “I know it is nice,” shesaid. “But is it the beach, Uncle Dan, and are we to sleep in a tent?”

“Maybe,” said Dan.

“The press is going to shut down for a week,” said Mrs. Merrill, “and Dan can get off, too. He wants to go over to White Beach. There’s a little shack we can have for not much money, but it has only two rooms. Dan thinks he can bunk on the porch. He wants Olive Gates to go with us, and she and you children would have to sleep in the tent.”

“I wouldn’t be scared if Olive was with us,” said Lucy. Dora was too happy to say anything at all. Her eyes shone and looked bluer than ever. When one is only eight, there are a great many important things in life. To go to the beach and to sleep in a tent seemed almost too good to be true.

“Alice Harper is at the beach this summer, but she sleeps in a house,” said Lucy. Nobodywas listening. Dan and Mr. Merrill were both talking, and it was plain that they wanted to go just as much as the children did.

“What shall we do with Timmy?” asked Dora, a sudden cloud coming over her face. It would never do to leave the tiger-striped pussy to take care of himself for a week. “Can he go with us?”

“No,” said Mrs. Merrill. “He would be scared to death, if he didn’t run away entirely.”

Dora looked so distressed that Mr. Merrill could not stand it. “We’ll plan for Timmy,” he said kindly. “I never did think much of people who go off for a vacation and leave their cats to take care of themselves. We will leave the key of the house with Jim Baker, and ask his little girl to come over twice a day to feed Timmy and to let him into the kitchen every night if he wants to sleep inside. But these nice nights, Timmy may prefer to stay out.”

Dora’s face looked bright again. Of course she could not enjoy the beach if Timmy were not cared for. He was used to being petted and fed regularly. Now there was not a cloud in her sky.

Uncle Dan was as pleased as the little girls. He talked much more than usual during supper, and after it was over and the dishes were being washed, he came to where his sister was mixing bread.

“All right for me to ask Olive?” he inquired.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Merrill, smiling a little. “Tell her we all want her to go with us.”

Dan was off in a hurry, but before he went he gave his sister an awkward hug.

Never were dishes done with such speed! Mrs. Merrill looked at them suspiciously but did not say a word. Lucy had washed them properly and Dora had wiped them as dry ascould be, even though they worked so fast. And yet neither of them knew why they were hurrying. They were not to go to the beach for three days, not until Saturday.

There was plenty to do between then and the end of the week. First, they had to decide what clothes to take, and were surprised to find that Mother did not think as they did about the dresses. She came and looked at them when Lucy and Dora had laid them out on their bed.

“You won’t need your good clothes,” she said. “Those must be kept for school. You will be playing on the beach all day, and not need to be dressed up. When we go over, you will have on one good dress apiece, and that is enough.”

Lucy and Dora were disappointed. They thought that people who went away on a vacation should takealltheir best clothes.

“But not people who live in tents,” said Mrs. Merrill. “That makes a great difference. We are only going to camp, you know.”

“But I may take Arcturus?” Dora begged, bringing from her bureau the little silver bear on her neck-chain, the bear which had been named for a star. “Arcturus does really need sea air, Mother.”

“He looks as though he were pining away,” said Mrs. Merrill, but she said that on the way over Dora might wear the necklace.

After Mother had edited that collection of clothes, Lucy and Dora packed them very easily into one suit-case. When they considered that this was to be a camping-trip, it was fun to see how much one could get on without.

Then there was the question of food. Mother made a great many cookies, both of sugar and molasses, and shut them into tin boxes. She also made some cake.

On Friday a pleasant thing happened. The man who owned the printing-press where Mr. Merrill was foreman, said that he would have all their things taken over to the beach in the delivery truck belonging to the press. There would be room on the driver’s seat for Mr. and Mrs. Merrill. The little girls could sit on the soft baggage in the back of the truck.

This made it very easy to take whatever they wished. Mrs. Merrill wrapped up some more blankets and made some more cake. She also filled a basket with apples.

