Three Little Cousins Part 17

"Yes, and the sweet gra.s.s, then I am, but when I think of how dreadfully frightened we were, I'm not."

"I don't intend to remember the scare," said Polly philosophically.

"Neither do I," added Mary. "I'd be an Arab again for the sake of finding out how really good-hearted those boys are," which showed that Mary had a good heart, too.

_CHAPTER XI_

_The Roseberry Family_

The green gra.s.s of June had turned to russet; the bay berry bushes began to look dingy, and the waxy cranberries in the bog were turning to a delicate pink. It had been a dry season and the children could safely traverse the bog from end to end without danger of getting their feet wet. Ellis was their pilot to this fascinating spot, and the day of their introduction to it was one long to be remembered.

It was one morning when Ellis came around to the back door to deliver clams that they first heard of the bog. He added to the weekly order a little bag of pinky-white cranberries. "I thought maybe you'd like 'em," he said. "Miss Alice Harvey says they're much better when they're not quite ripe. Ora tried some and they were fine, but they took a lot of sugar."

"Thank you for remembering us," said Miss Ada as she received the offering. "How much, Ellis?"

"Nawthin'. They're easy to pick and there's plenty of 'em," he made reply.

Miss Ada accepted the gift in the spirit in which it was intended.

"I'm sure we shall enjoy them," she declared. "Where is the bog, Ellis? Is it very wet there?"

"'Tain't wet at all this year. This has been such a dry season. It's down back of Cap'n Orrin's barn."

"Oh, is that the place?" Molly was peeping over her aunt's shoulder.

"I've always longed to go there but I was afraid it was all sloppy and marshy; some one said it was."

"Would you like me to go there with you?" said Ellis bashfully. "I know where the cranberries grow, and there's lots of other things down there, the kind you city people like to get, weeds, we call 'em."

"Oh, may we go?" Molly appealed to her aunt.

"Why yes, I have no objection. It is perfectly safe if it's not wet.

I suppose you may encounter a garter snake or two, but you don't mind them, Molly."

"Wait for us, Ellis," said the little girl speeding away for her cousins with whom she returned in a moment. All three were breathlessly eager to start on the voyage of discovery, for with Ellis as leader, into what regions of the unknown might they not penetrate.

Over the hill they went, leaving Cap'n Orrin's mild-eyed cows gazing after them ruminatively as they crept under the fence which separated the pasture from the wild bottom land at the foot of the hill. On the other side arose the ridge along which were ranged cottages looking both coveward and seaward. A winding path led past runty little apple trees and huge boulders, and finally was lost in the tangle of growth overspreading the marsh.

"It is dry enough now," said Mary exultantly, setting her foot on a tuft of dry gra.s.s. "Where are the cranberries, Ellis? I want to see those first."

"You are standing right over some," he said smiling.

Mary looked down, but only a ma.s.s of weeds and gra.s.s greeted her eyes.

"I don't see them," she declared.

Ellis laughed, bent over and parted the gra.s.s to disclose the delicate wreaths of green, and the pretty smooth cranberries, tucked away in the dry gra.s.s.

"As if they were afraid of being picked," remarked Mary. "You will not escape me that way." And down on her knees she went in search of the pink fruit.

Molly meanwhile had gone further afield, and was gathering flowers strange to her, and gra.s.ses as lovely as the blossoms. Earlier in the season, she had delighted in the rosy plumes of the hard-hack, the sweet pinky-white clover, the wild partridge peas, but here were new acquaintances which were not to be found outside the marsh, and upon them she pounced eagerly.

It was Polly, however, who discovered the Roseberry family, for Polly, who had spent her life far from cities, had developed her imagination, and could fas.h.i.+on from unpromising material the most fascinating things, and though she, too, picked her share of cranberries, she also gathered a lot of roseberries which she declared were the biggest she had ever seen. These she bore away in triumph, while Molly carried her bouquet with a satisfied air and Mary was quite content with having the largest showing of cranberries. So they returned, well pleased, to the cottage.

"We had the splendidest morning," said Molly, setting her flowers in a large vase. "I never knew that bogs could be so perfectly fine. What are you doing, Polly?"

Polly was seated on the floor industriously picking off her roseberries from the twigs. "Wait and you will see," was her answer. "Do get me some pins, Molly, a whole lot. Aunt Ada will give you some."

Molly's curiosity being aroused, she rushed off to her aunt, returning with a paper of pins. She squatted down on the floor by Polly's side.

Mary, meanwhile, had gone to the kitchen to superintend Luella's cooking of the cranberries. Polly stuck a pin in one side of the biggest, fattest roseberry, then another in the other side. "This is Mr. Roseberry," she said, "and these are his two arms. Now his head goes on, and then his legs. I use the pins, you see, because you can bend them so as to make the people sit down." She held up the completed mannikin. "Now I must pick out some berries for Mrs.

Roseberry, and then I'll make the children."

"Polly, you are so ridiculous," said Molly in a tone of admiration, "but do you know, they are awfully funny with their little round heads and bodies." Polly worked away industriously till she had completed her entire family. "Now what?" said Molly. "What in the world is that?"

"It is a lamp," returned Polly, deftly fitting a base to her red globe.

"Now, if I had some pasteboard I could make some furniture, and we'd play with the Roseberry family this afternoon."

"Dinner is nearly ready now," said Molly, "but it will be fun to play with them this afternoon. We could have two or three families. What can I name mine?" She watched Polly interestedly as she put the last touch to a vase in which she stuck a bit of green.

"You might call them Pod," said Polly. "These are really the seed pods of the wild roses, you know. They are like little apples, aren't they?"

"Oh, I'll call them Appleby," said Molly.

"We know some people named that. Save that tiny one for the baby, Polly."

"The cranberries are perfectly delicious," said Mary, coming in from the kitchen, "but they have to cool before we can eat them. Luella says they take so much sugar that they will keep perfectly for me to take some home. Oh, what curious little figures."

"This is the Roseberry family," Polly told her, indicating the dolls on the right, "and these," she pointed to those on her left, "these are the Applebys."

"You must have some, too, Mary," said Molly. "What shall you call yours?"

Mary had picked up one of the little figures. "Why, they are made of hips, aren't they?"

"What are hips?" asked Molly.

"That is what we call the berries of the briar-rose, and in England the hawthorn berries are haws."

"Hips and haws," sang Molly. "Don't they go nicely together? Shall you call your people Mr. and Mrs. Hips?"

"Why, yes, I can. I think that would be a very good name. Are we going to play with them?"

"After dinner we are, if Polly can find anything to make furniture of."

Polly's ingenuity did not fail her here, for, by the use of some match ends, birch bark and a needle and thread she contrived all sorts of things and then each girl hunted up a box for a house, so that these new playthings proved to be very fascinating.

But at last the every-day commonplaces grew too dull for Polly, and she suddenly exclaimed: "I'm tired of just visiting and talking about measles and nurses and mustard plasters! I'm going to take the Roseberry family down to the sh.o.r.e. They're going to have an adventure."

"Oh, Polly, what? Can ours go, too?" cried Molly. "I would like to have the Applebys meet an adventure, too."