The Wonderful Bed Part 8

The two mates were not only sound asleep but snoring loudly. Ann and Peter tried shaking them, spanking them, even drenching them with the cold remains of the catnip tea, but it was all no use, they could not get them to stir. Meanwhile the _Merry Mouser_ was drifting dangerously near land, in spite of all Rudolf could do to prevent her.

He did several things and he ordered Peter and Ann to do a good many others, but all of them felt glad the False Hare was not there to compliment them on their seamanship. At last there came a dull shock and a jar, and the _Merry Mouser_ ran her nose into a sand-bar, quivered all over, and then stood still.

"The thing to do _now_" said Rudolf easily, just as if he had planned it all, "is for us to get into the little boat we are towing and row ourselves ash.o.r.e. Of course we must wake up the mates and the crew and take them with us."

It was simply astonishing the things those children had to do to Growler and Prowler before they could get either of them so much as to open an eye! When they were at last able to understand what had happened, they merely turned over and growled out: "Oh, is _that_ all?

Aground, are we? Ye needn't have waked us up for _that_! Be off as soon as ye like and give us some rest--do!" They had hardly left off speaking before they were sound asleep again. As for Toddles and Towser they refused to wake at all.

The children left them where they lay and climbed Over the side of the _Merry Mouser_ into the little rowboat which Rudolf had brought alongside. When all were safely aboard, he cut loose the tow-rope, took the oars, and pulled away from the pirate ship. After a short and pleasant row they reached a gently shelving beach where it was not difficult to make a landing.

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CHAPTER IX

CAPTAIN JINKS

Ann stood and stared at the line of low hills that fringed the edge of the water. "What funny, funny country!" she exclaimed. "It's like a checker-board going up-hill."

"No, it isn't either," said Rudolf, who loved to disagree, "because the squares are not square, they're all different shapes and sizes and they're not just red and black but ever and ever so many different colors."

"It's something like the countries in the geography maps, anyway,"

said Ann.

"It's like patchwork," said Peter, and he came nearest the truth.

As it did not seem likely they would need the little boat again, the children left it to float away if it liked, and crossed the strip of gray sand to where they saw a little pink and white striped path winding up the side of a crimson hill. This path they began to follow, and it took them by so many twists and turns that they hardly noticed the climb. When the last loop brought them to the top of the slope they stood still and looked about them, surprised and delighted at the beauty of the bare bright hills that sloped away in front of them.

The ground under their feet was now a bright beautiful yellow, powdered all over with little white dots that proved to be daisies.

With shouts of delight, Ann and Peter stooped to gather these, but Rudolf cried out: "Oh, look, look! Don't let's stop here. It's prettier yet farther on!" So on they ran, all three of them, over the yellow ground, over a stretch of green and blue checks, across a lavender meadow, and found themselves at last in a wonderful pale blue field scattered all over with bunches of little pink roses.

"This is the prettiest yet," exclaimed Ann, "though of course it is very old-fashioned. I wonder what it reminds me of? Ruddy, do you remember that picture of Aunt Jane when she was little in such a funny dress with low neck and short sleeves--"

The children had been wandering across the field as Ann spoke, stopping to pull a rose here and there, too busy and too happy to notice where their feet were taking them. All at once they looked up and saw that they had come to the end of the pale blue field where it bordered on a broad brown road. Just ahead of them stood a little white tent, and from the door of the tent two tin soldiers suddenly sprang out, shouldered arms, and cried: "Halt!"

Of course the children halted. There was nothing else to do, so astonished were they to meet any one when they had supposed themselves to be in quite a wild and uninhabited country. Besides, though these were small and tinny-looking, yet soldiers are soldiers wherever you meet them, and have an air about them which makes people feel respectful. These two handled their little guns in a most businesslike manner. The taller of the two, who seemed by his uniform to be a superior officer, now stepped forward and snapped out: "Give the countersign!"

The children stood still and stared, Peter with his thumb in his mouth.

"We haven't got any, sir, so we can't give it to you," said Ann at last.

"Silly! He means _say_ it," whispered Rudolf in her ear.

"We can't say it either," Ann went on, "because we don't know it. But we know lots of other things," she added, looking pleadingly at the officer. "Rudolf, he can say the whole of ''Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse'--and I can say 'The Gentle Cow all Red and White I Love with all my Heart',--and Peter he says 'I have a Little Shadow',--he knows it all, every word!"

