Lydia of the Pines Part 4

"You are a solid comfort to me, Lizzie," she said with a sigh. Then after a moment she exclaimed, eagerly, "Oh! Lizzie, do you think we could have a deviled egg? Is it too expensive?"

"You shall have a deviled egg if I have to steal it. But maybe you might dust up the parlor a bit while I get things ready."

Lydia established little Patience on the dining-room floor with a linen picture book, brought in a broom and dustpan from the kitchen and began furiously to sweep the parlor. When the dust cleared somewhat she emerged with the dustpan heaped with sweepings and the corners of the room still untouched. She hung the coats and hats in the entry and rubbed off the top of the table with her winter Tam o' Shanter, from which the moths flew as she worked. She gazed thoughtfully at the litter on the desk and decided against touching it. Then with a sense of duty well done, she lifted little Patience and carried her up into the little bedroom.

The bathing suits were pretty blue woolen things, and when the two presented themselves to Lizzie in the kitchen the old woman exclaimed, "Well, if ever I seen two fairies!"

"A thin one and a fat one," chuckled Lydia. "Push the baby carriage down over the steps for me, Lizzie, and I'll prepare for our long, hard voyage."

Patience was established in her perambulator with her linen picture book. Florence Dombey was settled at her feet, with "Men of Iron."

The bits of cigar box and the knife packed in a pasteboard box were tied to one edge of the carriage. Patience's milk, packed in a tin pail of ice, was laid on top of "Men of Iron." The paper bag of lunch dangled from the handle-bar and Lydia announced the preparations complete.

The way to the lake sh.o.r.e led under the maple trees for several blocks.

Then the board walk turned abruptly to cross a marsh, high-grown now with ripening cat-tails. Having safely crossed the marsh, the walk ended in a gra.s.s-grown path. Lydia trundled the heavy perambulator with some difficulty along the path. The August sun was hot.

"'A life on the ocean wave--'"

she panted. "You are getting fat, baby!

'A home on the rolling deep.

Where the scattered waters rave And the winds their revels keep.'

Darn it, I wish I had a bicycle!"

"Ahoy there! Hard aport with your helm, mate!" came a shout from behind her. A boy in a bright red bathing suit jumped off a bicycle.

"h.e.l.lo, Kent!" said Lydia.

"h.e.l.lo, yourself!" returned Kent. "Wait and I'll hitch to the front axle."

He untied a stout cord from his handle-bars and proceeded to fasten it from his saddle post to the perambulator. Lydia watched him with a glowing face. She was devoted to Kent, although they quarreled a great deal. He was a handsome boy, two years Lydia's senior; not tall for his years, but already broad and st.u.r.dy, with crinkly black hair and clear, black-lashed brown eyes. His face was round and ruddy under its summer tan. His lips were full and strong--an aggressive, jolly boy, with a quick temper and a generous heart. He and Lydia had been friends since kindergarten days.

"I'm going to stay in the Willows all day," said Lydia. "Don't go too fast, Kent."

"Dit-up! Dit-up, horsy!" screamed little Patience.

"Toot! Toot! Express for the Willows!" shouted Kent, mounting his wheel, and the procession was off, the perambulator bounding madly after the bicycle, while Patience shouted with delight and Lydia clung desperately to the handle-bars.

The path, after a few moments, shifted to the lake sh.o.r.e. The water there lapped quietly on a sandy beach, deep shaded by willows. Kent dismounted.

"Discharge your cargo!" he cried.

"Don't be so bossy," said Lydia. "This is my party."

"All right, then I won't play with you."

"n.o.body asked you to, smarty. I was going to give you my deviled egg for lunch."

"Gosh," said Kent, "did you bring your lunch? Say, I guess I'll go home and get mother to give me some. But let's play pirates, first."

"All right! I choose to be chief first," agreed Lydia.

"And I'm the cannibal and baby's the stolen princess," said Kent.

The three children plunged into the game which is the common property of childhood. For a time, b.l.o.o.d.y captures, savage orgies, escape, pursuit, looting of great ships and burial of treasure, transformed the quiet sh.o.r.e to a theater of high crime. At last, as the August noon waxed high, and the hostage princess fell fast asleep in her perambulator cave, the cannibal, who had shifted to captured duke, bowed before the pirate.

"Sir," he said in a deep voice, "I have bethought myself of still further treasure which if you will allow me to go after in my trusty boat, I will get and bring to you--if you will allow me to say farewell at that time to my wife and babes."

"Ha!" returned the pirate. "How do I know you'll come back?"

The duke folded his arms. "You have my word of honor which never has, and never will, be broken."

"Go, duke--but return ere sundown." The pirate made a magnificent gesture toward the bicycle, "and, say Kent, bring plenty to fill yourself up, for I'm awful hungry and I'll need all we've got."

As Kent shot out of sight, Lydia turned to arrange the mosquito bar over little Patience, then she stood looking out over the lake. The morning wind had died and the water lay as motionless and perfect a blue as the sky above. Faint and far down the curving sh.o.r.e the white dome of the Capitol building rose above soft billows of green tree tops. Up the sh.o.r.e, woods crowned the gentle slopes of the hills.

Across the lake lay a dim green sh.o.r.e-line of fields. Lydia gave a deep sigh. The beauty of the lake sh.o.r.e always stirred in her a wordless ecstasy. She waded slowly to her waist into the water, then turned gently on her back and floated with her eyes on the sky. Its depth of color was no deeper nor more crystal clear than the depths of her own blue gaze. The tender brooding wonder of the lake was a part and parcel of her own little face, so tiny in the wide expanse of water.

After some moments of drifting, she turned on her side and began to swim along the sh.o.r.e. She swam with a power and a precision of stroke that a man twice her size would have envied. But it must be noted that she did not get out of eye and ear shot of the perambulator beneath the willows; and she had not been swimming long before a curious agitation of the mosquito netting brought her ash.o.r.e.

She wrung the water from her short skirt and was giving little Patience her bread and milk, when Kent returned with a paper bag.

"Ma was cross at me for pestering her, but I managed to get some sandwiches and doughnuts. Come on, let's begin. Gee, there's a squaw!"

Coming toward the three children seated in the sand by the perambulator was a thin bent old woman, leaning on a stick.

"Dirty old beggar," said Kent, beginning to devour his sandwiches.

"Isn't she awful!" exclaimed Lydia. Begging Indians were no novelty to Lake City children, but this one was so old and thin that Lydia was horrified. Toothless, her black hair streaked with gray, her calico dress unspeakably dirty, her hands like birds' claws clasping her stick, the squaw stopped in front of the children.

"Eat!" she said, pointing to her mouth, while her sunken black eyes were fixed on Kent's sandwiches.

Little Patience looked up and began to whimper with fear.

"Get out, you old rip!" said Kent.

"Eat! Eat!" insisted the squaw, a certain ferocity in her manner.

"Did you walk clear in from the reservation?" asked Lydia.

The squaw nodded, and held out her scrawny hand for the children's inspection. "No eats, all time no eats! You give eats--poor old woman."

"Oh, Kent, she's half starved! Let's give her some of our lunch,"

exclaimed Lydia.

"Not on your life," returned Kent. "Dirty, lazy lot! Why don't they work?"

"If we'd go halves, we'd have enough," insisted Lydia.

"You told me you'd only enough for yourself. Get out of here, you old she-devil."