Part 16 (1/2)
”Navesink, Navesink,” shouted the brakeman, putting his head in at the car door.
”Isn't it the very loveliest surprise you ever had?” demanded Lulu Bell, dancing up and down on the platform, and hugging Winifred tight. ”I never knew a single thing about it till last night, but mamma has known for ever so long, and papa engaged the rooms at the hotel for you. Why, Winifred, don't look as if you were just waking up. It's the nicest thing in the world. You're all going to stay at the hotel for a month, and your father's going to town every day the same as papa does. They wanted it to be a surprise for you. See, here's Betty, and Jack's right over there in the go-cart. We all came down to the station to meet you, and it seemed as if the train would never come, we were so excited.”
”Oh,” gasped Winifred, finding her voice at last, ”it's the very most beautiful thing that could possibly have happened. Are you quite sure it's all true, and not a dream?”
CHAPTER XI
AT NAVESINK
”I think the sea is the most beautiful thing in the world,” said Jack, laying down his drawing pencil, and settling himself comfortably in the warm sand. ”I could just sit and look at it all day long.”
”Is your sketch finished?” inquired Winifred, looking up from the sand fort she was building.
”Yes, do you want to see it?” And Jack held out a sheet of foolscap for his friend's inspection. Jack was a very different-looking boy from the pale little cripple of two months before. There was a light in his eyes and a color in his cheeks that no one had ever seen there since the day of his babyhood. The healthy outdoor life in the bracing sea air was doing wonders for him. Winifred examined the sketch admiringly.
”It's perfectly lovely,” she announced. ”That fis.h.i.+ng boat with the man in it looks as natural as can be. I think you will be a splendid artist when you grow up, Jack.”
Jack flushed with pleasure at this frank praise.
”I hope I shall,” he said, ”I want to be. You know my father was an artist.”
”You will be an artist and Lulu will be an auth.o.r.ess,” said Winifred reflectively. ”I wish Betty and I could both be something nice too.”
”I'm afraid I shall never be anything in particular, unless it's a housekeeper,” remarked Betty from her seat on the bathing house steps.
”I like to sweep and dust and cook better than anything else.”
”You'll be a greater sewer, I think,” said Winifred, with an admiring glance at the stocking her friend was darning. ”Mother says she never saw a little girl who could sew as well as you can.”
”Perhaps I shall be a trained nurse. I think I should like being a comfort to sick people. I heard Lulu's aunt say the nurse she had when she broke her knee was a great comfort to her.”
”Miss Clark was a great comfort to us when mother was ill,” said Betty; ”mother had a letter from her yesterday. What's the matter, Jack--are mosquitoes biting?”
”No,” said Jack, frowning, ”it isn't the mosquitoes, it's only I don't like to have you talk about being things when you grow up.”
”Why not?” inquired Betty in astonishment.
”Because if I'm an artist I can take care of you and mother. I want you just to be ladies.”
”Well, mother's a lady, isn't she? and she works; and Lulu's aunt writes books.”
Jack looked puzzled.
”I don't know quite how to say it,” he said slowly, ”but I want you to be the kind of ladies that mother was when she lived in England; the kind that live in castles, and have parks and things. They never work, do they?”
Both little girls laughed, and Betty said practically:
”I guess even queens work sometimes, but I know what you mean, Jack, only I think I'd like to be a housekeeper better.”
”Here comes Lulu,” exclaimed Winifred, rising to meet her friend, who came hurrying along the sand from the direction of her own home. ”I've brought some ginger-snaps,” announced Lulu, when she had greeted the others, and seated herself beside Betty on the bathing house steps. ”I thought we might be hungry before luncheon time. I could have come before, but I was very busy writing my story. Is yours done yet, Winifred?”