The little officer turned sharply to his companion. "Make a note of that, Sergeant," he snorted. "Head it, suspicious information: first prisoner, probably dangerous burglar burgling on Christmas eve; second prisoner, cattle thief; third prisoner--"

"But we aren't anything like that," broke in Rudolf hastily. "You're entirely mistaken, we--"

"Say what you are, then," snapped the officer, "and where you have come from and where you are going and what you are going to do when you get there; say it, quick!" And raising his little gun, the officer pointed it straight at Rudolf's nose.

"We have come from Catnip Island where we were captured by the cat pirates," began Rudolf, stumbling over the words in his excitement, "and we--we don't know exactly where we are going, and we--we aren't doing exactly anything!"

"Aha!" The officer turned to his sergeant with a triumphant expression. "Just what I thought. Anybody that can't give a better account of himself than that had better be locked up. Spies--aha!

Another of you came ash.o.r.e a while ago--a glib-tongued, story-telling gentleman who fooled us into letting him off, but we've got _you_ safe and sound and here you'll stay! Sergeant, arrest these spies!"

"Certainly, sir," said the sergeant, making a note of it in his book, "but please, sir, how do they be spelled, Captain Jinks, sir?"

"S-p-i-s-e, spies, of course, idiot!" snapped the captain. "Now then, off with 'em. Separate cell for each prisoner, bars to the windows.

Heavy chains on this gentleman in particeler," pointing to Rudolf.

"Bread and water, on a Sunday. Off to the jail with 'em--march 'em along!"

"Beg pardon, sir," interrupted the sergeant who was glad of an excuse to stop at a very difficult bit of spelling. "We'll have to wait a bit. I hear the Queen's band playin'--"

"Then stand at attention and hold yourself answerable for the prisoners!" With this command, Captain Jinks faced about to the road, and stiffened all over till he looked like a little tin statue. For some time the children had been hearing the sound of music, at first faint and far-away, now growing louder and louder. The sergeant pulled them hastily to the side of the road, and bade them in a gruff voice, "Keep quiet, or he'd settle 'em!" Then he, too, stiffened all over just as Captain Jinks had done, and both of them presented arms.

The head of a procession was coming in sight.

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[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER X

MEETING A QUEEN

First came a large company of soldiers almost exactly like Captain Jinks and the sergeant, except that their uniforms were a little shabbier-looking, and their arms a little less brightly polished. They held themselves stiffly and marched very well, in spite of the fact that many of them had suffered severe injuries, such as the loss of a leg or an arm at the least, in some former campaign, and all of them were rather the worse for wear. After the soldiers came the band, playing shrilly on their tiny instruments, and next, to the children's delight and astonishment, rolled a number of little carriages drawn by mechanical horses. Rudolf was so keenly interested in the working of these mechanical horses, that he hardly noticed the fine ladies who sat stiffly on the cushioned seats of the carriages, very grandly dressed, and holding beautiful pink and blue parasols over their curled heads.

Suddenly Ann grabbed his arm and whispered: "Look, look! Did you see them? Marie-Louise and Angelina-Elfrida, my _own_ dolls, and they never so much as bowed!"

"Perhaps they didn't know you," whispered Rudolf.

"They did, too," returned his sister angrily. "They just laughed and turned their heads the other way, horrid things! Just wait, I'll tell them what I think of them; but, oh, Rudolf, here come more carriages and more dolls in them, and how queerly they are dressed, these last, I mean! I never saw any dolls like them before. See their poke bonnets, and their fringed mantles, and their little hoop-skirts, but, oh, look, _look_, can that be the Queen?"

Ann's voice sounded disappointed as well as surprised, and in her excitement she spoke so loud that Captain Jinks himself turned his threatening eye on her and called out: "Silence!" But Ann paid no attention to him, nor did the other children; the eyes of all three were fixed upon a little figure who rode all alone at the very end of the procession. They knew she must be the Queen by the respectful way in which Captain Jinks and the sergeant saluted, but she was very different from what they had imagined a Queen to be. The wooden horse which she rode was not handsome, indeed one of his legs was missing, but he pranced and curvetted so proudly upon the remaining three that it seemed as if he knew he carried a Queen upon his back. The royal lady kept her seat with perfect ease, and when she came opposite the children, she checked her steed, halted, and gazed down upon them.

"Have you forgotten me?" she said. Then she smiled and they knew her at once. It was the corn-cob doll! Though she had grown so much larger and seemed so much grander, yet she looked just the same as when they had taken her out of Aunt Jane's sandal-wood box from which, the children now remembered, certain tin soldiers and a three-legged wooden horse had also come! The Queen still wore her flowing greeny-yellow gown, her hair was braided in two long braids that hung over her shoulders, and she carried her quaint little head high, in truly royal fashion.

Now she dismounted gracefully from her horse and came toward the children, holding out her hand. They dared not look her in the face.