Part 12 (1/2)
”Was anything ever more beautiful?” exclaimed Mother Fisher, drawing in long breaths of delight. The little doctor leaned back in his seat, and beamed at her over his big gla.s.ses. She began to look rested and young already. ”This journey is the very thing,” he declared to himself, and his hard-worked hand slipped itself over her toil-worn one as it lay on her lap. She turned to him with a smile.
”Adoniram, I never imagined anything like this,” she said simply.
”No more did I,” he answered. ”That's the good of our coming, wife.”
”Just see those beautiful green trees, so soft and trembling,” she exclaimed, as enthusiastically as Polly herself. ”And what a perfect arch!” And she bent forward to glance down the shaded avenue. ”Oh, Adoniram!”
”What makes the trunks look so green?” Polly was crying as they rumbled along. ”See, Jasper, there isn't a brown branch, even. Everything is green.”
”That's what makes it so pretty,” said Jasper. ”I don't wonder these oaks in the _Scheveningsche Boschjes_--O dear me, I don't know how to p.r.o.nounce it in the least--are so celebrated.”
”Don't try,” said Polly, ”to p.r.o.nounce it, Jasper. I just mark things in my Baedeker and let it go.”
”Our Baedekers will be a sight when we get home, won't they, Polly?”
remarked Jasper, in a pause, when eyes had been busy to their utmost capacity.
”I rather think they will,” laughed Polly. ”Mine is a sight now, Jasper, for I mark all round the edges--and just everywhere.”
”But you are always copying off the things into your journal,” said Jasper, ”afterward. So do I mark my Baedeker; it's the only way to jot things down in any sort of order. One can't be whipping out a note-book every minute. Halloo, here we are at the chateau of the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar. Look, Polly! look!”
As they looked back in the distance to the receding ducal estate, Polly said: ”It isn't one-half as beautiful as this delicious old wood is, Jasper. Just see that perfectly beautiful walk down there and that cunning little trail. Oh, I do so wish we could stay here.”
”Some day, let us ask Dr. Fisher to come out with us, and we will tramp it. Oh, I forgot; he won't leave the hospitals.”
”Mr. Henderson might like to,” said Polly, in a glow, ”let's ask him sometime, anyway, Jasper. And then, just think, we can go all in and out this lovely wood. How fine!”
”Father will come over to Scheveningen again and stay a few days, maybe,” said Jasper, ”if he takes a fancy to the idea. How would you like that, Polly?”
”I don't know,” said Polly, ”because I haven't seen it yet, Jasper.”
”I know--I forgot--'twas silly in me to ask such a question,” said Jasper, with a laugh. ”Well, anyway, I think it more than likely that he will.”
”I just love The Hague,” declared Polly, with a backward glance down the green avenue. ”I hope we are going to stay there ever so long, Jasper.”
”Then we sha'n't get on to all the other places,” said Jasper. ”We shall feel just as badly to leave every other one, I suppose, Polly.”
”I suppose so,” said Polly, with a sigh.
When they left the tram-car at the beginning of the village of Scheveningen they set off on a walk down to the _Curhaus_ and the beach. Old Mr. King, as young as any one, started out on the promenade on the undulating terrace at the top of the Dunes, followed by the rest of his party.
Down below ran a level road. ”There is the Boulevard,” said Grandpapa.
”See, child,” pointing to it; but Phronsie had no eyes for anything but the hundreds and hundreds of Bath chairs dotting the sands.
”Oh, Grandpapa, what are they?” she cried, pulling his hand and pointing to them.
”Those are chairs,” answered Mr. King, ”and by and by we will go down and get into some of them.”
”They look just like the big sunbonnets that Grandma Bascom always wore when she went out to feed her hens, don't they, Jasper?”
”Precisely,” he said, bursting into a laugh. ”How you always do see funny things, Polly.”