GEORGIAN 
 BUNGALOW 
 
 \ V 
 
 
 FRANCES COURTENAY BAYLOR
 
 I I 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES

 
 bp jFranceg Courtcnap Kapler 
 
 CLAUDIA HYDE. A Novel. i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 JUAN AND JUANITA. Illustrated by HENRY 
 SANDHAM. Square 8vo, $1.50. 
 
 THE LADDER OF FORTUNE. A Novel. 
 Crown 8vo, $1.50. 
 
 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW. Illustrated. 
 Square i2mo, Jfi.oo. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK.
 
 A GEORGIAN 
 BUNGALOW 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCES COURTENAY BAYLOR 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 (aibe fitoetfibe $re?& Cambridge 
 
 1900
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1900 
 
 BY FRANCES COURTENAY BAYLOR BARNUM 
 AND HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A SOUTHERN HOME 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 SOME FISH ALSO A FRIGHT 11 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 >- A FAMILY FEAST, AND THE BIG CATCH .... 25 
 
 DC 
 
 < 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 ALL THE WORLD SEES A PRISONER, AND CANDY DOLL A 
 
 PROPHET .36 
 
 <\ 
 j- 
 
 $ CHAPTER V. 
 
 e A GOOD RESOLUTION KEPT 46 
 
 7 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 A FAIR IN THE FAIR MONTH OF MAY . 58 
 
 8 
 
 * CHAPTER VII. 
 
 -) 
 
 ci " A COUNTRY FOOTING " 71 
 
 (0 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 fj THE FAMILY GO ABROAD 82 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 IN DANGER 92 
 
 452G8O
 
 iv CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 A TERRIBLE TIME 102 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 THE RESCUE .... 112
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SHE STARTED OFF QUICKLY (page 30) . . Frontispiece 
 
 MR. NORTON'S ROSE GARDEN 4 
 
 A BANQUET FOR THE GODS 68 
 
 THEY WERE ALL so BUSY PACKING ... 84
 
 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A SOUTHERN HOME 
 
 A VAST stretch of country set in Debatable Land. 
 The sea, brimming high above miles and miles of 
 marshes ; sending by a mighty impulse its spray 
 flying over sand dunes, and palms, and palmettoes 
 along every beach ; puffing its salty whiffs, win 
 nowed by all the winds battling between Africa 
 and America, across wide stretches of half -sub 
 merged land ; throwing its long arms far, far in 
 land around richly wooded islands; and winding 
 in, through, about the low levels of rush-covered 
 sand, ever threatening, uprooting, destroying. 
 
 The patient land, at every ebb of the enemy, 
 sending its grasses, and reeds, and grains right 
 gallantly down to the very edge of the ocean, root 
 ing them in mire and sand, in the very driftwood 
 and wreckage thrown up against them by the ocean
 
 2 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 in its rage over their audacity ; covering its hills and 
 dunes with sea-oats, its marshes with rushes, in spite 
 of constant discouragement and inconstant waves, 
 making, here and there, a few firm acres on which 
 to set magnificent oaks veiled in long tendrils of 
 gray moss, palmettoes, growths of many kinds, 
 ever building, repairing, reclaiming. Everywhere, 
 everything telling of both land and sea the very 
 sea half land, the land half sea : the birds belonging 
 to both kingdoms, long-legged, long-billed cranes 
 and herons, short-bodied gulls, and ducks of bril 
 liant plumage, flying over the marshes, or lighting 
 in some solitary spot, and standing on one weary 
 leg until startled by some sight or sound into fly 
 ing off again ; the redwing nesting securely on the 
 marsh tussocks, the mockingbirds pouring out their 
 flood of harmony from the islands, the finches and 
 sparrows singing and twittering among the reeds, 
 stray orioles and woodpeckers, from more northern 
 climes, darting here and there throughout the woods : 
 the very plants and flowers born of this union of 
 land and sea partaking of the nature of both ; 
 strange, uncanny things, often slimy and fleshy 
 when found among the shells and sands of the 
 beach, succulent and many-tinted farther inland, 
 pliant all, and built to bear the sudden swirl and
 
 A SOUTHERN HOME 3 
 
 uplift of the water, rich in color, knowing well the 
 sweetness of the sun's kiss. Above the wide, low, 
 level landscape the blue magnificence of the south 
 ern sky, with great white clouds floating across it, 
 like detached mountains from the heavenly country. 
 Beyond it the changing glories of the illimitable sea. 
 Here, some ten miles inland, on the Tomochichi 
 River, among the uplands, was set a model planta 
 tion house of the better sort, on an estate primarily 
 devoted to the production of rice, but rich in many 
 delightful things, and known as " Neosha." First 
 there was a charming family of English people, the 
 Nortons, who had bought the estate from its impov 
 erished owner, a stately, courtly old man (of the type 
 once so familiar to Southerners, cast in the mould 
 that can alone form the highbred gentleman the 
 world over), now retired to his former overseer's 
 cottage across the river. Then there was a roomy 
 boat-house below an ideal bath-house, and finally 
 there was a most beautiful and unique garden, the 
 like of which was not to be found or seen in this 
 country. The Nortons' rose-garden was indeed one 
 of the notable things of the countryside, and gave 
 more pleasure annually to their friends and acquaint 
 ances than could be at all estimated. It was at its 
 best in the month in which our story opens, June,
 
 4 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 and consisted of acres of exquisite roses of every 
 kind, in full bloom, surrounded by a hedge of other 
 roses, the white Cherokee, and all owing their per 
 fections to the ugly rice mud beneath, the blazing 
 tropical sun above, and the soft air around them. 
 Mr. Norton was a connoisseur in roses, and a great 
 lover of them ; a good botanist, and an indefatigable 
 gardener. He had come to the country with his 
 wife just at the close of our civil war, and had for 
 tunately been able to build the estate up to the ante 
 bellum level again, and keep it there. The lawn, 
 which as an Englishman he was sternly determined 
 to have, he eventually produced from cocoa grass. 
 There was an imposing avenue of oaks leading up 
 to the house which stood embowered, as it were, 
 in vigorous crape myrtles, flinging their generous 
 pink - tipped branches toward every window. In 
 place of the traditional apple or peach orchard, 
 there was one no less delicious of Smyrna and 
 Celeste figs, as both the birds and the boys well 
 understood, and two great arbors of scuppernongs, 
 and a big watermelon patch, the delight of " You- 
 pam," " Candy Doll," and the pigs. The house 
 was a large one, built on the old bungalow plan 
 of the South, the East Indies, the tropics generally : 
 raised on pillars, surrounded on every side by wide
 
 MR. NORTON'S ROSE GARDEN
 
 A SOUTHERN HOME 5 
 
 verandas, with rooms on both sides of the wide 
 halls that traversed the house and crossed each 
 other at right angles, a plan that cannot be im 
 proved upon for a hot climate. In the rear were 
 the servants' offices, in which lived Daddy Dick, 
 Maumer Oney, his wife, Big Maria, Little Maria, 
 Betty, Henny, and her two children, " Candy Doll " 
 and Youpam (derived from Epaminondas, a worthy 
 rashly mentioned by Mr. Norton one day at dinner, 
 and appropriated with variations by Daddy Dick's 
 son, Sam, the butler), three other men, and a boy. 
 Beyond this again dwelt the field hands. 
 
 As for the family proper, it consisted of Mr. and 
 Mrs. Norton, their children (Mabel, aged sixteen, 
 Edward, a boy of fourteen, Frank, whose chief 
 regret in life was that he was " only ten," Lucy, 
 a child of eight, and the youngest and prettiest of 
 them all, generally called " dear little Keith "), the 
 governess, Fraulein Dinkspiel (who laid great stress 
 upon the proper pronunciation of the " spiel " in 
 her name), and a tutor, Mr. Caruthers, a youthful 
 graduate of the University of Virginia, as modest 
 and clever as he was manly and good-looking. 
 
 Between the house and the servants' offices was 
 a plot of ground which the children regarded as 
 most important of all, for there was the pigeon-
 
 6 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 cote, and there the rabbit-hutches ; there was the 
 kennel that held, that generally did not hold, 
 " Waggles," their Beloved dog ; there were their 
 chameleons, and a tank full of fish ; and there was 
 their blue heron and their tame (broken-hearted 
 would be a better term) alligator, so weary of being 
 everlastingly poked up by a long succession of little 
 Nortons that he was called in the family " Pooh- 
 bah ! " 
 
 In such a spot, it must be clear that children, 
 at least, could not have been otherwise than happy, 
 and that the elder folk had their occupations, con 
 solations, and diversions. Mr. Norton was nearly 
 always to be found in the garden with Daddy Dick, 
 who always addressed him as " Cunnle " and gave 
 his whole mind to seeing how little he could do 
 unlike his master, who never could do enough, or 
 grow accustomed to the leisurely ways and the 
 ingenious excuses, the infinite capacity for sleeping 
 and eating, the constitutional objection to working, 
 of the colored people. He always treated them with 
 the courtesy that English gentlemen show their ser 
 vants ; he was never in the least familiar with them ; 
 he paid them liberally and promptly. He never 
 could understand why the stars in their courses, 
 according to Daddy Dick, seemed to fight against
 
 A SOUTHERN HOME 7 
 
 his weeding, watering, clipping, ploughing the be 
 loved roses ; or why Dick grinned with delight and 
 fell to hoeing with the greatest possible energy 
 and spirit, when Mr. Carlton, his former master and 
 owner, coming over to see Mr. Norton, would call 
 out : " Dick, you black rascal, are you going to let 
 those Marshal Niels die for want of water ? And 
 look at that bed of tea-roses, there ; don't you see 
 they need shading ? And see here, there 's a pair 
 of trousers up at the house for you, and I 've paid 
 for having that old mule of yours shod the one 
 with the fiddle-box head." That mule was the apple 
 of Daddy Dick's eye. He had a little plot of land 
 on the other side of " Bolton's cut," one of the 
 many winding waterways of the county, which he 
 called his " fa-am " there was not an r in his 
 vocabulary and " Linkum " was his silent and 
 very efficient, if somewhat obstinate, partner in the 
 business of raising watermelons during his leisure 
 hours. And nothing made the Norton children 
 quite so happy as a visit to his cabin, to Sally, his 
 wife, to " Linkum " (for Lincoln), and the pigs. 
 " Dick and I understand each other," Mr. Carlton 
 would say. 
 
 " Yeh. We was born de same day, and chris 
 tened de same day, and got married de same day.
 
 8 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 But de Cunnle he ain't had no luck. Sally she 's 
 my sevent wife, and younger 'n my daughter. But 
 he is done have to live along wid de same old Miss 
 right straight thoo," Dick would answer. 
 
 Mrs. Norton, at first, had been equally puzzled 
 by servants that never drank beer, knew nothing of 
 "board-wages," resented being given their weekly 
 allowance of food, and were generally so trying, in 
 some ways, and entirely different from anything she 
 had ever known. "If they would only not clean 
 the kettles with my apostle spoons, and dust with 
 my best table-napkins ! " she would say to her hus 
 band : " And if I could only depend upon them as 
 one does at home." 
 
 But they both knew all about the race by the 
 time Fraulein Dinkspiel appeared on the scene, and 
 greatly enjoyed proceedings that quite scandalized 
 the plantation. 
 
 " Kommen sie hier" the worthy lady cried to 
 Candy Doll the day of her arrival ; " I would your 
 wool feel. Hein ! But it is like the sheep," and 
 then kissed her, which sent all the Norton children 
 off in rows into such fits of giggles that fraulein in 
 her turn was quite scandalized. 
 
 " It is not proper that the young lady, the young 
 gentleman, should so conduct themselves," she said
 
 A SOUTHERN HOME 9 
 
 to them. " And you, call you that a name Candy 
 Doll ? " she continued. 
 
 " Yeh-hum," replied the little black sheep, show 
 ing all her ivories. 
 
 " Her mother called her that," explained Lucy 
 solemnly. " It was n't her fault." 
 
 " 'Cause I 'se so thweet," added Candy Doll. 
 " And here-'s Youpam," pushing forward her brother. 
 
 "But the registrar, the priest, they allow such 
 ridiculosities in America ! " cried fraulein fiercely. 
 " It is quite shameful, this. And what will become, 
 when you are an ugly old woman, eh? A nice 
 name then, truly, eh ? " 
 
 Candy Doll was unequal to the situation for sev 
 eral reasons. She was afraid of the strange white 
 lady in blue goggles, who first kissed her and then 
 rated her, for one thing. She had no idea at all on 
 the subject of such a remote future state, for an 
 other. So she sucked her thumb, and hung her 
 head, a quaint little figure enough in her red cotton 
 slip, her little legs and feet bare, her hair standing 
 out a la Congo all over her head. 
 
 " Come along. It ain't your fault. I would n't 
 mind, if I were you," said Lucy, putting a protect 
 ing arm around her protegee and leading her away. 
 
 "What is your name, fraulein ? " asked Mabel as 
 she seated herself.
 
 10 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 "Aneuta Yoganyvna Papava, after my mother, 
 who was Russian; Carlotta Ulrica Bettina, after my 
 father's sister ; Stephanie Jeanne, for my mother's 
 sister ; Margarita for my great-grandmother, who 
 was French by nativity ; Augusta, Teresa, Bertha, 
 Louisa, Caroline, and, in course, Dinkspiel," replied 
 fraulein. " Pouf ! But it is enough. I am called 
 Bertha." 
 
 " Do say them all again," cried the children en 
 masse. " Oh, mother dear ! you should just hear the 
 names that fraulein has got." 
 
 Mrs. Norton had come in to tell fraulein that she 
 must not embrace all the little darkies on the plan 
 tation, as it would certainly throw her household 
 into the greatest possible confusion, but she listened 
 first to the singular recital. 
 
 " And were you allowed to have them all ? Why, 
 it is as bad as the Infanta of Spain ! " she said, and 
 then went on to give her little warning. 
 
 " Oh, de boor, bretty little dings ! Wherefore not ? 
 Is it a harm ? " asked fraulein. " A child is a child, 
 be she black, be she white, be she yellow. Und I 
 loike so all children. Dey are so fresh from Hayven, 
 und die Allgutigste."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 SOME FISH ALSO A FEIGHT 
 
 " WELL, children, what do you say to a day on 
 Curlew Island ? " asked Mr. Norton of the assembled 
 family at the breakfast-table on the morning of the 
 fifth of July. " The weather is perfect, not too hot, 
 and we have n't been fishing for a year." 
 
 The faces around him were answer enough to this 
 question. But there was a great chorus of : " Oh, 
 papa, do let us ! Delightful ! Is mamma coming ? 
 and fraulein ? And can't Candy Doll and Youpam 
 come, too ? " 
 
 " There they are now ! " cried Mabel, and look 
 ing out of the window, they all saw Daddy Dick 
 mounted on "Linkum" standing before the front 
 door. Behind him were Youpam and Candy Doll, 
 who seemed about to slip over Link urn's tail. In 
 front of them all (some distance off, indeed) was 
 an enormous watermelon, of the famous ivy pattern. 
 Linkum seemed in extremely low spirits, and drooped 
 his head and tail most dejectedly. The children
 
 12 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 were in high glee, and dug their bare heels into 
 his side. Daddy Dick's melancholy, meek face 
 wore an expression of proud gratification, very un 
 usual to it, as he announced to Alfred that he had 
 brought tribute from his " fa-am " for " de Cunnle," 
 and had left one just like it for " de old Cunnle." 
 Mr. Norton went out, and having paid Daddy Dick 
 in cold cash for his present, much to his chagrin, 
 bade him get the men and the boats as they were 
 off for a picnic. 
 
 The big mirror in the hall, which, when the front 
 door was open, so beautifully reflected the rose- 
 garden beyond and made one of the prettiest effects 
 about the tasteful home, now showed an animated 
 family party. There was Mr. Norton, in his oldest 
 clothes, a wet cabbage leaf under his puggrey, his 
 hands full of fishing-tackle, his thoughts now with 
 his wife, now with his children, now with the ser 
 vants. There was Mrs. Norton, very sweet and 
 motherly in her blue cotton gown, having a huge 
 hamper packed before her eyes, collecting the bath 
 ing-suits, clapping huge straw hats on the boys' 
 heads, repressing Waggles's overtures, giving direc 
 tions to Maumer Oney about a hot supper to be pre 
 pared by the time they got back. There was Frau- 
 lein Dinkspiel, pinning two veils on a huge inverted
 
 SOME FISH ALSO A FRIGHT 13 
 
 mushroom of a hat, her goggles well settled on her 
 nose, her kind German face beaming with satisfac 
 tion, a book under her arm, her knitting in her 
 pocket, her rod in her hand, and bathing-suit and 
 umbrella neatly strapped lying at her feet. There 
 were Edward and Frank and Keith, sliding down 
 the banisters, squabbling over lines and rods and 
 hooks, fingering the bait in the big can just brought 
 in by Sam, peeping into the luncheon hamper with, 
 " Mamma, can't I have a cake ? " behaving, in short, 
 as boys always have done, and always will do as long 
 as boys continue to be boys, on such occasions. 
 There was Mabel, such a sweetly pretty, fair girl, 
 almost as tall as her mother, and quite as womanly, 
 looking for some fans, putting ammonia and court- 
 plaster and Pond's Extract into her bag, " for the 
 boys'" possible needs and injuries; a fresh hand 
 kerchief and a new novel " for mamma ; " combs, 
 brushes, soap, towels, " for everybody ; " uncon 
 scious that little Keith was delightfully occupied 
 fastening fish-hooks in the neat braids of her back 
 hair. There was Lucy, dancing all over the place 
 like a big butterfly, all excitement and interest in 
 everybody's proceedings. There was Big Maria, who 
 was as tall and lank as a beanpole, and the soul of 
 cheerful good-nature, hunting for all the things that
 
 14 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 were so imperatively needed at once, and booming 
 out her replies in her own big voice. There was 
 Little Maria, who was as small and dismal as any 
 woman ever got to be, making mountains of sand 
 wiches and rebuffing the children in her meekest 
 whispers. There was Daddy Dick, hat in hand, 
 waiting orders ; likewise Sam and Ned, his son and 
 nephew. There was Maumer Oney (who must have 
 weighed a ton, and wore the most stylish head-hand 
 kerchief left in the neighborhood, almost the only 
 one that freedom and new days and ways had spared, 
 indeed), wiping her shining black face at short in 
 tervals with her apron, and interjecting remarks 
 about the advisability of " stewin' de cherries " and 
 " havin' a Sallie Lumm." 
 
 But at last, after any amount of hurrying and 
 scurrying, of remembering and forgetting, Mr. Nor 
 ton strode off across the lawn, fallowed by Waggles, 
 all playful barks and bounds, and by the entire 
 party, including Youpam and Candy Doll, who 
 brought up the rear, and were smuggled into the 
 boats by Lucy when her father's back was turned. 
 When everybody was sure, in answer to the ques 
 tions of Mr. and Mrs. Norton, that the luncheon, 
 the rods, the bait, the umbrellas, the fans, the bags, 
 and the children were all there, including the unin-
 
 SOME FISH ALSO A FRIGHT 15 
 
 vited but not unwelcome little playmates, the heavily 
 laden boats pushed off from the shore, and turning, 
 made off through miles and miles of waterways that 
 wound around and about and through the country, 
 in a way that made it seem wonderful that Daddy 
 Dick should be able to choose, always, just the right 
 turning, where all looked exactly alike. 
 