Though they were expecting to find it great fun, Lucy and Dora did not ride on the back of the truck. Jack Simmons, who lent Uncle Dan his tent, had a little Ford car. He offered to take Olive and Uncle Dan and the two children. He would stay and help Uncle Dan pitch the tent.

It was important to have a pleasant day onSaturday. All Friday afternoon, while they were doing the last things, Lucy and Dora kept looking at the sky. Their looking did not seem to make any difference, for it did not become more blue, nor any less so, no matter how hard they gazed.

One of the very last things was to go to the Public Library and choose some books to take with them. For, as Mrs. Merrill said, it might rain at the beach, and then they would be glad of something to read.

The children did not wish to think of rain, but they chose the library books with great care. Lucy decided to take “What Katy Did,” but Dora could not find any book which seemed suited to so important an occasion. Finally she asked the librarian, Miss Perkins, to choose one for her.

When Miss Perkins knew that the story must last a week and was to be read at thebeach, she agreed that no ordinary book would do. She went to a shelf in the back of the library and brought Dora the “Story of Doctor Dolittle.”

“You will like this book very much, Dora,” she said. “And I think your Uncle Dan will like it, too. It is a new book, just put into the library, so you will take very good care of it, won’t you?”

“Oh, I will!” said Dora, who had caught sight of the funny pictures in the text. “I will be very careful of it, Miss Perkins.”

“And is Arcturus going to the beach with you?” asked Miss Perkins as she slipped “Doctor Dolittle” into an envelope for safe traveling.

Dora explained that Arcturus would benefit from sea air, and Miss Perkins at once said that it would do him good.

The house where the Merrills lived in Westmore was a brown cottage, but it seemed large and like a palace when the children saw the shack at the beach. Still, they liked the shack very much.

The front room had a couch and chairs, and a square table which could be used for eating. There was one wee bedroom and the smallest kitchen ever seen. That kitchen was hardly so large as a good-sized cupboard. Mrs. Merrill could stand in its centre and reach everything on all four walls. It contained a little sink and an oil stove and some dishes,—not a great many dishes, but that made fewer to wash.

The shack stood on a hard sandy ridge, not near any other house. Behind, the sand slopedto a road where automobiles were always passing. In front there was sand that slid around under foot, and then a broad hard beach and the wonderful ocean. When the children came on that sunny Saturday, for it was sunny in spite of all their watching the sky, the sea was a deep blue, with white fringes on the shore, where the waves ran up and then slid back again. The sand looked grayish-green, but when the water touched it, it turned shiny.

Dora could not take her eyes off the ocean. She forgot that she had wished to see Uncle Dan and Jack Simmons put up the tent. They pitched it near the shack, on the south side, and drove the poles and the pegs in just as hard as they could hammer them, so that the wind would not loosen the ropes.

When the tent was up, Dora and Lucy went inside. They pulled up all the beach peas growing in the enclosed space, so there wasonly a floor of warm dry sand, soft and fine. Mrs. Merrill had brought on the truck some rag rugs. These were spread on the clean sand and the legs of the cots put on the rugs. If this were not done, a cot might tumble down when somebody was asleep on it.

Between the tent poles Uncle Dan stretched a rope. This was for Olive and the little girls to hang their clothes over. There was not much room left when the three cots had been set up and a chair brought from the house to hold a wash-bowl and pitcher, but Lucy and Dora thought it was beautiful.

“We will keep our suit-cases under the beds,” said Olive. “And we must be careful not to lose little things in this sand.”

It took only a few minutes to get settled in the tent. Lucy and Dora put on some old rompers they had brought for bathing dresses. Olive put on her pretty blue suit and tied ablue handkerchief around her hair. Dora thought she looked extremely nice. She decided that when she was twenty, like Olive, she would have a blue jersey bathing suit. But meantime she liked her rompers very well.

Such a wonderful beach that was! There were not many shells to pick up, but a great many interesting pebbles. Almost immediately the children found a strange creature, shaped like a horse’s hoof, but transparent and with a long, sharp tail. It seemed quite dead and Dora was glad that it was. She really would not like to meet it strolling down the beach. Olive laughed and said that it was a horseshoe crab and would not do her any harm.

