Part 45 (2/2)
”Oh, my goodness, no!” gasped Jasper. ”Why, Phronsie, you'd be tired to death--the very idea, child!”
”No,” said Phronsie, shaking her yellow hair obstinately, ”I wouldn't be tired one single bit, Jasper. And I don't want to get down from my donkey.”
”Well, if you didn't go over the _Mer de Glace_, why, we couldn't any of us go,” said Jasper, at his wits' end how to manage it without worrying his father, already extremely tired, he could see, ”and that's what we've come up for--”
Phronsie dropped the reins. ”Take me down, please, Jasper,” she said, putting out her arms.
”How are you now, father?” cried Jasper, running over to him when he had set Phronsie on the ground.
”It's astonis.h.i.+ng,” said old Mr. King, stretching his shapely limbs, ”but all that dreadful sensation I always have after riding on one of those atrocious animals is disappearing fast.”
”That's good,” cried Jasper, in delight. ”Well, I suppose we are all going to wait a bit?” he asked, and longing to begin the tramp over the _Mer de Glace_.
”Wait? Yes, indeed, every blessed one of us,” declared his father.
”Goodness me, Jasper, what are you thinking of to ask such a question, after this pull up here? Why, we sha'n't stir from this place for an hour.”
”I supposed we'd have to wait,” said Jasper, rus.h.i.+ng off over the rocks, feeling how good it was to get down on one's feet again, and run and race. And getting Polly and Tom and Adela, they ran down where the donkeys were tethered and saw them fed, and did a lot of exploring; and it didn't seem any time before an Alpine horn sounded above their heads, and there was Grandpapa, tooting away and calling them to come up and buy their woollen socks; for they were going to start.
So they scrambled up, and picked out their socks, and, each seizing a pair in one hand and an alpenstock with a long, sharp spike on the end in the other, they ran off down the zigzag path to the glacier, two or three guides helping the others along. At the foot of the rocky path the four drew up.
”O dear, it's time to put on these horrible old stockings,” grumbled Adela, shaking hers discontentedly.
”'Good old stockings,' you'd much better say,” broke in Jasper.
”They're better than a broken neck,” observed Tom, just meaning to ask Polly if he could put hers on for her. But he was too slow in getting at it, and Jasper was already kneeling on the rocks and doing that very thing.
”Now I'm all ready,” announced Polly, stamping her feet, arrayed in marvellous red-and-white striped affairs. ”Thank you, Jasper. Oh, how funny they feel!”
”Shall I help you?” asked Tom, awkwardly enough, of Adela.
”Oh, I don't want them on, and I don't mean to wear them,” said Adela, with a sudden twist. ”I'm going to throw them away.”
”Then you'll just have to stay back,” said Jasper, decidedly, ”for no one is to be allowed on that glacier who doesn't put on a pair.”
”I won't slip--the idea!” grumbled Adela. Yet she stuck out her foot, and Tom, getting down on his knees, suppressed a whistle as he securely tied them on. Then the boys flew into theirs instanter.
”Mine are blue,” said Phronsie, as the others filed slowly down the winding path between the rocks, and she pointed to the pair dangling across her arm. ”I am so very glad they are blue, Grandpapa.”
”So am I, Pet,” he cried, delighted to find that he was apparently as agile as the parson. No one could hope to equal little Dr. Fisher, who was here, there, and everywhere, skipping about among the rocks like a boy let loose from school.
”Well, well, the children are all ready,” exclaimed old Mr. King, coming upon the four, impatient to begin their icy walk.
”Didn't you expect it?” cried little Dr. Fisher, skipping up.
”Well, to say the truth, I did,” answered old Mr. King, with a laugh.
”Now, Phronsie, sit down on that rock, and let the guide tie on your stockings.” So Phronsie's little blue stockings were tied on, and after Grandpapa had gallantly seen that everybody else was served, he had his pulled on over his boots and fastened securely, and the line of march was taken up.
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