 " Mamma, can I have a cake ? " demanded all the 
 children at short intervals, but only little Keith got 
 one. They were off for " a party," and as he kept 
 asking " when the party would begin ? " that, of 
 course, meant refreshments, as he was too small to 
 understand that the hamper must not be opened 
 just yet. 
 
 Fraulein got out her knitting as soon as she was 
 comfortably settled. She did not believe in any 
 more idleness than was necessary in life, and came 
 of thrifty folk, who had brought her up in a stern 
 but admirable school. 
 
 " You are not going to knit now, are you, frau- 
 lein ? " asked Lucy pettishly. 
 
 " Yes, liebchen, I must have stockings ; and look 
 you, I am fifty. I have no time to waste. Nor 
 have you. No one has, be the life ever so long. I 
 regret me very much the hours that I imaginated 
 only when I was young girl. Of what use ? No-
 
 16 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 thing has come for what I made such fine stories. 
 Much sorrow, much work only. But this I have 
 found : Laziness and lies are the worst of all. So 
 I speak always truth, and I work always. And I am 
 not unhappy, no ; so far I am like the good God." 
 
 "But, fraulein, you have six hundred pairs of 
 stockings already," said Mabel. 
 
 " Yes, I am of respectable family," replied frau 
 lein with pride. 
 
 " But what do you want with so many ? " 
 
 " We have the great wash only once by the year. 
 You know one must needs many. My aunt, who 
 was of a high family, had nine hundred. She is 
 dead now. Her livers and gizzards and lungs was 
 all wrong;." 
 
 O 
 
 The children all laughed out over this, to them, 
 amazing statement of several facts. 
 
 " What ! You only had your clothes washed once 
 a year ? " cried Edward. " What did you do with 
 them?" 
 
 " They was all to the garret taken and shaken ; 
 ya ! but shaken and hung up over the ropes there," 
 replied fraulein. 
 
 " What a nasty idea ! " ejaculated Frank. 
 
 " You English think all is nasty what is not Eng 
 lish," retorted fraulein, as she started a fresh needle.
 
 SOME FISH ALSO A FRIGHT 17 
 
 " But that could n't be nice ! " cried Mabel. 
 " And your aunt why, if she had had as many 
 legs as a centipede, she could not have worn all those 
 stockings ! " 
 
 "I well remember me that she did," insisted 
 fraulein. " She was high well-born ; and they was 
 all silk too. Boor ding ! she was always very 
 bad with her livers." 
 
 " She could n't have but one, fraulein, and only 
 chickens have gizzards," said Edward, shifting his 
 seat and causing the boat to lurch decidedly. 
 
 " Look out ! " shouted Mr. Norton. 
 
 " I thought I saw a shark," replied Edward, 
 peering down into the rushes over which the boat 
 was passing, thickly as they grew in the water, just 
 as if they were not there at all. 
 
 " Too far from de sea, sah," said Daddy Dick, 
 bending forward and making the boat leap ahead 
 under his long, steady strokes. " Is you brought de 
 confusion maker, sah ? " he slyly added, looking at 
 Mr. Norton. " An' de watermillion ? " 
 
 Mr. Norton exchanged glances with his wife and 
 smiled. Daddy Dick had but one weakness. He 
 was too fond of whiskey, of which he always spoke 
 with the greatest contempt in this way. 
 
 " Mamma, what is a i high well-born ' ? " asked
 
 18 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 Lucy, harking back to what fraulein had said. 
 "And isn't it perfectly disgusting to wash clothes 
 only once a year ? " 
 
 " i Autres pays, autres mceurs,' my dear. The 
 customs and manners of all nations differ. I should 
 not say ' disgusting/ if I were you. As for frau- 
 lein's aunt, she was a noble woman." 
 
 "Can't I be a noble woman, mamma?" asked 
 Lucy. 
 
 " You certainly can, my dear, with a difference. 
 Fortunately it is not a matter of stockings," replied 
 Mrs. Norton. " Your father does not come of the 
 nobility, but of the gentry, in England. You can 
 not be a duchess, or countess, but in the best sense, 
 there is no limit to the kind of nobility that I wish 
 for you, my dear child." 
 
 " Is that Candy Doll back behind us, and You- 
 pam, alias Epaminondas," asked Mr. Norton from 
 the boat just in front of them. " What are they 
 doing here ? " 
 
 "Yessah," replied the brother and sister, much 
 abashed. 
 
 " Oh, papa, I asked you, and I just could n't bear 
 to have Candy Doll left behind ! She promised to 
 teach me how to float," cried Lucy. 
 
 " Can you float and swim, Candy Doll ? " asked 
 fraulein. " Oh, the ridiculosity that name ! "
 
 SOME FISH ALSO A FRIGHT 19 
 
 " Yessum ! " replied Candy Doll, casting her eyes 
 down upon her bare feet, and sticking her thumb 
 bashfully in her mouth. 
 
 " Put on dat sunbonnet ! Ain't you goin' to ? 
 What yoh mammy say 'bout tak'n' care o' yoh / 
 skin ! " interjected Daddy Dick sternly. 
 
 Candy Doll was already black beyond the power 
 of any sun to affect her complexion, but she started 
 in a guilty way, and hurriedly donned a yellow calico 
 sunbonnet, with very limp slats that flapped about 
 and over her face most uncomfortably. 
 
 " Here, gal ! " cried Youpam, as he took hold of 
 one of her long plaits, drew it up through a hole at 
 the back of her sunbonnet, and tied it with a piece of 
 cord to the " curtain; " " now you is all right." 
 
 " Quit ! Stop dat, Youpam ! " said Candy Doll ; 
 "you hurted me." 
 
 " Where is your manners ? Who done raised you ? 
 Ef you get pernickity, I 'se gwine throw you right 
 out dis boat to de fishes," cried Daddy Dick wrath- 
 f ully to the pair. " Don' yoh open yoh mouth agin, 
 do you hear ? " 
 
 " Yessah," cried the twins, subsiding immediately. 
 
 All this time less and less was to be seen of any 
 thing that suggested the stability of earth ; more 
 and more was there the swell and uplift of the
 
 20 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 ocean ; until, at last, across the thicket of bay and 
 rose hips in which ended a gentle slope, purple with 
 asters at certain seasons, appeared a snow-white sand 
 dune, and beyond this again a beautiful sweep of 
 ocean as blue as the sky overhead, 
 
 " Ach ! Thou loved Heaven ! But the ocean is 
 never to be sufficiently admired," cried fraulein in 
 German. " You remember you, Mabel, of that bo- 
 etry of Heine " 
 
 But she got no further, for " Drop anchor," cried 
 Mr. Norton ; and down it went ! Daddy Dick rested 
 from his labors and wiped his brow. Everybody 
 seized a pole. The awning overhead was shifted 
 into position ; silence was enjoined ; and at once over 
 went the lines of the entire party. For three hours 
 they sat thus, catching mullet, silver fish, sharks, 
 with only such speeches as were necessary, under a 
 burning sun, tempered by a cool wind. The boys' 
 arms and legs were bare, and burned crimson in the 
 glare from the water. Daddy Dick was kept busy 
 baiting hooks. *Fraulein earnestly brooded over a 
 new rod and line just imported from New Orleans, 
 but caught nothing. Edward got tired soon, and 
 took to his book about homing pigeons. Little 
 Keith ate, and drank, and fell asleep in his mother's 
 lap. Mabel and Lucy and Frank exclaimed over
 
 SOME FISH ALSO A FRIGHT 21 
 
 their good luck. When the sharks had all had their 
 noses broken and been thrown back into the water 
 to float but never again to sink, and the flapping fish 
 that filled the boat-tank were duly counted and it 
 was found that there were two hundred and twenty 
 of them, Mr. Norton, who had caught the greater 
 part of them, pulled in his line and ordered a halt. 
 
 " I 've caught ten," said Mabel. 
 
 " And I twelve ! " cried Frank. 
 
 " And I fifteen, but four of them were sharks," 
 said Mrs. Norton. " And see how one of them has 
 finned my thumb." 
 
 " Und I, not nothing no ! I must a more 
 excellent rod get me," said fraulein, with a sigh of 
 fatigue. 
 
 " Well, I caught fifty," said Mr. Norton cheer 
 fully." "How many did you catch, Candy Doll?" 
 
 " Seventy-nine, sah," reported the yellow sun- 
 bonnet, and so she had ! With an ordinary line 
 and hook, the little water rat had been steadily haul 
 ing them in over the side of the boat ever since they 
 began, and had easily carried off the honors of the 
 expedition. 
 
 They now moved off to another place, and again 
 tried their luck. This time Daddy Dick and Sam 
 got everything, and Mr. Norton shared fraulein's 
 ill luck.
 
 22 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 " We '11 be off to the island now and cook some 
 of them," he commanded, and forthwith, after a 
 short pull, Daddy Dick sent the boat up into the 
 shallows and they all went ashore. 
 
 Some dwarf palms, a great many low sand-hills, 
 covered with pampas grass and sea-oats, a fine beach, 
 a thundering surf, and a rough cottage set on the 
 edge of its three hundred acres, this was Curlew 
 Island. Daddy Dick and Sam disappeared into the 
 cottage at once and lit a big fire, put on a kettle of 
 hominy, and began to clean fish. A glorious game 
 of blind-man's-buff followed for the Norton children, 
 in which the twins shared. 
 
 " Take off your bonnet, Candy Doll, it is very 
 nice and shady here," said Mabel, in the midst of it. 
 
 " I kain' ; it '11 spile my skin. Mammy say I '11 
 be most white when I done growed up, if I wear dis 
 yeller bonnet stiddy, and takes my pills," insisted 
 Candy Doll, resisting Mabel's attempt to remove it 
 forcibly. 
 
 " Oh, yes, you '11 be a lily, sure,'* cried Frank un 
 generously. " What makes you such a goose, Candy 
 Doll ? My sisters have got their bonnets off. Look 
 at them." 
 
 " Yeh. But dey des natchelly white. Dey don' 
 need no bonnets and no pills," cried Candy Doll, 
 wholly unconvinced.
 
 SOME FISH ALSO A FRIGHT 23 
 
 " What kind of pills ? " asked Edward. " See 
 here ! I am afraid somebody has been taking you 
 in." 
 
 " Daddy Dick give a dollar for 'em. De paper say 
 dey turn a colored lady snow-white in tree days, and 
 mek her hair straight as a poker." 
 
 " Have you got them with you ? " asked Edward ; 
 and on her saying " Yeh ; in my pawket," and pro 
 ducing a pill-box with a flaming poster inside that 
 abundantly bore out all Candy Doll's statements, he 
 seized it and threw it into the ocean, whereupon 
 both the twins " howled and yowled like anything," 
 to quote Frank's explanation to fraulein. 
 
 " It is a beastly fraud, I tell you ! Don't you 
 suppose I know ? I mean to protect you," said 
 Edward loftily, thrusting his hands in his jacket 
 pocket and marching up and down with much dig 
 nity. " It is my duty as a gentleman." 
 
 " I don' wan' to be dat ! I don' wan' to be dat ! 
 I wan' my pills," sobbed Candy Doll, and it was aU 
 fraulein could do to comfort her. But having done 
 so, she left the children to themselves, and going 
 behind the cabin, stretched herself out on a tar 
 paulin that had been left there, and took a nap, her 
 broad, kindly German face still protected by her 
 goggles; her thick, squat figure comfortably dis-
 
 24 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 posed; ber fat legs and enormous feet making of 
 her what Mabel called " a perfect spectacle." 
 Peacefully did the good soul sleep, loudly snore, 
 until roused by a terrific shriek. Rushing round the 
 cabin she made for the group of children, and found 
 in the midst of them, first, Keith, dripping wet and 
 unconscious ; second, Candy Doll, in an equally 
 humid state, but still with her bonnet on and quite 
 herself ; third, Waggles, wet like the other two, but 
 apparently very angry, all barks. And now it 
 came out that Candy Doll had rowed Lucy and 
 Keith back a bit to a quiet spot to teach Lucy how 
 to float ; that Keith had tumbled into the water fol 
 lowed by Waggles ; that Candy Doll had fished him 
 out and brought him back to the island. Water 
 was her native element, and she was as much at home 
 in it as one of the alligators which she alone feared. 
 There was a great outcry and excitement, of course ; 
 but in a few minutes Keith was as well as ever, and 
 Daddy Dick was calling out from the cabin that the 
 fish were fried, when off trooped the hungry flock 
 of children, eager to eat their share and tell Mrs. 
 Norton their tale.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A FAMILY FEAST, AND THE BIG CATCH 
 
 IT was a pleasant sight to see the little party 
 assembled under the tree near the cabin, around a 
 rough pine table that Sam had scoured. At one 
 end was a royal, Homeric pile of fish, browned to a 
 turn, a huge bowl of hominy smoked at the other, 
 and between were spread out all the goodies that 
 Maumer Oney had prepared ; in the centre blushed 
 Daddy Dick's " watermillion." Youpam and Candy 
 Doll sat at the foot of the tree, with Waggles beside 
 them in an attitude most expressive of gentlemanly 
 expectancy of innumerable bones. The proverbial 
 appetite that waits on picnics was not absent. Frau- 
 lein especially distinguished herself in this line. 
 
 "There are better things than catching fish, eh, 
 fraulein ? " said Mr. Norton, as he helped her to her 
 fourteenth crisp, brown, delicious silver fish. 
 
 "Laugh not at me, Herr Norton, ' the good diges 
 tion waits on appetite, and health on both.' Ate I 
 never anything more tastesome, say you not so ? " 
 said fraulein amiably.
 
 26 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 " Toothsome," corrected Mrs. Norton. " I think 
 your word better, though, I am sure." 
 
 " I was so ongry und tirsty dat I almost fell to- 
 gezzer before you called us. The picnic he is nice 
 but very exhaustions, no ? " said fraulein, turn 
 ing her blue goggles with an expressive smile upon 
 Mabel. 
 
 " I am not tired at all. Just look at Keith. Poor 
 darling ! He has had enough of it quite. He 
 looks pale still from his fright," said Mabel. 
 
 " I can't tell you what I felt when I looked across 
 the water and saw his white frock just going down, 
 mamma," said Lucy. 
 
 "Don't speak of it," cried Mrs. Norton impul 
 sively. " It was so wrong of you, Lucy, to allow 
 him to go in the boat at all." 
 
 " He cried so when we started that we said 
 we thought But, dear mamma, you ought to 
 have seen Candy Doll ! She got to him in no time, 
 took his dress in her teeth on one side, and Waggles, 
 if you will believe me, caught hold on the other, 
 and they got him ashore in no time." 
 
 " The picnic he is not good for the little child. 
 He is more better as he is in the norsery," remarked 
 fraulein. 
 
 "I agree with you, fraulein," said Mr. Norton.
 
 A FAMILY FEAST 27 
 
 " No more expeditions of the kind for you, little 
 man, until you are a good five years older. Sam, 
 more fish." 
 
 " What, papa, all that mountain gone ? " asked 
 Mrs. Norton. " Well done, children ! Papa, Lucy 
 has more color to-day than I have seen her have 
 for a year. She looks more like the children at 
 home, doesn't she? Our English roses all disap 
 pear in this hot climate, and it is really a grief to 
 me to see my flock so scrawny and " 
 
 " ' Greenery yellery Grosvenor gallery,' ' 
 quoted Mabel. 
 
 " It is the malaria what promiscuates down here, 
 I imaginate," said fraulein gravely, attacking her 
 fifteenth fish and looking very scientific. " So ! " 
 
 " Precisely. That is about it. I wish it were a 
 great deal more haughty and exclusive, I am sure," 
 replied Mr. Norton. " Sam, cut the watermelon. 
 And, hello, Candy Doll ! what is the matter with 
 you, something wrong with your starboard sheet, 
 is n't there ? " 
 
 " She had to put on my petticoat, papa. Please 
 not to remark upon it," whispered Lucy, who was at 
 his elbow. 
 
 " Oh, that 's it, is it ? But why don't you eat 
 something, Candy Doll," looking at the great heap
 
 28 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 of bones and then at the pair who were now grin 
 ning delightedly at him from behind enormous 
 slices of the pinkest and wettest of watermelons. 
 " How many fish have you eaten ? " 
 
 "I 've done eat till I 'm most bust and Youpam 
 is bust. Dey was so good I rnos' fell right off dis 
 here log, and he done shed he buttons all 'round. 
 I 'se pinned him up wid a torn, dough," said Candy 
 Doll, and proceeded to run her watermelon rind 
 rapidly all over her face. 
 
 " What 's that for," asked Edward severely. 
 
 " Dat 's for my skin, sah," replied Candy Doll, 
 and the children burst out laughing over her wet 
 face and white teeth and snapping black eyes. 
 
 " She is always doing something for her com 
 plexion. As if it were any good ! Such rot! " re 
 marked Edward with heat. " Her mother is daft 
 on the subject. She washes in dew sometimes." 
 
 "And sometimes in buttermilk," said Frank, 
 " and then drinks the buttermilk." 
 
 " She is what you call in Anglish gump ? " 
 said fraulein, who was much interested in acquiring 
 what she called " the idiotisms of the country." 
 
 To everybody's surprise Lucy here broke out with, 
 " She is n't a gump at all ! She is my friend ; and 
 I love her," and burst into tears.
 
 A FAMILY FEAST 29 
 
 " That 's right. Stand up for your friends, Lucy," 
 said Mr. Norton ; " more bread, Sam." 
 
 " What are you such awful nuts on Candy Doll 
 for ? " said Frank with scorn. 
 
 " 'Awful nuts ' is also an idiotism ? " inquired 
 fraulein politely. 
 
 " Exactly," replied Mr. Norton dryly. " No slang, 
 Frank, my boy. The English language can ex 
 press anything that you are likely to say without it, 
 I do assure you." 
 
 " Papa, dear, look at that sail, and see how high 
 the water seems to brim above the rushes. The 
 view from here is really as pretty a one as can be 
 found in a flat country. I think I '11 make a sketch 
 of the cabin after dinner. That queer, daubed, 
 wattled chimney is really most picturesque," said 
 Mrs. Norton ; and they fixed their eyes upon a sail 
 boat which was tacking about one of the distant 
 waterways, and seemed to be sailing across a sea 
 of green rushes now and then, no water being 
 visible. 
 
 " Candy Doll must now dance for us," said Mrs. 
 Norton. " Come here, child, and dance for Frau 
 lein Dinkspiel." 
 
 " Sphiel, madame, if it so blease you," interrupted 
 fraulein firmly.
 
 30 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Norton meekly, 
 being one of the gentlest of her sex. 
 