Quite soon, Father and Mother Merrill and Uncle Dan came out, dressed to go into the sea. Lucy and Dora waded in to their waists, squealing because the water was so cold. Butin just a few minutes it did not seem cold at all, and they wanted to stay in all day.

Mother would not let them. Much sooner than they wished, she told them to go out and dress.

“It won’t do to stay too long the first time,” she said. “Put on your old ginghams and you may go barefooted and wade all you like, but you have been in the water long enough for to-day.”

It seemed hard to come out when Uncle Dan and Olive were still jumping waves and even diving through them, but it would be fun to go without shoes or stockings and to run into the edge of the water whenever they wished. Besides, Mother herself came out when they did.

Lucy and Dora dressed quickly. They hung their wet clothes on a line which Mother stretched from the corner of the shack to therear tent pole. Something was cooking on the oil stove which smelled very good.

“When will dinner be ready?” asked Lucy. “I am as hungry as can be.”

“It will be ready before the others are dressed,” said her mother. “I wish they would come out.”

Strange to say, Uncle Dan was willing to leave the ocean before Olive. Father Merrill grew cold and waded ashore, but Olive did not look cold at all. It was Uncle Dan who seemed shivery and whose lips turned blue. Olive ran into the tent and presently threw out her suit. Dora hung it on the line, after brushing off what sand she could manage.

What a funny dinner that was! Nobody had more than one spoon, and some of the spoons were not a size any one would choose to eat with. There were just forks enough togo around and Lucy and Dora had to share a knife. But this was only the more sport.

Olive’s hair was wet and tied with a ribbon, so she looked like a little girl with it hanging down her back. There were not chairs for everybody, and Uncle Dan sat on an old crate which kept cracking and acting as though it were going to break and let him down on the floor. But Dan didn’t care if it did.

“Alice Palmer lives in a house somewhere at this beach,” said Lucy contentedly. “It is much more fun to camp.”

After dinner Mrs. Merrill told them all to go down on the beach and she would wash the dishes.

“We will do nothing of the kind,” said Olive. “You got dinner alone and I shall wash the dishes myself and the children will wipe them. You will not be allowed in the kitchen, Molly Merrill, and indeed, there is notroom for anybody but Lucy and Dora and me.”

“Well!” said Mrs. Merrill, and she put on her hat and went down to the edge of the water with Father Merrill.

There was no can for the garbage, so Olive gave the dish to Uncle Dan and told him to take it down the beach away from all the houses and dig a hole and bury it.

“What for?” asked Dan. “Why not throw it out for the gulls to eat?”

Olive said he was not to do this. The gulls might not eat it immediately and the flies would collect and it would be unpleasant for people who were passing. It must be buried, and quite deep at that.

Lucy and Dora were amused to see Uncle Dan go off to bury the garbage just as Olive said. But she looked so pretty with her wavy hair tied back with the blue ribbon that itwas no wonder Uncle Dan did what he was told.

For dinner, they had used every dish in the shack, except one big and very black kettle, but even then it did not take long to wash them. Just for fun, Lucy and Dora counted as they wiped. There were precisely forty-three dishes, and that included all the spoons and knives and forks.

“Now,” said Olive as they finished, “don’t you think it would be nice to have sandwiches for supper and eat them on the beach?”

Lucy and Dora both thought it would be an excellent plan.

“Then let’s go and ask your mother,” said Olive. “Because if she is willing, we will make the sandwiches right now, and then we shall not have anything to do for supper except eat it.”

Olive and the little girls ran a race to seewhich would first reach Mrs. Merrill. Lucy won, because her legs were longer than Dora’s and, anyway, Dora wasn’t trying very hard to beat Olive.

Mrs. Merrill approved of the sandwiches. She said that Olive might plan supper exactly as she liked. So they ran back to the shack.

By this time Uncle Dan had buried the garbage and he helped make the sandwiches. Some were filled with peanut butter and some with orange marmalade. Olive also boiled six eggs, one for each. She wrapped the sandwiches in waxed paper, and put them in a basket covered with a damp cloth. She put in the eggs and the salt and the pepper, and a loaf of cake and a knife to cut it with. She put in some peaches and some paper napkins.

