Chapter V.
Kate Hallock knew just as well as could be that Mrs. Dobson was going to have something nice for dinner, for when Frank went out to order her home a savory odor followed him. She wished very much to stay, and lingered about the kitchen, half hoping and altogether wishing that Mrs. Dobson would invite her to stay to dinner: but the dear little woman only looked up from her boiling and baking to say—Mrs. Dobson always called Kate “Kittie, my Clover”—
“Now Kittie, my Clover, if you and Frank will come over and stay from five to seven this afternoon, I shall be very glad to go out a little while.”
“Why, Grandma Dobson,” cried Kate, “how that fire is burning your face up; I wouldn’t cook when ’twas so warm, if I were you. Let me turn over that meat, I won’t drop it in the fire.”
“Never mind me, I am used to it,” said Mrs. Dobson, bending over the glowing coals, glad to bury her face anywhere from Kate’s sharp eyes.
“Well, then, if you won’t let me help you, I am going home, and I’ll come before five o’clock, and stay till you get back, too.”
With these words Kate went skipping through the hall and out at the front door. Once outside, herhappiness burst into a positive run. It was too far around by the highway to Hallock Point, besides Kate felt just as every healthy young thing feels at some time on the way through the child-years, that everybody’s highways were not the ways to go in that day, so she would make her own path across the fields.
Pumpkin Delight Lane ran down to the sea, and Hallock Point extended into the sea beyond the coast line. Between the two lay grassy meadows—a depression in the level, up which the old ocean crept twice in the year, and also in great storms; a bit of a wood, beyond which came salt meadow again; and then the uplands, rising to the Point. It seemed a very short cut home to Kate. The bewitching greens that lay rolled in long and wide breadths for her feet to tread had all been prepared by Madame June, the best carpet-maker in the zone. Kate climbed the stone wall opposite Mrs. Dobson’s house, and not a soul saw her disappear into the grass behind it, save Josh, if indeed Josh has a soul.
Kate danced all over. She was so full of the sap of June that she could no more keep quiet than could the buzzing, whirring, nodding, flying things about her. She clapped her hands and cried, “O, my!” as a mad bobolink, on his way to the Wood Asylum, filled her ears with crazy melody.
Kate grew practical as the great, round, purple clover-heads nodded to her out of the tall grass. “Yes, I’ll get you, my beauties,” she cried. “Mother is so fond of dried grasses and things when the fall comes, and it’s just the time and chance to get some.”Presently her small hands were filled to their utmost capacity, and yet she had not half enough. Her apron proved too small before she had crossed a single field, and the first fence surprised her with her gathered-up dress skirt running over with bobbing grasses.
Next came a field of rye. “Rye is real pretty on the walls with fern and oak leaves,” she said, and she took a few heads in advance of the reapers.
Kate trudged on, past and through lot after lot, until she came to the bit of woodland. She went into it. So intent was she in watching to see where a bluebird carried its mouthful of worm, that she stumbled over a dead branch, and fell at the foot of a huge hickory tree.
Gathering up first herself and then her own hat and grasses, she proceeded to arrange them into portable form, while she rested at the foot of the tree.
Now, Josh, having seen Kate go over the wall, watched for her to reappear, but seeing no signs of such an event, after suitable time, the wise dog crossed the street and mounted the wall, looking as knowing and discreet as only Josh can look. He surveyed the scene to his own satisfaction, and then taking Kate’s trail, followed it and came up to her just as she seated herself to rest and fix the grasses under the walnut tree.
“Did him think I was lost?” cried Kate. “Good fellow, good fellow, Josh!” patting him, and very glad of his companionship. When all was ready Kate started for home, laughing at herself as she went, and not in the least surprised at Josh because he barked ather, for, truly, she was a surprising figure to bird or beast, as she emerged from the wood and stood looking at the bewitching green of the salt meadow through which she must pass. Her white apron was small, but she had made the most of it by tying a huge bunch of grasses with the end of either string, thus making a very full and bunched over-skirt at the back, while the bib of apron was made to do duty as grass-holder to its fullest extent. She had taken pains to put the stems all down, and as her bib was wide and stretched across to her shoulders, the grassy fringe stood up to her ears and nearly blinded her. Her hat was also alive with oats, rye, and clover. No wonder that Josh barked when she started, but she did wonder why he kept on barking harder than ever, until she reached the edge of the very bright green grass.
“Dear me! I most wish I hadn’t come this way, Josh,” Kate said, putting her feet in daintily and afraid she should get them wet. If there was one thing that Kate Hallock disliked to do more than every other thing, it was to “change her stockings and shoes in the day-time.”
She picked her way with a good deal of care for awhile; the dog following her and looking with evident interest at her over-skirt and hat. And then, finding that the ground was pretty firm and the sun getting very hot, Kate hurried on. She was about half way across the meadow, when she felt herself on marshy ground. The grass was too deep to see, but she was sure that her feet were wet, and ’twas getting harder and harder to walk, with every step.