 " Can she the valse dance ? Come, little one, I 
 will sing Johann Strauss for thee," said fraulein, 
 and was as good as her word. But Candy Doll 
 was mute and still, and gazed at her abashed for a 
 moment. 
 
 Then she suddenly bent herself double almost, 
 and crooning a wild African chant of her own, she 
 started off quickly, then bounded here and there, 
 flung her arms about, stamped, roared, subsided, 
 whirled right, whirled left, jumped into the air, 
 again stamped, whirled, and finally suddenly col 
 lapsed with a moan on the ground, nor would she 
 move for fully half an hour. 
 
 " She is then f raish from Congo ? New-come ? 
 Doubtless ! Saw I nefer the laike ! It was so 
 what you call him ? primitive, elemental. The 
 monkeys, the cocoanuts, the forest, the naked sav 
 age, all is there. I cannot tell you all what I see 
 and hear in this. I would gif a month's salary to 
 take that little black bird, that danseuse Africaine, 
 back to Switzerland wid me and make her dance 
 for the amusement of my beople. Saw I nefer the 
 laike, nefer. Encore! Encore!" cried fraulein 
 enthusiastically.
 
 A FAMILY FEAST 31 
 
 " You are right," said Mrs. Norton. " It is as 
 African as Africa, and always appeals enormously 
 to my imagination. And my relatives, when they 
 come out here, are all fascinated by Candy Doll. 
 They have all sketched her, and tipped her, and 
 chaffed her, and spoiled her generally. But as to 
 an encore, look at her ! She is perfectly exhausted. 
 It seems to be a kind of fit not a dance at all ; ) 
 and can you imagine anything as downright un 
 canny as the music, the whole performance ? " 
 
 " She won't give it always very rarely no 
 thing will tempt her unless she is in the mood. 
 We 've tried to tempt her often, have n't we, 
 mamma?" "She won't dance at all, either, unless 
 she has her rabbit's foot on, the left hind leg 
 taken in a cemetery, in the dark of the moon," said 
 Mabel. That 's to keep off evil." 
 
 Now during this performance Mr. Norton had 
 been smoking and idly regarding the dance, the 
 children about him, the servants who were clearing 
 the table, the still more distant white sail. He now 
 rose suddenly to his feet, exclaiming : " By George, 
 we are going to catch it ! " and forthwith he hurried 
 the entire party into the cabin, pulled down the win 
 dows, after closing and barring the wooden shutters, 
 and then hurried out to have the boats pulled up
 
 32 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 and stowed under the house. His eye had long 
 been used to studying the sea and sky. He had 
 seen the sailboat struck down as by a blow, careen, 
 disappear. He had seen a cloud he knew it well 
 more clouds felt the change that was coming. 
 Indeed, before he got back to the cabin the storm 
 had come. The merriment of the family party was 
 now all gone, and replaced by the gravest concern. 
 They had, of course, no wraps, and it had turned 
 cold. They had no lights. There was only one 
 chair and a rickety couch in the way of accommoda 
 tion, the property of old Daniel, who lived there and 
 had gone to town. Sam and Daddy Dick hastily 
 made up a little fire from a very small stock of wood 
 that Daniel had put in the corner, and they all hud 
 dled around it. Mrs. Norton was given the only 
 chair. Fraulein Dinkspiel sat on Daniel's bed, with 
 many a glance of squeamish dislike at his mattress 
 and sheet. Mr. Norton paced the floor. It was a 
 dreadful position for him, for he alone could really 
 estimate the gravity of the situation, the exposed 
 position of Curlew Island ; and long before the At 
 lantic was heard thundering along its beach, while 
 peal after peal crashed above them, brave man 
 though he was, he turned pale, as he looked at his 
 dear ones. In a little while the fire burned low,
 
 A FAMILY FEAST 33 
 
 flickered, showed a few red embers, died out en 
 tirely. The cold increased. Conversation became 
 almost impossible, for so great was the noise outside 
 that it drowned every voice. Mrs. Norton gathered 
 her children about her, and in the goodness of her 
 heart made a place for Candy Doll and Youpam, 
 whom she often reassured and comforted, laying 
 a hand on their heads. Then the cabin began to 
 shake in every timber, and the windows rattled 
 under the blows of the wind, and the thunder pealed, 
 and, worst of all, they could hear the water swirling 
 under the house, dashing against it, lifting great 
 battering-rams in the way of drift-logs, and assailing 
 them with the utmost fury. 
 
 Daddy Dick and Sam began to shout and pray 
 and groan, and make themselves heard above all the 
 fury of the tempest. As for Mr. Norton, he acted 
 with the greatest calmness, and spoke with the ut 
 most cheerfulness, but his heart sank fearfully when 
 the door was burst open the second time and the 
 floor was found to be under water. But after this 
 climax to their woes had been reached, the wind first 
 veered, then dropped ; the rain ceased, the breakers 
 gradually returned to their magnificent, limitless 
 ocean-bed on an ebb-tide, and Mr. Norton at last 
 dared to open the door and let in a little daylight
 
 34 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 upon a badly scared, miserable group of prisoners, 
 who all trooped together to the doorsill and looked 
 out upon an angry, wild sweep of waters, a shining, 
 drenched island, a blessed bit of sun just above the 
 horizon. Steps, boats, trees, there were none. As 
 soon as it was practicable they all thankfully set foot 
 on terra firma again, and were not above thanking 
 the good God, who had preserved them " in the midst 
 of so many and such great dangers," led by Mr. 
 Norton. Candy Doll ran off like a lapwing as soon 
 as she was liberated. They could see her scudding 
 along the beach, barefooted, bareheaded, her skirts 
 fluttering in the wind, her arms held up above her 
 head. 
 
 "Such a wild thing," said Mr. Norton. "But 
 what are we to do ? I see nothing for it but to wait 
 here until we are sent for. Caruthers was to get 
 home last night. He will be sure to come in search 
 of us now that the storm is over. But what is 
 this?" 
 
 This was Candy Doll, who now rushed toward 
 them and dropped at their very feet, her eyes almost 
 out of their sockets, her rabbit's foot clutched in 
 her right hand, her hair literally on end, and no fig 
 ure of speech about it, her face wearing the peculiar 
 ashy pallor of her race when badly frightened.
 
 A FAMILY FEAST 35 
 
 " What 's the matter ? What is it ? " asked Mr. 
 Norton, and getting no answer he seized the child 
 and repeated the question. 
 
 " Ober yander fish bigger dan de house 
 Lord ! Lord ! " was all the poor child could 
 gasp out, and then she threw herself down and 
 buried her face in the sand, beat her head against 
 the earth, and drummed violently with her legs in 
 the extremity of her mortal terror. 
 
 Off started Mr. Norton in a brisk run, not indeed 
 believing the report, but expecting to see a porpoise 
 beached by the storm. ^ But in a little while Mrs. 
 Norton heard him shouting loudly for her, and the 
 entire family party ran with varying degrees of swift 
 ness down to the inlet. And there, plainly visible 
 to all eyes, was as magnificent a specimen of the 
 genus whale as ever sported off the coast of Labra 
 dor, moving like a majestic mountain among the 
 shallow breakers of the inlet.
 
 ALL THE WORLD SEES A PRISONER, AND CANDY 
 DOLL A PROPHET 
 
 THERE was the whale and no mistake, though 
 such a thing had never happened before in the his 
 tory of the county. Before they had done with him 
 nothing could have exceeded the anxiety and deter 
 mination of the entire community to get rid of the 
 fine fellow ; but at first, great was the joy over him. 
 Corporations quarreled over him ; counties repudi 
 ated him ; thousands of people who had rejoiced 
 over him turned from him in utter disgust eventu 
 ally ; but when it was known that a whale had been 
 washed into the inlet of Curlew Island (one of na 
 ture's traps), everybody was delighted. -The whole 
 population first turned out to see him. Rival muse 
 ums put in bids for him. Scientists studied him ; 
 sailors and soldiers wrangled over the privilege of 
 catching him ; soap-factories and companies coveted 
 him. Merchants forsook their offices for him ; bank 
 officers, even, took a holiday to view him. In all
 
 A PRISONER 37 
 
 the countryside no one was so poor, old, busy, lame, 
 sick, feeble, young, but that he or she cftuld go to 
 Curlew Island, when once the news got abroad. 
 The very blind came to " see " what they could as 
 well have heard described at home by their own 
 firesides, and only a few good-natured folk, of the 
 class generally regarded as " no-account," took the 
 trouble to tell them anything about the wonderful 
 monster, when they got there, so curious and busy 
 was everybody in gazing and gazing upon and gos 
 siping about the wonderful visitor. It was not 
 surprising, then, that the Nortons forgot all about 
 going home ; about being succored by Mr. Caruth- 
 ers ; that Mr. Norton seized the first boat that ap 
 peared and repaired to the nearest telegraph station 
 to communicate with the authorities, who no more 
 believed him at first than he had believed Candy 
 Doll; that fraulein took off her goggles, and got 
 out her general information about whales for the 
 benefit of her charges; that the boys could not 
 listen for excitement, darting here and there contin 
 ually with exclamations and cries of interest and 
 delight ; that Candy Doll declared that she had 
 " seen Jonah ; " that people soon began to ooze from 
 every fen, and marsh, and field, and farm, and town 
 for twenty miles around, and soon made an im- 
 
 452660
 
 38 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 promptu bridge of boats between the island and the 
 back country, as they hastily cast anchor and rushed 
 ashore. 
 
 All that day the mighty monster swam uneasily 
 about a considerable body of water which yet must 
 have seemed to him as but a tank, heading this way 
 and that, trying to find his familiar home, the ocean. 
 
 But he could never get over the bar, of course, 
 and next day appeared a great collection of men, 
 ship-captains, engineers, fishermen, clergymen, law 
 yers, doctors, planters, negroes, and two or three 
 boats were manned and sallied forth to attack the 
 poor bewildered prisoner, who, nevertheless, gave 
 a good account of himself when the time came. 
 With quite a mild flap of his tail, he wiped out two 
 boats and seven men ; and in spite of all the ropes 
 with which he was bound, when he began to be har 
 pooned, and towed, and worried, and wounded, he 
 gave such dashes and lashes, such leaps and bounds, 
 he spouted so superbly, and fought so bravely, that 
 a more interesting and dangerous capture was never 
 made. It was remembered and recalled and ro 
 manced about, recorded, exaggerated, enjoyed, for 
 years afterwards by everybody who had taken, or 
 imagined that they had any share in it whatever, 
 from Candy Doll, who discovered him, to Captain
 
 A PRISONER 39 
 
 Hewitt, who commanded the small fleet of boats 
 engaged. 
 
 When the poor creature was finally landed on the 
 beach, and man, whom he had never injured, had 
 done his worst by him, in the way of contemptu 
 ously prying open his noble jaws, measuring him, 
 disemboweling him, carrying away all of him that 
 was desired in the way of teeth, oil, bones, and what 
 not, an affair at which Waggles assisted with alert 
 intelligence and evident enjoyment, the whale's 
 revenge began, and a fine, searching, wholesale re 
 venge it was, too, for the stench from his carcass 
 filled whole counties with an intolerable horror in 
 the way of a smell ; and now no one was bold 
 enough to visit the mighty fallen one save the car 
 rion that hovered like a cloud over him. Daddy 
 Dick, who was in one of the boats, always main 
 tained that he killed him. Fraulein classified him, 
 and wrote an account of him for the " Garten 
 Laube," for which she subscribed, and in which 
 she delighted. Candy Doll became the heroine of 
 the countryside, and it is to be hoped that kind 
 Heaven forgave her all the stories she told about 
 her share in the transaction all her life long. She 
 promptly donned the yellow sunbonnet again, when 
 Mr. Caruthers duly appeared (the second day after
 
 40 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 the one on which he was expected), and Lucy it was 
 who this time pulled up the pig-tail through the hole 
 on top of the crown for her, saying, " You found 
 the whale, Candy Doll, and I am going to help you 
 whenever you want me to." 
 
 " Hello, Caruthers ! You are just in time, I 
 can tell you, for we only came over for the day, 
 you know, and we have been here three days, ma 
 rooning as best we could and living off the neigh 
 bors. I suppose you have seen the whale ? Oh, 
 yes, of course, you went there first. We 've all seen 
 it ; seen nothing else ; heard nothing else ever since 
 we came. But Candy Doll here is the only person 
 who has seen Jonah. Tell Mr. Caruthers what he 
 looks like, child," said Mr. Norton. 
 
 Whereupon Candy Doll, I regret to say, gave 
 the most full, private, and particular account of the 
 great prophet as he first appeared to her, " riding 
 de whale." 
 
 " You see you have missed a great deal, Caruthers. 
 That will do, Candy Doll ; you can go now. And 
 you need n't wear that bonnet any more. All you 
 need for your complexion is a whale. You '11 find 
 Mrs. Norton inside, Caruthers, and precious glad 
 to see you, I can tell you." 
 
 " Little Keith has fever, and we have no quinine
 
 A PRISONER 41 
 
 with us, and we are anxious to get home/' said Mrs. 
 Norton ; " I '11 just pick up things and get ready to 
 start. I wonder where those boys of mine are." 
 
 Mr. Caruthers, who was a perfect type of a dis 
 creet, prudent young Virginian, had not lived in 
 the South five years for nothing. He took a small 
 quinine pill every morning of his life, as regularly 
 as his bath, had a box of them in his pocket at 
 the time, and at once proceeded to administer one 
 to the curly-haired, sweet little fellow, of whom he 
 was so fond ; and presently the boys were found 
 at the other end of the Island, where they had been 
 catching fiddlers and a goodly number of crabs, 
 and were so burnt that Mabel used up, in her kind, 
 mothering fashion, a whole bottle of Pond's Extract 
 on blistered legs, and then only heard, " Ouch ! " 
 from one or other of them all during the pull home, 
 as they moved about in the boat. As Daddy Dick's 
 and Sam's and Daniel's swift, vigorous strokes sent 
 them flying through the waterways, Mr. Norton 
 bade the men sing, and as there never was a negro 
 who could not sing, so there never can be found two 
 or three gathered in the same place that one does 
 not hear wonderful part-singing. Tune, time, are 
 not only beautifully kept, but all the harmonies 
 of the different parts correctly invented and given
 
 42 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 in voices that are often exquisite in tone, color, 
 body, sweetness, voices that if they were set in 
 white bodies and given the instruction of European 
 masters, would make fame and fortune for their 
 fortunate possessors. Mr. Caruthers, who was pas 
 sionately fond of music, and fraulein, who was 
 skilled in it, listened with delight as the trio " raised 
 de chune o' Pharaoh hose," and rolled out : 
 
 " An' did n't ole Pharaoh hose git lawss, git lawss, in dat Red Sea ! 
 An' did n't ole Pharaoh hose git lawss, git lawss, in dat Red 
 
 Sea 
 In dat Red Sea; in dat Red Sea; O, ho-o-o, O, ho ! Sing, Sam ! " 
 
 in delightful accord ; Candy Doll and Youpam join 
 ing in the chorus with the same taste and talent, 
 even at their age. 
 
 " I heard a quartette of men singing hymns the 
 other day on Colonel Merriman's place, and I give 
 you my word that I have never heard such voices 
 in my life, though I 've been to all the large cities, 
 and have heard all the great singers of the day who 
 have come to this country. There are no fogs, no 
 east winds, no colds, no throat troubles down here, 
 and that doubtless gives that wonderful timbre and 
 mellow beauty that one hears among the colored 
 people ; but how can such rude, untutored creatures 
 as these plantation < hands ' get their thirds and
 
 A PRISONER 43 
 
 fifths so accurately by instinct?" said Mr. Caruthers 
 to fraulein when the song ceased, a jubilant shout, 
 floating off and off across the water. 
 
 " It is de gift of de All-Good to dese His poor, 
 despised children, one of de most refined and 
 beautiful of dem all, and not reserved, instead, for 
 de conceited, selfish, dominant races what would 
 all have, and would leave for dem nodings in art 
 as in Africa," replied fraulein. " Pouf ! But de 
 white man can speh 1 one wort bot' ways, ' grab ' and 
 < brag.' " 
 
 " Mamma, Frank will certainly be out of the boat 
 in another minute unless you speak to him," com 
 plained Mabel, who was always all eyes and ears for 
 the younger children, as became an " eldest." 
 
 " I won't at all ; Mabel is always bothering. I 
 was just letting niy hands run through the water 
 a bit. There is no harm in that," said Frank. 
 
 "Change places with him, Lucy," commanded 
 Mr. Norton. " Go over there by your mother, 
 Frank, and don't forget again that your mother 
 does not like to see you do that." 
 
 " Miss Mabel is extremely good and kind to you 
 youngsters, I can tell you," said Mr. Caruthers, 
 " and you 'd better try to deserve it ; not many boys 
 have such a sister."
 
 44 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 Mabel blushed prettily, hearing herself thus 
 kindly praised by her clever tutor, and blushed 
 again more deeply still when he added, " I '11 be 
 bound she has a pair of scissors and a book of 
 court plaster and sticking plaster in her pocket for 
 those boys this minute. I 'd wager anything that 
 she has." 
 
 " I have," said Mabel, laughing, as she drew them 
 out, a laugh that the boys developed into a loud 
 guffaw. 
 
 It was nearly, indeed quite dark by the time they 
 entered Bolton's Cut, the sun having dropped, 
 with the sudden plunge of the tropics, behind the 
 big trees on Howard's Island ; and now the chil 
 dren reached down in the boat to get out a whole 
 collection of cat-tails mysteriously stored there and 
 steeped in kerosene, also some lanterns with colored 
 papers twisted about them. With these they made 
 what they called " a grand triumphant entry " into 
 Milford's Cut, and then into the waterway of the 
 Carlton property, and so on, up to the " Neosha " 
 landing. 
 
 " Keith is fast asleep, poor boy, and I am as 
 stiff as a rheumatic old woman of ninety. I won 
 der if Maumer Oney has a good supper for us," 
 said Mrs. Norton, as Mr. Norton picked up the 
 sleeping child and bore him across the lawn.
 
 A PRISONER 45 
 
 Little Maria was polishing the deer's antlers and 
 the mahogany furniture in the hall as they en 
 tered it. 
 
 " She has n't touched it since I went away," 
 thought Mrs. Norton, and said aloud, " Well, Ma 
 ria, has everything gone all right at home ? Where 
 is Maumer Oney ? " 
 
 " We thought you was daide," replied Little 
 Maria, in a low tone of mournful enjoyment. Life 
 was a luxury of woe to her, always. When asked 
 how she felt, she had always " a misery somewhere ; " 
 if whether she was coming or going anywhere, her 
 reply was invariably, " Ef I 'm livin'," though she 
 was in the prime of life, in the most perfect health, 
 and in her wildest spirits. 
 