“Our supper is ready,” she announced. “All we have to do is to come for the basket when we want to eat.”

Uncle Dan wanted to walk up the beach to see the life-saving station. Olive’s hair was dry now, so she twisted it up and pinned on a pretty hat made of blue silk ribbon. They invited the little girls to go, but both preferred to play in the sand.

Lucy took a big spoon from the kitchen to dig a well, but Dora planned to collect shiny white and gray-green pebbles and make a house for herself. This she did by outlining the walls with pebbles and leaving spaces for doors and windows. The beach was so wide that there was room for a large house. Quite soon Lucy came and began to make herself a house next door to Dora’s.

To build the house took a long time, but just as it was finished, Dora had a visitor. The tide was coming, and the first she knew, old Father Ocean ran right in through her front door without even so much as knocking! He did not stay, but ran promptly out again, leaving wet marks all over the front hall of Dora’s new house.

Old father ocean ran right in through the front door—Page 34.

Old father ocean ran right in through the front door—Page 34.

Dora did not say anything then, but the next time a big wave rushed up, the water came into her parlor and curled about her bare toes.

“I shall have to move,” she said to Lucy.

“Or go away until to-morrow,” suggested Lucy. “Look! How low the sun is.”

Wherehadthat afternoon gone? It did not seem as though they had been playing more than a few minutes. But the sea was growing gray instead of blue, and the sun struck long level lines through the air. Up by the shack Father and Mother were enjoying themselves; Mother sitting quite idle, just looking at the water; Father lying on his back in the sand. Away down the beach Olive and Uncle Dan were coming. It must be time for that picnic supper.

Lucy and Dora thought it was great fun to go to bed in the tent. They were even willing to undress at their usual hour and not tease to be out on the moonlit beach.

The only place to put their clothes was over the rope Uncle Dan had stretched between the poles. They hung them there, and the clothes immediately slid into a heap in the middle of the rope. Dora could not make hers stay neatly at one end.

Olive did not go to bed with the children. She and Uncle Dan took the trolley car which ran along the road behind the shack and went to another beach where there was a Saturday night dance. Lucy and Dora did not mind.The window of the room where Father and Mother were to sleep was close at the end of the tent.

After Mother had tucked them into their cots, Lucy went quickly to sleep but Dora lay with eyes wide open. Because of the moon the tent was bright, and through its open flaps she could see the waves breaking lazily on the shore, and hear the surge of the water. Across from the moon came a path of light.

For quite a long time Dora watched the sparkles and then suddenly she began to think about bears, not tiny silver bears like Arcturus, but real ones, full-sized and covered with hair. This was not a pleasant thought.

Dora knew there were no bears anywhere near White Beach. Still, it seemed possible that onemightwalk into that open tent. And then she heard a rustle outside.

Dora gave a little gasp. At first, shethought she would call Mother, but she remembered that she had wanted to sleep in the tent and that doing so was a part of camping. To be sure, she had not expected that Lucy would be asleep when she wasn’t.

After that first gasp, Dora decided not to scream. She lay still, and listened hard. In a minute, a cricket began to chirp.

When she heard the cricket, Dora felt much better. It surely would not be chirping if a bear were walking round the tent. It would not dare to make any noise. But she thought it would be comforting to have Arcturus for a bed-fellow.

The suit-case was under Lucy’s cot, so Dora got up and pulled it into the moonlight. Without any trouble she found the silver bear on his slender chain and snapped it about her neck. Then she went back to bed and did not think any longer about real bears.

Instead, she thought of fairies and of a poem she had once read in a library book. She tried hard to remember how it went.

“When the moon shines bright on the pebbly beachAnd the sea is half-asleep;Heaving, heaving, evermore,And the surf falls lazily along the shore,And the whispering ripples creep.Then the wet little fairies come out of the wavesAnd dance in the light of the moon.With gossamer dresses of white sea-foam,Brown seaweed sash and coral comb,And spottled shells for shoon.”

