Half-Past Seven Stories Part 10

"There, little boy," said the Round Fat Rosy Woman, "don't talk. Just wrap yourself in this blanket and drink this down, and you'll feel better."

It did taste good even if it was strong, and it warmed him all the way down under the blue jumper, and the Forty White Horses stopped their galloping, and while the men were hitching the mules up again, and the "Mary Ellen" was drifting through the lower pair of gates out of the Lock, he fell fast asleep.

He must have slept for a whole lot of jiffies. When he woke up at last, he looked around, wondering where he could be, the place looked so strange and so different from his room at home. Then he remembered,--he was far from home, in the little cabin of the "Mary Ellen." It was a cosy place, with all the little beds for the children around the cabin. And these beds were not like the ones he usually slept in. They were little shelves on the wall, two rows of them, one row above the other. It was funny, he thought, to sleep on a shelf, but that was what the thirteen children had to do. He was lying on a shelf himself just then, wrapped in a blanket.

The Round Fat Rosy Woman was bending over the stove. It was a jolly little stove, round and fat and rosy like herself, and it poked its pipe through the house just above his head. In the pot upon it, the potatoes were boiling, boiling away, and the little chips of bacon were curling up in the pan.

Outside, he could see all the little skirts and the little pairs of pants, dancing gaily in the wind. He could hear the children who owned those skirts and pairs of pants running all over the boat. The patter of their feet sounded like raindrops on the deck above him.

They seemed to be forever getting into trouble, those thirteen children, and the Round Fat Rosy Woman was forever running to the door of the little house and shouting to one or the other.

"Take care, Maintop!" she would call to one boy as she pulled him back from falling into the Ca.n.a.l.

"Ho there, Bowsprit!" she would yell to another, as she fished him out of the coal.

They were certainly a great care, those children, and all at once Marmaduke decided he knew who their mother must be. The boat was shaped just like a huge shoe and she surely had so many children she didn't know what to do. Yes, she must be the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, only the shoe must have grown into a ca.n.a.lboat.

He wondered about the funny names she called them.

"Are those their real names?" he asked, as he lay on his little shelf.

"Yes," she said, "my husband out there with the pipe was a sailor once, on the deep blue sea. But he had to give it up after he was married, 'cause he couldn't take his family on a ship. We had a lot of trouble finding names for the children started to call 'em Mary and Daniel and such, but the names ran out. So, seeing my husband was so fond of the sea, we decided to call 'em after the parts of a ship, not a ca.n.a.lboat, but the sailing ships that go out to sea--that is, all but Squall.

"Now that's Jib there, driving the mules, and that's Bowsprit--the one all black from the coal. Cut.w.a.ter's the girl leaning over the stern; Maintop, the one with the three pigtails; and Mizzen, the towhead playing with your dog."

"And what are the names of the rest?" Marmaduke asked, thinking all this very interesting.

"Oh!" she replied. "I'll have to stop and think, there's so many of them. Now there's Bul'ark and Gunnel--they're pretty stout; the twins, Anchor and Chain; Squall, the crybaby; Block, the fattest of all; Topmast, the tallest and thinnest; and Stern, the littlest. He came last, so we named him that, seeing it's the last part of a ship.

"Now, let me think--have I got 'em all?" and she counted on her fingers,--"Jib, Bowsprit, Cut.w.a.ter, Maintop, Mizzen, Bul'ark, Gunnel, Anchor, Chain, Block, Squall, Topmast, and Stern. Yes, that surely makes thirteen, doesn't it? I'm always proud when I can remember 'em."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The boat was shaped like a wooden shoe, and she surely had so many children she didn't know what to do."]

By this time the potatoes and the bacon and coffee seemed about ready, so she went out on deck, and Marmaduke slid off his little shelf bed and followed her to see where she was going. On deck was a great bar of iron with another beside it. She took up one bar of iron and with it struck the other--twelve times. The blows sounded way out over the Ca.n.a.l and over the fields and far away, like a mighty fire-alarm, and all the children, that is all but Jib, who was driving the mules and would get his dinner later, came running into the cabin.

A great clatter of tin plates and knives and forks there was, and very nice did those potatoes and that bacon taste.

And it didn't take long for them to finish that meal, either. Then they went out on deck.

