That Little Girl of Miss Eliza's Part 5

"I'm not sure where I wish the dining-room. I'd like to have something pretty to look at while I'm eating."

"Have it on this side and we can look at the trees and Adee's flowers,"

suggested Beth. She had played second in the game. She could not yet see how Helen could build such a large and elegant affair from nothing at all.

"That's just the thing," cried Helen. "We'll play that the yard is the conservatory. Now, let's put up the walls."

"I don't see how you can," began Beth.

"Help me carry up these nice stones from the beach and you'll see."

She started down the bank, and Beth followed blindly with faith in Helen's power to make something from nothing. For an hour they carried up small flat stones until they had quite a number piled together under the trees. All the while, their tongues had kept clacking like the shuttle of a machine.

"Now we'll build. It's going to be a gray stone mansion," said Helen.

"I always did like stone houses," said Beth. She had never seen one, but she knew at that moment that she always had preferred them to any other.

Helen had already laid down a line of stones. "Start at this corner and make a line over to here." She laid a stone down to mark the corners of a large rectangle which was to be the living room. "Right here will be the door on to the front porch. Don't put stones there,-here will be a large double door into the library. We'll leave that open."

It took a little time to lay the stones around until the general outline was that of the ground plan of a large house. The stones were the walls.

Open s.p.a.ces were the doors and windows.

The little girls stood in the drawing room and looked about with an air of pride. "It's all ready now but the furnis.h.i.+ng," said Helen. "We must have some dishes, too, for the china closet."

"I have some saucers and cups without handles. I'll get them." She started toward the house. Helen gave a scream of horror and clutched at Beth's arm.

"Look what you are doing," she cried. "Do be careful. Come back," and she forcibly brought her back.

"What's the trouble? What ever am I doing? I can't see that I've done anything wrong."

"You've stepped over the walls. Who ever knew any one to leave a room by stepping over the wall. Do be careful and go through the doors."

"Oh, I thought the way you screamed that it was a snake-one of those little green ones." She obediently moved through the open s.p.a.ce meant for a door and went for the broken dishes.

By the time she had returned, Helen had furnished the drawing room. A discarded wash-boiler, turned upside down, served as a piano. A s.h.i.+ngle resting upon two stones did very well as a music rest. Helen was down on her knees before it, singing with all her might and thumping with her knuckles until the tin resounded.

Beth had learned her lesson and came into the room by way of the door rather than over the wall. She surveyed the drawing room with pride.

"Scrumptious, isn't it?" asked Helen.

"It's certainly kertish," replied Beth. Kertish was a new word to Helen.

"Now what does ker-tish mean, Beth Wells? You are forever using it."

"It means scrumptious and a whole lot more," said Beth. "I can't just exactly explain. It means just what the drawing-room is now."

"It does look rather nice," said Helen complacently. "These chairs in pink velvet and brocade are certainly scrumptious."

She pointed to several billets of wood which she had stood on end to serve as chairs. Then she seated herself cautiously upon them, for pink velvet chairs made from a cross-cut on square timber will wobble sometimes in spite of one.

"They certainly are 'kertish'," said Beth. She had made up that word herself. It expressed all she had in her mind, and being her very own word, she could thrust it about to fit any feeling or any condition. She was moving about the drawing-room in a dignified fas.h.i.+on, arranging at regular intervals wild roses on the heavy sod. Helen watched her.

"The green velvet carpet with pink roses is just the thing to go with these chairs," said Helen. "I must say that in all my travels I never saw anything more scrumptious."

"It is the most kertish thing I ever saw," said Beth.

"Who are we anyhow?" asked Beth at last. "I mean who are we besides ourselves."

"I am Mrs. Queen of Sheba," said Helen, "and you can be Mrs. Princess of Wales."

So it was. Royalty had set up housekeeping under the shady trees which covered the bank before the old Wells place.

Royalty is not domestic. Before a second day had pa.s.sed, Mrs. Queen of Sheba grew tired of the monotony of housekeeping.

"Princess of Wales, we will take a trip around the world," she said.

"The s.h.i.+p is ready." She pointed majestically to an old row boat which, water-logged and unseaworthy, lay abandoned on the beach. "We will go on board at once."

"I am ready, Mrs. Queen of Sheba."

An hour later, they were s.h.i.+p-wrecked and forced to wade ash.o.r.e from mid-ocean. A little accident like this did not deter them. They were on a voyage of experience and discovery.

"While we are waiting for a s.h.i.+p to rescue us, let us explore the land,"

said the Queen of Sheba.

"It would be the most kertish thing we could do."

They proceeded slowly, making their way around Great Island, which the uninitiated might have called the big rock lying out well toward mid-stream. They crossed Knee-Deep Gulf and came to Cant-Wada Bay where they were forced to turn back. Along the sh.o.r.e, they had a horrible experience. Helen screamed and sank down, pulling Beth with her.

"Look," she whispered, pointing her finger to the opposite sh.o.r.e. "There are cannibals. Do not let them see us, or they will roast us and eat us alive."

Beth sank down with a s.h.i.+ver, clutching at Helen's bare feet as though to find protection in them. At length, she found courage to raise her eyes and look where Helen pointed. "Those-those-cannibals," she cried.

Her voice was a mixture of relief and scorn. "They're only boys in swimming. That big one is Jimmy-"

"They are cannibals, and that big one is the chief. Don't let them see us. Let us creep softly away." They crept. It was a horrifying experience. No one could tell what might have happened, had not a distant sail appeared.

"A s.h.i.+p! A s.h.i.+p! We shall be saved," cried the Queen of Sheba, kicking up her sunburnt legs and waving her arms with delight.

"A s.h.i.+p! A s.h.i.+p! We are saved," and Mrs. Princess of Wales indulged in antics which are not generally practiced by people of royal blood.

"Put up a signal of distress," said Mrs. Queen of Sheba.

"Here is a flag. Put it on the pole," cried the Princess of Wales. She promptly stuck her sunbonnet on the end of a stick and waved frantically to and fro.

So while the cannibals were shrieking and performing wild antics on the opposite sh.o.r.e, the Queen of Sheba and the Princess of Wales crept on board the water-logged boat and were saved.

These were glorious days. The little girls lacked for nothing. What was not theirs in actuality, became theirs by the gift of imagination. They reveled in motor cars, airs.h.i.+ps, mansions and pink velvet furniture.

They were billionaires, with all the possessions and none of the trouble of taking care of them.

They were happy together for several weeks. Then Helen invited Beth to her birthday party, and Beth was heart-broken. Even Adee could not comfort her for a time.