“When the moon shines bright on the pebbly beachAnd the sea is half-asleep;Heaving, heaving, evermore,And the surf falls lazily along the shore,And the whispering ripples creep.Then the wet little fairies come out of the wavesAnd dance in the light of the moon.With gossamer dresses of white sea-foam,Brown seaweed sash and coral comb,And spottled shells for shoon.”

“When the moon shines bright on the pebbly beachAnd the sea is half-asleep;Heaving, heaving, evermore,And the surf falls lazily along the shore,And the whispering ripples creep.Then the wet little fairies come out of the wavesAnd dance in the light of the moon.With gossamer dresses of white sea-foam,Brown seaweed sash and coral comb,And spottled shells for shoon.”

“When the moon shines bright on the pebbly beach

And the sea is half-asleep;

Heaving, heaving, evermore,

And the surf falls lazily along the shore,

And the whispering ripples creep.

Then the wet little fairies come out of the waves

And dance in the light of the moon.

With gossamer dresses of white sea-foam,

Brown seaweed sash and coral comb,

And spottled shells for shoon.”

While Dora was thinking about the poetry, she watched the edge of the sea and thought she saw one fairy creep out and shake the spray from its wings. She wasn’t quite sure, for it might have been a sandpiper. When Olive came in softly, about midnight, Dora was as sound asleep as Lucy.

Next morning, the sun touched Dora’s cot rather than either of the others, just as themoon had done. When she opened her eyes, the sun was just above the horizon, its lower rim not clear from the water. Never before had she seen it so tremendous! It looked a perfect elephant of a sun.

A soft little breeze came into the tent, blowing straight from sea. Sandpipers really were running along the edge of the foam and the beach was washed hard and smooth. Not a trace was left of Dora’s house except a huddle of the larger pebbles. Every footmark was gone. A perfectly new and fresh playground lay before them.

Just then Lucy woke and she and Dora looked at the sunrise sky and talked in whispers because Olive was still asleep. Her hand was tucked under one cheek, and a long braid of hair lay across her pillow.

They decided to get up and dress very quietly. It was easy to be quiet because thesand under foot muffled every step, and easy to be quick because they had very few clothes to put on.

Just as they were dressed, Lucy stopped short. “O my!” she said in a whisper, and stood on one foot.

Twisted about her bare toes was a little silver chain.

Dora looked at it. Then she put her hand to her neck. Arcturus and his leash were gone. That was her silver chain tangled in Lucy’s toes, but where was the bear? She gave a frightened sob, which woke Olive.

Olive sat up in her cot and looked from one to the other. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

Between sobs, Dora explained that she had felt lonely after Lucy went to sleep and had taken Arcturus into bed with her. When she awoke, she never thought of him. There was the chain, but where was Arcturus?

Olive got up at once. She put on her kimono and her slippers. Then she took the top blanket from her bed and spread it carefully on the sand. Next, she took Dora’s blankets and shook them carefully over hers. If Arcturus were hiding in the bed, he must come out. But he did not.

Olive shook Dora’s pillow and her mattress and her nightdress, and felt the pockets of her dress and looked in the suit-case. She emptied the suit-case and shook every garment. Trying not to cry, Dora watched Olive and Lucy helped her. But Arcturus was not anywhere.

“I am afraid he is in the sand,” said Olive. “Show me just where you have walked since you got up.”

“I have been right by my cot except when I washed myself,” choked Dora.

Olive felt all about in the sand by Dora’s bed and sifted it through her fingers. Thenshe sat back against the cot, for she really did not know what else to do. She was very sorry for Dora, and Dora knew it. She crept into Olive’s arms and cried softly, so as not to wake the people in the shack.

Arcturus had certainly run away, but after her cry Dora felt better. Lucy and Olive both were hugging her tightly and though it was hard to lose her dear bear, she still had those who loved her.

“Perhaps we shall find him yet,” said Olive. “Let’s think so, Dora, and don’t let it spoil your nice time at the beach. Perhaps Dan will know something more to do. Perhaps Arcturus has just gone to be a sand-bear for a little while.”