“Dear me! what shall I do?” she cried. “Josh! Josh! don’t go! Here, Josh!” and every instant, with every step, Kate Hallock was sinking deeper and deeper into the black mud. Finally she could go no further, for she was fast in the horrid swamp, and, worse than all, every effort that she made to get out only served to get her in deeper still.
“I wonder if anybody ever got stuck here before, and what will become of me?” thought poor Kate, adding consolingly to herself the words spoken aloud, “Anyway, they love me well enough at home to find me before I die, even if I am here.”
As soon as Josh understood the condition of affairs, he began to bark as loud as he could, but there was not a soul near to hear, although Kate could see distinctly the windows of her home. He barked until he was hoarse; then he got as near to Kate as he could and looked at her consolingly and determinedly; and then he gave his bushy tail a wag or two and started for home. The very idea of being left there alone without Josh even, was so utterly horrible to the poor little prisoner, shorter, if not smaller than ever, now that she was one-third engulfed, and sinking still, that it seemed unbearable, and she called frantically to Josh to come back and stay with her.
The bewildered dog turned and taking her dress in his teeth, pulled until it gave way, leaving a fragment of the slight muslin in his mouth.
“You can’t, you cannot pull me out,” cried Kate, and then she remembered the story her mother had told her so often about stopping to think what mightbe done, and she held fast to Josh’s collar while she tried to think what she could do to bring someone to her aid.
“Hold, hold on, Josh!” she said, after a moment. “Now if I only had a pencil and some paper, I might send you home with a note fast to your neck; but I haven’t, and what am I to do? My apron I could spare, but then no one would know by it what’s happened to me. I’ll send my hat. Hold here, Josh”—taking it off and tying it as well as she could, for Josh resisted, on his head.
She then let him go, and the dog bounded across marsh and field for home, springing into Mrs. Dobson’s kitchen just at the moment when, having given Harry Cornwall his dinner, she had taken her chair to eat her own. Kate’s sun hat was still pendant at his neck.
“Why, Josh! you rascal, come here! you naughty dog, you! You’ve run off with Kate’s hat, and left her to go home in the sun.”
Josh could not deny the charge, but he lifted his nose toward the low ceiling and uttered howl after howl in a manner that frightened his mistress exceedingly, for Josh was not “given to howling,” she told Frank a minute later, as she begged him to go and see what it all meant.
“O, Mrs. Dobson, it’s nothing, I know—only one of Kate’s tricks,” said Frank; “but to please you, I’ll go.”
Josh began to prance and leap, and bark with joy, as he followed, with Frank, Kate’s footprints acrossthe dusty road; but when he bounded over the fence, Frank stopped—
“See here, old fellow!” he cried, “I’m not going into that grass to please you; I’ve too much respect for snakes, sir.” And to the dog’s intense disgust, the boy turned back and reëntered the house.
“It’s nothing,” he again assured Mrs. Dobson. “The dog only wanted me to race in the lot with him.”
“The lot!” cried the little woman, running up the stairway to get a good outlook. “You don’t s’pose, do you, that your sister tried to go home ’cross lots?”
“Just like her to do it,” replied Frank, who had followed her up the stairs.
“And got into the swamp-mud,” continued Mrs. Dobson, just as though Frank had not interrupted her, “and sent Josh home with her bonnet on, to let us know?” she finished, all in one breath.
Mrs. Dobson and Frank were already looking across the fields; but the salt meadows, where Kate was prisoned, were hidden from sight by the strip of woodland.
“I might have known better than to look,” said Mrs. Dobson, going down. “You must run up to Mr. Bryan’s, and get someone to go where the dog leads. It’s just noon time, and the men folks’ll be at home.”
During this interval of not many minutes, Josh had been keeping up such a dismal howl out by the front gate that Harry Cornwall had disobeyed orders—gotten out of his bed, pushed up his bandage, and was peeping out of the window to see what it all meant, when he heard Mrs. Dobson and Frank on the stairs.In his effort to hurry back into bed, he overturned a chair with his dinner-dishes on it (Frank, in boy-fashion, having put them upon the chair, instead of the table). The clatter and breakage brought Mrs. Dobson and Frank in a hurry into the room.
“I did it,” cried Harry. “I expect you’ll have to kill me, Mrs. Dobson, unless you let me get well fast, and work and earn enough to buy new dishes. I’m just as sorry as I can be; but the dog made such a fuss, I wanted to see what had happened.”
Harry hid his face under the clothes when he had made his confession, and consequently did not see Mrs. Dobson’s imperious gesture to Frank Hallock, bidding him be gone with haste. She was too intent on thinking of “Kittie, my Clover,” to care for broken crockery just then, and did not notice even that one of her mother’s precious china cups had been cracked.
“Won’t you please forgive me?” pleaded Harry, peering forth cautiously, and watching her as she gathered the pieces.
“For what?”
“Why, for breaking your dishes and being so naughty,” said Harry, in surprise.
