A Tale of the Summer Holidays.

by G. Mockler.

CHAPTER I.

THE SECRET MEETING.

Two days after the holidays began, the four younger members of the Danvers family received a note summoning them to a secret meeting at half-past seven the next morning in the summer-house. Drusie, who had written and delivered the notes, including one to herself, was the first to reach the appointed place; and when, a few minutes later, the other three arrived, they found her seated at the rustic table with a sheet of paper and a pencil before her, and a gla.s.s of water at her elbow.

"Good-morning," she said, rising and shaking hands with them all round.

"Helen, will you sit facing me, and Jim and Tommy at either side?"

In a solemn silence they obeyed; and then seating herself again, she took a sip of water. Not that she was thirsty, but she was rather nervous.

It was so long since the last meeting, and hitherto Hal had always been the chairman. She stifled a sigh; it seemed so strange to hold a secret meeting without him.

"Go ahead," said Jim, encouragingly; "or would you like me to be chairman, Drusie?"

"Certainly not," she replied hastily. "I am the eldest here, and of course I must be chairman. And you must be serious, Jim, for we have got a lot to talk about this morning, and it won't do for Hal to come out and find us here."

"He is asleep and snoring," said Helen, in a tone of great contempt.

"He has learned a lot of silly things at school, and one of them is never to get up until he is called."

"Order, please," said Drusie, rapping on the table. "You must not begin to discuss the subject until I have announced it." She rose, gulped down a few mouthfuls of water, and said: "Ladies and gentlemen, we are met here this morning to discuss a question of paramount importance." She paused, partly for breath and partly to take note of the effect of her words. She was proud of that beginning, which she had learned from the report of a missionary meeting. She was pleased to observe that Helen and Tommy looked decidedly impressed, but Jim was grinning. Frowning at him, she resumed: "I may say that the matter affects us all very seriously, and it is one that ought to be taken up by the nation at large. But I regret to say that the people of England are only too apt to shirk their very obvious, their very obvious--"

But at that point she stuck hopelessly fast. Though she had carefully avoided glancing at Jim, she had seen his face out of the corner of one eye, and the wide, fixed grin that ornamented it had put her out dreadfully.

"Oh, come," he said, striking in; "aren't you laying it on rather thick? Even though Hal has come back from school with so much side on that he does not know what to do with himself, I don't see that the nation at large is concerned."

"No, of course not," Drusie acknowledged; "but it said that in the paper, you know, and it seemed a nice beginning."

"Well, suppose we skip that part," said Jim, "and get to the real business, which is of course about Hal."

"Very well," said Drusie, though she rather regretted her long sentences. "I called this meeting to talk about Hal," she said, "and to ask what you all thought about the birthday. You know we have been busy making the ammunition to storm the fort with; but if he doesn't want to defend it, it won't be much good preparing any more cannon b.a.l.l.s. Of course, one of us could defend it; but a fight without Hal wouldn't be any fun at all. At least, that is what I think; but what do you say?"

This time Drusie had been heard with as much attention as she could wish for. The matter really was a very serious one. In two days' time it would be the twins'--Hal and Drusie's--birthday; and ever since they had been big enough to throw straight, they had always celebrated this double birthday with a big battle, followed by a feast in the summer-house. Hal had always defended the fort, while Drusie led the attacking party; and this year they had expected to have a really splendid fight, for during the past fortnight they had spent all their spare time in making ammunition, and the supply of cannon b.a.l.l.s was larger than ever before.

But if Hal was not going to take part in the fight, all these preparations would be thrown away. It was really very difficult to know what he would or would not do, for he was so altered by his one term at school that he hardly seemed like the same boy. He did not tease or bully them, but he simply took as little notice as possible, and spoke to them in a lofty, superior sort of way, as though he were a very grown-up person and they very little children. Sometimes, however, he quite forgot to be dignified and condescending, and then Drusie hoped he meant to take part in the birthday fight as usual. And the awkward part of it was that Drusie could not ask him his intentions, as it was against their rules to say one word to him about the fight until the very day on which it was to take place.

"I suppose," said Helen, with a scornful little sniff, "he has grown too grand to fight. He would call it baby-play."

"What about the feast?" asked Jim. "Weren't you going to say something about that too, Drusie?"

"Oh yes," she said; and after she had drunk a little more water she rose to her feet again. The chairman was always supposed to finish the gla.s.s of water, and that was a part of her duties that Drusie did not much relish when the meeting was held before breakfast. Under pretence of moving it out of her way, Jim drew the tumbler towards him, and when she was not looking he filled it up from a jug which he had hidden under the table the evening before.

"The feast," she said earnestly, "is going to be a specially nice one.

