Part 43 (2/2)

”Will John always know what we like?” asked Suzanna as the meal progressed.

”Well, we'll change about,” said Mrs. Bartlett, who looked as though she were enjoying every moment. ”Sometimes when we know particularly what we'd like, we'll give our order, other times when we want to be surprised we'll let John serve us what he thinks we'd enjoy. Don't you think that way will be nice?”

”Oh, that will be very interesting,” said Suzanna; then added, ”Does the water make that sound all the time?”

”Yes, it's always restless.”

”Well, it seems as though it were asking for something,” said Suzanna, ”a kind of sad asking.”

”Now,” said Mr. Bartlett, leaning across and speaking softly to her, ”suppose, Suzanna, you think for a moment that it's a happy sound and see how almost at once it becomes a happy sound.”

Suzanna listened intently. Then her face brightened. ”Why, it is a happy murmuring,” she cried. ”Just as though it had to sing and sing all day long.”

”Exactly,” said Mr. Bartlett.

”Well, then,” said Suzanna, quickly drawing the deduction, ”it's really just in me to make it say happy things or sad things.”

”Exactly,” said Mr. Bartlett again, and then they all rose and went back to the cottage.

Since the trunks which contained the beach outfits did not arrive till late that afternoon, the children did not go down to the sands till the next morning. Then with joyous hearts and eager feet, they set off, Suzanna, Maizie, Peter, Graham, and Daphne; Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett following more slowly.

A bath house reserved for their use stood, door wide open. They entered, discarded their coats and immediately appeared again clad in their pretty bathing suits for the water.

But when they reached the sands, already alive with gay children who were building houses or running gaily about, and with happy shrieks wading into the water, the Procter children stood awed, unable to speak, so many emotions beat within them.

Maizie was the first to recover her power of speech. ”There's a girl down there with a shovel and pail like mine,” she said.

And that broke the spell. Peter and Graham walked bravely out into the water, finally reaching their necks as they went farther and farther into the ocean. But the little girls contented themselves by simply wetting their feet and with every wave das.h.i.+ng up to them, leaping back with glad little cries. As the morning advanced, they returned to the older group and sat on the sand.

On the sixth day of their stay all the children were trying bravely to swim, clinging it must be confessed rather desperately to Mr. Bartlett and the beach man, secured to help them; but when he procured for them large water wings, they soon struck out for themselves. Peter really learned to swim before either of his sisters, and one morning he went out as far as the end of a quarter-mile pier.

They all grew rosy and strong, out in the fine air nearly every moment as they were. Some afternoons they went fis.h.i.+ng, and, with a strange reversal of type, Suzanna was the patient one, Maizie the impatient.

Suzanna would sit in the boat next to Mr. Bartlett, holding her line, and breathlessly wait for hours if need be, statue-like, till she felt the thrilling nibble. Maizie would grow tired immediately, and to Peter's disgust, she would wriggle her feet or move restlessly about, quite spoiling for him the day's outing. Maizie at last begged to be let off from the fis.h.i.+ng expeditions.

”I'd rather just lie in the sand and paddle in the water, or watch the big white s.h.i.+ps,” she said.

”You're to do exactly as you please,” said Mr. Bartlett, and so they did, each and every one.

Many hours they all spent on one of the large piers running out a great distance into the ocean, where always there were gaiety and music, and here one afternoon Suzanna, Peter, Graham, and Mr. Bartlett, all seated at the end of the pier saw a huge shark darting about the water. The few daring swimmers in his vicinity quickly moved away.

”A real shark,” cried Suzanna. ”When I go to bed tonight I'll just think I dreamed it.”

Said Mr. Bartlett: ”Suppose, Suzanna, I buy you a book filled with blank pages, and having a little padlock with a small key, for your very own, so that every night you may write the happenings of the day and the impressions made upon you.”

”Oh, I'd like to do that,” cried Suzanna, her eyes s.h.i.+ning, ”and then surely I won't forget any single little thing to tell daddy and mother.”

”I'll write for the book,” Mr. Bartlett promised, ”when we return to the cottage.”

After a time they left the pier and walked down the street, running along with the sands. The street was lined with little stores of all kinds; one where fresh fish were sold, another where French fried potatoes and vinegar were offered to a hungry mult.i.tude; a place in which handmade laces were made and sold. A florist booth kept by a dark-faced Greek was neighbor to a shop built with turrets like a castle. Here a happy-faced Italian women exhibited trays of uncut stones, semi-precious ones, explained Mr. Bartlett, and strings of beads, coral, pearl, flat turquoise, topaz, and amethysts. There were bits of old porcelain, crystal cups, and oriental embroideries, and little carved G.o.ds on ebony pedestals. The place reminded Suzanna of Drusilla's historic old p.a.w.n shop and she stood entranced.

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