 Meanwhile Candy Doll was holding Maumer 
 Oney and the audience in the kitchen spell-bound 
 by her account of the adventures through which 
 they had passed, and the Nortons were only too 
 thankful to find themselves again in their delightful 
 home, to get their suppers and go to bed, leaving 
 Daddy Dick to swing the boats up in the boat-house 
 and betake himself to his " fa'am."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A GOOD RESOLUTION KEPT 
 
 " I WOWED a wow that night on Curlew Island. 
 I said " began fraulein. 
 
 " You did what ? " asked Frank, honestly mis 
 understanding her, and unmindful of Mabel's frown. 
 
 " Wowed a wow," repeated fraulein. 
 
 " Vowed a vow, she means, Frank. Do hush," 
 whispered Mabel. 
 
 " I said I would something do for the sailors who 
 come in here from all parts of the world deref ore 
 I morst. When I say something like dat 
 when I feel like dis I morst. Gif me your coun- 
 selations, deref ore, Madame Norton, what can I 
 do?" 
 
 The children smiled and Mabel again frowned. 
 Fraulein spoke, wrote, taught French, German, Ital 
 ian, Latin, in the schoolroom admirably, being a 
 highly educated woman. But out of it she would 
 speak what she called " Angiish." She was a skilled 
 musician, and played both the piano and harp well,
 
 A GOOD RESOLUTION KEPT 47 
 
 but she seemed to regard all these accomplishments 
 as matters of course ; she was vain only of her " Ang- 
 lish," and bored Mr. Caruthers dreadfully with it. 
 It was very funny to see them together, he so 
 anxious to " practice speaking German," she equally 
 determined to " imbrove in de tongue of Shake 
 speare." He had a horror of " South German," she 
 was terribly afraid of the President's American; 
 and I am afraid that the Norton children amused 
 themselves a good deal over the pair. Edward and 
 Mabel kept the younger children down somewhat, 
 but Frank certainly taught fraulein a whole lot of 
 archaic stuff that had not been heard since Shake 
 speare's day, persuading her that it was in gen 
 eral use, and he was giving her a valuable cockney 
 education when his father found it out and pun 
 ished him. Frank did not feel it necessary to 
 own that he had been weeks at it, and sniggered 
 with delight when fraulein addressed a neighbor 
 who called as " Noble Lady," and her husband, an 
 ex-Confederate, as " Brave Knight," in accordance 
 with his private instructions, backed up by the stand 
 ard edition of Sir Walter Scott. Fraulein never 
 did get it out of her head that " varlet " was a sin 
 gularly appropriate title for servants in general, and 
 " By my halidome " became her favorite exclama 
 tion.
 
 48 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 " I ain't no varlet, I 'm a culled pusson," Daddy 
 Dick said to her once in high displeasure, thrusting 
 out his lip tremendously, and rolling his eyes angrily 
 at " de gubberness." 
 
 " So," said fraulein, falling back on her own 
 tongue. 
 
 But to return. Mrs. Norton's advice was this. 
 Money was to be made, she knew, by shipping moss 
 to a certain address in Baltimore ; fraulein could 
 take lame Gabriel and the children, collect it, dry 
 it, sell it, ship it, and give the proceeds to the 
 Sailors' Home in Savannah. 
 
 Being a thrifty European soul, fraulein was 
 much delighted with the idea, and went to work 
 with all her own faithful, plodding industry to carry 
 it out. She studied the moss first, classified it as 
 " tillandsia," put it under her microscope, pressed it in 
 her herbarium, and really taught the children to see 
 it for the first time. The party spent a great many 
 pleasant afternoons in the woods together about 
 this work, time not thrown away for any of them, 
 for fraulein not only made a hundred and twenty 
 dollars for her mission, but collected specimens of 
 all the flora of the country, and Edward eventually 
 sold his carefully prepared, accurate herbarium in 
 Germany for a thousand dollars, while all the little
 
 A GOOD RESOLUTION KEPT 49 
 
 Nortons learned to botanize in the course of her 
 explorations and collections. 
 
 It chanced one day that they found themselves 
 near Daddy Dick's farm, and being hot and tired, 
 they concluded to see if they could get some but 
 termilk. The little dismal cabin, set on the edge 
 of a swamp full of dead pine-trees, looked melan 
 choly enough to fraulein, who mentally contrasted 
 the house and scenery with the mountains and cha 
 lets of her native canton in Switzerland. But the 
 children hailed Anna, Daddy Dick's young wife, 
 who was hoeing in the field, and proceeded to over 
 run the place with her consent and encouragement. 
 They hunted for eggs ; they cut a watermelon ; they 
 paid a visit to " Linkum," and fed him to repletion 
 on cabbages, besides pulling his tail, swarming up 
 on his back, and going for rides. They ran races, 
 pumped water, jumped over everything low, crawled 
 under everything that was high, and finally. sat 
 down, exhausted, to eat the sweet potatoes which 
 Anna had good naturedly roasted for them in the 
 coals, with some hoe-cakes. 
 
 " I '11 get no moss from dem to-day," said frau 
 lein to Anna, as she followed her into the cabin. 
 
 Here was a little simple, poor furniture (a clean 
 bed decked with a gay counterpane, a table, stove,
 
 50 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 chairs), a string of red peppers hung across the 
 beams, some pot-herbs also. There was a pile of 
 vegetables in one corner. On a peg on the wall 
 hung a very handsome white Leghorn hat, trimmed 
 with the most expensive ostrich feathers and ribbons, 
 a hat for a Princess. 
 
 " Dat 's my new hat," explained Anna, taking it 
 down and eyeing it with pride. 
 
 Fraulein looked at Anna, fresh from her potato- 
 patch, looked around the cabin, shrugged her 
 shoulders, and exclaimed, 
 
 " What a ridiculosity ! " 
 
 This remark sounded to Anna like high praise, 
 and she was so much pleased that she went into a 
 battered trunk and picked out a blue satin dress, 
 trimmed with cotton lace. 
 
 " Thou loved Heaven ! " exclaimed fraulein, who 
 was not used to seeing such things in such places 
 and believed in sumptuary laws. 
 
 Then she corrected her natural wish to make her 
 own comments and said gently : 
 
 " I will not lecturefy thee. If the All-Good allows 
 thee these wanities, I will not wex myself nor thee. 
 We have all our foolishments, my good woman ; " 
 a speech which so puzzled Anna that she fairly 
 stared at her visitor. Looking about her, fraulein
 
 A GOOD RESOLUTION KEPT 51 
 
 beheld outside on the little rickety porch about 
 which Anna's pigs were rooting, and on which her 
 hens were straying, an immensely old man, seated 
 in a cane-bottomed rocking chair, Grand-Daddy 
 Mose. He got up, scraped his right, foot, and pulled 
 his forelock, as he greeted her, and would have 
 remained standing, but fraulein would not allow 
 this. 
 
 " It is I who stand before the aged," she said. 
 " Take again your seat, and resume your ease in 
 your house, my friend." 
 
 " De Cunnle, he mek me sit down allus," said 
 Daddy Mose, falling back into the chair from which 
 he had risen with so much effort. 
 
 " Dat boy of mine got a fine fa'am, ma'am, here, 
 a fine fa'am." 
 
 Fraulein looked out at the dead pines, the scant 
 grass, the melancholy garden, the lean pigs, and in 
 at the cabin. She thought of the really fine farms 
 she had seen in France, Germany, Holland, Italy, 
 England, and sighed ; then she smiled, a smile that 
 made her homely features lovely for the moment. 
 
 " Good is our God. It is for you, that. The 
 rich only are widout content, possessing too much. 
 Are all the people of your race like you, so simple, 
 und well pleased ? "
 
 52 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 Before Daddy Mose could answer, in trooped all 
 the children. 
 
 " You have been making friends with Daddy 
 Mose, I see. He is a wonderful old man, over a 
 hundred, and he knows lots of things that we 
 don't," said Mabel. " Don't you, Daddy Mose ? " 
 
 " Mebbe," replied the old man meekly ; " de ole 
 is boun' to git some sense in 'em of de Lord's givin', 
 by de time dey done loss all dey had of dere own 
 what dey call gumption." 
 
 " Yes, Daddy Mose has made some great discov 
 eries, fraulein. He is an ethnologist, and has dis 
 covered the origin of the white race and of the 
 black race. Tell our governess, tell us, Daddy 
 Mose, about you know that story of yours?" 
 
 Thus urged, the old man cleared his throat, and 
 spread his bandanna on his knee. At this moment 
 another old man came in sight and an old woman. 
 They joined the group on the porch. The Norton 
 children perched anywhere and everywhere. A 
 chair was brought for fraulein by Anna, and with 
 a deprecating but earnest look Daddy Mose began 
 his tale : 
 
 " My bruddah and sistah, I bin in dishyer worl' 
 long time befo' de Newnion come een, long 
 time befo' Gin'l Grant, an' Shumman run Gin'l
 
 A GOOD RESOLUTION KEPT 53 
 
 Lee an' Mass' Elliott off Sulliman Ilan'. I bin a 
 preachin' de wud o' de Spirit when all youah bin in 
 slaberyment, and I gwineter lucidation to-day how 
 Adam git leff by Nigerdemus, an' how 'e come to 
 pass dat de fuss Buckrah walk 'pun top o' de ert. 
 Ahem ahem ! De whole ting come to pass some- 
 ting like o' dis : De Lord been a - walk in de 
 gyahd'n diss about de cool o' de day wid he beevah 
 hat an' he walkin'-cane. De big horn done blow, 
 an all de ban' bin a-sit down, rasslin' wid de cole 
 bittle, an' a-trowin' an' a-ketchin' foolishness one to 
 anurrer. Same like dat de voice o' de Lord soun' 
 out like de lite'nin' in de nite. De Lord tu'n short 
 in de paht troo' de orchard, an' bin a walk ober 
 by de rice-fiel' dam. Soon ez he git by dat wintah 
 apple-tree, he stan' up stock still, an' gaze 'pun um 
 wid grate expishun. 'T ain't a ban' on de place 
 what ain't drop de kittle an' spoon an' ting, an' gaze 
 good fashion, all in a trimble like, on de good Mas- 
 sah. De bittle puah stan' like 'e freeze in ebrybody 
 mout. By and by, diss like I tell you, all to once de 
 ert rock, an' de sky split wid de powerfulness o' de 
 grateness o' de Lord. He bex till de bexness o' he 
 spirit set all de people to cratolin' on dey face. 
 Nieder Buckrah, nieder so Nigger, kin biggin f uh to 
 onderstan' de tribulashun an' de terrificashun o' dat
 
 54 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 day, whichin 't was 12 o'clock. De hoss an' mule 
 leff de plough an' scatterate to de pine Ian', same 
 like a passel o' pahtridge when one pinter rout um, 
 an' you shoot two barrel one time an' ain't touch a 
 feddah. De sky cloud up, an' de big rain stan' 
 same like a ripe persimmun ready fuh drop. De 
 squirrel mek track fuh he hole, an' when he git dere 
 he tu'n roun' in he hole an' he trow 'e eye back, 
 same like 'e bin a watch one o' deze yer half-fice 
 an' half-houn' a-rumblin' an' a-rummigin' roun' in 
 de hickory ticket. All dem jay-bud an' ting stop dem 
 singin' on account uv he done scade mos' to det, an' 
 de owl shet he eye tight fuh de fuss time sence he 
 bawn. De ribber Jawdon rize up an' bile wid a 
 grate freshet, an' Babylon shake same like a broom- 
 grass fiel'. Oh, my childern, 't was turrible, and to 
 dis day Adam face stan' white, same like Mass' Steve 
 Elliott face. Oh, my sistah, stan' up to me like a 
 man while I onrabble de ponderashun o' dat fuss 
 trial, whichin it eber sence mek de en' uv a corn row 
 on a hot summah day seem 'bout as long to oonah 
 as spang fum Yemmassee plum to Coosehatchee. 
 Now, dis is de Bible troot regyahd'n o' how Adam 
 face tu'n white, 'cord'n' to how 'e specify in de one- 
 eye chapter o' de two-eye John. Now, John de 
 Baptiss say, sez he, sez John : Adam bin a cullud
 
 A GOOD RESOLUTION KEPT 55 
 
 pussen, an' he dress up in coon-skin, and eat locus' 
 an' wile honey ; an' howsumeber, de Lord ain't truss 
 Adam nohow, kaze he had dealin's wid um befo', an' 
 he know say he bin dearly lub all dem watermillyun 
 an' ting what a-bin a-grow in de gyahd 'n ; so he call 
 Adam an' he say to um, sez he : ' Boy, deze yer win- 
 tah apple ain't fuh tech till nex' summah,' an' atter 
 de Lord gie de awdah he leff Adam, but he leff Ga 
 briel an' Nigerdemus, he cousin on he murrer side, 
 fuh watch um, kaze he hab one bad kar-aktah fuh 
 trickiness an' cunnin'ness. Oh, my sistah, lissen at 
 me good an' yeddi fuh youah self how dat wintah 
 apple-tree come to mek de fuss Buckrah fambly in 
 Scriptcha. Now, John de Baptiss say, sez he, sez 
 John : Diss ez quick ez de Lord gone outen de gate 
 Gabriel an' Nigerdemus tek a stan' fuh watch de 
 tree. Oh, my bruddah, when Adam tink say he 
 kin trow duss in Nigerdemus' eye an' Gabriel all 
 to one time, he diss ez well try fuh hook one o' 
 dem Guinea fowl in de broad daylight, nieder so, 
 fuh borrow one watermillyun what ain't blongst to 
 um. Kaze why ? kaze, sez he : Nieder Gabriel, 
 nieder so Nigerdemus, sleep till he kech Adam bin 
 a-chuhkin' de wintah apple down wid a lite-wood 
 knot. Now, what nex', sez he ? De nex' pint is 
 what I done tell you fuhm de fuss gwine off. Ni-
 
 56 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 gerdemns tell de Lord 'bout Adam, an' sho' nuff, de 
 good Massah come back to de tree an' he miss two 
 apple. He look roun' 'pun top o' de groun', an' he 
 see Adam track way he bin a-muze 'bout under- 
 neat de tree. Den de spirit o' de Lord git hex, an' 
 he call out : ' Adam,' but Adam ain't say a god- 
 blessed ting. Oh, my sistah, Adam bin a-lay down 
 wid he face burry in de groun' in one huckleberry 
 ticket, an' he scade so much ez to kech he bret. 
 Den de Lord git mo' powfull wid he voice, an' Adam 
 bleege to git up, an' he mek answer good fashion, 
 an' he say : ' Yeh, Lord.' Den de Lord say : 
 ' Adam, somebawdy tief one wintah apple.' Den 
 Adam up an' say : ' Yeh, Lord,' an' he face tu'ns 
 white ez a fine white homespun sheet in one white 
 fahmbly house. Den de Lord say : ' Adam, I miss 
 de apple, an' I know say tis tief in dis gyahd'n.' 
 Den de spirit o' de debbil jump 'pon Adam, an* 
 he say : ' Lord, if de apple is tief, as you say 
 tis tief, den I tink say mus' be Eve tief um.' Den 
 Nigerdemus took an' cut into de composishun, an' 
 he pint wid de butt o' he musket to Adam track, 
 an' he say : ' Adam, dat 's a number nine shoe, an* 
 you know say Eve ain't got no sich a foot.' Den 
 Adam see he ain't hab no witness, an' no use fuh 
 'tarrogate Nigerdemus, so he jump oberde fence wid
 
 A GOOD RESOLUTION KEPT 57 
 
 he white face, an' hide in de cypress swamp till atter 
 dahk, den he dig dut f uh de white people country ; 
 whichin, as he say, sez he, at de fuss commencement, 
 all Adam chillun by he fuss wife is cullud, 'cepshun 
 to he secon' wife, whichin all de ress is Buckrah. 
 
 " Now, sistah Lucy, raise de chune o' Pharaoh 
 hose." 
 
 " An' did n't ole Pharaoh hose git lawss, git lawss, in dat Red Sea ! 
 An' didn't ole Pharaoh hose git lawss, git lawss, in dat Red Sea 
 In dat Red Sea, in dat Red Sea; O, ho-o-o, O, ho. Sing, my sistah," 
 etc. 
 
 But not one word of this original and character 
 istic recital, scarcely, could fraulein understand, for 
 Daddy Mose spoke the Congo-English dialect of his 
 race in Carolina, which was not fraulein's " Anglish " 
 at all. But when Mabel gave her version of it as 
 they walked home, she was immensely amused and 
 interested. 
 
 " Ach ! It is that old human nature. It is that 
 old human nature," she would say with a chuckle 
 of delight. " If all goes well, good ; if not, it is 
 
 God's fault always. And that number nine shoe ! 
 
 . . . 
 
 Ach ! Had only sin never come into our beautiful 
 
 world, we had never been black and says the good 
 Mose, never white."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 A FAIR IN THE FAIR MONTH OF MAY 
 
 IT was the custom of the Nortons to go every year 
 to the town of Smithville, fifty miles distant, when 
 and where a local society interested in agricultural 
 matters was wont to make an exhibit of the result of 
 their theories and practices. Being one of the origi 
 nators of this society, Mr. Norton was very warmly 
 interested in all that concerned it, and his family so 
 shared his enthusiasm that they not only generally 
 accompanied him on these occasions, but were al 
 ways competing for the prizes offered at the show. 
 This year, for instance, Mabel had put in several jars 
 of fig preserves for exhibition, Edward had with 
 him a famous paif of homing pigeons, the best in 
 the South, Lucy had crocheted an afghan under 
 fraulein's direction, Frank had sent off in Daddy 
 Dick's care his beloved colt ; even little Keith had 
 entered a novel hummingbird caught by him in the 
 garden. So it was with great alacrity that the family 
 started off for Smithville. Fraulein was taken along, 
 partly to maintain order, but chiefly for the jaunt.
 
 A FAIR IN THE FAIR MONTH OF MAY 59 
 
 " You must come too and see us all take all the 
 prizes," said Frank, who was of a hopeful turn of 
 mind (" a very clever, bookish boy, but con 
 ceited," Mr. Caruthers said). "I've been feeding 
 ' Frisk ' on cotton-seed cake and grooming him my 
 self and giving him bran mashes, and there will not 
 be anything to compare with him, I know, and Ed 
 ward is sure of a first prize. Nash can make 1767 
 yards a minute the hundred miles, and Phoebe and 
 Lex are even swifter. Such beauties as they are, 
 snow-white save for tips of color, and so intelligent, 
 so really affectionate . Phoebe has twice gone from 
 here to Baltimore with messages for the Dawsons, 
 our great friends there, and brought us back their 
 answers, and his favorite of them all, Lex, has flown 
 as far as Staten Island, to the club-house there, and 
 beaten the record. Edward made fifteen dollars last 
 season selling homing pigeons, and I daresay he '11 
 make twenty this. Why does Mabel exhibit those 
 rubbishy preserves of hers ? Why did n't she do a 
 water-color sketch, or something that would be a 
 credit to the family?" 
 