At this Dora smiled through her tears. She kissed Olive. Of course it would not be right to spoil things by being sad, and she would hope for the best. There might be a worsefate for Arcturus than being a jolly little sand-bear.

So they all got up from the rag rugs and Lucy picked up Olive’s pretty rose-trimmed hat which had slipped from the nail where she tried to hang it.

“You might put that under my cot, Lucy,” said Olive. “It won’t stick on that nail, and I don’t believe I shall wear it here. I like my ribbon one better for the beach.”

Lucy tucked the hat under Olive’s bed and then she and Dora went down on the shore. Olive said that she knew it would be hard for Dora to speak about Arcturus, so she would do it for her. She would ask the others not to say very much about him, only to look for him everywhere they went.

This made it easier for Dora to come to breakfast. She could even smile when they all called her Theodora. Usually, onlyMother remembered that on Sundays she wished to have her whole name used. This morning even Uncle Dan thought about it.

The tide was going out, and away to the right were some shining mud-flats. Uncle Dan and Olive said they were going to dig clams and Lucy and Dora went with them to pick up the clams after they were dug. There was only one clam-fork, but Mr. Merrill found an old spade which he thought he could use. They all put on their bathing suits.

When Dora reached the clam-flat, she did not like it very well. She had not known that clams chose to live in such queer mud. It seemed much dirtier than ordinary wet earth, and after Dora and Lucy had sunk into it far above their ankles, they told Olive that they would let her pick up the clams. If she needed help, she might call, and they would come, butit did not look as though three people would be needed to collect clams for Father and Uncle Dan.

Olive thought she could manage all the clams, so Lucy and Dora went back to the hard beach and made some more houses. Lucy’s had a great many large rooms and long halls with plenty of windows. Dora made a small one which was just like the brown cottage she lived in on Main Street.

Father and Uncle Dan heard what Olive and the children were saying about the clams, and so they dug very hard and very fast. The clams were not so many that Olive needed help to pick them up, but there were plenty for a chowder and for steaming, which was much more than either she or Mrs. Merrill had expected. They decided to have the steamed clams for dinner and to make the chowder for supper.

When the clams were dug, Mr. Merrill carried the basket home and Lucy and Dora saw Uncle Dan and Olive coming up the beach. Olive was carrying a heavy shovel and Uncle Dan had a queer-looking thing over his shoulder. Even when he came up to the shack the children did not know what the thing could be. It was a large oblong frame of wood, with a wire screen bottom, and was tilted up on one end.

“We are going to look for Arcturus,” said Olive, as Uncle Dan dumped the frame beside the tent. “Some men have been getting gravel from the ridge and using this. We have borrowed it for a little while.”

Neither Lucy nor Dora could guess how this frame was to help find the silver bear. Uncle Dan and Olive took out of the tent the three cots and the single chair. Olive shook each rag rug carefully.

Then Uncle Dan carried the frame into the tent. He set it up and lifted a shovelful of sand and threw it against the screen bottom. All the sand went straight through, but the pebbles, even some smaller than Arcturus, fell back in a pile. It would not be possible for Arcturus to go through that wire screening.

Uncle Dan took every single bit of loose sand from the space covered by the tent, and threw it against the screen. Olive and Lucy and Dora watched the pebbles which fell back. Arcturus could not escape three pairs of eyes. But finally there was no more loose sand, only a kind of stiff dry clay, and no Arcturus.

Dora tried hard not to cry but she felt much grieved. It did not seem possible that the bear could evade a search like that. She managed to thank Uncle Dan, who was as sorry as Olive that it had been of no use. They smoothed the sand floor and Uncle Dan returned the screenand the shovel. No, there was nothing left but to think of Arcturus as being a sand-bear now, enjoying himself by the sea.

Then they went swimming, and how Uncle Dan and Father Merrill did laugh at Olive. Olive said that it was Sunday morning and that she usually went to church instead of into the ocean. She should take with her a cake of salt-water soap and call it a bath. She wasn’t sure it was quite right to go swimming just for fun. She should feel more comfortable about it if she took the soap.

Mrs. Merrill did not laugh at Olive. She said she was glad that Olive liked to keep Sunday different from other days.