“O, I was thinking of the swamps and Katie Hallock,” she said, hastily.
“Yes, I forgive you. Go to sleep now. I sha’n’t open this door again or let anybody come nigh you, in as much as an hour,” and with the words she closed the door. If Harry had peeped out the window two minutes later he would have seen Mrs. Dobson, in an old-fashioned gingham sunbonnet, taking her way asfast as she could, whither Josh led her, through grass and grain, straight for the salt meadow.
As for Master Frank, he had taken his way, whistling as he went, to farmer Bryan’s and told him that he guessed, maybe, his sister Kate was fast in the bog. Having heard the boy’s story, Mr. Bryan, with his “farm hand,” Dick Dawson, started in haste, and so came up to the stone wall just in time to catch a glimpse of the fluttering cape of Grandma Dobson’s sunbonnet on the farther side of the field of rye.
“There she goes, this minute! My! what a hurry she is in—just as though our Kate was a lump of salt or sugar,” exclaimed Frank, jumping cautiously into the grass from the wall, and taking especial care to get between Mr. Bryan and Dick Dawson, because he considered the position one of greater security from snakes.
“Look here, youngster,” replied the sturdy farmer, “let me tell you, it is no laughing affair to get into that black sticking-plaster over yonder. More than one man has, in my day, come near losing his life in the salt marshes hereabout, and if your twin sister is prisoned over here, I reckon we shall need a few fence rails before we can get her out; so you may as well shoulder your share, if you’re coming along. Here, take this,” as he balanced a stout rail on Frank’s shoulder, and then pulled, with the “farm hand’s” assistance, four more from the fence. Thus armed, the trio proceeded to the scene of action.
Meanwhile Grandma Dobson had gone on as fast as she could to the very edge of the salt meadow, andcalled in her trembling tones to poor Kate to “Never mind, somebody would be right along and get her out.” And Kate, burned red in the face by the June sun and by the hot tears she had shed, had called back—
“I’m sinking clear down, ever so far. I wish they’d hurry and make haste.”
Just then the men and Frank arrived.
“See the little thing!” called Mrs. Dobson to them. “Pray, get her out and carry her to the other side, and see that she gets home in safety.”
“Stay back there, youngster!” cried stout farmer Bryan to Frank. But whenever did any boy think there was danger for himself? Carefully advancing, rail in hand, ready to put it down at the first bit of uncertain ground, one man went, the other followed, until they came quite near Kate, who was crying still, she could not tell why, but Frank said, “probably because she was sorry to get out; girls always did such queer, contrary things.”
Putting a rail on either side of the child, the men stood on it, and pulled Kate’s arms until she was “sure” they would pull them off; but at length she felt herself rising, rising, until she was even with the earth once more.
With much exertion the opposite side was reached, and just as Kate’s feet were on firm ground a cry from Frank was heard. His story, as afterwards told, was that he had been so anxious to follow Kate home and see the fun, that he had determined to step very light and fast, and he knew he shouldn’t have time to sink;Kate wouldn’t, if she hadn’t been so frightened the minute she began to go down.
“There, there, youngster,” cried Mr. Bryan, “it’s just good enough for you! You can get out as you got in,” and without waiting an instant he lifted Kate in his stout arms and bore her away across meadow and farm lot toward her home, followed by his assistant.
“It’s too bad—real mean on a fellow! I’ll pay you up for this!” moaned Frank, who, the more determined he grew to get out, the deeper he got in.
Mrs. Dobson went as near to Frank as she thought it prudent to venture, and assured him that the men would return that way and release him; she knew they would, and she must go home. Even Josh only wagged his tail at Frank, as he bounded past to follow his mistress, and never once dreamed that it was necessary to stay with him.
For more than a half hour Frank stayed there, and even when the men did return and drag him out, he did not seem suitably thankful, and would have insisted on remaining in the wood but for the snakes.
Before five of the clock, Kate, restored to cleanliness and comfort, and accompanied by her mother, drove up to the brown house in the lane. She had returned to keep her promise to Grandma Dobson.
Frank, on inquiry, was found sitting in the sun out at the back door, determined to dry the mud until it would all rub off, and quite too proud to accept the offer of a pair of clean stockings from Mrs. Dobson; but he was very glad of the opportunity afforded bythe arrival of Neptune to get home without being seen. He crept around the house as he heard the doctor going in at the front door, sprang into the pony carriage, and was half way to Hallock Point before his mother or Kate missed Neptune from the gate. When Frank also was found missing, no further anxiety was felt concerning the safety of the horse; and in less than an hour, Frank reappeared, as fresh and good-tempered as Kate herself.
Mrs. Dobson had gone on her errand down the harbor, with no one to watch her movements; and as Frank appeared in the room, on his return, Harry Cornwall, with the bandage removed from his eyes, was, Kate said, “telling us the interestingest story, better than any book story in the whole world.” Frank was sorry that he had not heard the beginning of the story; but unless he knows it already, he will have a chance to read it in the next chapter.