 "Mabel's sketches are bad very bad. Her pre 
 serves are delicious. Better is good cooking than 
 bad art. When she is a haus-frau, her husband and 
 her children will more enjoy nice dishes on the table
 
 60 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 than poor pictures on the wall. This I tell you ; and 
 her bread ! It is a poem ! Your mother is very wise 
 to teach her all the usefulnesses that she knows," 
 replied fraulein. "I much believe in bakeology, 
 und boilology, und roastology, und cleanology, und 
 patchology, und darnology ! A woman more needs 
 that education than any other. I teach the biano, 
 und the language, und all dat, because mawthers will 
 have ; but when I go home I am again cook, house 
 maid, seamstress woman und I am nef er so 
 happy ! I have also made for de show a sweet nut- 
 cake with the Bear of Bearne on it ; think you that 
 I will get a prize ? " said fraulein, smiling amiably 
 at the boy. 
 
 " I hope so, fraulein. But you will have all the 
 farmers' wives and daughters competing for it ; it is 
 ten dollars so little," replied Frank. 
 
 " Think you that a small sum ? Think of all the 
 bread it would buy, the fire, the clothes, the lodging. 
 If you had ever been poor in Europe, you would not 
 so say. The Royal Prince wid us thinks more as 
 once before he spends two gold pieces. Here Anna 
 puts them into a hat and cares not. But you Amer 
 icans trow de money away wid bot' de hands, and 
 den often in old age go begging. For thirty years 
 I am every year laying by money for my lame sister
 
 A FAIR IN THE FAIR MONTH OF MAY 61 
 
 und so she und I should have not to depend on od- 
 ers ; so when we get very old und sit like two old 
 cats by our fireside, it should be our own fire und 
 loaf, und cloak. Oh, it is terrible in Europe to* be 
 poor ! You cannot imaginate it. But not always 
 can you so live here ; so little work, so little save, so 
 much spend. Five dollars for candy at one time, 
 und de husband a clerk ! Real lace und diamonds 
 und silks und feders, und de wife governess like 
 me, de husband invalid tree children in de 
 bank, in broperty, noding ! If I should get wid 
 my Bearne cake ten dollars, I will be very glad ! 
 I will my little money-order send home, ya ! I will 
 say, ( Dis de doctor will pay in sickness ' (loved 
 Heaven, keep it away, till I have a little more laid by 
 of my yearnings) ; f Dis will a little holiday make in 
 convalescence ; ' i Dis will some good books buy for 
 de long winter evening ; ' ' Dis will de light provide ; ' 
 ' Dis will de neighbor help.' So little ! It is much 
 
 much," said fraulein, her fingers flying with her 
 knitting. "Five hundred dollars have I earned in 
 ten years wid dese needles in de half-hours und 
 hours what all de Americans waste de five min 
 utes de railroad journey de picnic. Wid it, I 
 have bought my bit of pasture land for de cow what 
 
 which shall be. Is not that much more better as
 
 62 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 laziness ? Many things I hate, but most of all lazi 
 ness uud lies." 
 
 When they got to Smithville, and put up at the 
 hotel, great was the eagerness of the party to see 
 the show in general, and their exhibit in particu 
 lar. Even Mrs. Norton was wondering if they had 
 given her tenth-century lace the place of honor in 
 the needlework department ; and Lucy and Frank 
 fidgeted fraulein into a fever, almost, before they 
 were all ready to go to the fair grounds. 
 
 Arrived there, they found a large and promiscu 
 ous kind of crowd, huge placards saying that " the 
 Honorable Robert Todd would address the people 
 at a barbecue to be held next day at Silver Spring ; " 
 other notices about the prizes and committees; a 
 whirligig; a balloon ascension in course of prepara 
 tion ; all the usual "attractions " of such meetings. 
 
 The Nortons went at once to the show-rooms, all 
 except Mr. Norton, who put on a linen " duster " 
 and made first for the cattle-stalls, where he punched 
 ribs, and discussed breeds and weights, ages, values, 
 for hours, with other equally enthusiastic farmers. 
 Mabel's round cheeks flushed crimson when she 
 found that her fig preserves had got " honorable 
 mention ; " her bread, a blue ribbon. Edward even 
 got quite excited, and lost his usual calmness, when
 
 A FAIR IN THE FAIR MONTH OF MAY 63 
 
 he found that Lex had got the gold medal of the 
 Southern Homing Association. Lucy wept copi 
 ously over an unappreciated Afghan ; Frank sulked 
 all day, finding his colt " nowhere," his pains and 
 oil-cake wasted, his hopes utterly blighted. Mrs. 
 Norton's lace was not officially noticed at all. But 
 fraulein's wonderfully realistic, indeed artistic, nut 
 Bear of Bearne had been awarded ten dollars, and 
 later was eagerly devoured by the children, who 
 found him as good to eat as he was to look at. 
 
 " I think it is a shame ! My colt turned down, 
 and fraulein's silly cake awarded a prize ! It is n't 
 fair, mamma, at all. The judges must be perfect 
 idiots ! " grumbled Frank ; " and anybody can make 
 fig preserves. And there 's lots of loaves of bread 
 that look as nice and nicer than Mabel's. As for 
 Edward, he always gets all the prizes." 
 
 " Don't let your disappointment make you envious 
 and unjust, my boy. To rejoice heartily and unself 
 ishly with a winner, where one has lost what one 
 coveted, is the best prize of all. My clever boy will 
 win with other exhibits, at other shows, no doubt ; 
 but to-day I would have him cheerful and resigned 
 to the judges' decision, kind and sympathetic to his 
 brother and sister; then he may be surpassed in 
 colts, but not in manliness and generosity," said
 
 64 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 Mrs. Norton, putting her arm around the lad affec 
 tionately. 
 
 " But, mamma, it is so hard. I was so sure I 'd 
 win." 
 
 " So you can, my boy ; I 've shown you how." 
 
 " But I so wanted that prize, and I 've taken such 
 pains ; but if I go grinning and congratulating, 
 I '11 only be a humbug. I can't help feeling bitter 
 and unhappy about it to save my life." 
 
 " I know, dear. But there is nothing as bad as 
 being bad, as bitter as being bitter. Come, son, try 
 to put it all aside and be kind to the others, and 
 you will see how it helps you," Mrs. Norton insisted. 
 
 " I could bear anything better than the Bear tak 
 ing a prize and my colt not even noticed," burst out 
 Frank in a suppressed sob, half anger, half grief. 
 " That old burnt sugar bear, instead of my beauti 
 ful Frisk. It 's a perfect shame ! I don't see what 
 we want with so many foreigners for anyway, in 
 this country." 
 
 " You 've got into a fret, son. Sit down here 
 until you get quiet ; read me about the balloon 
 ascension," said tactful Mrs. Norton. They would 
 have been a good deal more interested in their hand 
 bill, had they known that at that moment Keith 
 had taken advantage of the intense absorption of
 
 A FAIR IN THE FAIR MONTH OF MAY 65 
 
 the family mind to slip outside, get himself tied 
 around the waist and neck with one of the balloon- 
 ropes by another boy, and was just then sweeping 
 past the second story window, dangling from the 
 car. A roar from the crowd, " Look at the kid ! " 
 " A child 's gone up ! " " Whose child is that ? " 
 " Catch that rope ! " reached them. 
 
 Mrs. Norton went to the window, and there fell 
 down in a faint on the floor, for her mother-eyes 
 had beheld Keith's red plaid kilt in the distance, and 
 she knew what had happened. There was a tre 
 mendous uproar, of course. The crowd swayed over 
 the place like so many ants, when boiling water 
 has been poured over them. Everybody cried out, 
 shrieked, commanded at once, followed the floating 
 car, and trembled for the child. But, fortunately, 
 it was but a preliminary trial of the balloon, and the 
 learned professor in charge managed to get hold 
 of the right rope, and, with the help of his assist 
 ant in the car, soon deposited Keith in the next field 
 but one. A general anxious rush towards him, a 
 general smiling return of the people, told the story. 
 The child was frightened to death, but not hurt 
 much, thanks to his good angel. But he was ex 
 amined, scolded, caressed, tipped (whipped eventu 
 ally), embraced, in such rapid succession by onlook-
 
 66 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 ers and his family that it is no wonder he looked 
 perfectly bewildered during the remainder of their 
 stay in Smithville. Mrs. Norton had hysterics over 
 the affair, and was made so ill by it that Mr. Norton 
 had not the heart to say more than, " I thought 
 Keith was to be left at home in future ? " 
 
 " As he will ; I never shall let him out of my 
 sight again, or bring him away from the plantation. 
 I left him with fraulein, who gave him to Mabel, 
 who forgot all about him in her excitement over the 
 bread prize. That child is always in mischief. He 
 climbed up the legs of Mr. Carlton's savage bull 
 by the tail, and perched on his back, just before you 
 came, fraulein ; a bull that all the men dreaded to 
 handle except with a pitchfork. I never would have 
 brought him, but he cried so about it when he heard 
 of the balloon ascension from Candy Doll that I 
 weakly yielded. Oh, dear, that child will be the 
 death of me yet," said Mrs. Norton. " Come here, 
 my darling." 
 
 Mr. Norton now insisted that they should all re 
 turn to the hotel, but himself stayed to superintend 
 a flower-show in which he was interested. 
 
 The next day was devoted to the barbecue. It 
 was held in some dense woods, near Silver Spring, 
 and it was pleasant to see the thousands of smiling
 
 A FAIR IN THE FAIR MONTH OF MAY 67 
 
 people who trooped past them in holiday attire, to 
 disappear among the magnificent groves of live oak 
 near the spring. 
 
 They found hundreds of baskets and hampers 
 of every kind placed near the rough board tables 
 improvised for the occasion, and placing their own 
 there, the Nortons hurried off like their neighbors 
 to hear Colonel Todd's speech. It was a very long 
 one, a very eloquent one ; it was listened to with 
 great respect and pleasure by the immense crowd. 
 A Southern crowd likes nothing better than " a 
 speakin'," catches readily every premise the speaker 
 makes, responds to every note touched, appreciates 
 every point made, having been used for generations 
 to good speeches. Mr. Norton got seats for the 
 party, and greatly enjoyed the eloquence of his 
 friend, Colonel Todd. Fraulein understood little of 
 what was going on, and caring less for the political 
 issues, walked back to the grove and amused the 
 children who were swinging there, playing games, 
 and filching from the baskets. Mrs. Norton, fan in 
 hand, sat out the whole thing, in spite of the heat, 
 to please Mr. Norton. The younger children went 
 off with Mr. Caruthers, much to Mabel's envy. 
 Edward folded his arms and gave himself up to 
 what a gentleman near him called " the colonel's 
 magnificent effort."
 
 68 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 Mrs. Norton found Daddy Dick near her, as, in 
 common with her husband and the crowd, she made 
 her way back to the grove. 
 
 " Well, Daddy Dick, what did you think of that 
 speech ? " 
 
 " He mek a fine speech, ma'am.. He mek a gran' 
 speech. You could a-heerd him bellowin'- for a 
 mile. An' listen how you might, with all your ears, 
 you couldn't onderstan' Aim," replied he, with great 
 unction and earnestness. Like some other people, 
 Daddy Dick was much impressed by what he did 
 not understand. 
 
 Presently Frank, and Lucy, and Keith, and Mabel 
 were looking with intense interest upon the prepa 
 rations that were now made to feed the multitude. 
 Long trenches were dug, and fires were built in 
 them. Carts drove up, and from them were taken 
 whole beeves already dressed, pigs, turkeys, chick 
 ens, lambs. These were dressed, stuffed, put on 
 poles of varying size and length, and suspended 
 above the trenches to cook. 
 
 " Oh, is n't this fun ! " cried Frank presently, 
 highly delighted. 
 
 "Don't they smell delicious! I am so hungry," 
 agreed Mabel. " Where is Keith ? He will fall in 
 the fire next ! "
 
 "A BANQUET FOR THE GODS"
 
 A FAIR IN THE FAIR MONTH OF MAY 69 
 
 " I 've got him, Miss Mabel. Give yourself no 
 further anxiety about him. I am under bonds to 
 deliver him safely at Neosha to-morrow, object and 
 sulk and squirm as he will," said Mr. Caruthers. 
 
 " They are going to turn them over : look out ! " 
 cried Frank. The hot grease spluttered high, and 
 the flames leaped higher, as two negro men, not 
 without some difficulty, seized the poles and reversed 
 a huge animal already beginning to brown most 
 temptingly. It was a fascinating sight to the chil 
 dren and to many others, and they did not leave 
 the spot till the smoking victims were heaped on 
 wooden trenchers and carried off to the tables, under 
 the dense, grateful shade of the oaks. A scene of 
 cheerful, enjoyable confusion followed, as the thou 
 sands of people present unpacked the " goodies " 
 they had brought, and a fine show the aggregate 
 made. " ' A banquet for the gods,' it would have 
 been thought in old Greece," said Mr. Caruthers to 
 Mabel. " Now remember, please, that you are to 
 eat something, and rest, that I am to take your 
 place and wait on the children." 
 
 The orator of the day took his place at the head 
 of the central and longest table. A Methodist 
 minister said grace. The crowd behaved with great 
 reverence. The fray began. There were no seats, 
 of course. Everybody stood around the table, and
 
 70 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 taking what he or she wanted, enjoyed to the utmost 
 the delicious things provided. Everybody waited 
 on his or her neighbor. The utmost good humor 
 prevailed ; there was no horse-play, elbowing, snatch 
 ing, misbehaving. A Southern crowd dislikes all 
 rowdyism on such occasions, is very law-abiding, and 
 gentle and courteous. Fraulein was much struck 
 by this. 
 
 " I tought dere would be quarrels, und killings, 
 but I nefer saw people more amiable und complais 
 ant." 
 
 She ate enormously, and oozed good nature, her 
 self, from every pore. She waltzed with Lucy and 
 Mabel in huge, swelling circles and bounds on the 
 platform where the young people were dancing, as 
 all Americans dance beautifully ; and enjoyed 
 the day hugely. 
 
 " The fete Americaine is varry nice varry 
 but for de sandflies und de fleas und de mosquitoes, 
 und de flies what crawls over me in all parts dis 
 minute. Pouf ! But what a wicked waste of food ! 
 What was left would have fed half Switzerland for 
 a week," she said, as they left the noble group of 
 trees, which had given shade and shelter to thou 
 sands of the moist but merry folk, now wending 
 their way homeward, well content with the day's 
 fatigues and pleasures.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 " A COUNTRY FOOTING " 
 
 " HAVE you ever been to a cake-walk, fraulein ? " 
 asked Mrs. Norton on the Monday following the bar 
 becue. " Would you like to go to one ? " 
 
 " What is dat, madame ? What a gountry dis, 
 where de child is Candy Doll, and de cake walks ! 
 You are varry kind about it, I see, dough tanks." 
 
 " A cake-walk is a local institution, an amusement 
 much in favor with the colored people, who, with a 
 cake for a prize, seek to carry it off by superiority 
 in walking and dancing. They are to have one to 
 morrow night for the benefit of the Baptist Church 
 just on the edge of the plantation, and we must all 
 go and swell the receipts as much as possible. Mau- 
 mer Oney expects it of us," replied Mrs. Norton. 
 
 " Big Maria is going to walk," said Mabel, " with 
 Sam for a partner." 
 
 " Little Maria is going to walk, too, with Ned," 
 said Frank. " They 've been practicing for weeks. 
 I 've seen them at it down at the quarters again and
 
 72 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 again. Here, Lucy, get me a stick and a hat. I 
 will show you how Ned walks. I can do most of 
 the steps just as well as he does." 
 
 " Candy Doll says she is going to walk, too, with 
 Youpam," put in Lucy, while she ran off to get 
 the stick and hat. "I can walk, too, Frank. You 
 need n't think that you are the only one. Candy 
 Doll's steps are just lovely." 
 
 " Epam, you should say, Lucy," remarked Ed 
 ward, " Epam, not Youpam." 
 
 " Well, his mother calls him ' You-pam ? You 
 pam ? ' when he is out of the way, and she ought 
 to know.'* 
 
 " Maybe his name is Pam," suggested Keith, who 
 was playing on the floor. 
 
 " Epaminondas," corrected Edward firmly. 
 
 Lucy was now back, and with Frank began to 
 show fraulein the steps they had learned from the 
 servants at the quarters. But they were only ridi 
 culed by Edward. 
 
 " You don't know how to do it ! Just wait, frau 
 lein, until you get over to the church, and then you 
 will see walking ! There will be fifty couples, and 
 the cake weighs twenty pounds. Colonel Carlton's 
 cook made it, and it is a regular Christmas out-and- 
 outer, I tell you."
 
 A COUNTRY FOOTING 73 
 
 " But whyfore hold you de walk-cake in de 
 church ? " asked fraulein, justly scandalized. 
 
 " Oh, they don't mind that," said Mabel. " They 
 mean no irreverence whatever." 
 
 The next night was fine, cool, moonlit, and the 
 Nortons enjoyed their walk after supper over to 
 the little frame building that did duty for a Baptist 
 church. Mr. Norton had been persuaded by his wife 
 to accompany them, and led the way with fraulein. 
 Edward, with an air of much dignity and importance, 
 escorted his mother. Frank and Lucy followed, 
 chattering constantly. Waggles, bringing up the 
 rear, was heard snuffing and barking violently as 
 they skirted a rice-field, when about halfway. Pre 
 sently they heard a howl, a most piteous and pro 
 longed howl. The ladies stopped short in the path. 
 Mr. Norton and the boys hurried back, and there, 
 on the edge of a borrow-pit, they found poor Wag 
 gles, with only a stump of a tail left ! A sudden 
 plunge on the part of some black object back into 
 the water told its own tale, and while Mr. Norton 
 was peering at it, a very horny, scaly alligator swam 
 out into the moonlight, and dived out of sight. 
 
 " Why, Wag ! Wag ! Good fellow ! Come here ! 
 Let us see ! " said Mr. Norton, and the boys broke 
 into cries of grief and distress over the accident to
 
 74 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 their beloved playmate. Edward was sent on with 
 the ladies. Mr. Norton and Frank carried Waggles 
 tenderly back to the house, and skillfully bandaging 
 a bloody stump, left him on the foot of Mrs. Norton's 
 sofa, in Maumer Oney's charge, whimpering still, 
 over the result of a bit of innocent curiosity about 
 borrow-pits, grateful for the kindness shown him. 
 
 By the time they rejoined the other members of 
 the party, the cake-walk was in full progress, and 
 the elderly respectable colored men showed them 
 to their seats, the benches of the side aisles serv 
 ing for this purpose, the central ones having been 
 removed to make room for the walk. By the light 
 which the kerosene lamps with tin reflectors ranged 
 around the church gave, they could see a motley 
 array of " the hands " clad in their Sunday best, 
 and of their women-kind resplendent in blue, red, 
 purple, pink, yellow dresses, and gorgeous hats, 
 regular flower gardens. But even these were out 
 done by the walkers. There were fifty couples, in 
 all, dressed as fantastically as possible ; all herded 
 together at the end of the room. The children 
 wriggled on their seats and exclaimed : " There is 
 Big Maria ! Look at her wreath of pink roses." 
 