During all that week at White Beach it rained only a part of one afternoon. Both “Doctor Dolittle” and “Katy” stayed shut into Mother’s suit-case. After the mishap to Arcturus, nothing precious was trusted in the tent. Even on the day the rain fell, the air was so warm and soft that Lucy and Dora played on the shore just the same and thought the sprinkles only the more fun.

Every day people passed up and down the beach. Sometimes they were children who would stop and help Lucy and Dora build a sand fort or run races with them in the edge of the water. Sometimes they had a collection of pebbles to be admired, or a sea-urchin picked up in the sand. These were considered greattreasures. Some were worn smooth by the waves, and some—but these were fewer—still had long green spines sticking to their shells.

Except for the friendly children, Lucy and Dora paid very little attention to the passers-by. They could see as many people as they wished in Westmore, but in Westmore there were no gulls and no beach and no sea.

One afternoon Dora did look up when a gentleman on horseback came down the shore. The horse was the color of a bright chestnut and his hair reflected the sun. Somebody must have brushed that horse extremely hard to make him so shiny.

Dora looked at the horse and Lucy looked at the rider and presently Lucy smiled a little.

The gentleman glanced at the children and smiled also. “Aren’t you Mr. Merrill’s little girls?” he asked.

At this Dora looked up. It was AliceHarper’s father. They often saw him in church.

Mr. Harper made the pretty horse stop. He asked Lucy where they were staying. He looked at the shack and at the tent beside it.

“And do you sleep in the tent?” he asked. Lucy explained that they did.

“Alice has wanted to sleep in one this summer, but her mother wasn’t willing. I know it is great fun. I will tell Alice that you are here and I think she will be down to see you. Our house is the other side of the life-saving station.”

Mr. Harper and the shiny horse went on along the beach. Dora watched for some time. The horse walked down by the water where the sand was hard, but whenever a wave came curling in, he danced up the beach. Evidently he did not like to get his feet wet.

When the children went up to supper they told Mrs. Merrill about their visitor.

“He had a very pretty horse. It shone like a bottle,” said Dora.

“Do you think Alice will come to see us?” asked Lucy.

“I wouldn’t set my heart on it,” said Mrs. Merrill.

“Mrs. Harper is always very nice to everybody in the church,” said Olive, who was trying to make toast over the oil stove and was not succeeding very well.

“I know she is,” agreed Mrs. Merrill. “But church isn’t the beach, and people who live in big houses don’t always want to know people who live in small ones.”

Olive burned a slice of bread and gave a little moan over it, so Dora forgot to ask just what Mother meant. She felt quite sure that Alice would come. Of course, her fathermight forget to tell her. Fathers did sometimes forget very important things, like posting letters and giving messages and bringing home yeast-cakes.

Lucy also thought that Alice would come, and they were not disappointed. The very next afternoon, which was Friday, while they were playing on the beach, Alice came, and Mrs. Harper with her. Alice stopped with the children and Mrs. Harper went straight to the shack to speak with Mrs. Merrill and Olive. Father and Uncle Dan had gone fishing.

Alice asked a great many questions. She wished to know how long they had been there, how long they were going to stay, and why they had not been to see her.

It was easy to answer the first question and the second answered itself, because school began the next Monday and the printing-pressstarted work again, but the third question was not so easy.

“We did not know where your house was,” said Lucy at last.

“You could have asked,” said Alice. “There are no girls my age anywhere near me. I have had nobody to play with all summer but babies and boys. The babies are very well for a time, but they can’t do much but dig holes in the sand, and I don’t like the boys at all. They do horrible things, like putting crabs in shoes and dead fish in playhouses.”

“Girls are nicer to play with,” said Lucy. “Would you like to make a pebble house, Alice, or would you like to wade?”

“I would like to go into your tent,” said Alice eagerly.

The children took Alice up to the tent, which she admired very much. “What funit must be!” she said. “I wish I could sleep here with you just one night.”

