V
AT NAHANT
Angelina waved her hand cheerfully to Brenda and Nora, as she skipped away from the station, and the two friends began to look about for Edith. It was not strange, perhaps, that they did not see her, for when they glanced at their watches, they found that they were more than half an hour late. No one, not even the conscientious Edith, could be expected to wait in the neighborhood of a station so long after the appointed time.
“What do you think we ought to do?” asked Nora, a little anxiously.
“Why, ride in the omnibus, of course,” responded Brenda.
“But I thought your mother did n’t wish you to.”
“Oh, well, she might prefer something else, but it would be very silly indeed to wait for Frances or Edith, when here is this omnibus ready for us. See, it says ‘Nahant Beach,’ and there are only two or three people in it, so that we ’ll have plenty of room.”
“Well, I’m not sure,” said Nora. “Do you suppose that this will take us to the house?”
“Why, of course; I’m sure that it must. Nahant is a small place, anyway.”
The two friends took their seat in the omnibus opposite a fat old lady with a large basket, and a thin man with glasses, who looked rather nervous. Before they turned toward the beach a mother with two little children got in. The children were inclined to be fretful, and they climbed about from one seat to another, sometimes resting their muddy feet against the fresh, crisp skirts of the young girls, sometimes sitting so close to the nervous man as to interfere with his newspaper reading. Once they stepped on his toes, and drew from him a sharp cry of annoyance.
Their mother paid little attention to them; evidently they were accustomed to having their own way.
“Ah, it’s something ye want to interest ye,” said the stout woman.
“I’m sure that she’s somebody’s cook,” whispered Nora to Brenda; and their suspicion—in their own minds—was confirmed, when out of her basket she drew a bunch of grapes, which she divided between the two restless little creatures. The children, without deigning to thank the giver for the grapes, began to eat them in a very haphazard fashion.
“Be careful,” said Brenda; for the children had begun to snap the grapes at one another. “Don’t let them come too near.” But even as she spoke a well-directed shot landed a grape—and it was a grape without its skin—full in the middle of Nora’s skirt. As she tried to brush it off she only made matters worse. For the soft pulp left a decidedly ugly mark on her dark blue foulard.
“There, you naughty children, see what you ’ve done to the lady’s dress,” cried the mother. She gave each of the children a cuff on the ear, which, however, neither drew a cry nor stopped their activity.
Nora tried to make light of the injury to her foulard, although such an accident was of more consequence to her than it would have been to Brenda. But she was n’t sorry when about half way across the narrow strip of land connecting Nahant with the mainland the active mother and the children signalled the driver to let them off.
As the children lurched about in their efforts to move as fast as their mother, they clutched first at one thing, then at another, on their way to the door. The fat old lady did not escape them, and suddenly there was the clicking sound of coin, as, one after another, a stream of pennies and nickels rolled to the floor of the omnibus. The children had only time to gape at the mischief they had done, but Nora and Brenda bent down to help the old woman collect her scattered wealth. For a minute the stream seemed unending. The two girls, indeed, had to do all the picking up of the coin, for the old woman was altogether too stout to stoop. As Nora and Brenda laid one coin after another in her lap; she took each one up deliberately, and proceeded with a sum in addition after this fashion: “A nickel—thank you. Miss; five and seventeen is twenty-two, and this penny,—I’m very much obliged; that’s twenty-three, and two pennies,—thank ye most kindly; that’s a quarter.” Thus she proceeded until the whole amount was gathered up to her satisfaction. Fortunately there were no other passengers in the omnibus, so that there was no one present to criticise the sight of two well-dressed young girls kneeling on the floor of an omnibus to pick up a purseful of pennies for a stout working- woman. Just as they had finished their self-imposed task, two or three other passengers came into the omnibus, but the girls paid little attention to them. They were looking out of the window. It was low tide, and horses and carriages were driving on the hard sands of the broad and beautiful beach. There were only a few bathers in the surf, and not many persons to be seen around the flimsily built hotel and restaurants. When they reached the peninsula of Little Nahant, there was less of interest to see, and the two friends began to talk (or perhaps chatter would be the truer word) after the fashion of girls. At last they were startled by the driver’s inquiry.
“Was you going over to the beach?”
“Why, no,” replied Brenda; “we ’re going to Mr. Pounder’s cottage. Green Gables; don’t you pass it?”