 " Ach ! but that low-necked white muslin frock 
 of hers makes an alto-relievo ! Und the yellow
 
 A COUNTRY FOOTING 75 
 
 stockings ! Und the green sash ! Boor children ! 
 Boor children ! " said fraulein. 
 
 " There 's Little Maria, Mabel ! The one in the 
 red silk and the purple hat. And is n't Ned a 
 swell ! His collar almost cuts off his ears. But 
 he can dance with the best," said Frank to Mabel. 
 
 " And if there is n't Candy Doll ! Look, Frank, 
 over there with Youpam ! " whispered Lucy to Frank. 
 There she was, sure enough, and grinned a delighted 
 recognition as she caught Lucy's attention. 
 
 " Well, her skin is all right to-night, that 's cer 
 tain," said Edward. 
 
 " Oh, mamma ! just look at Candy Doll. She is 
 all over powder," said Mabel. 
 
 " She must have stuck her head in the flour barrel 
 just before she left home," said Frank. 
 
 " And she has stained her cheeks with poke- 
 berries. They all have, mamma," said Mabel. 
 
 " And is n't her yellow frock pretty ? I gave 
 her the lace for it, off my doll's dress. And is n't 
 her wreath of chicken feathers beautiful ? I helped 
 her make it. And I gave her that red necklace 
 and her shoes ; and I think she looks too nice for 
 anything," remarked Lucy, contemplating with great 
 satisfaction the results of her benevolent contribu 
 tions to Candy Doll's toilette.
 
 76 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 Other couples had been giving an exhibition of 
 their powers, muscles, fancies, feats, in walking and 
 dancing during Mr. Norton's absence. Big Maria 
 and Sam now turned themselves loose. Sam was 
 the high jumper of the neighborhood. Big Maria 
 excelled in lurching. Over she would go to the 
 right or to the left, front or back, yet never lost 
 her balance. The pair were famous for their com 
 bined lurches, bounds, leaps, pigeon-wings; and 
 such sidlings, such mincings, such whirls, such wrig 
 gling, such shuffling, as no one could have imagined 
 who had not seen them. Loud applause followed 
 their earnest and ambitious efforts, and with a shake 
 of her body Big Maria straightened her pink wreath, 
 and smilingly retired on her laurels, leaning proudly 
 on Sam's arm. Little Maria's turn now came, and 
 with ineffable solemnity she took Ned's hand (a tall 
 negro, clad all in funereal black) and began to show 
 what she could do. Without having Big Maria's 
 smiles, vivacity, agility, she yet contrived in her own 
 slow, graceful fashion to win a great deal of admira 
 tion, while Big Maria looked on gloomily enough. 
 There was no love lost between the two women ever, 
 and as Little Maria dismally retired from the centre 
 of the hall, she shot a glance of triumph at her rival. 
 A grand circle of dancers was now formed, and the
 
 A COUNTRY FOOTING 11 
 
 fifty couples were a sight to see, as they sped around 
 the church. The band, established near the door, 
 and consisting of five skillful players, entered into 
 the spirit of the thing entirely. Occasionally they 
 would quicken the time ; occasionally decrease it ; 
 sometimes alter the time ; sometimes stop outright, 
 and thereby encourage, display to advantage, or con 
 fuse the walkers. And once when they stopped, 
 Youpam fell on his knees, deposited his hat on the 
 floor, and Candy Doll whirled, picked it up with 
 the tips of her toes, kept it in the air fully five 
 minutes as she did various steps with the utmost 
 cleverness, and sent it with a fling finally right 
 on top of Youpam's head. Lucy fairly shrieked 
 with delight. The church bell at the door clanged 
 out, the deacons on the platform deliberated, dis 
 agreed. Another general competition followed, and 
 the deacons had fully decided to give the cake to 
 Little Maria, and were about to declare themselves, 
 when an unwelcome interruption prevented. 
 
 In this last round Candy Doll (who was imme 
 diately behind Big Maria) took it into her wicked 
 little head to imitate her predecessor. This she 
 did with such success that a general roar of laughter 
 and applause followed. This being misunderstood 
 by Big Maria (who fancied that she was exciting
 
 78 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 a tempest of admiration), she redoubled her efforts, 
 and being as awkward as she was active, gave Candy 
 Doll another opportunity. Undeceived at last by 
 the jeers of the audience, Big Maria stopped, turned 
 around, caught Candy Doll in the very act, seized 
 her violently, shook her fiercely. Now Little Maria 
 was just behind Candy Doll, as it chanced, and she 
 advanced to the rescue, actually smiling for once. 
 Cries of " You yeller hussy ! " " You black nig 
 ger ! " " Ef you come tribulatin' me " "I 
 ain't 'tarrogatin' you ! " " Shet up ! " " Quit ! " 
 " Git out ! " " Take that 1 " "I '11 mek you 
 laugh ! " " Ef you tech me, I ain't sayin' what 
 I '11 do to you ! " " You think you can dance, 
 don't you ? " " Oh, Lawsy ! " went up. The three 
 couples were immediately involved in a general row, 
 in which " the fur flew," as Edward put it. Candy 
 Doll swung on to Big Maria's skirts, tore out her 
 gathers, snatched off her wreath, kicked vigorously 
 at her shins, and emerged from the encounter, thanks 
 to Little Maria, Sam, and Youpam, victorious, but 
 a total wreck as to her costume. Mr. Norton was 
 scandalized, and marching up to the group soon put 
 a stop to what he called "this disgraceful brawling," 
 so far as his servants were concerned, by ordering 
 them all home. When order was restored, the cake
 
 A COUNTRY FOOTING 79 
 
 was awarded to Little Maria, whereupon Big Maria 
 burst into a storm of sobs and rushed out of the 
 building, the deacons turned out the lights, the 
 white family left ten dollars with Daddy Dick as 
 they passed him on the steps, for what he called 
 " de restorifications of de church," and the cake- 
 walk was over. 
 
 When they got home Mrs. Norton saw a letter 
 lying on the hall table. The boat was in, and 
 numerous packages had come by it, but only this 
 one letter. 
 
 " From Catharine," said Mr. Norton, as his wife 
 pounced on it and sat down to read it at once. 
 
 " She is quite well, and, see here, dear, what 
 do you think dear Catharine wishes ? She says we 
 must all come over by the first steamer, and spend 
 three months with her before she goes to India. Oh, 
 I should so like it ! I quite long to go home after 
 spending five years here. Don't you think we could 
 manage it ? " asked Mrs. Norton. 
 
 " Oh, do, papa ! " 
 
 " Please do ! " 
 
 " It would be so delightful, papa." 
 
 " It is getting so hot and unhealthy here ! We 
 shall have to go somewhere, you know, papa." 
 
 " Oh, please do ! " cried all the children in turn.
 
 80 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 " Well, so be it. There is no reason why you 
 should not go if you wish it. But I must stay here 
 and look after the crop," said Mr. Norton. 
 
 " Then I will stay, too," said Mrs. Norton. 
 
 " Oh, papa, how disappointing ! " cried Mabel. 
 " You know you have promised to show us the great 
 cathedrals, and the village where you were born, 
 and lots of things. Why can't we put somebody 
 in charge? " 
 
 " Well, perhaps we can. Now no more of this. 
 It is late. We must all be off to bed ! " concluded 
 Mr. Norton. 
 
 But there was a general outburst of thanks, many 
 kisses, cries of enthusiastic delight from the entire 
 family. 
 
 " I shall go to my sister, and join you in Liver 
 pool for the return," said fraulein. 
 
 " I shall go for a walking-tour over Devon with 
 papa," said Mabel. 
 
 " I shall live at the British Museum, and learn all 
 about English history and homing pigeons," said 
 Edward. 
 
 " I shall take my heavy dresses home to be re 
 modeled, if the moths have left me any," said Mrs. 
 Norton. 
 
 " I shall take Aunt Catharine a jug of Georgia
 
 A COUNTRY FOOTING 81 
 
 syrup and some sugar-cane for her children/' said 
 Frank. 
 
 " I shall take my crayons and have some lessons 
 in London," said Mabel. 
 
 " I shall take the Queen one of my humming 
 birds," said Keith ; " I know she '11 be pleased." 
 
 " I shall take oh, mamma, can't I take Wag 
 gles and Candy Doll ? " cried Lucy. " They would 
 both be so so appreciated in England." 
 
 " Stuff and nonsense ! Stuff and nonsense ! To 
 bed ! To bed ! " cried Mr. Norton, smiling down 
 upon them, already halfway upstairs, candle in 
 hand.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE FAMILY GO ABROAD 
 
 NEXT day it was definitely decided that the Nor- 
 tons (Mr. Norton excepted) should go to England 
 for a visit to their sweet Aunt Catharine, at Bath, 
 and forthwith the most energetic measures were 
 taken looking to that end. Such an array of trunks, 
 bags, and portmanteaus were brought down from 
 the garret that Mr. Caruthers declared it looked as 
 if they were about to move an army. All day long 
 one could hear bureau drawers pulled out, closet 
 doors closed, trunks dragged about. The personal 
 effects of a whole family disposed in orderly fashion 
 in wardrobes and bureaus are almost lost to sight ; 
 but heaped on beds, floors, chairs, seem appalling. 
 
 " Why, you look as if a stray bombshell had ex 
 ploded in here, Mrs. Norton. It is as great a piece 
 of business to move four or five ladies and a family 
 of children, as to get a regiment of men in marching 
 order or a ship under weigh. I 'd offer to help you 
 pack, but the fact is that I am rather in disgrace in
 
 THE FAMILY GO ABROAD 83 
 
 that way. The last time my mother went to the 
 Springs with me, I packed her best muslin dress 
 in the bottom of a trunk, and put my boots and 
 gun-case on top, and my clothes generally, and then 
 got in and walked up and down till it shut ; and I 
 believe the result was not thought satisfactory for 
 the dress," said Mr. Caruthers, as he looked in at 
 the door of Mrs. Norton's room. 
 
 " I '11 not trouble you, after that," replied Mrs. 
 Norton. " But do keep an eye on Keith, Mr. Ca 
 ruthers everybody." 
 
 Everybody, including Mr. Caruthers, did try to 
 do that very thing. But they were all so busy 
 packing, and the household was in such a state of 
 confusion, that Keith was more than a match for 
 them all. He found and made opportunities all 
 that week for playing truant and being naughty. 
 On Monday, he fell into the new flower-pit, dug for 
 the geraniums, and cut his lip badly on some broken 
 glass at the bottom of it, besides bruising his leg 
 severely. On Tuesday, he climbed up to the edge 
 of the cistern, and tumbled headlong into it, with 
 a tremendous splash and loud cries of distress and 
 astonishment that brought fraulein to the rescue. 
 On Wednesday, while investigating the cockleburs 
 in Linkum's tail, he got a mild kick in his side
 
 84 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 from a long-suffering old friend. On Thursday 
 (the Fourth of July), he began the day gleefully at 
 five o'clock in the morning with thirty-seven packs 
 of fire-crackers. He let oil the first pack on the 
 kitchen stove, under Maumer Oney's very nose, and 
 was routed by her with the dish-rag, and expelled 
 from her premises. At one, as the family were as 
 sembled for luncheon, Mabel, looking out, beheld 
 Keith seated on a candle-box. 
 
 " What is that child doing now ? Can't some 
 body put him under lock and key until we are ready 
 to start ? " asked Mr. Norton ; and as his eyes fol 
 lowed Mabel's, Keith completed the siege-train he 
 had been carefully laying out between his legs, and 
 touching it off, set fire to all the packs under the 
 candle-box, and blew himself up in air, fully two 
 feet, to his own great delight and Mrs. Norton's 
 horror. His last pack was fastened to the back of 
 Maumer Oney's head-handkerchief late that even 
 ing, as she sat innocently eating her supper on the ' 
 kitchen porch, and being exploded frightened her 
 out of her seven senses almost. She seized upon 
 Keith, caught him up in her arms, and bore him off 
 struggling to her mistress. 
 
 " Dis chile goin' to end on de gallows, ma'am. 
 He get he neck stretched sure, 'less you stomp on
 
 THEY WERE ALL SO BUSY PACKING
 
 THE FAMILY GO ABROAD 85 
 
 him hard; now he young, an' bre'k he spirit," she 
 exclaimed, the ends of her head-handkerchief quiver 
 ing in her wrath, her face convulsed with anger ; 
 and on hearing his offense, Mrs. Norton promptly 
 prepared to switch him and put him to bed. 
 
 " Are you going to do it with your slipper, or with 
 the brush, mamma ? " asked Keith in a sweet, imper 
 sonal, unoffended fashion, that almost got him off. 
 But Mr. Norton came in, and it was neither. Keith 
 sobbed himself to sleep most piteously, only to get 
 up next morning betimes, shave exactly one half of 
 Youpam's head with his father's best razor in the 
 wash-house, and bring his woeful little victim up to 
 the house to show him to Lucy. He had taken off 
 occasional patches of skin in so doing, and had com 
 pletely changed Youpam's mind, at first most favor 
 ably impressed with the idea. Mr. Caruthers burst 
 into a roar of laughter when he came upon the two 
 boys in the hall. Nobody could look at Youpam 
 and not laugh. But Candy Doll wept piteously, 
 howled, yowled fairly, refusing all compensation and 
 comfort for herself and her brother. 
 
 Mr. Norton gave Youpam fifty cents, which put 
 him in a broad grin in about five minutes. Lucy 
 pressed on him a slice of pound cake ; Edward be 
 stowed on him a knife. Mrs. Norton dressed his
 
 86 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 head herself. But Candy Doll was inconsolable. 
 Keith was put to bed for two days, and as he passed 
 her he called out : 
 
 " I think he looks nice like that, Candy Doll, 
 don't you ? " 
 
 " De white folks is laughin' at you ! De buckrah 
 is mek you a sick coon ! You can' never tek steps 
 no more at de cake-walk wid me ! I don' scarcely 
 know you for my brudder any more ! Give 'em 
 back dat money, dat knife, dat cake, an' come along 
 home wid me," she cried, and tried to drag Youpam 
 off the veranda by main force. But fifty cents was 
 fifty cart wheels of bliss for Youpam. The knife 
 had two blades. The cake was melting in his mouth 
 actually. 
 
 " Go 'long, gal, / 'se flattersied. Dis here ain't 
 your nubbin o' corn. Shet up, and go 'long wid 
 your hollerin' and bawlin' ! " replied Youpam scorn 
 fully, pulling away from her most decidedly. And 
 in the course of the day he made overtures to Keith 
 (shut up in the nursery and very disconsolate) 
 through Big Maria. 
 
 " Marse Keith kin shave off de udder side of my 
 head, tell him, ef he '11 give me he fire-balloon, and 
 crack all my j'ints, and stomp on my feet, and fight 
 me every day for a week ! I ain't mind what he do
 
 THE FAMILY GO ABROAD 87 
 
 to me. I ain't no gal like dat Candy Doll, wid her 
 foolishness for mek a fuss 'bout nuthin' ! " was what 
 he generously proposed. But for the remainder of 
 the time that the family stayed at Neosha, Keith 
 was in disgrace and under guard, and Youpam con 
 tinued to excite shouts of derisive laughter when 
 ever and wherever he appeared. His naked, splay 
 feet, the big patch on the seat of his blue jeans 
 trousers, his enormous palmetto hat frayed into a 
 fringe that half concealed his features, held Keith's 
 interest to the last more than anything else, on the 
 day the family took the local boat for Savannah, 
 while Lucy had eyes only for Candy Doll, and Mabel 
 waved her handkerchief at Mr. Caruthers. 
 
 Mrs. Norton sighed with relief, as she contem 
 plated her flock, seated on the deck. 
 
 " All here, and all ready at last," she said plain 
 tively. "And Keith tied to the mast until we get 
 under weigh." 
 
 They did not get off for an hour after Mr. Caruth 
 ers had said good-by and gone ashore ; after Mr. 
 Norton had counted the trunks, parcels, bags, port 
 manteaus, made a list of them, and given it to his 
 wife ; after everything had been done, seen to, looked 
 after. At the last moment Candy Doll slipped on 
 board with an acorn necklace and a pair of bracelets
 
 88 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 she had made for Lucy, followed by Youpam with a 
 bag of popcorn for Keith. 
 
 "Mamma, don't you think the English will be 
 very disappointed not to see Candy Doll ? " asked 
 Lucy, as she slipped on her new ornaments. 
 
 " I am afraid not, dear. Candy Doll is best here 
 at home, on the plantation. But you may bring her 
 back a nice present ; anything you like. You shall 
 help me choose all the presents for the household in 
 London before we come back," replied Mrs. Norton. 
 
 Now came Mr. Norton to take leave of them all, 
 which he did about six times. They all rushed to 
 the side of the ship to see Mr. Norton, Mr. Caruth- 
 ers, the servants, little and big, once more. The 
 engines throbbed, the gang-plank was hauled in, the 
 Doretta backed, turned, and they were off up the 
 river. 
 
 " Off at last. Dear, dear ! I do hope Maria will 
 give papa good coffee. Why Edward, dear, you 
 don't mean to say that you have brought your 
 pigeons ! " exclaimed Mrs. Norton, when Neosha 
 was no longer in sight, and her thoughts returned to 
 present company, her journey, her responsibilities. 
 
 Edward blushed and stammered as he always did 
 when embarrassed : " Yes, I h-a-a-ve ! I j-u-u-st 
 could n't le-le-ave them behind, mamma."
 
 THE FAMILY GO ABROAD 89 
 
 "And fraulein has brought her bandbox, I see, 
 though I told her it would be a wreck in a week." 
 
 " I haf, madame, I confess the sin," said fraulein. 
 
 " And I daresay Frank has one of his white mice 
 tucked away somewhere." 
 
 " Only one such a little one ! Here it is now," 
 said Frank, looking down proudly at the pretty little 
 creature, whose tiny head peeped from the pocket of 
 his coat as he spoke. 
 
 " Well, Mabel, what have you brought off that 
 you ought to have left behind ? What ! Have you 
 got Waggles shut up in the cabin ? " 
 
 " Oh, mamma, how did you guess ? Poor Wag 
 gles came whining and coaxing and almost weeping 
 just as I came aboard, and I couldn't help it; I 
 stooped and picked him up, and you ought to have 
 seen how delighted he was. He knew perfectly 
 well that I had relented, and was bringing him 
 along." 
 
 " Hurrah for Mabel and Waggles ! Dear old 
 Waggles ! " cried Frank enthusiastically. " I am so 
 glad." 
 
 " Well, here is a family ! What will papa say ? 
 Did we not agree " 
 
 " Each person agreed that the other person's pet 
 was to be left behind, mamma. Don't be vexed
 
 90 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 please don't," said Mabel. " It won't really mat 
 ter." 
 
 " Has anybody chanced to bring an alligator ? " 
 asked Mrs. Norton derisively. " Why did n't some 
 body bring an alligator, pray ? " 
 
 It was now fraulein's turn to look embarrassed 
 and blush. 
 
