The Happy Adventurers Part 14

"Your affec. bro.,

"d.i.c.k."

Mollie read this letter as she ate her morning oatcake. So her spell had worked! The question was, would it work again? For obviously she could not continue sending away photographs without causing remarks to be made and questions asked. She did not see how she could do anything more herself; they must just trust to luck, at any rate till she saw Prudence again.

It was rather odd, when she came to think of it, that she had not questioned d.i.c.k yesterday about how they had got over. But the fact was that, after the first surprise of seeing them, she had forgotten. "I forget about Now and only remember Then," she said to herself. "There is so much to do the time simply flies and comes to an end far too soon."

When she arrived downstairs that morning she found that her sofa had been carried out of doors. It was a lovely day. Here in the country the leaves still retained their early freshness, and from where she lay she could see the downs, mistily green against the pale morning blue of the sky. The rose-garden, with its smoothly mown gra.s.s paths, its pergolas and arches, its standards and dwarfs, was coming into bloom so fast under the June sunshine that Mollie thought she might almost see a bud swell into a full-blown rose if she watched steadily enough. Caroline Testout had already dropped some of her pink blossoms, which lay scattered about the path in rosy patches, reminding Mollie of Grizzel and her sh.e.l.ls. She smiled to herself and then sighed, as her eyes wandered from the rose-garden to the long red brick wall beyond, where the sweet cherries grew. The fruit was turning scarlet under an orderly net, which had been put up to protect it from the greedy little birds. Everything was so tidy, she thought. No one would dare to pull off those rose petals for scent- making purposes, nor to gather those cherries merely to play at making jam with. Chauncery was lovely and s.p.a.cious compared to the house in North Kensington, and the well-kept gardens were a pleasure to look at, but----

"I don't think England is big enough to hold children," she said to Aunt Mary, who sat near, reading the _Aeroplane_, with some neglected needlework lying in her lap.

Aunt Mary looked up with a surprised expression: "I am sorry you are feeling so crowded up," she said. "Would you like me to move a little farther away?"

"No, thank you," Mollie answered, with a laugh, "I have room to breathe even with you there. What I mean is----" she paused for a moment, wrinkling her brow, and then went on: "London isn't like this; it's full of poky holes. Ours is bad enough, but from the train you can see much, much worse places than ours. Sometimes I wonder how people can live in them, and yet Mother says they are not the worst. There is simply no room for children to play, so they play on the streets and sometimes get killed. The Girl Guides are going to help, but it takes a long time "--Mollie shook her head thoughtfully--"and there is so little time too; at home I never have any time to do anything except work or Guiding. I have no time to think in, except after I am in bed, and I go to sleep so horribly soon." She shook her head again and sighed deeply.

"Well, that's one good thing to be thankful for," Aunt Mary said cheerfully, dropping her paper and taking up her sewing, "and there are the holidays for thinking in. I wouldn't think too much, if I were you. You'll get plenty of that when you are old," and Aunt Mary sighed too, as if she did not find her own thoughts very gay affairs always.

"But I want to think of things now that will be useful long before I am old," Mollie persisted. "There is such a _tremendous_ lot of things to be done, Aunt Mary. And things have to be thoughts long before they are things. I expect the person who invented aeroplanes thought about them for ages and ages before he began to make one."

"I haven't the slightest doubt of it," Aunt Mary agreed, "but you are wandering from your subject, which was the smallness of Great Britain."

"No, I'm not--at least not exactly, I want to make Great Britain greater, and I can't think of a way. I should like to have plenty of room and plenty of time."

"That won't be an easy problem for you to solve, my lambkin," Aunt Mary said. "As a matter of fact there is room enough, in the country, but people prefer to live in towns. You will have to hire a pied piper and pipe all the babies into the fields."

Mollie shook her head, her eyes resting again upon the distant downs. "I don't know," she said seriously, "but something will have to be done some day, Aunt Mary, besides play-centres. They are good, but they aren't enough. Too many children die. Mother goes to a children's home once a week, and she took me once. You should just see those babies. And they could be such dear little things too.

Why--" Mollie hesitated for a moment and then went on, "Why don't more people go to live in Australia and Canada? The maps are full of empty s.p.a.ces."

"Ah, Mollie my dear, that's not so easy as it sounds," Aunt Mary said, folding up her work and rising to her feet. "There are all sorts of complications when it comes to shifting camp from the Old World to the New. But perhaps--perhaps if everyone in this old country could be persuaded to think of the children first--! In the meantime I must go and get lunch for my particular child."

Probably Aunt Mary's mind was running on those sick babies of the poor as she played to Mollie that afternoon, for her fingers wandered off into the tune of a song she had not heard sung since her childhood:

"'T is the song, the sigh of the weary: Hard times, hard times, come again no more!

Many days you have lingered around our cottage door-- Oh, hard times, come again no more!"

Mollie lay listening, the unopened alb.u.m in her lap. She was drowsy after her morning in the garden, and thought she would rest her eyes by closing them for five minutes. "A little darkness will do them good after all that sunshine," she murmured to herself.

It was very pleasant lying in the quiet room, on that broad sofa, listening to Aunt Mary's soft music. Mingling with the sound of the piano was the droning hum of a foolish bee, who had got on the wrong side of the window and was now making vain efforts to fly home again through the gla.s.s. A delicious scent came from somewhere--perhaps from the syringa bushes growing just outside the open window.

Mollie's lazy eyelids fell over her eyes--"Just five minutes--"

"Five minutes," said the clock. "Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes.

Twenty--"

"How soundly the child sleeps," Aunt Mary whispered, peeping in a little later to look at her niece. "These afternoon naps are the best thing in the world for her overworked little brain. I wish I could fill Chauncery with children, and let them run wild in the garden." She felt, not for the first time, how duty seemed to pull two ways at once, for there were many things she would fain have done had her duty to her mother not stood in the way.

