CHAPTER VIFISHING FOR WEEZY
Weezy’sfall had been to Harry like the rushing of a meteor across the sky. He had seen a swiftly moving mass of gilt and blue dart past him and vanish, and the next thing he knew he was standing alone upon the wharf.
For a moment he was too dazed to move; then he scampered madly to the shore, trailing the sculpin after him.
“Weezy’s tumbled! Weezy’s tumbled into the water,” he shrieked, running toward The Old and New as fast as he could run.
The more direct way was by the one hundred steps which led to the bluff; but Harry never thought of the steps, he toiled aroundby the carriage-road. Twice he tripped, and measured his short length in the sand; but fortunately his screams went on ahead of him, and reached Mrs. Rowe up-stairs in her room.
“Are you hurt, Harry? What is it?” she cried, hastening to the brow of the hill.
“Come, oh, please come!” sobbed the terrified little fellow. “She’s in it. Oh, she’s in it!”
“Who’s in it? In what, Harry?”
“Weezy, Weezy’s in it—in the ocean! I didn’t push her in!”
“Where, Harry? Show me.”
“She tumbled in, she tumbled in her own self.”
Mrs. Rowe had seized the child’s hand, and was dragging him back to the beach. Behind him still trailed the forgotten sculpin, now dead as a door-nail.
“Help! help!” shrieked Mrs. Rowe, as she pressed on.
She was trembling all over. She dared not ask another question. A man hauling seaweed from the shore left his horses standing in the middle of the highway, and turned back with her.
Ah, the long, long hill! Should they never, never reach the foot of it? Midway Harry tripped again and fell.
Mrs. Rowe rushed forward alone. She had caught a glimpse of a small object floating near the beach. It was Weezy’s cap riding the waves like a little skiff. Yes, certainly it was Weezy’s cap,—the blue cap with gilt bands; but, alas! alas! where was the little girl who so lately had worn it? Where, oh, where was Weezy herself?
Not to pain you needlessly, my little readers, I will tell you in confidence that Weezy was out of the water, safe and well. But how could poor Mrs. Rowe know this? She only knew that her darling was not withthe four other children now returning from Rocky Cove, and she called distractedly to Harry,—
“Show me just where Weezy fell in.”
“Hoff there,”—he pointed at random along the pier,—“hoff there, by the post.”
“Which post, my boy?” cried the ranchman. “There are forty or fifty posts.”
Harry grew confused; he could not answer.
“I’ll row out a piece,” said the man, hurriedly untying a punt moored to the beach.
“Why didn’t I call Edward! Oh, if Edward were here!” moaned Mrs. Rowe, rushing upon the wharf, and peering over the side.
“There isn’t any kelp to hinder my seeing to the bottom, ma’am,” cried the ranchman from the boat below.
Mrs. Rowe wrung her hands. “O Weezy, Weezy, my dear little daughter!”
“If I only knew just where she slipped in, I’d dive for her,” called the pitying voice from beneath. “I’d get her for you if I could, ma’am.”
Meanwhile little Miss Weezy, the unconscious cause of all this anguish and commotion, lay half asleep upon the neighboring bluff behind some tall tufts of alfalfa.
She had scrambled out of the ocean almost as quickly as she had fallen in. Then she had started to run home, but, at the top of the one hundred steps, had become giddy and sunk down to rest. Oh, she was so tired, so very, very tired! And it was so nice and warm on the bluff. To go on to The Old and New seemed too great an effort; it was easier to lie still in the sunshine. Besides, didn’t she want to dry her wet clothes? What would mamma say to her because she had spoiled her pretty dress? By and by she opened her eyesand blinked at the wharf below. She saw her mother rushing up and down the planks, she saw the teamster pushing off from shore.
“Wonder what makes mamma act so funny? Wonder what that man’s doing with the boat?” she thought drowsily. But she was too languid really to care; and in the act of wondering again closed her eyes.
She did not see Kirke race to the pier to learn what was the matter; she did not hear her mamma cry,—
“Oh, Kirke, Kirke, your little sister’s in the ocean!”
But when Kirke took in the full meaning of his mother’s words and shouted, half beside himself,—
“O Molly, O Paul, Weezy’s drowning! Weezy’s drowning in the ocean!” then Weezy sprang to her feet wide awake,—
“O Kirke Rowe, that’s a fib, that’s a dreadful fib!” she cried, whirling about, andwaving her arms like an excited windmill. “I’m not drowned one bit! Why, see me, here I am, right here!”