 " Madame, I haf . It is now in de care of de 
 steward. Do not wex yourself, I beg. Such a little 
 drole. For my sister. How she will laugh when 
 she sees dat little black fellow eat a fish." 
 
 Poor Mrs. Norton looked utterly astonished. Her 
 imagination had not been equal to its own flight at 
 all, as a reality. 
 
 " You don't mean it ! " she cried. " I never knew 
 anything so preposterous." 
 
 " Oh, mamma, I might just as well have brought 
 my dear Candy Doll to play with ! We would have 
 had such fun," said Lucy reproachfully. 
 
 " We might as well have brought the whole plan 
 tation ! I wish I had seized upon papa ; I am sure 
 I shall never get you all safely to England," her 
 mother replied. 
 
 *<Now, mamma, confess. Have not you brought 
 off something contraband, too ? " cried Mabel, tak 
 ing her mother's hand and giving her a kiss.
 
 THE FAMILY GO ABROAD 91 
 
 " Well, dear, I must say your papa you see 
 I thought I ought to put a bottle of brandy in my 
 dressing-bag for seasickness. And papa thought 
 it would not help me at all. But I have such a 
 horror of it ! So I did put that bottle in " 
 
 A great shout went up from the children : " A 
 bottle of brandy ! and you a blue-ribbon temperance 
 lady ! Oh, mamma ! Shocking ! " 
 
 "You can't say anything to us, dearest, not a 
 word," said Mabel, as she put a shawl around the 
 dear mother's shoulders.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 IN DANGER 
 
 ARRIVED in Savannah safely, the Nortons were 
 so promptly transferred to one of the ocean steam 
 ships sailing for New York that they had only time 
 for a drive around the charming old colonial town 
 before going on board. The younger children had 
 never seen a big ship before, and were much ex 
 cited over it. Keith was pulled off a rope ladder 
 and very nearly fell down a windsail before they 
 had been on board five minutes, while they were 
 all busy establishing themselves in their respective 
 cabins. 
 
 " Ach ! not an eye will I close me during dis voy 
 age ! Dat is clear ! Vid dis so mischievous boy, vot 
 haf I but anxietudes all de time ? He is not bad 
 no. Bort so drying so varry, varry drying for 
 de governess. De moder, de fader can scold, can 
 vip, can subdue for de vorst, but de governess 
 must always smile und smile und be patient, und say 
 nodings, unless she be like one of vich I hear in
 
 /AT DANGER 93 
 
 France, who gave to de bad child a liddle dose of 
 somedings vot put him in a so sound sleep, und 
 den, pouf ! she took off her slipper und gif him vot 
 he had long time needed, und nefer got ! But I 
 am not so vicked. I vould not vicked be vid you, 
 Keith. But dou morst hear und obey." 
 
 Sidelong, merry glances from Keith were the 
 only answer that came to this. Dropping down the 
 river with the right tide and a delicious breeze, the 
 Nortons saw from the deck the beautiful twin spires 
 of the cathedral in Savannah dip gradually lower 
 and lower, and all the buildings of the city disap 
 pear, together with its twinkling lights ; then came 
 fifteen miles of steaming without stopping ; then 
 out swept the Macon past Tybee Light into the 
 illimitable ocean beyond, and turning, set her face 
 northward. 
 
 " Papa is thinking of us now, children dear, you 
 may be sure. Is n't the weather ideal? I don't 
 feel queer in the least. Do you, Keith ? " said Mrs. 
 Norton. 
 
 " I would n't but you see when the ship goes 
 down, my stomach sort of stays up, mamma, and I 
 do, rather," responded Keith, who was beginning to 
 look positively green already. " If you don't mind, 
 I I won't have any supper. I '11 go to bed."
 
 94 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 " Here falls the first victim of Neptune's trident 
 in our family," remarked Edward. " I do hope we 
 are n't going to be ill in rows. A mile of seasick 
 Nortons stretched on the deck would be an impos 
 ing spectacle, would n't it, mamma ? " 
 
 " Oh, don't speak of it ! We are none of us 
 going to be sick ! We shall have a perfectly calm 
 voyage, and we must not dream of going down 
 with the first ripple, dear," replied Mrs. Norton. 
 " Put the idea out of your heads, and control your 
 selves when it comes to eating, and you will be all 
 right." 
 
 In spite of this excellent advice and this cheerful 
 prediction, in exactly one hour from that time the 
 entire family had succumbed, Mrs. Norton ex- 
 cepted. 
 
 Moreover, in thirty-six hours they sailed into the 
 midst of what proved a terrific storm. Mrs. Norton 
 had been looking after fraulein and Keith (both 
 utterly miserable, all the mischief gone completely 
 out of Keith for once, and fraulein saying, " Frow 
 me to de fishes ! I cannot no more puke lief 
 like dis ! "), when she accidentally overheard a little 
 conversation between the captain and his mate that 
 made her very unhappy. 
 
 " Much wind ? " asked the mate.
 
 IN DANGER 95 
 
 " Enough to blow your teeth down your throat. 
 Come up and try it," growled the captain. 
 
 " Pretty ugly sea," remarked the mate. 
 
 " Barometer nowhere," rejoined the captain. 
 " See here, Stuntson, I don't like the look of 
 things one bit. Look to the boats, man, and the 
 hatches must be battened down at once. I only 
 came down to get my mackintosh and sou'wester." 
 
 Mrs. Norton's heart gave a great bound, then 
 sank as low as a heart can. Neither of the officers 
 had seen her, and both went their way. 
 
 Night came on. The wind rose to such a furious 
 pitch that every timber of the Macon shivered as if 
 under the blows of a mighty hammer. Mrs. Nor 
 ton heard the hatches fastened down. She heard 
 the sailors tramping about overhead and their hoarse 
 shouts and cries, the captain shouting his orders 
 through a trumpet, the tremendous swash of the 
 waves as they swept over the deck. Every port 
 hole had been closed, of course, but as she lay there 
 in her berth, she shuddered to- think that there 
 was only one plank between that raging, moaning, 
 frightful sea outside and the dear ones near her. 
 All night long the ship pitched and tossed gallantly 
 on her course, careening so dreadfully sometimes 
 that it seemed as if she must capsize, then right-
 
 96 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 ing herself and plunging ahead, trembling in every 
 limb. No lights were allowed in the state-rooms, 
 but from time to time Mrs. Norton would creep out 
 into the principal cabin, and sit down there for a 
 moment on a sofa. She felt less frightened, some- 
 
 O f 
 
 how, among these homely, familiar surroundings ; 
 to see the light was a comfort. So she waited dis 
 mally, first for daybreak, then for breakfast, and 
 news from the captain. But only a few straggling 
 waiters appeared. The stewardess was not to be 
 found. The storm seemed to be, and was, growing 
 worse continually. One of the waiters, looking very 
 white and scared, and barely able to make himself 
 heard in the general uproar, shouted to her that 
 he would bring her some coffee and bread presently 
 that nothing could be cooked the cook's gal 
 ley being smashed in and flooded. He also said, in 
 answer to the question she shrieked in his ear, that 
 the captain had not been down, and added that the 
 storm was awful. He brought her some coffee in a 
 big pitcher, and half a loaf of bread in his hand. 
 There was not another passenger in sight except 
 Waggles, who whined continually, shivered, and 
 pulled at the hem of her dress. Mrs. Norton was 
 no coward, but she now fully understood that they 
 were in danger. She behaved with her usual calm-
 
 IN DANGER 97 
 
 ness and good sense. First she gave some coffee 
 and bread to all her poor prostrate ones that would 
 or could take it. Then she roused Mabel and frau- 
 lein. Both women grew livid with fright when 
 they understood what she had written on a blotting- 
 pad and given thetn to read. Then fraulein fell 
 back with a groan, too seasick to care whether she 
 lived or died. Not so Mabel. A more plucky girl 
 never faced disaster. Like a soldier she sprang up, 
 rapidly dressed herself, and aided her mother to 
 dress the children. Then the mother and daughter 
 packed two bags, in case they should be ordered to 
 take to the boats, as rapidly as was possible with 
 the ship lurching so tremendously ; and picking 
 up the children, led or carried them into the cabin, 
 strapped life-preservers about each of them (Edward 
 excepted, he insisted on fastening his own), and 
 sat down to wait developments. All that day the 
 storm raged with increasing fury ; indeed, for three 
 days and nights the ship labored through a terrible 
 sea, with parting seams, and snapping masts, and 
 straining timbers, smitten with terrific force by 
 waves that dashed against and over it with a roar 
 that made Mrs. Norton, listening below, quake and 
 shiver. The lights were doused, the engines dis 
 abled, and the fires put out. The officers, lashed to
 
 98 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 the mast, directed the brave body of seamen who by 
 their intelligence and courage were trying to make 
 of a mere cockleshell, comparatively, a match for one 
 of the mightiest forces in the world. Finally the 
 ship got into the trough of the sea. Her mainmast 
 went by the board, with a frightful wrenching 
 crash that almost disemboweled the poor ship, and 
 the captain ordered the passengers on deck. There 
 were about twelve ladies besides those of our party, 
 and assisted by the sailors they were all taken up 
 from the cabin, some of them half fainting, others 
 crazed by fright, and others still quite calm, all 
 clutching something, children, jewels, valuables. 
 One look Mrs. Norton gave at the sea about her, 
 which she never forgot, then she staggered with her 
 children into the captain's cabin. The captain 
 cocked his pistol, stationed himself near the boats, 
 and had them, with the greatest difficulty, launched. 
 
 " No man sets foot in these boats till the women 
 and children are sent off," he shouted ; and looking 
 around with a noble gesture of disdain, he added, 
 " If there are any such cowards here, they had best 
 not try it." 
 
 Fraulein and Mabel were sent off in the first boat, 
 and got clear of the ship almost immediately, for 
 though still running high, the waves were percepti-
 
 IN DANGER 99 
 
 bly calming, the wind having shifted and partly 
 dropped. " Are n't you coming, mamma ? " cried 
 Mabel wildly in utter dismay. With an agonizing 
 cry to them, Mrs. Norton saw them seized and hur 
 ried over the side of the ship by the sailors, Mabel's 
 beautiful hair blowing in every direction. A second 
 boat was lowered, and also got off safely. A third 
 and a fourth were capszied under her eyes. The 
 others had been carried away in the storm. Mrs. 
 Norton gave herself up for lost now, and was pray 
 ing intently when the captain came up to her with 
 the mate. 
 
 " Have n't you gone, captain ? I thought you 
 had left us," Mrs. Norton piteously cried. 
 
 " I shall not go until my ship goes, and then I go 
 with her," he replied. " Come, you must go below." 
 
 He picked up Keith, and took them all, one by 
 one, back to the gloomy, deserted cabin, talking to 
 each of the children as kindly as possible. 
 
 " Must n't give up. The storm is over. We must 
 try to hold together till we are picked up," said the 
 captain cheerily, and then all at once, strong man 
 though he was, he fell prone on the floor in a dead 
 faint, utterly exhausted. Mrs. Norton ran to her cabin 
 and got restoratives, slapped his hands, unloosened 
 his collar, revived him finally, and then remembered
 
 100 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 what she ever afterwards called " that blessed bottle 
 of brandy." She administered a rousing dose of it 
 to the captain, and after lying in a state of perfect 
 collapse for three hours, he at last opened his eyes 
 and sat up. 
 
 " Well, I am a pretty sailor, I am," he declared, 
 "to go fainting like a boarding-school miss." Don't 
 tell it on me, ma'am ; don't, now ! But the fact is, 
 that I 've had almost nothing to eat for three days, 
 ever since it began blowing great guns, and I have 
 been on duty all the while. Did I dream that you 
 have some brandy ? " 
 
 The second draught had a great effect ; in half an 
 hour he declared himself " all right," and added that 
 he should " go up on deck and try to find out where 
 they were, and what was left of them." 
 
 " We are the only passengers left, ma'am, and most 
 all the crew. Keep a stiff upper lip, though. Don't 
 take off your clothes ; but the children may as well 
 try and get some sleep." 
 
 Lucy's and Keith's eyes had already closed, and 
 in a state of the utmost misery and suspense Mrs. 
 Norton watched beside them. 
 
 The captain soon returned, saying, " Thought 
 you 'd be anxious, so I came back to you. We Ve 
 been blown about three hundred miles out of our
 
 IN DANGER 101 
 
 course, as nearly as I can make out (in the general 
 smash-up my instruments, charts, maps, etc., have 
 almost disappeared), but never mind. Don't give 
 way, ma'am. Don't cry ! Never could stand seeing 
 a woman cry. The ship 's a derelict, and that 's a 
 fact. But I reckon we '11 pull through. If we do 
 go to pieces, I '11 lash you all to supports and hold 
 on to the young one, I promise you." 
 
 " Oh, my husband ! my husband ! Oh, where is 
 my Mabel ? Oh, captain, is it as bad as that ? " 
 cried Mrs. Norton, and burst into a flood of tears, 
 in which the children (now awake) joined so loudly 
 that the captain got cross at once, and growled out : 
 
 " Shut up, kids ! You have n't gone to the bot 
 tom yet, and you won't either, if John Morse can 
 help it ; and he can."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 A TERRIBLE TIME 
 
 IT took the ocean three days to recover from the 
 frightful state of agitation, rage, and fury into 
 which it had been lashed by the storm. Its vast 
 bosom heaved convulsively, its mysterious depths 
 moaned piteously, its waves only very, very gradually 
 subsided ; but at last there was not so much as a 
 capful of wind, and the surface of no mill-pond 
 could have looked more tranquil than the vast deep 
 around the Macon. Mrs. Norton, not understand 
 ing the situation, grew more and more cheerful 
 in consequence. The captain paced the deck con 
 tinually, sweeping every quarter of the compass 
 in the hope of seeing a sail. With his sailors he 
 planked over the hole left by the mainmast after it 
 was cut sheer off. He did a lot of calking and 
 bailing. He tried to rig up a jury-mast, and to put 
 the engines into something like order again, in 
 vain. Before Mrs. Norton he was all bluff hearti 
 ness and suspicious gayety.
 
 A TERRIBLE TIME 103 
 
 " You are a plucky one, ma'am, and no mistake. 
 To see you washing and dressing your boy, and 
 doing your little girl's hair, and sewing on buttons, 
 as if we were tied up hard and fast to a dock, 
 amazes me ! I thought you 'd walk the floor like a 
 tigress, and have hysterics. I 'm not a married man 
 myself, but I would n't mind being spliced, if I 
 could find another woman as brave as you," he said 
 to her. " And me fainting ! Don't tell it on me 
 ever, ma'am ; don't ! " 
 
 " I am not brave at all. I am the greatest coward 
 that ever lived. But I am trying to put my trust 
 in my good God," replied Mrs. Norton. 
 
 " Well, we 've all got to die, some time, and I do 
 reckon it is made easy for us all, when that time 
 comes. I 've been shipwrecked seventeen times, 
 though, since I ran away as a lad and became first 
 a cabin-boy and then a sailor. I don't give it up, 
 ma'am. Certainly not ! We '11 be picked up and 
 taken off yet ! You '11 see. If it was n't so serious, 
 it would be the most comical thing on earth to be 
 shipwrecked, folks act so queerly. Now that wall 
 eyed Dutch woman that went off in the first boat. 
 Did you see her holding on to that bandbox of hers 
 for dear life ? Who was she, any way ? " 
 
 " She was my governess, Fraulein Dinkspiel," 
 said Mrs. Norton, and actually smiled.
 
 104 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 " And that tall young woman a beauty with 
 her hair coming down to the hem of her dress ; I 
 saw her clasping something frantically in her arms. 
 I thought it was a baby. I saw her better, though, 
 as she went over the side, and it was a stump-tailed 
 puppy, if you '11 believe me, ma'am." 
 
 " That was my daughter Mabel," said Mrs. Nor 
 ton rather severely. ' 
 
 " And Waggles ! Dear old Wag ! " chorused the 
 children. 
 
 " Now, ma'am, keep up your pecker ; don't cry ! 
 That boat is hanging alongside some steamer this 
 minute. There 's thousands of 'em steaming along 
 here at this season," said the captain ; and added 
 mentally, " I hope I '11 get forgiveness for telling 
 her such a whopper." 
 
 " I hope, I pray, I trust so," replied Mrs. Norton. 
 
 " Excuse me commenting on your daughter. You 
 see the poor things lose their heads so. Why, when 
 I was wrecked in the Bay of Biscay, a man rushed 
 up to me and implored me to wait one moment for 
 him, to hold the boat, and rushed downstairs and 
 back again like a streak of lightning. ' Have you 
 got it ? ' says I, thinking it was his money, or his 
 dead wife's picture. * Yes,' said he, ' I 'm all right ; ' 
 and what do you think he went down for ? His new
 
 A TERRIBLE TIME 105 
 
 beaver and umbrella ! That man had actually kept 
 a whole boatful of people dashing up and down and 
 around, and running the risk of being capsized 
 every minute, while he went below for his beaver 
 and umbrella ! He was an Englishman. I have 
 had a woman implore me to " Save Bibi," at any 
 cost, and come to find out " Bibi " was a canary. 
 She was a Mexican. But we are a crazy, wretched 
 lot when we are put to the touch, most of us. I 
 am proud that is, I shall be proud to tell the 
 company, if I ever see land again, that there was not 
 one of our men but did his duty nobly. One Dago 
 and two Frenchmen tried to push past me into the 
 boats, but I put a pistol to their heads, and they 
 changed their minds about leaving the ship just 
 then. Come here, Keith, and climb up on my knee. 
 You '11 find some almonds and raisins in my pockets 
 for good boys. I found them in the steward's 
 locker just now." 
 
 When he got on deck, though, the captain's good 
 spirits disappeared at once. His head hung down 
 on his breast. His steps faltered. "Not a sail in 
 sight ! " he groaned out. 
 
 " Captain, you tell mamma that we '11 be rescued, 
 but you don't act as if you believed it. I have been 
 watching you. Of course no brave man scares
 
 106 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 women and children, or is mean to them. He de 
 fends, and protects, and encourages them. I know 
 that, if I am only a boy. I 've been doing the same 
 thing, so you have not deceived me," said Edward, 
 coming up to him as he seated himself dejectedly 
 on a skylight. " Please be frank with me. I am 
 not afraid to die, neither is mamma, but the chil 
 dren " Here he broke down. 
 
 " Yes, those children. That is why I came up 
 here. This old boat is yapping and yawning like a 
 sleepy dog, my boy. After a bit, if rough weather 
 comes, she '11 just open her seams, and fill, and go 
 straight to the bottom. Nothing saves her now but 
 the water being no rougher than in a wash-basin. 
 And knowing that, I can't stay long below. That 
 mother of yours is a lovely woman, and when I see 
 her sitting there so quiet and brave, with her children 
 around her, I get a lump in my throat ; and when 
 that youngster, little Keith, puts his arms around 
 my neck, and smiles, and says, ' You won't let me 
 drown, will you, captain ? ' the tears will come, 
 though I have n't cried for forty years. Well, you 
 are a brave boy, and I have told you the truth. 
 There is a chance that we may be picked up, of 
 course, about one in a thousand. Nobody knows 
 where we are, and we are blown entirely out of our
 
 A TERRIBLE TIME 107 
 
 course, and out of the line of traffic. When I put 
 my ship before that wind I thought, ( We '11 be 
 lucky if we stop short of Africa, in this cyclone ! ' 
 
 " Thank you, captain," said Edward gravely. 
 
