Five Little Peppers Abroad Part 45

The man loped on, not hearing, and he wouldn't have understood had he heard.

"I don't believe he has any name," said old Mr. King just behind.

"Phronsie, is your saddle all right? Do you like it, child?" all in one breath.

"I like it very much," answered Phronsie, trying to turn around.

"Don't do that, child," said Grandpapa, hastily. "Sit perfectly still, and on no account turn around or move in the saddle."

"I won't, Grandpapa," she promised, obediently, and presently she began again, "I want to know his name, Grandpapa, so that I can tell my pony when I get home."

"Oh, well, we'll find out," said Grandpapa. "Here you, can't you tell the name of that donkey?" he cried to the guide holding Phronsie's bridle. "Oh, I forgot, he doesn't understand English," and he tried it in French.

But this was not much better, for old Mr. King, preferring to use none but the best of French when he employed any, was only succeeding in mystifying the poor man so that he couldn't find his tongue at all, but stared like a clod till the old gentleman's patience was exhausted.

At last Jasper, hearing what the trouble was, shouted out something from his position in the rear, that carried the meaning along with it, and Phronsie the next minute was delighted to hear "Boolah," as the guide turned and smiled and showed all his teeth at her, his pleasure was so great at discovering that he could really understand.

"Why, that's the name of my donkey," said Polly, patting the beast's rough neck. "He told me so when he helped me to mount."

"So it is mine," announced Jasper, bursting into a laugh. "I guess they only have one name for the whole lot."

"Well, don't let us tell Phronsie so," said Polly, "and I shall call mine 'Greybeard' because he's got such a funny old stiff beard and it is grey."

"And I shall christen mine 'Boneyard,'" declared Jasper, "for he's got such a very big lot of bones, and they aren't funny, I can tell you."

And so with fun and nonsense and laughter, as soon as they wound around by the little English church and across the meadows, and struck into the pine wood, the whole party of twelve, Grandpapa and all, began to sing s.n.a.t.c.hes from the newest operas down to college songs. For Grandpapa hadn't forgotten his college days when he had sung with the best, and he had the parson on this occasion to keep him company, and the young people, of course, knew all the songs by heart, as what young person doesn't, pray tell! So the bits and s.n.a.t.c.hes rolled out with a gusto, and seemed to echo along the whole mountain side as the procession of sure-footed animals climbed the steep curves.

"Oh, Polly, your donkey is going over," exclaimed Adela, who rode the second in the rear after Polly; "he flirts his hind legs right over the precipice every time you go round a curve."

"Well, he brings them round all right," said Polly, composedly; and, with a little laugh, "Oh, isn't this too lovely for anything!" she cried, with sparkling eyes.

"Well, don't let him," cried Adela, huddling up on her donkey, and pulling at the rein to make him creep closer to the protecting earth wall.

"Na--na," one of the guides ran up to her, shaking his head. Adela, fresh from her Paris school had all her French, of the best kind too, at her tongue's end, but she seemed to get on no better than Mr. King.

"My French is just bad enough to be useful," laughed Jasper. So he untangled the trouble again, and made Adela see that she really must not pull at her bridle, but allow the donkey to go his own gait, for they were all trained to it.

"Your French is just beautiful," cried Polly. "Oh, Jasper, you know Monsieur always says--"

"Don't, Polly," begged Jasper, in great distress.

"No, I won't," promised Polly, "and I didn't mean to. But I couldn't help it, Jasper, when you spoke against your beautiful French."

"We've all heard you talk French, Jasper, so you needn't feel so cut up if Polly should quote your Monsieur," cried Tom, who, strange to say, no matter how far he chanced to ride in the rear, always managed to hear everything.

"That's because we are everlastingly turning a corner," he explained, when they twitted him for it, "and as I'm near the end of the line I get the benefit of the doubling and twisting, for the front is always just above me. So don't say anything you don't want me to hear, old fellow," he sang out to Jasper on the bridle path "just above," as Tom had said.

"Now, don't you want to get off?" cried Jasper, deserting his donkey, and running up to Phronsie, as they reached the summit and drew up before the hotel.