Lucy and Dora began to wonder if this could be planned. It did not seem easy, for there was not room for another cot, even if there were one to bring from the house. It would be hard to find space for even a doll’s bed. As it was, Lucy’s doll had to sleep with her. Dora’s Teddy wore a fur coat andhesat up all night. It would not be polite to ask Olive to give Lucy her cot, and there was no place for her to sleep if she did. There seemed no way to make Alice’s wish come true.

When the children came out of the tent, they saw Mrs. Merrill on the porch with her hat on and a coat over her arm.

“Goody!” said Alice. “Mother was going to ask your mother if she didn’t want to go over to the Port in the motor-boat. We are going, too.”

What a pleasant surprise this was! Lucy and Dora thought it very kind of Mrs. Harper. They had half envied Father and Uncle Dan their trip.

Everybody walked up the beach beyond the life-saving station where the boats lay ready to be launched the moment they were needed. Ships need help sometimes as well as people, and these boats were always waiting for a call from sea.

Beyond the station lay a row of pretty houses on a curving strip of land which ran around a big bay. Across, was the town which Alice called the Port.

Mrs. Harper took them up on the porch of her cottage and gave them some lemonade and cookies. She brought out the pitcher herself and Alice brought the glasses. It tasted very good because there was no ice at the shack to keep things cool.

After drinking the lemonade they went down to the boat-house where a man helped them into the motor-boat. Lucy and Dora had been around World’s End Pond in a launch, but this one was much more trim and tidy and went through the water much faster. Its boards were very white and all the brass shone and it plunged right at each wave as though it were going to dive through rather than sit on top.

Dora became very quiet. The foam flew on either side, and the waves were as blue as Mother’s blueing water, but on the whole she liked the pond better than the sea. For one thing, there was not so much of it.

Lucy and Alice went forward in the launch. Alice wanted to sit on the roof of the little cabin. Mrs. Harper said she might if the man at the wheel thought it was safe.

“Safe as lying in a cradle,” said the man,so Lucy and Alice climbed up where they could get all the wind that blew.

“Don’t you want to go with them?” Mrs. Harper asked Dora.

“No, thank you,” said Dora shyly. She was sitting next Olive and presently she cuddled so close that Olive understood and put an arm around her.

Before long the waves grew even larger and some of them broke over the bow of the launch. Alice and Lucy were spattered with spray and both gave little shrieks.

“Don’t you feel well, Dora?” asked Olive in a whisper. “Don’t you want to go to the Port?”

“I’d rather go on land,” said Dora. “Anyland.”

Dora spoke softly but Mrs. Harper heard. “Poor child!” she said. “And I thought she would enjoy a ride.”

Mrs. Harper opened a locker, which was a cupboard under the seat, and took out a big soft shawl. She spread it on the seat and told Dora to lie down.

Dora was extremely glad to feel herself on something flat. She shut her eyes and kept still while Mother and Mrs. Harper wrapped her in the rug. Then Mrs. Harper spoke to the man at the wheel. He turned the launch in a different direction so that the bow did not hit the waves quite so hard.

It seemed a long time to Dora before they were back at the boat-house. The launch had been out only about an hour, but she thought it was the whole afternoon. Alice and Lucy thought it was about ten minutes.

Just as soon as she stepped ashore, Dora began to feel better, and she did not really need the hot soup which Mrs. Harper insisted she should drink. By the time they were homeat the little shack, Dora could hardly believe that she had not enjoyed the trip.

“But would you like to go again in the launch?” asked Olive.

No, Dora would not go so far as to say that. She felt surprised and hurt, that the sea which looked so lovely, could make her feel so disagreeable.

When the fishermen came they brought with them five fish. Four were ordinary plain fish such as the children often saw at the market, but the fifth one, which Uncle Dan had caught, was much longer and broader and looked strange. Dora at once asked Uncle Dan its name.

“I think it is a walrus,” said Dan gravely.

Lucy looked respectfully at the fish but Dora looked at Uncle Dan. Though his face was quite unsmiling, there was a twinkle in his eyes.

“It must be a walrus,” he went on, “because I am a carpenter, you see.”

Lucy didn’t “see” at all, but Dora laughed in delight. Ofcourseit must be a walrus. She remembered the poem perfectly.

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