 " I remembered this morning that Snyder Jones, 
 one of the captains in our line, gave me his chest 
 to take back to New York, and I opened it, and 
 found some charts and instruments, and I 've got 
 our latitude now, and longitude. Would you like 
 to see it ? Come into my cabin. Small comfort 
 now, but yet it is a kind of satisfaction," replied 
 the captain. 
 
 When he had inspected the captain's mysterious 
 calculations, and had them explained to him, and 
 stared at the sun, and been given a lesson generally 
 in seamanship, Edward slowly walked off to feed 
 his pigeons, which he had found cooing and prink 
 ing and sunning themselves as they walked daintily 
 around their cage in a circle in the steward's pantry 
 on the lower deck, the day after the storm, abso 
 lutely unhurt. He took them out now and stroked 
 their feathers, thinking all the while of his talk with 
 the captain. Then a thought struck him, and he 
 turned red and pale, and then red again under the 
 warm flush of the hope it inspired. 
 
 " Idiot, never to have thought of it before ! "
 
 108 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 he exclaimed. Then he generously fed his birds, 
 carefully fastened a note that he wrote around the 
 body of each, and taking Phoebe in his hand, 
 walked to the bow of the vessel. 
 
 " Go, Phcebe, and bring us succor," he said to his 
 pet, as he pressed her against his cheek. Then 
 flinging her off, he cried out : " Go home, Phoebe ; 
 go home ! " 
 
 Up rose Phoebe as blithe as possible, circled three 
 times above his head, and then straight as a dart 
 took her course. 
 
 In half an hour Edward got out Lex, stroked him, 
 kissed him, and said, " Dear old Lex, don't fail us. 
 You are our only hope. Go home, Lex ! Go home ! " 
 
 Up rose Lex on even bolder wing, and, with even 
 greater delight, circled as Phcebe had done, and 
 took exactly the same course. 
 
 " I '11 not tell mamma. It would excite, disap 
 point her, perhaps, too much," thought Edward, as 
 he stood there, watching Lex with as much eager 
 ness as sadness, until he was out of sight. "But I 
 will tell the captain." He did so, and the captain 
 thought it an excellent idea. 
 
 " If your birds are what you claim, and if they go 
 home, and if this weather holds " he said, but 
 Edward could not but feel encouraged.
 
 A TERRIBLE TIME 109 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Norton was missing his family 
 very much ; roving restlessly about the house and 
 over the garden ; working hard over his roses in 
 his efforts to dispel the sense of loss and loneliness 
 that beset him. 
 
 " What is the matter with me, I wonder, Caruth- 
 ers ? I have n't slept for two nights. I can't eat, 
 I can't keep still. I feel as gloomy as if I had lost 
 my wife, really, or my fortune. I think I must 
 have a touch of fever. No, I have n't either. Per 
 haps my liver is out of order. I vow it makes, me 
 superstitious. I wish I could hear that they are all 
 safe in New York. I wish I had taken them down 
 to Savannah, to England, myself, and left the crop 
 to take care of itself," said Mr. Norton to the tutor 
 one morning, after breakfast. 
 
 " The house is very different very when 
 they are away. Miss Mabel makes things so cheer 
 ful, and the boys are so full of life. You are natu 
 rally upset and lonely, sir," replied Mr. Caruthers. 
 
 Upset Mr. Norton was that morning, beyond a 
 doubt. He tried to read, he tried to write, he tried 
 to graft a few roses ; finally he seized a spade and 
 dug up a garden-bed, for the sake of hard work. 
 But when it got too hot to go on, he picked up his 
 tools, and was in the act of depositing them in the
 
 110 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 tool-house, when a pigeon flew over his head up into 
 Edward's pretty pigeon-cote, and dropped on the 
 tiny veranda. It was Phoebe, and she sat there 
 with eyes closed and wings furled, completely ex 
 hausted. Mr. Norton was used to seeing the pi 
 geons. He did not know that Edward had taken 
 his famous " homers " with him, hoping to win an 
 English prize. So he only glanced at the bird, and 
 continued to clean the dirt off his spade. But 
 Candy Doll came up at that moment, and no sooner 
 did she set eyes on Phoebe than she gave a loud 
 shriek, then threw herself down on the ground face 
 foremost, just as she had done when the whale had 
 so frightened her, and beat her head against the 
 earth, and drummed with her feet, crying out : 
 
 " Oh, my Lord ! Oh, my Lord ! Oh, my Lord ! " 
 
 Mr. Caruthers now appeared, took her up, shook 
 her mildly, and got out of her : 
 
 " Oh, dat 's Phoebe ! Dat 's Phoebe, wha' Marse 
 Edward tek wid 'em. Look at her, sittin' dar ! Oh, 
 my Lord ! Oh, my Lord ! " 
 
 " What ! " fairly shouted Mr. Norton, turning as 
 white as the rose he wore in his buttonhole. " What 
 does she say, Dick ? Edward did not take his birds. 
 I forbade the children to take their pets." 
 
 " But he did tek 'em. He did tek 'em all de
 
 A TERRIBLE TIME 111 
 
 same. And I dream of a big black crow las' night. 
 Dey done drownded ! Dey done all bin drownded. 
 Oh, my Lord ! " exclaimed Candy Doll. " Oh, Miss 
 Lucy ! " and throwing herself down again on the 
 earth, she literally tore her hair out by handfuls 
 and poured sand over her head, as she shrieked and 
 sobbed aloud, lost to all fear of the " buckrah " for 
 once in her loving grief over Lucy drowned. 
 
 " She tell de truff 'seusin' me sayin' so. I tek 
 de birds on de boat for Marse Edward, and gin 'em 
 to de steward," put in Daddy Dick, who was clean 
 ing the stable near them. 
 
 As he spoke there was a second " whirr ! whirr ! " 
 overhead ; a second rush, and brave Lex dropped at 
 the very feet of Daddy Dick. Mr. Norton pounced 
 on him, Mr. Caruthers seized Phrebe, and in a mo 
 ment the two gentlemen were reading Edward's mes 
 sages. The next they were saddling their horses 
 with trembling hands, and were off for the landing, 
 for Savannah, inwardly in a whirlwind, a tempest 
 of emotion, outwardly quite calm.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE RESCUE 
 
 BUT for Daddy Dick, important as were the ser 
 vices that Phcebe and Lex had rendered, both birds 
 would have died, their duty nobly done. While 
 Mr. Norton and Mr. Caruthers were speeding away 
 to Savannah, though at what seemed to their im 
 patient hearts a snail's pace, Daddy Dick got out 
 his own private bottle of " confusion maker " and 
 dosed his little feathered friends judiciously, strok 
 ing them affectionately and calling them " dear, 
 God-blessed tings," the while. He also made for 
 them a nice, warm mash of his finest bruised sugar- 
 corn, and in every way cared for them so well that 
 in a week they were quite strong and well again, 
 and would perch on his shoulders, eat from his hand, 
 and come at his call, just as if he were Edward. 
 
 Once in Savannah, the two gentlemen received 
 the kindest sympathy and most prompt aid from 
 everybody whom they met. Telegrams were sent 
 flying, a steamer provided, provisioned, and dis-
 
 THE RESCUE 113 
 
 patched, in an incredibly short time. Thanks to 
 the messages, they lost no time in searching for 
 the Macon, but steamed for the place indicated 
 by the captain as fast as the engines of the Atlanta 
 could drive them without running the risk of ex 
 plosion. Still, once afloat on the vast ocean before 
 them, it was not easy to be sure of finding any 
 thing, and even when they had arrived in the 
 neighborhood indicated, they had a task before 
 them that tried them terribly. Up, and down, and 
 around they steamed for two days, seeing nothing 
 no sails no wreck not even a floating spar. 
 Poor Mr. Norton groaned audibly as he turned his 
 glass upon every quarter of the ocean. Young 
 Caruthers, too, never left the deck for one moment. 
 The yards were full of volunteers. The captain 
 showed his anxiety by his stern, curt orders and 
 continual consultation of his charts, by taking the 
 wheel himself, and going aloft to satisfy himself 
 that there was nothing in sight. It was in the 
 dark of the moon, but flashlights threw their long, 
 searching rays here, there, everywhere, all through 
 the second night, in vain, and Mr. Norton had 
 fallen asleep in his chair toward four o'clock, when 
 he was aroused by a loud shout from the quarter 
 master aloft :
 
 114 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 " Something to the nor' west, sir. Can't make 
 out what. Looks like a hencoop." 
 
 The captain sprang to the wheel instantly, and 
 turned the Atlanta's prow in that direction. In 
 dead silence the steamer glided through the water 
 for about twenty minutes, while Mr. Norton's heart 
 almost stopped beating, and Mr. Caruthers raced up 
 and down the deck, unable to keep still, and every 
 sailor and passenger aboard hung over the rails, all 
 eyes and ears. A flashlight was now turned on, and 
 revealed the company's flag, its folds rippling in the 
 night wind gently, a raft, and some figures huddled 
 together on it. A great cheer went up from the 
 Atlanta. A figure was seen to rise on the raft. 
 An answering " Hallo ! " came from a trumpet. 
 Other figures moved ; voices could now be heard ; a 
 devout " Thank God ! Thank God, you 've come ! " 
 and in a little while Mrs. Norton was again in 
 her husband's arms. The crowd of rough sailors, 
 with instinctive delicacy, pressed back as eagerly as 
 they had pressed forward, leaving the husband and 
 wife alone ; they seized the children, wrung the cap 
 tain's hand off almost, the mates', the rescued sail 
 ors'. Never was there greater joy in human hearts. 
 
 " And Mabel ! fraulein ! Where are they ? " 
 cried Mr. Norton at last, when he had again and
 
 THE RESCUE 115 
 
 again passionately embraced Keith, and Lucy, and 
 Edward. His delight was at once turned into mourn 
 ing by Mrs. Norton's reply, and he Went below with 
 his family, closing his cabin door upon all the world. 
 Nobody remembered, nobody noticed Mr. Caruthers, 
 who sank down on the deck and sobbed like a child. 
 " We were all asleep when your cheer roused us," 
 said the captain. " I was dreaming of my mother, 
 and the farm where I was born. Mrs. Norton had 
 been ill for twenty-four hours. All our food was 
 gone ; we had eaten nothing for two days, and we 
 had only one jug of water left. We had lost all 
 hope of being picked up. I tell you, if you had 
 come twelve hours later, it would have been too late. 
 We lashed this raft together a week ago, got on it, 
 and rowed out of reach of being sucked in by the 
 whirlpool caused by a sinking ship. Poor old Macon ! 
 She held together wonderfully to the last ; and I 
 hated to see her go down like poison. I 've brought 
 her through many a storm, one or two as bad as this. 
 But she got in the trough of the sea, and her engines 
 were disabled, so I could do nothing, not a thing. 
 As for Mrs. Norton, she behaved splendidly through 
 the whole thing. She actually sang to those chil 
 dren of hers and told them stories to keep up their 
 spirits, until she fell ill from the heat and starvation ;
 
 116 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 and then whenever she opened her eyes, she would 
 smile at them, and tell them it was all right God 
 and the captain would take care of them. Has any 
 thing been heard from the boats that got off safely ? 
 Here, somebody, give me something to eat and drink, 
 and some tobacco; I 'm played out ! No; no clothes, 
 I 'm not wet at all. Luckily we have not had a cap 
 ful of wind, not a ripple, since the storm." 
 
 The Atlanta's instructions were to proceed to 
 New York after the rescue was accomplished, and 
 to New York she went accordingly ; everybody on 
 board spoiling little Keith, and lavishing every kind 
 ness possible on the Nortons and other survivors 
 of the Macon. Arrived there, Mr. Caruthers went 
 ashore on the first tug he could get, and when the 
 Atlanta's gang-plank was shoved out, he bounded 
 aboard and rushed up to Mrs. Norton, radiant and 
 breathless. That is, he thought he was seizing and 
 embracing Mrs. Norton as he shouted, 
 
 " It is all right ! Miss Mabel is safe ! She was 
 picked up by a French brig and carried to Dieppe. 
 From there she was sent to England, and she is now 
 at Bath with her aunt. There is a whole batch of 
 telegrams for Mr. Norton in my pocket." 
 
 It was really the stewardess whom he had seized 
 in his intense excitement, but Mrs. Norton appeared
 
 THE RESCUE 117 
 
 immediately, and fainted on hearing the glorious 
 news, to Mr. Caruthers's great concern. 
 
 "Blundering idiot that I am, I ought not to 
 have told you so suddenly. Look up, dear Mrs. 
 Norton. Take this. You must not give way now 
 when all is well over, thank God ! after keeping 
 up so long and bravely. I am so happy that I feel 
 like embracing the whole world." 
 
 " You did embrace the stewardess, certainly," 
 replied Mrs. Norton, from the sofa where she had 
 been laid, with a faint smile. " Tell me again about 
 Mabel. I will forgive you, if the stewardess will." 
 
 " I hardly dare say that I took her for you. Your 
 figures are a good deal alike," said Mr. Caruthers 
 eagerly. " You will go to England by the first 
 steamer, of course." 
 
 This was precisely what Mr. Norton did as soon as 
 they could get ready. And as New York is a won 
 derful place for shipwrecked people to provide them 
 selves with anything and everything they may need, 
 if they only have full purses, it took Mrs. Norton 
 only three days to get outfits for herself and the 
 children, when she felt strong enough to undertake 
 it. Not without a great deal of apprehension could 
 she again trust herself to such an uncertain, treach 
 erous element as the sea, still less those she loved ;
 
 118 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 but it had to be done, and eight days later the whole 
 family party walked into the lovely grounds of Aunt 
 Catharine's charming villa at Bath. They were 
 expected, of course, eagerly so. Mabel, and her 
 aunt, and fraulein, and the butler, two footmen, three 
 maids, the cook, and the knife-boy, had all been on 
 the qui vive over their arrival for twenty-four hours, 
 yet after all they reached there unexpectedly. In 
 spite of English decorum, the villa people all swarmed 
 out of the house with the first peal of the gate-bell, 
 and fell upon, embraced, and seized the Nortons and 
 all their effects, and bore them into the house, with 
 the most intense tenderness and goodwill. Never 
 was there such a hubbub. 
 
 Mabel, looking as well and pretty as possible, fairly 
 ran into her mother's outstretched arms. Aunt Cath 
 arine wept copiously over her brother. The butler, 
 who, as a rule, would no more demean himself by 
 carrying a parcel than if he were the Lord Chief 
 Justice of England, actually forgot everything ex 
 cept that he was human and the family just saved 
 from shipwreck, and filled his arms with bags and 
 wraps. Cook bore off Keith, struggling, into the 
 drawing-room, much against his will, kissing him 
 (a thing he hated), and calling him a "precious 
 love," and a " dear." The footmen tackled the lug-
 
 THE RESCUE 119 
 
 gage with smiling alacrity. Boots possessed himself 
 of all the umbrellas, and gazed respectfully at " Mr. 
 Frank " as one of the victims of a disaster as terrible 
 as any set forth in the " shilling shockers " of which 
 he was so fond. The three maids curtsied contin 
 ually, at the shortest possible intervals, and offered 
 their assistance to Mrs. Norton and Lucy. 
 
 Last of all came fraulein, her broad German face 
 wreathed in smiles, her honest blue eyes full of tears : 
 
 " Madame ! thee do I again behold, thanks to 
 the Allgiitigste ; und all the dear children ; und we 
 here, all safe, too ; not one lost," she said, as she 
 affectionately embraced and kissed Mrs. Norton. 
 Then, her mood changing, " Und behold ! Here is 
 even my hat, here on my head ! It is the same, only 
 the flowers changed ; the ribbon was not hurt at all, 
 though the bandbox, in course, had to go, the sailor- 
 mens swore over it so as never was." 
 
 " And if here is n't Waggles," cried Lucy and 
 Frank in a breath, and then tumbled over each other 
 in the path in the effort to possess themselves en 
 tirely of their beloved Wag. There he was, to be 
 sure, as large as life and as brisk as possible, all 
 joyous bark and loving leaps, his stump of a tail re 
 volving like a mill-wheel in his delight at seeing the 
 children again, a laugh on his face, if ever a dog 
 laughed in all this world.
 
 120 A GEORGIAN BUNGALOW 
 
 The sight of him relieved the tension they were all 
 feeling over this most happy but agitating reunion, 
 and together they all streamed into the house, the 
 Nortons to talk and talk and talk, till past mid 
 night; to be petted, and coddled, and feasted by 
 all the household, called upon by the rector and the 
 neighbors, lionized and rejoiced over by the entire 
 community. 
 
 " Oh, mamma, I can't tell you what I felt when I 
 found myself in that cockle-shell of an open boat on 
 that stormy sea, without you ! I can't stand think 
 ing of it, even ; I never shall be able to do so with 
 out a shudder. The men were very rough, and were 
 beginning to quarrel dreadfully before we were res 
 cued. It was a great comfort to have fraulein with 
 us ; and she was so kind, so sweet, so unselfish. I 
 shall always love her dearly for it. And the French 
 people were so good to us, too, sending us on at once 
 here to auntie, when we had no money at all, and 
 bringing us clothing, flowers, books, and bonbons. 
 You must write to the Le Maitres at once, dear ; I 
 never can forget how kind they were. And oh, how 
 delicious it is to have you, and papa, and the dear 
 children back again, and all safe and well, is n't it? " 
 said Mabel, as she moved about her bedroom that 
 night.
 
 THE RESCUE 121 
 
 " It is, indeed, my darling child. I think there 
 will be some thankful hearts singing the Te Deum 
 next Sunday at church, mine for one." 
 
 " And mine. And what of Mr. Caruthers, 
 mamma ? Did n't papa say that he had gone to 
 Virginia ? " said Mabel, a bright blush rising to the 
 very roots of her hair as she spoke. 
 
 " Yes. He said I was to tell you, dear, how infi 
 nitely thankful he was when he got the telegram, 
 and that he hoped to be back with us all at ( Neosha ' 
 for Christmas. Come kiss me good-night, daughter 
 mine," replied Mrs. Norton, then added a low but 
 most loving and fervent " God bless you ! "
 
 (2Tbr OilicrsiDE press 
 
 Elecirotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton 6 Co. 
 Cambridge, Mass, U. S. A. 
 
 f JNIVERSITY o* CALIFORNIA 
 
 AT 
 
 LOS ANGELBS 
 LIBRARY
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.
 
 PS Barnuin - 
 
 1068 A Georgian bug 
 
 B267g galovr. 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 ' III I III || | HI || | | | | 
 
 A 001 372 354 9 
 
 i 
 
 PS 
 
 1068 
 
 B267g
 
 V