I am making all the wine myself, and I taste it ever so many times a day to see if it is still good. I won't tell you everything that is in it; but you can guess how lovely it will be when I say that it was made from apples, and pears, and prune juice, and sugar, and some tea that I saved from breakfast. There are lots of other things in it, too," she said, interrupting herself; "but that is a secret. The best of my wine is that it hasn't cost anything, and so we shall have more money to spend on other things. It is pocket-money day to-day, and it must all go towards the feast. My sixpence and yours, Jim, and Helen's and Tommy's threepences make one and sixpence. That is a lot of money, and I am sure Hal will give us his shilling."

"I don't think he will," said Jim, biting his lips to keep from laughing as he saw Drusie look down with mingled surprise and dismay at her nearly full gla.s.s; "he is hard up. He borrowed a penny half-penny from me the other day, and hasn't paid it back yet; and he told me that he had got rather a big bill in the village."

"Well," Drusie continued, after she had bravely gulped down some more water, "it doesn't matter very much if he doesn't give anything. We have plenty. And now we must vote." Tearing the sheet of paper into four pieces, she pa.s.sed them round the table. "If you want to go on preparing for the fight and the feast, you must each write 'yes;' if you don't want to go on, you must write 'no.'"

Then she sat down, feeling rather proud of the clear way in which she had spoken, and made another attempt to finish her gla.s.s of water.

Without the slightest hesitation Jim scribbled the word "yes" on his piece of paper, and when Tommy saw what Jim had written he put "yes,"

too. Helen took longer to make up her mind. She could not help thinking that if they went on with the preparations for the fight, and Hal refused to have anything to do with it, they would look very silly.

For at the bottom of her heart Helen was rather impressed by the airs that Hal gave himself, and would have liked very much to imitate them.

But knowing well that the other three would vote for going on with the fight, she, too, wrote "yes," and put her folded slip with the others into the hat which Jim pa.s.sed round.

The chairman opened them hastily.

"They are all 'yeses,' so we must go on with the preparations just the same," she said, rising once more to address the meeting; "and if Hal gives us his shilling after breakfast, it will mean that he is going to defend the fort. That is all, I think. I now declare this meeting ended."

"Hear, hear!" said Jim. "But you must finish your water, Drusie. We shan't think anything of you as a chairman if you leave a drop."

"I keep on drinking all the time," said poor Drusie, giving her tumbler, still nearly full, a glance of strong distaste.

"Perhaps you only sip it," said Jim gravely. "Shut your eyes, and take big mouthfuls. You _must_ finish it, you know."

The sense of duty was strong in Drusie, and so she shut her eyes and made one more heroic effort. The instant her eyes were closed, Jim filled up her gla.s.s as she drank. He had hoped to make her finish the entire jugful, but he shook so with suppressed laughter that instead of pouring it into her gla.s.s he poured it on to her nose.

"O Jim!" she said reproachfully, as the truth burst upon her; "how much have I drunk?"

"Four tumblers full," he said triumphantly. "You make a splendid chairman, Drusie."

She couldn't help laughing, too, when she saw the nearly empty jug.

She dried her face, scolded Jim, and then forgave him in the same breath, for a sweeter-tempered child than Drusie never lived. After that the meeting broke up, and a few minutes later the bell rang for breakfast.

Hal was already seated at the table when they reached the nursery. He was a nice-looking boy, taller than Drusie by a couple of inches, and well grown for his years, which would be twelve on the following Tuesday.

"Hallo!" he said, as they all trooped in; "what have you been up to? I know," he said, catching sight of the tumbler now really empty at last in Drusie's hand. "A secret meeting. You might have asked me. What was it about?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hal at table]

Drusie flushed up and looked guilty. She could not tell him that the meeting had been about himself. But just then Helen interposed.

"Why, you wouldn't have cared to come," she said. "You said yesterday that secret meetings were baby things."

So he had, but it nevertheless was a pity that Helen reminded him of it just then. He had come down to breakfast that morning inclined to drop back into his old place among them, and his tone and manner were friendly and pleasant. But Helen's speech rubbed him up the wrong way at once, and in an instant he became the lofty and contemptuous school-boy brother again.

"And so they are baby things, Miss Helen," he said; "but it is rather amusing, you know, to watch babies at play. That is why I should have liked to be told of this important secret meeting in time."

That that was not the reason Drusie knew as well as he did. And he felt rather ashamed when he saw the hurt expression that came to her face. But Helen really must be taught that there was a great difference between a little girl of eight who had never been away from home in her life and a boy of twelve who had been to school. But it was not always easy to snub Helen.

"You are silly, Hal," she said. "Just because you have been to school for one term, you fancy that you are too big to play with us. Such nonsense."

Well, of course, that led to a sharp answer from Hal. Helen replied again, and a hot wrangle went on across the breakfast table.