"Oh, somebody take that child off," groaned old Mr. King, accepting the arm of the guide to help him dismount, "for I can't. Every separate and distinct bone in my body protests against donkeys from this time forth and forevermore. And yet I've got to go down on one," he added ruefully.

"No, I don't want to get down," declared Phronsie, still holding fast to the reins; "can't I sit on my donkey, Jasper, while you all walk over on the frozen water?"

"Oh, my goodness, no!" gasped Jasper. "Why, Phronsie, you'd be tired to death--the very idea, child!"

"No," said Phronsie, shaking her yellow hair obstinately, "I wouldn't be tired one single bit, Jasper. And I don't want to get down from my donkey."

"Well, if you didn't go over the _Mer de Glace_, why, we couldn't any of us go," said Jasper, at his wits' end how to manage it without worrying his father, already extremely tired, he could see, "and that's what we've come up for--"

Phronsie dropped the reins. "Take me down, please, Jasper," she said, putting out her arms.

"How are you now, father?" cried Jasper, running over to him when he had set Phronsie on the ground.

"It's astonishing," said old Mr. King, stretching his shapely limbs, "but all that dreadful sensation I always have after riding on one of those atrocious animals is disappearing fast."

"That's good," cried Jasper, in delight. "Well, I suppose we are all going to wait a bit?" he asked, and longing to begin the tramp over the _Mer de Glace_.

"Wait? Yes, indeed, every blessed one of us," declared his father.

"Goodness me, Jasper, what are you thinking of to ask such a question, after this pull up here? Why, we sha'n't stir from this place for an hour."

"I supposed we'd have to wait," said Jasper, rushing off over the rocks, feeling how good it was to get down on one's feet again, and run and race. And getting Polly and Tom and Adela, they ran down where the donkeys were tethered and saw them fed, and did a lot of exploring; and it didn't seem any time before an Alpine horn sounded above their heads, and there was Grandpapa, tooting away and calling them to come up and buy their woollen socks; for they were going to start.

So they scrambled up, and picked out their socks, and, each seizing a pair in one hand and an alpenstock with a long, sharp spike on the end in the other, they ran off down the zigzag path to the glacier, two or three guides helping the others along. At the foot of the rocky path the four drew up.

"O dear, it's time to put on these horrible old stockings," grumbled Adela, shaking hers discontentedly.

"'Good old stockings,' you'd much better say," broke in Jasper.

"They're better than a broken neck," observed Tom, just meaning to ask Polly if he could put hers on for her. But he was too slow in getting at it, and Jasper was already kneeling on the rocks and doing that very thing.

"Now I'm all ready," announced Polly, stamping her feet, arrayed in marvellous red-and-white striped affairs. "Thank you, Jasper. Oh, how funny they feel!"

"Shall I help you?" asked Tom, awkwardly enough, of Adela.

"Oh, I don't want them on, and I don't mean to wear them," said Adela, with a sudden twist. "I'm going to throw them away."

"Then you'll just have to stay back," said Jasper, decidedly, "for no one is to be allowed on that glacier who doesn't put on a pair."

"I won't slip--the idea!" grumbled Adela. Yet she stuck out her foot, and Tom, getting down on his knees, suppressed a whistle as he securely tied them on. Then the boys flew into theirs instanter.

"Mine are blue," said Phronsie, as the others filed slowly down the winding path between the rocks, and she pointed to the pair dangling across her arm. "I am so very glad they are blue, Grandpapa."

"So am I, Pet," he cried, delighted to find that he was apparently as agile as the parson. No one could hope to equal little Dr. Fisher, who was here, there, and everywhere, skipping about among the rocks like a boy let loose from school.

"Well, well, the children are all ready," exclaimed old Mr. King, coming upon the four, impatient to begin their icy walk.

"Didn't you expect it?" cried little Dr. Fisher, skipping up.

"Well, to say the truth, I did," answered old Mr. King, with a laugh.

"Now, Phronsie, sit down on that rock, and let the guide tie on your stockings." So Phronsie's little blue stockings were tied on, and after Grandpapa had gallantly seen that everybody else was served, he had his pulled on over his boots and fastened securely, and the line of march was taken up.