“Not by a mile or so,” replied the driver, with the independence of the true-born Yankee. “’T ain’t on our rout.”
“But can’t you take us there?”
“No, indeed, miss, not now. We run on sche-dule time, and it would n’t do for me to make no changes. You see it is n’t my team,” he added, noticing the look of disappointment on the faces of the two girls.
“What shall we do?” asked Brenda with some anxiety.
“Well, you might get a carriage up there to the stable on the hill, or you might walk all the way. ’T ain’t so dreadfully far. Here’s where our road turns off; I suppose I’d better let you off here.”
So, greatly to their own surprise, Brenda and Nora now found themselves standing rather helplessly in the middle of the road.
“I don’t feel a bit like walking, do you?—and up that great hill, too. Is n’t it maddening? They ’ll be through luncheon by the time we get there.”
“I must say,” responded Brenda, “that Frances might have sent a carriage to look for us—or something.”
Just then they heard some one calling in a rather wheezy voice, “Young ladies, young ladies!” and, turning, they beheld the fat woman of the omnibus waddling toward them.
“Young ladies,” she said, as she drew near, “there’s a telliphone in me son’s shop, and you ’re very welcome to use it. I’m thinking that Mr. Pounder would n’t want youse to be walking this hot day.”
The girls thanked her cordially for the suggestion, wondering, at the same time, that they had n’t thought of a telephone before they had left Lynn. I am afraid, however, if the truth were told, they were a little too anxious to show their independence and their ability to get on without asking questions. They did not know that the more experienced a traveller is the more likely is he to make all inquiries needed to set him right on his journey.
After telephoning, Brenda learned that Frances had sent to the station in Lynn; but after waiting ten minutes the coachman (seconded by Edith) had decided that the two girls from Rockley had changed their plans. Had they inquired of the station master, they might have learned of the enforced delay.
“But we won’t scold them for that,” and Nora smiled as she thought of their funny trip in the omnibus.
While they waited in the little shop they found that the old woman, although not a cook, was a laundress, and that she had gone to Lynn that morning to get some fruit for a sick daughter. “I did n’t mind when they gave me all that change,” she said, “for I had n’t any intention of spilling it; but, thanks to you young ladies, I’m no worse off now than I was before.”
While they waited for the carriage, Mrs. Moriarty explained, still further, that her son had asked her to turn the five-dollar bill into small change in Lynn, and this accounted for the shower of coin. “He needs an awful sight of small change in the shop,” she had explained; “but I never expected to put the likes of you, real ladies, to so much trouble.”
“Oh, I’m sure that we were very happy,” said Nora; but both she and Brenda gave a sigh of relief as they saw the Pounder’s carriage approaching. Frances and Belle were standing at the front entrance to the grounds as they drove up. With their white piqué skirts and becoming shirt waists, with their faces wreathed in smiles, they looked so attractive that it would have been hard for the casual observers to believe that these two friends were ever anything but perfectly amiable. The wilfulness of young girls, however, and their little faults are, fortunately, seldom more than skin deep; and if the girls themselves would only be willing, sometimes, to see themselves as others see them, many of these faults could be entirely weeded out before striking root.
As Brenda and Nora jumped from the carriage, Edith, in a rather elaborately-made dark muslin gown, came rushing down from the steps. “I hope that you don’t think me too mean for not waiting at the station, but, truly, I had no idea that you were coming. I never thought of asking if the train was late. Was it much of an accident?”
“Oh, yes. Was any one hurt?” asked Belle, though her tone was not one of extreme anxiety.
So Nora and Brenda for a few minutes had all they could do to describe, adequately, their sensations, when they heard the ominous whistle, their alarm when they learned that some one had been run over, and their relief when they found that the whole thing had amounted to so much less than they had feared.
“I think that Angelina was rather disappointed that it was no worse,” said Nora.
“Angelina!” exclaimed Belle; “what was she doing there?”
“Oh, I forgot that we had n’t told you. She was an important part of the affair,” and Brenda, with a few lively touches that made the others laugh, described Angelina’s appearance on the scene.
“I hope,” said Edith, a little anxiously, “that she will go home to her mother to-day. I know that she is needed at home. I can’t think why she should he allowed to wander around Lynn.”
