Cricket at the Seashore Part 41

"You are naughty children," said Eunice, severely, arraying the guilty twins before her, when this was done. "Whatever shall I do with you? I can't take you, all dripping like that, into the house to Eliza, because she's with Kenneth, and auntie's lying down, and I don't suppose Delia would know what to do with you."

"Hang them both up over the clothes-line to dry," suggested Cricket, darkly eying the chief culprit. "Dear me! how you do smell!"

"I don't like it pretty well," admitted Zaidee, sniffing at her hands.

"I want to go in and get us washed off now."

"No, stop," commanded Eunice, as Zaidee was starting off. "You would ruin everything you touched, I suppose. You're reeking wet. You can't go into the nursery, for you mustn't disturb Kenneth. Auntie said particularly that we mustn't even make any noise around, so he can sleep. What _shall_ I do with you?"

"I'll tell you," suggested Cricket, the ever-ready. "Take them down to the Cove and put them in the water just as they are, and wash off the worst of it. Then you can take off their clothes and leave them down there in the bathing-house, for 'Liza to look after when she can."

"Perhaps that might do. I could put on my own bathing-suit and take them in, and wash off the outside, anyway."

"Yes, let's," cried Zaidee, scampering off in high feather at the delightful possibility of going into the water all dressed, "just like a dog."

"Grandma wouldn't care, would she?"

"There's nothing else to do. You go on and I'll tell her. My arm aches so that I can't walk over there," said Cricket, turning away, very dolefully. She didn't like to miss the fun of ducking those naughty children. She watched them out of sight.

"But it isn't really a bit worse of Zaidee to turn that spigot, and play with the oil, than it was for me to play with the fire," she said, honestly, to herself, as she walked slowly back to grandma. "I can't say much. But it _is_ funny how much badder things seem in other people, when they're really just as worse in ourselves."

And with this not very lucid statement of an undeniable fact, Cricket walked up the piazza steps and informed grandma of the state of affairs.

Half an hour later Eunice appeared, driving a pair of depressed looking children before her, clad only in their little blue bathing-suits.

She was hot and flushed, Zaidee cross and rebellious, and Helen tearful and subdued. Eunice had found that the plan of washing oily children, with all their clothes on, was much easier in theory than in practice.

And such a task as it had been to get their dripping clothes off! Wet b.u.t.tonholes refused to open, shoestrings knotted hopelessly, and everything stuck flabbily together.

Auntie Jean was with little Kenneth again, so Eliza was at liberty to take the children in hand, but before they went off, grandma said, very gravely, to them, that they were to go directly to bed for two whole hours, so that they might have a quiet time to think over the mischief they had done.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE END OF THE SUMMER.

Two weeks later everything was running again as usual. Kenneth, quite recovered, was as lively as possible, though he was a funny looking little object, with his lovely golden curls, to everybody's great grief, cropped as close to his head as a prize-fighter's.

"If it only will grow out a _little_, before mamma gets home," mourned Cricket. "He looks so ridiculous. He looks just like the sheep, after 'Gustus John has sheared them. Even the little lambs don't know their own mothers, sometimes, auntie, after they're clipped. Oh!" clasping her hands in horror at a new thought. "Do you suppose mamma won't even _know_ Kenneth?"

"He doesn't look much like himself, certainly, but I don't fancy that there's the least danger that his mother won't know him instantly," said auntie, comfortingly.

"I'm so glad," said Cricket, with a sigh of relief, "if you really think so. But, anyway, he's the _sheepiest_-looking child."

But, fortunately, his burns had healed beautifully, and the doctor a.s.sured them that he would even outgrow every scar. Cricket was entirely herself again, with only one deep scar across her right wrist to remind her of that unlucky sacrifice to the Jabberwock.

Edna was at home, also, delighted to be back with her beloved Eunice.

She proudly flourished, actually, two stories for the "Echo," as the result of her "banishment," as she insisted on calling her visit. She was so proud of them that she wanted to carry them about with her all the time, and was all impatience for the next number of the paper to be ready. Eunice had been working at it, during Edna's absence, and it was all ready, excepting to print Edna's story, for which s.p.a.ce had been left.

