What Two Children Did Part 2

"What is it?" he asked.

"My dolls. They're baptized clear to the bottom; please get 'em out."

"I'll do it, if you will take this note to Miss Dorothy Stevens," said the young man, at once throwing off his coat and pus.h.i.+ng up his s.h.i.+rt sleeve. Beth, before she trotted off, saw that he had a blue anchor on his arm. When she came back, the rescued five lay stretched on the gra.s.s in a pathetic row, and she at once ran to her prostrate children.

"You are to go to the parlor and tell Miss Dorothy all about it," she said, in pa.s.sing, to their rescuer. "Your note made Miss Dorothy cry; and she was all white 'round her mouth. Thank you for the dolls," she called as an afterthought.

So busy was she drying her afflicted family that it was some time after the others had reached home that 'Vada, wildly excited, came to find Elizabeth and to tell her that Miss Dorothy's sweetheart had come back.

"From Paradise?" queried Beth, getting up at once and bristling all over with questions she wanted to ask him about that interesting place.

"Mighty nigh," said 'Vada, rolling her eyes. "He was s.h.i.+pwrecked on the raging main, and hit on de head wid somefin that done knock all de sense out of him, so he's pick up by some folks dat didn't know 'im, an' he went cruisin' aroun', till he come to, and, by 'me by, back to see his sweetheart."

Elizabeth went into the parlor later on, and stared so insistently at the young captain that her mother drew her gently to one side and whispered to her.

"But I'm anxious to see a sweetheart that has been in Paradise, mother,"

she explained.

_CHAPTER IV_ _The Wedding_

Bells ring, Birds sing, Every one is gay; Hearts beat, Chimes sweet, On a bridal day.

It was one of the things for the children to remember always, that Miss Dorothy was married while they were there to help.

They helped so much in the matter of sc.r.a.ping all the cake and icing pans, stoning, and especially eating, raisins, that it was a wonder they were not ill.

The morning on which the wedding was to take place dawned as bright and golden as could be desired.

It was a very simple, pretty wedding in the stone chapel, towards which, in the early morning, the bridal party walked. Nan, Ethelwyn, and Elizabeth went ahead, bearing flowers, and after them came Miss Dorothy in her white gown, clinging to the arm of her sailor lover.

Mrs. Stevens and the children's mother, together with a few friends, awaited them in the pretty church, and Nan's father married them. They then all went to the bride's home for breakfast, immediately after which, the young couple were going away for a year. This fact, and the mother's sad face impaired the appet.i.tes of the guests, with three n.o.ble exceptions. The trio at the end of the table ate with zest and unimpaired enthusiasm, of the good things that they fondly believed might never have reached their present point of perfection had it not been for their skill.

"Should you think," Elizabeth paused to say, in a somewhat m.u.f.fled voice, entirely owing to plum cake and not grief, "that one of us is married too?"

"My father," returned Nan loftily, "is not given to making mistakes of that kind. There weren't husbands enough to go 'round anyway."

"What is a husband?"

"You've been helping make one, child, and you ask that!"

So Elizabeth concluded it was a small portion of the refreshments that had escaped her notice.

Afterwards they went down to the harbor from which the bride and groom were to sail.

"Like the owl and the p.u.s.s.y cat," said Ethelwyn, cheerfully.

As they kissed their friend good-bye, they placed around her neck a pretty chain, hanging from which was a medallion with their pictures painted on it.

"You can look at us when you get lonesome," suggested Beth.

The last good-bye was said, and they drove sadly home in a fine, drenching rain that had suddenly fallen like a vail over their golden day.

'Vada had started the open fires and they were cheerfully cracking, while Polly from her pole croaked crossly, "Shut up, do! Quit making all that fuss!"

Mrs. Rayburn took Aunty Stevens away with her, and by and by in the afternoon, they found her tucked up on the couch in their sitting-room looking somewhat happier.

"Aren't you glad you have us, and specially mother?" asked Beth, kissing her.

There was only one answer possible to this, and it was given with such emphasis that Ethelwyn nodded and said, "That's the way we feel. Mother knows how to fix things right better'n anybody, unless it should be G.o.d."

"Let's sing awhile, sister, while mother thinks of a story or two,"

suggested Beth.

So they squatted in front of the grate and sang,

"Chick-a-dee-dee, chick-a-dee-dee, I am so glad that Jesus loves me."

Then they sang what they called "Precious Julias,"

"Little children who love Mary Deemer."

"Why," Beth stopped to ask, "does it say Precious Julias when it's 'bout Mary Deemer, sister?"

"Middle name, prob'ly," answered Ethelwyn; "anyway that's Mary Deemer,"

pointing to a picture of Murillo's "Magdalene," "and the reason that she's loved by children, is because she is pretty and good. If you are good, Elizabeth, people will love you."

"I'm as good as you are, anyway," began Beth wrathfully, when she saw Nan in the doorway.

"May I come in?" she asked, wistfully. "Mother has a headache, father's gone fis.h.i.+ng in a boat, and I've a toothpick in my side."

"Come in, deary," said Mrs. Rayburn, who felt an infinite pity for st.u.r.dy little Nan, with her invalid mother. "Bless me, what cold hands!

What's this thing you have in your side?" she continued, cuddling Nan up in her lap.

Nan breathed a contented breath. "O, it's gone now. It's a sharp, pointed thing that sticks me when I'm lonesome."

"We're having Sunday-school, the singing part, and you may come if you're good, and know a verse, and won't baptize the Sunday-school,"

said Beth, multiplying conditions rapidly.

"I know a verse that father says he thinks ought to be in the Bible,"

said Nan.

"Let's not have Sunday-school," she continued, snuggling down on Mrs.

Rayburn's shoulder. "It's so nice here, and I want to tell you 'bout my dream I had the other night. Dreamed I went to heaven awhile, and when I came home I slid down fifty miles of live wire and sissed all the way down like a hot flatiron."

"There's a gold crack in the sky now that shows a little weenty bit of Heaven's floor, I think, right now," said Ethelwyn, going to the west window.