Someone else came and looked at Mollie.

"Asleep!" Prudence exclaimed, with a smile. "Never mind, I can manage. It is getting very easy."

Mollie did not open her eyes the moment she woke up; she lay still, enjoying the warmth, the sweet scents, and the balmy air, so different from the cold winds of early spring. Presently she yawned, stretched herself like a sleepy kitten, and finally sat up and opened the lazy eyes.

"Good gracious!" she exclaimed, "Prue must have come and found me asleep. I wonder where she is."

She rose to her feet and looked about her as usual. She was in a place quite different from any she had seen hitherto. At her back stretched an orange-grove--there was no mistaking it, for the trees, planted evenly in rows, were laden with thousands of oranges, ripe and unripe, while the waxy white blossom with its golden heart still grew in cl.u.s.ters among the glossy dark leaves, sending its perfume out with the warm wind far and near. Before her, divided from the grove by a narrow, roughly fenced road, Mollie saw a wide, undulating plain, its surface covered somewhat scantily with coa.r.s.e gra.s.s and occasional clumps of bracken. There were gum trees, large and small, their thin blue-green leaves hanging limply from the grey boughs, and throwing but little shade on the ground beneath. Some distance away a creek wound between wide banks of shingly sand and low boulders. At the nearer end a gum tree had fallen across the stream and had been left to form a crossing. Mollie thought it did not look a very inviting bridge to cross on a dark night.

It looked hot out there in the open. Mollie turned back to the orange-grove, cool and inviting, and had almost decided to explore in that direction, when the sound of voices fell upon her ear, and, turning again, she saw a group of children crossing the scrub land in front. In spite of wide hats and sunbonnets they were easily recognizable. The boys were walking in front and carried spades and pickaxes over their shoulders; the two girls were loitering along behind, and carried between them a large round article which might be a tub, a cradle, or a sieve. They were heading for the creek, and, as Mollie watched, Hugh lifted his hand and pointed towards the fallen log.

"d.i.c.k and Jerry are first to-day, and they have got over without any help from me," Mollie said to herself, with a tinge of jealousy, which, however, she quickly got rid of--jealousy not being part of a Girl Guide's equipment. She put her hands up to her mouth in the way she had seen the Australians do, and shouted "Cooo-eeeeeee!", with a creditably sustained shrill note at the end. Her call brought the children to a standstill, and they waited for her to join them.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"We are going to dig for gold," Prudence answered, as they started again. "Hugh says there is gold in the river-bed. The boys dig, and we sift the diggings in this cradle, which rocks in the water so that all the dirt runs out and the gold stays in--at least, it would if there were any to stay. Last year we dug for ever so long, but never got any gold at all. We found some pretty crystals, though."

"I found a purple one just like an amethyst," Grizzel joined in; "but Mr. Fraser said it wasn't. Then I found a white one like a diamond, and a green one. I polished them with all my might, but I lost them except the green one. I hid it in a tree like the person who shot an arrow into the air, only my tree is a gum instead of an oak. I expect it is there still unbroke if it hasn't been stolen by a magpie or a blackie."

When they reached the creek the boys laid down their tools, and Hugh studied the lie of the land with an intent expression.

"We'll begin about here," he decided presently. "Last year we dug higher up, but I shouldn't wonder if gold silts downwards and collects in a hollow. This is about the hollowest place I have found yet. The soil in these old alluvial beds is often auriferous," he went on; "Mr. Fraser says this was once quite a respectable river, but years of dry seasons shrank it up. It will never go quite dry, because there is a good spring up there, and that is why he chose this place for his oranges. Irrigation is absolutely necessary for an orange-grove."

"Are we allowed to eat the oranges?" d.i.c.k asked anxiously, as a breath of scented wind blew across him.

"Oh yes--as many as we like. But we must dig first," Hugh replied firmly, lifting his spade as he spoke and planting it upright in the sandy soil. "First we must peg out our claims. There's a good deal of luck about gold-digging, of course, but you'd better look round and choose your own spot."

After some consideration the children decided to throw in their lot with Hugh, who was the only one among them who knew what gold looked like in its raw state.

"You can keep half and the rest of us will go shares in the other half," d.i.c.k suggested, quite forgetting in his interest that Time- travellers cannot carry profits with them on their travels. The plan sounded fair, however, so they agreed to it.

"It is possible that we may not find _gold_," Hugh said, as he marked out a square within which to begin operations; "but we are pretty sure to find something. Australian soil is extraordinarily rich in products. I should think it must be about the richest soil in the world."

"I hope it won't be ants," Prudence said nervously. "I do hate ants."

"Aunts!" exclaimed Jerry, not understanding Prue's Scottish- Australian p.r.o.nunciation. "Why the d.i.c.kens should we find aunts in a river-bed? Do they all drown themselves out here? Aunts can be jolly nice too--or jolly nasty, according to circs."

"They're _always_ nasty here," Grizzel said emphatically, "I never met a nice ant in my life. They bite like red-hot nippers."

"Bite! Oh, I see," said Jerry, "you mean black aunts," vague memories of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ and Aunt Chloe floating in the back of his brain. "I thought you meant white aunts. I didn't know that aborigines were as fierce as all that."

"I have never seen any white ants here," said Prudence, who called the native Australians blacks when she spoke of them and a-borry- jines when she read about them. "Uncle Jim says there are a great many in India, and they eat his books."

Jerry looked bewildered. "Of course there's lots of 'em in India,"

he said, "but I never heard of them eating books."

"I expect your uncle means that they devour novels," suggested Mollie.

"No, he doesn't. He says they eat a tunnel through all his books from one end to the other. And they stuff up the keyholes."