The Children of the Top Floor Part 16

"Navesink, Navesink," shouted the brakeman, putting his head in at the car door.

"Isn't it the very loveliest surprise you ever had?" demanded Lulu Bell, dancing up and down on the platform, and hugging Winifred tight. "I never knew a single thing about it till last night, but mamma has known for ever so long, and papa engaged the rooms at the hotel for you. Why, Winifred, don't look as if you were just waking up. It's the nicest thing in the world. You're all going to stay at the hotel for a month, and your father's going to town every day the same as papa does. They wanted it to be a surprise for you. See, here's Betty, and Jack's right over there in the go-cart. We all came down to the station to meet you, and it seemed as if the train would never come, we were so excited."

"Oh," gasped Winifred, finding her voice at last, "it's the very most beautiful thing that could possibly have happened. Are you quite sure it's all true, and not a dream?"

CHAPTER XI

AT NAVESINK

"I think the sea is the most beautiful thing in the world," said Jack, laying down his drawing pencil, and settling himself comfortably in the warm sand. "I could just sit and look at it all day long."

"Is your sketch finished?" inquired Winifred, looking up from the sand fort she was building.

"Yes, do you want to see it?" And Jack held out a sheet of foolscap for his friend's inspection. Jack was a very different-looking boy from the pale little cripple of two months before. There was a light in his eyes and a color in his cheeks that no one had ever seen there since the day of his babyhood. The healthy outdoor life in the bracing sea air was doing wonders for him. Winifred examined the sketch admiringly.

"It's perfectly lovely," she announced. "That fishing boat with the man in it looks as natural as can be. I think you will be a splendid artist when you grow up, Jack."

Jack flushed with pleasure at this frank praise.

"I hope I shall," he said, "I want to be. You know my father was an artist."

"You will be an artist and Lulu will be an auth.o.r.ess," said Winifred reflectively. "I wish Betty and I could both be something nice too."

"I'm afraid I shall never be anything in particular, unless it's a housekeeper," remarked Betty from her seat on the bathing house steps.

"I like to sweep and dust and cook better than anything else."

"You'll be a greater sewer, I think," said Winifred, with an admiring glance at the stocking her friend was darning. "Mother says she never saw a little girl who could sew as well as you can."

"Perhaps I shall be a trained nurse. I think I should like being a comfort to sick people. I heard Lulu's aunt say the nurse she had when she broke her knee was a great comfort to her."

"Miss Clark was a great comfort to us when mother was ill," said Betty; "mother had a letter from her yesterday. What's the matter, Jack--are mosquitoes biting?"

"No," said Jack, frowning, "it isn't the mosquitoes, it's only I don't like to have you talk about being things when you grow up."

"Why not?" inquired Betty in astonishment.

"Because if I'm an artist I can take care of you and mother. I want you just to be ladies."

"Well, mother's a lady, isn't she? and she works; and Lulu's aunt writes books."

Jack looked puzzled.

"I don't know quite how to say it," he said slowly, "but I want you to be the kind of ladies that mother was when she lived in England; the kind that live in castles, and have parks and things. They never work, do they?"

Both little girls laughed, and Betty said practically:

"I guess even queens work sometimes, but I know what you mean, Jack, only I think I'd like to be a housekeeper better."

"Here comes Lulu," exclaimed Winifred, rising to meet her friend, who came hurrying along the sand from the direction of her own home. "I've brought some ginger-snaps," announced Lulu, when she had greeted the others, and seated herself beside Betty on the bathing house steps. "I thought we might be hungry before luncheon time. I could have come before, but I was very busy writing my story. Is yours done yet, Winifred?"

"No," said Winifred, blushing; "I don't think I can write stories very well. When I get the ink and paper, and everything ready, I never can think of anything to say."

"Oh, but you must go on trying," urged Lulu. "It's the easiest thing in the world when you once get started. Does Betty know about what we're doing?"

"No," said Betty, looking interested, "tell me about it."

"Why, you see," Lulu explained, "Aunt Daisy is writing a book, and in it two little girls have to write compositions, and she thought it would be so nice to have original ones written by real little girls. So she asked Winifred and me to write some for her, and if she likes them well enough, she will put them in her book, and they will be published. Won't that be fun?"

Betty and Jack were both much impressed, and Winifred, who did not find authorship come at all easy, was struck with a bright idea.

"I don't suppose your aunt cares who writes the stories, so long as she gets them, does she, Lulu?"

"Why, no, I don't suppose so," Lulu admitted, "but you really must try, Winnie. Think how grand it will be to have something published."

"I was only thinking that perhaps Betty or Jack could do it better,"

said Winifred, with an appealing glance at her two little friends, both of whom, however, declined to enter the compact, declaring that they couldn't write a story to save their lives.

"I can't see why you all find it so hard," said Lulu a little patronizingly; "it seems very easy to me. I was only five when I made up my first story, and Aunt Daisy wrote it down on her typewriter. It wasn't very long, only 'Two little girls went to see two little boys.

They played hide and seek and blindman's buff. Then they had ice cream, and went home again.' Aunt Daisy said it was a beginning, and I've been writing stories ever since. Oh, by the way, Aunt Daisy says if you'll come over this afternoon she'll tell us all stories on the piazza."

The children looked pleased, and accepted the invitation with alacrity, for Lulu's blind aunt was a famous story-teller and a great favorite with them all.

"Papa and mamma have gone to the city for the day," said Lulu, "and Aunt Daisy's very busy this morning, writing on her story, but she's promised to devote the whole afternoon to us."

The conversation drifted to other things, and the next hour pa.s.sed very pleasantly in building sand forts, making mud pies, and doing other delightful things only possible at the sea sh.o.r.e. The ocean was very calm, and the little girls took off their shoes and stockings, and let the little waves splash over their feet. Jack lay on the sand, watching them and making sketches by turns. Some of the people from the hotels and cottages came down to the beach to bathe, and almost every one had a pleasant word for the little boy.

At last the ginger-snaps were produced, and they all sat down to enjoy them before going home.

"I wonder what makes people so dreadfully hungry at the sea sh.o.r.e,"

remarked Jack, helping himself to his third ginger-snap. "At home I never used to eat very much."

"It's because you're so much better than you used to be," said Betty, regarding her brother with happy, loving eyes. "What's the matter, Lulu?

you've dropped your cake."

"My goodness," exclaimed Lulu, clasping her hands in dismay. "I declare I forgot all about telling you the most important thing. A lord is coming to stay with us."

"A what?" inquired Betty and Winifred both together.

"A lord," repeated Lulu impressively, "a real live English lord. He's coming on his yacht. Papa got a letter from him yesterday, and he's on his way now."

"Where is he coming from?" Winifred asked.

"I don't know, but he's traveling in his yacht. He has a castle in England, and he's awfully rich. Mamma thinks he will bring a valet with him."