It was getting well into September now, and the children were looking eagerly forward to the return of the travellers, who were to sail early in October. Letters said that mamma was improving so delightfully that she was quite as strong as ever, and that she was looking forward with quite as much impatience to seeing the children again as they could have to see her. The children didn't quite believe this, though.

"She _couldn't_ be glad as I am," said Cricket, positively. "If she were she would just simply burst. Of _course_ we're gladder to see her than she could be to see us, because she's _mamma_, and we're only just the children! I'm chock full of gladness!" and Cricket gave an ecstatic caper as she waved the letter that definitely set the date of the travellers' return.

"Look _out_, Cricket," said Eunice, hastily, "that's the second time you've nearly knocked my ink over," rescuing, as she spoke, the fresh, fair copy of the "Echo," to which she was giving the finishing touches, for the afternoon's reading.

"Please excuse me, but I'm so happy! Oh, auntie, it's worth while to have mamma and papa go to Europe and miss them so, when you are so gladder than glad when they come back."

"Now, I really flattered myself that you had been tolerably contented here, this summer," said Auntie Jean, pretending to look aggrieved. "I'm very sorry that you've been so wretched."

"Wretched! I _haven't_," said Cricket, giving auntie a rapturous hug, and, at the same time, sending her heels kicking out behind, like a little wild pony. "I've had an awfully good time."

"Cricket!" shrieked Eunice, "you knocked over the ink at last!" She s.n.a.t.c.hed up the "Echo" just in time to save it from an inky bath. "Hand me that blotter, Edna. Never mind, auntie, for it's mostly on the newspapers. Cricket, you _are_ the ink-spillingest girl!" scolded Eunice, scrubbing and cleaning as she talked. "Yesterday you knocked it out of the window, and only the other day you had it all over the piazza-floor."

Cricket looked much depressed, as she helped Eunice repair damages.

"I rather guess you'll be too relieved for anything to see the last of me, grandma," she said, mournfully. "I never saw anybody like me. I never mean to do things, and then I go and do them. I don't see how you've stood it all summer, anyway, with such racketting children around, I truly don't."

"You've been a pretty obedient set," said grandma, patting the hand that stole around her neck. "And when children are obedient and truthful, one can excuse a great deal else. Indeed, I shall miss my flock exceedingly, I a.s.sure you, in spite of your ink-spilling tendencies."

"Even if I did sprain your ankle?" whispered Cricket, very softly, "and burn up Kenneth's hair? and break through the plaster in your ceiling, and lots of other things?"

"Yes, in spite of it all," whispered grandma, back again, just as softly. "Because I never knew you to do anything I told you not to do, and whatever you tell me, I know is exactly true."

"You're such a beautiful grandma!" said Cricket, with a hug, and then she pranced off.

Zaidee and Helen came toiling up from the beach, with their arms full of dolls. Zaidee dropped down on the top piazza-step.

"Auntie Jean, I'm all in such a pusferation," she sighed. "It's so much work to take care of such a lot of children as I have. I wish I had a little live nurse to help me. Couldn't I?"

"Take Cricket," suggested Auntie Jean. "She wants something to do."

"No, I thank you," said that young woman, decidedly. "I'm glad _I_ don't have to follow Zaidee up all day."

"And I wouldn't have you," returned Zaidee, with equal decision. "You tooked up my Beatrice by the neck, and it hurted her. She told me so. I don't want you for my dollie's nurse, or for my nurse, either."

"_Your_ nurse!" exclaimed Cricket. "I wouldn't be 'Liza for anything!

I'd as soon take care of a straw in a high wind, as take care of you."

Auntie Jean laughed, and drew Cricket down into her arms.

"Did you ever think, honestly," she whispered, "that Zaidee is a little, just a little, like one of her older sisters?"

"Oh, she's not so bad," responded Cricket, instantly. "But because she's like me is no reason I like it any better. I like it all the worse.

Besides, I don't set up to be a polygon."

Hereupon Auntie Jean laughed until grandma demanded to know what the joke was, and why they were talking secrets.