I wish you could have heard the shout that answered her from the shore. I wish you could have seen the sudden rush from the wharf, and the dash up those wooden steps!
Regardless of salt and sand, Mrs. Rowe clasped her dripping child to her breast, and then passed her about like some choice relic to be kissed and adored.
“You did fall in thehoceanthough, Weezy; I saw you!” cried Harry, evidently bent on clearing himself from any suspicion of having lied.
Weezy turned to her mother with a most contrite air,—
“I didn’t mean to, mamma, truly I didn’t! That wiggly old fish jumped at me and knocked me off!”
“Bless my sweet little girlie!” exclaimedMrs. Rowe, taking the child again in her arms, “did you think mamma was going to scold you?”
Weezy looked very happy. In place of the chiding she had expected for losing her cap and soiling her gown, she had received hugs and kisses. The reason for this strange state of things she did not in the least understand; but she knew that she liked it. That she had been in danger of drowning never once occurred to her.
“Walk as fast as you can, darling,” cried her mamma, leading her on toward the boarding-house. “You must have a hot bath and a good rubbing at once, or you’ll take cold.”
“My shoes goquish, quish, every step I take,” complained Weezy, pressing forward with lagging feet.
“Wait, we’ll carry you, Weezy. Kirke and I will make a queen’s chair and carry you,” exclaimed Paul.
The boys bore the child onward“The boys bore the child onward.”Page75
“The boys bore the child onward.”Page75
“The boys bore the child onward.”
Page75
“To be sure we will, little water-soaked girl; why didn’t I think of it?” returned Kirke, wheeling about to clasp hands with his comrade.
Mrs. Rowe lifted Weezy into the seat thus formed, and the boys bore the child onward. The others followed.
“This doesn’t look much like Weezy’s hair, does it, Pauline?” said Molly, wringing the moist locks that straggled down her little sister’s back. “It looks more like seaweed than hair.”
“Or more like wet sewing-silk, Molly. Not a speck of curl in it.”
“You must have gone to the very bottom, Weezy,” said Kirke tremulously, as they neared The Old and New. “How on earth did you manage to paddle out?”
“Oh, when I came up, you know, I just climbed into the punt.”
“The punt! Why, the punt was ever sofar from the shore, Weezy,” interrupted Molly. “I remember ’twas tied by a long rope.”
“Yes, pretty long,” said Weezy.
“Then how did you get from the boat to the beach, Weezy, so far off?” persisted Kirke.
“Oh,thatwas as easy as pie,” said Weezy, highly flattered at finding herself the object of so much interest. “I just took hold of the rope, you see.”
“Do you mean to say, Weezy, that you slid from the bow of the boat into the water, and then worked yourself ashore by that rope?”
“Yes; why not, Kirke? The rope was right there.”
“She has no idea she did anything remarkable,” exclaimed Molly in Kirke’s ear. “Just think what might have happened! We ought to have kept those children in sight every minute.”
Kirke nodded penitently.
“That’s so; but Weezy would have done well enough if Harry hadn’t been there. Why did we bring him?” he whispered. Then aloud, “I can’t imagine now how the little witch got to land. It isn’t as if she had actually learned to swim.”
“Oh, I pinched the rope, and kind of jiggled along,” explained Weezy coolly; “that wasn’t anything.”
“No, of course it wasn’t anything,” said Paul and Pauline in chorus, clapping their hands and laughing.
But the drenched little girl who had performed so grandly on the tight rope was growing more exhausted now with every step she took; and the moment she entered the house was glad to be undressed, and put to bed like a baby.
When it was the hour for the train the other children left her sleeping, and stole off to the station together to meet “Auntie David.”
Harry trudged behind, hugging Weezy’s damp cap, which had been rescued from the billows.
“Little John Bull has nothing to say,” remarked Kirke to Pauline, who walked beside him. “I think he misses Weezy.”
“We all miss her,” responded Pauline, with a glance over her shoulder. “Harry makes up the number five; but he doesn’t take Weezy’s place in the least. Without Weezy we can’t be ‘The Merry Five.’”