Cricket at the Seashore Part 31

"Because there's a B in both," answered Eunice, promptly. "Will, ask sensible questions, or I'll get a teakettle when I get home, and hit you with it."

"That might be a stone, but stone won't do. Cricket, now think carefully over your answer. If three men work all day on a fertile farm--"

"I'll get Archie to throw you over the teakettle this minute, if you don't stop," threatened Cricket.

"Throw me over the teakettle--over the side--stern--bow. Bow. That's it, young lady. Caught you on that."

And so the game progressed, till they had sufficiently teakettled.

"What next?" asked some one.

"Suppose we have tableaux, and begin with Cricket for Venus," said Archie, looking at her with his head on one side.

"You needn't make fun of my looks, Mr. Archie. I know this mackintosh isn't _very_ becoming, but I don't care for looks, anyway."

"You might as well intermingle a few looks if you can," said Eunice.

"And you do look too funny. Your clothes are dry, now, anyway. Hadn't she better put them on, auntie?"

So the shawl screen was again put up, and the display of dress and petticoats disappeared from the sail of the _Gentle Jane_.

"I feel more respectable," teased Archie, "now the weekly wash is taken in. Hated to be taken for a ca.n.a.l-boat."

"No, we'd rather be taken for a tow," said Cricket, smartly, and Archie fell back, rigid with mock admiration.

"Now, if we only had pencils and paper," said auntie, "there are many games we might play."

"Oh, wait! wait!" exclaimed Cricket, jumping up suddenly and tumbling over auntie in her excitement. She dived into the tiny hold, and triumphantly brought out her mysterious newspaper package.

"I thought perhaps the girls would like to write on their stories for the 'Echo,'" she explained eagerly, "so I brought all the blank books and pencils. You can tear some leaves out of the back of mine and use them."

There was much applause at Cricket's forethought.

"Wise child," said auntie, approvingly, "I am glad to see that 'though on pleasure you are bent you have a'--literary mind. We might ill.u.s.trate proverbs."

"Oh, I can't draw," said Eunice, quickly.

"So much the better. You need not draw well, for it's much more fun if you don't. I'll tear these leaves in two, Cricket, to make them long and narrow. Now, we must each ill.u.s.trate some proverb at the bottom of the slip, or some line of poetry, if you prefer. Only label it, which it is. When we are all done, we each pa.s.s our slips to the next one, who writes what she thinks it is, and folds back the writing, and pa.s.ses it on. When we have each written our comments, they are opened and read.

Most of the fun comes from the different guesses, so you see you mustn't draw _too_ well, and make your ideas too plain. Now, to work, all of you. Here are your slips."

They all fell industriously to work, interrupting themselves with many a groan and protest. When all were finished they pa.s.sed on their slips to the next one. There was much giggling at the first sight of some of the very remarkable drawings.

"Now," said Auntie Jean, when the slips had all pa.s.sed around, and had returned to the hands of their respective artists, "each of you unfold your papers, and read the comments aloud for the benefit of the company.

Cricket, you're the youngest. Suppose you begin."

Cricket giggled. Her picture consisted of a scraggy tree, with several long wavy lines near its foot. In the branches of the tree were two good-sized attempts at fowls of some description, while a third huge creature was flying near. She read the comments in order.

"There were three crows sat on a tree, And they were black as crows could be." AUNTIE.

"The breaking waves dashed high, Caught the pilgrims on the fly."

("Couldn't think how that last line goes," murmured Archie, "but I'm sure those are pilgrims on the fly.")

"Two's a company, three is none." EDNA.

"Good-morning! do you use Pears' Soap?" WILL.

"Early bird catches the first worm." (Guess those things down there are worms.) HILDA.

"Two birds in the bush are worth one in the hand."

(I had to make the proverb fit the drawing.) EUNICE.

"And it's just as plain," announced Cricket, contemptuously. "Birds of a feather flock together."

"Ho! what are those water streaks doing down there, then?" asked Archie.

"The things I thought were breaking waves."

"_I_ thought they were curly worms," added Hilda.

"They're not worms or water either. I just put some lines there to fill up. I think I meant them for gra.s.s. How silly you all are. Now, auntie."

Auntie's picture was beautifully simple. It was nothing but an inclined plane, with a round thing rolling down it. Of course everybody had written, "A rolling stone gathers no moss."

"Not at all," answered auntie, coolly. "I thought you would all think that, but it really is, 'Things are not what they seem.' It looks like a stone, but it isn't. Now, Eunice."

Eunice had a remarkable sketch of a darkly-shaded spot, with a house showing dimly through, and at one side a spiky sun was rising above a quavering line, evidently meant for the horizon. There were various guesses. "Any port in a storm." ("Which is the same as saying, any guess, if you can't make the right one," murmured Will.)

"Rising Sun Stove Polish." "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath."

"Every cloud has a silver lining." ("That house is behind a cloud, isn't it?" asked Cricket.)

"It's a _very_ easy one, too," said Eunice. "'It's always darkest just before dawn.' Don't you see the sun just coming up?"

Archie, who drew beautifully, had made a really very clever little sketch of a Spencerian pen, mounted on two thin legs, furnished with an equally thin pair of arms, and a face as well, engaged in a boxing match with a very plump and well-developed sword. In a second picture, the sword was flat on the ground, while the pen was dancing away, grinning.

Of course this could be only, "The Pen is mightier than the Sword."

Hilda had drawn simply two long lines in perspective. As n.o.body could make anything of them, the guesses were wild.

"Why, don't you see? Those two lines are a lane. 'It's a long lane that has no turning.' That's the long lane. It has no turning," explained Hilda. "I thought you would guess it the very first thing."

When the last of the guesses were read, auntie rose to rest herself from a sitting position.

"Isn't there a bit of a breeze coming up?" she asked, shading her eyes with her hand, to look across the gla.s.sy sea, in search of the faintest sign of a ripple.

"Sorra a bit," said Archie. "Here, Will, you scull a while, and rest a fellow. h.e.l.lo! we're really getting along. See how far the Gurnet Lights are behind us."

"Yes, but look at the distance ahead of us, to be sculled over yet,"

said Auntie Jean, "and here it is four o'clock," consulting her watch.

"Come, Archie, it's time to whistle up the wind."

"I will!" said Edna, breaking out again into her blackbird whistle.