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"Oh now, mamma," spoke up warm-hearted Merton; "the idea of your being cross." "She IS cross," Bobsey cried; "she boxed my ears this very day." "And you deserved it," was Merton's retort. "It's a pity they are not boxed oftener." "Yes, Robert, I did," continued my wife, sorrowfully.
Now do me a favor: don't look, or talk, or think, any more to-night. It has been a long, hard day. Indeed" looking at my watch "it is already to-morrow morning, and you know how much we shall have to do. Let us go back and get a little supper, and then take all the rest we can." Winifred yielded, and Bobsey and Winnie waked up for a time at the word "supper."
The great steamer appeared to be a part of it, lying along its length with several gangways, over which boxes, barrels, and packages were being hustled on board with perpetual din. The younger children were a little awed at first by the noise and apparent confusion. Mousie kept close to my side, and even Bobsey clung to his mother's hand.
Never was a traveller from a remote foreign clime listened to with more breathless interest than I as I related my adventures at our late supper after my return. Mousie looked almost feverish in her excitement, and Winnie and Bobsey exploded with merriment over the name of the mountain that would be one of our nearest neighbors. They dubbed the place "Schunemunks" at once.
This was rather slow work, and to keep Winnie and Bobsey busy I told them they could gather sticks and leaves, pile them up at the foot of a rock on a dry hillside, and we would have a fire. I meanwhile picked up the dead branches that strewed the ground, and with my axe trimmed them for use in summer, when only a quick blaze would be needed to boil the supper kettle.
Mousie at last began to show signs of fatigue; and learning that it would be several hours still before we could hope to arrive, so severe was the storm, I procured the use of a state-room, and soon Bobsey was snoring in the upper berth, and my invalid girl smiling and talking in soft tones to her mother in the lower couch. Winnie, Merton, and I prowled around, spending the time as best we could.
After breakfast the following morning, with Merton, Winnie, and Bobsey, I started out to see if any damage had been done. The sky was still clouded, but the rain had ceased. Our rubber boots served us well, for the earth was like an over-full sponge, while down every little incline and hollow a stream was murmuring.
Even Mousie exclaimed with delight at the bright-colored papers of flower-seeds on her plate. To Winnie were given half a dozen china eggs with which to lure the prospective biddies to lay in nests easily reached, and she tried to cackle over them in absurd imitation. Little Bobsey had to have some toys and candy, but they all presented to his eyes the natural inmates of the barn-yard.
This pursuit afforded them endless items for talk, Bobsey modestly assuring us that he alone would gather about a million bushels of butternuts, and almost as many chestnuts and walnuts. "What will the squirrels do then?" I asked. "They must do as I do," he cried; "pick up and carry off as fast as they can. They'll have a better chance than me, too, for they can work all day long.
Returning home, I said nothing to Winnie and Bobsey against their recent companions, but told them that if they went with them again, or made the acquaintance of other strangers without permission, they would be put on bread and water for an entire day that all such action was positively forbidden.
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