“Well, we have n’t time to talk about Angelina now,” said Frances, a trifle impatiently,—she never had been deeply interested in the Rosas. “Luncheon is served, and we must go in now.”
“Luncheon,” cried Nora, “I was afraid that you would n’t give us any. I’m half famished. In fact, I thought that I might have to eat up everything in Mrs. Moriarty’s shop—or, rather, her son’s shop.”
“Oh, Nora!” cried Frances, “you were n’t in that shop, were you? Why no one buys anything there except the coachmen and gardener and such people. How did you happen to go in?”
“Why we were invited by Mrs. Moriarty herself; how else could we have telephoned? We had n’t one in our pockets, Miss Propriety.”
Frances had an even smaller sense of humor than had Edith, and Nora and Brenda usually had to temper their remarks to the understanding of the latter. With Frances they were apt to be more impatient. But to-day she was the hostess, as Nora fortunately recalled in time, and during the remainder of the luncheon hour she was careful to follow the lead of Frances and Belle in conversation. Yet at times, when their conversation took a turn that seemed altogether too grown-up and dignified for the occasion, she could not resist exchanging an occasional glance with Edith, who herself was always natural and girlish.
As Frances’ mother was away, she had to do the honors of the house, and certainly, as a hostess, she appeared to advantage. The cool dining-room was a delightful place, with its long, broad windows. One gave a clear view of the ocean and the distant North Shore, and the other opened upon a beautiful old-fashioned garden, with the beds laid in terraces down to the tennis-ground at the foot of the slope.
“Oh, no, I don’t play tennis now,” said Frances, as they sat on the piazza after dinner. “You know it’s almost entirely out of fashion for girls. When the weather is cooler, I’m going to take up golf. But in warm weather I think it’s a duty simply to keep cool. Nobody ought to exert herself in the least in hot weather. I don’t approve of it.”
“Then I’m glad that we did n’t try to walk up that hill when we got out of the omnibus,” said Nora, mischievously. “Perhaps you would n’t have been willing to receive us when we arrived at your gates.”
“What nonsense!” cried Frances; “but then, really, it’s very foolish to walk in summer, it makes one so red and uncomfortable.”
“Everybody does n’t have horses and carriages at command, as you have, Frances,” said Belle, impatiently. She realized that Frances had spoken foolishly. “It’s very seldom that my grandmother gives me a chance to drive, and a great many families have no carriage at all.”
“Oh, not among people we know,” replied Frances.
“Well, there are plenty of horseless people among those I know,” said Nora,—“plenty of them; really, Frances, you ought to know more about real life. For my own part, I walk most of the time, in summer as well as in winter.”
Frances did not resent the rather sharp tone in which Nora spoke; and as the carriage drove up just at that moment,—
“I suppose,” she said, “that you won’t object to driving with the rest of us. There is more than an hour before train time. I’m going over to Lynn with you, and we ’ll have time to drive first around Nahant.
“If Julia were here,” she said, as they started out, “I suppose she’d want to see Longfellow’s cottage, and Agassiz’ house, and all the other historic places, and—”
“But why should n’t we be just as interested as Julia? Edith and I have both heard of Longfellow and Agassiz, and all the other famous people who have ever been at Nahant. I only wish that we had time for a sight-seeing expedition.”
“Well, we have n’t, to-day,” responded Frances; “but this is the Ormsby’s new house. Is n’t it a beauty? And there is the Club; but of course you know that.”
“In which direction is Spouting Rock? I ’ve been there,” said Brenda.
“Oh, out there, ” said Frances, pointing seaward. “I have n’t been there myself for ages,—not since I was a little bit of a girl.”
“Why, Frances Pounder!”
“Well, what is the good. It is so tiresome scrambling about over the rocks. I’d much rather sit on the piazza, or drive. It’s our duty to rest in summer.”
Nevertheless, in spite of her professed indifference to the best-known spots in Nahant, Frances did point out the unpretentious, home-like cottage where Longfellow had spent so many summers, and several other houses where Story and Curtis and Prescott, the historian, had spent a greater or less time. Yet, although she was more enthusiastic on the subject of the newer houses of her special friends than on the historic houses or the picturesque localities, she made herself very entertaining. Nora consequently came to the conclusion that, after all, there was something to like in Frances; and when she thanked her for a very pleasant day she meant just what she said.