The mules were pulling and pulling, and the boat was sailing on and on towards the Sea. They pa.s.sed by so many places--lots of houses and lots of farms, the Red Schoolhouse and Reddy Toms' house, and Sammy Soapstone's, and the funny place where Fatty lived, and the pigs, fat like himself, ran all over the yard.

Fatty and Sammy were playing on the sh.o.r.e at that very moment. He waved to them and they waved back, but they didn't know they were waving to their old playmate Marmaduke, he was so mixed up with all the children of the woman who lived on the ca.n.a.lboat that looked just like a shoe. How Sammy and Sophy and Fatty would have envied him if they had only known it was he sailing away to the Sea!

But he never arrived there, after all--at least he didn't on that voyage. For, you see, after he had had a wonderful time, running all over the deck with the thirteen children, and looking down into the big hole where they kept the shiny coal, and exploring the little house on the deck, the Round Fat Rosy Woman and her Husband With the Red Shirt and the Pipe had a talk together.

"We must send him back home," said she, "or his folks'll be scared out of their wits."

The man took a few puffs on his pipe, which always seemed to help him in thinking, then replied,

"We might let him off at the Landing it's up the towpath a piece. We kin find someone to give him a lift."

"That's the best plan," she agreed, "there's the Ruralfree'livery now."

And she pointed to the sh.o.r.e where the horse and wagon of the postman were coming up the road.

"What ho, Hi! Heave to!" she called, raising her hands to her mouth and shouting through them just like a man, "here's a pa.s.senger for you, first cla.s.s."

"Mr. Ruralfree'liv'ry" shook his whip at them, then hollered "Whoa!"

and stopped the old horse; and Jib hollered "Whoa!" and stopped his mules, right at the Landing.

Then Marmaduke said "Goodbye." It took him some time, for there was the Man With the Red Shirt and the Pipe; and the Round Fat Rosy Woman; and Jib, Bowsprit, Cut.w.a.ter, Mizzen, Maintop, Bul'ark, Gunnel, Anchor, Chain, Block, Squall, Topmast, and Stern; the "Mary Ellen"; and the mules, to say "Goodbye" to. Just before he went ash.o.r.e the Round Fat Rosy Woman gave him his clothes back, for they were all dry by that time, and she stuffed something in his pocket besides. And what do you think it was? A toy anchor and chain that would just fit the "White Swan," the ship the Toyman had made him.

So he rode home with Mr. Ruralfree'liv'ry and all his sacks of mail.

But he kept turning his head for a long while to watch the Man With the Red Shirt and the Pipe, and the Round Fat Rosy Woman, and the Thirteen Children, and all the little pairs of pants that seemed to be waving farewell to him. But soon the "Mary Ellen" drifted out of sight. She was a good boat, the "Mary Ellen."

He almost felt like crying, for he would have liked to have gone on that voyage to see the rest of the world. But, after all, he had seen a great deal of it, and he had that anchor and chain.

VI

TWO O' CAT

It was hard to be called a "kid"--harder still to be left out of the game. And, besides, it wasn't fair. Marmaduke knew he could catch that ball as well, and hit it as often as any of them.

This is the way it began:--

That morning Jehosophat had gone with the Toyman to Sawyer's Mill over on Wally's Creek. Marmaduke felt lonely, for there was n.o.body but Hepzebiah to play with, and she wouldn't leave her dolls, and he had long ago gotten past playing with _them_. As he was wandering forlornly around the barnyard, wondering what he could do, he heard a shout over by the Miller farm.

"You're out!"

It was a very fascinating cry, an inviting one as well. Looking over the field he saw boys--at least six of them--playing baseball. So he hurried over to get in the game, too.

But his old enemy "Fatty" told him that they didn't "want any _kids_ hangin' around."

And d.i.c.ky Means agreed with that.

"Naw, we don't want any _kids_!"

"I can catch an' I can pitch--curves, too," Marmaduke protested, but they wouldn't believe him.

"You can't, either," Fatty yelled back, "you'd m.u.f.f it every time.

Wouldn't he, Means?"

He was talking to _d.i.c.ky_ Means, but he called him by his last name just because he had heard grown-up men do that sometimes and he thought it was very smart.