Mabel and Aurora cared little for flowers in themselves but Dorothy's eagerness was infectious, and Elsa's pale face had lighted with pleasure. But even then her timidity moved her to say:

"Suppose something happens? Suppose we should get lost? It's a strange, new place--I guess--I'm afraid--I'll stay with Mrs. Calvert, please."

"You'll do nothing of the kind, my dear," said that lady, smiling.

"You've done altogether too much 'staying' in your short life. Time now to get outdoor air and girlish fun. Go with Dorothy and get some color into your cheeks. You want to go back to that father of yours looking a very different Elsa from the one he trusted to us. Run along! Don't bother about a hat and jacket. Exercise will keep you from taking cold. Dolly, dear, see that the child has a good time."

Elsa's mother had died of consumption and her father had feared that his child might inherit that disease. In his excessive love and care for her he had kept her closely housed in the poor apartment of a crowded tenement, the only home he could afford. The result had been to render her more frail than she would otherwise have been. Her shyness, her lameness, and her love of books with only her father for teacher, made her contented enough in such a life, but was far from good for her. The best thing that had ever happened to her was this temporary breaking up of this unwholesome routine and her having companions of her own age.

So that even now she had looked wistfully upon the small bookshelf in the cabin, with the few volumes placed there; but Mrs. Calvert shook her head and Elsa had to obey.

"But, Dorothy, aren't you afraid? There might be snakes. It might rain. It looks wet and swampy--I daren't get my feet wet--father's so particular----"

"If it rains I'll run back and get you an umbrella, Aunt Betty's own--the only one aboard, I fancy. And as for fear--child alive! Did you never get into the woods and smell the ferns and things? There's nothing so sweet in the world as the delicious woodsy smell! Ah! um!

Let's hurry!" cried Dolly, linking her arm in the lame girl's and helping her over the gra.s.sy hummocks.

Even then Elsa would have retreated, startled by the idea of "woods"

where the worst she had antic.i.p.ated was a leisurely stroll over a green meadow. But there was no resisting her friend's enthusiasm; besides, looking backward she was as much afraid to return and try clambering aboard the Lily, unaided, as she was to go forward.

So within a few minutes all four had entered the bit of woodland and, following Dorothy's example, were eagerly searching for belated blossoms. Learning, too, from that nature-loving girl, things they hadn't known before.

"A cardinal flower--more of them--a whole lot! Yes, of course, it's wet there. Cardinals always grow in damp places, along little streams like this I've slipped my foot into! Oh! aren't they beauties! Won't dear Aunt Betty go just wild over them! if Father John, the darling man who 'raised' me, were only here! He's a deal lamer than you, Elsa Carruthers, but n.o.body's feet would get over the ground faster than his crutches if he could just have one glimpse of this wonderland!

"Did you ever notice? Almost all the autumn flowers are either purple or yellow or white? There are no real blues, no rose-colors; with just this lovely, lovely cardinal for an exception."

Dorothy sped back to where Elsa stood nervously balancing herself upon a fallen tree-trunk and laid the brilliant flowers in her hands. Elsa looked at them in wonder and then exclaimed:

"My! how pretty! They look just as if they were made out of velvet in the milliner's window! And how did you know all that about the colors?"

"Oh! Father John, and Mr. Winters--Uncle Seth, he likes me to call him--the dear man that gave us the Water Lily--they told me. Though I guessed some things myself. You can't help that, you know, when you love anything. I think, I just do think, that the little bits of things which grow right under a body's feet are enough to make one glad forever. Sometime, when I grow up, if Aunt Betty's willing, and I don't have to work for my living, I shall build us a little house right in the woods and live there."

"Pshaw, Dolly Doodles! You couldn't build a house if you tried. And you'd get mighty sick of staying in the woods all the time, with n.o.body coming to visit you----" remarked Mabel coming up behind them.

"I should have the birds and the squirrels, and all the lovely creatures that live in the forest!"

"And wild-cats, and rattlesnakes, and horrid buggy things! Who'd see any of your new clothes?"

"I shouldn't want any. I'd wear one frock till it fell to pieces----"

"You wouldn't be let! Mrs. Calvert's awful particular about your things."

"That's so," commented Aurora. "They're terrible plain but they look just right, somehow. Righter 'n mine do, Gerry says, though I don't believe they cost near as much."

"Well, we didn't come into these lovely woods to talk about clothes.

Anybody can make clothes but only the dear G.o.d can make a cardinal flower!" cried Dorothy, springing up, with a sudden sweet reverence on her mobile face.

Elsa as suddenly bent and kissed her, and even the other matter-of-fact girls grew thoughtful.

"It's like a church, isn't it? Only more beautiful," whispered the lame girl.

"Yes, isn't it? Makes all the petty hatefulness of things seem not worth while. What matter if the storm did break the engine--that stranded us right here and gave us _this_. If we'd kept on down the bay we'd have missed it. That's like dear Uncle Seth says--that things are _meant_. So I believe that it was 'meant' you should come here to-day and have your first taste of the woods. You'll never be afraid of them again, I reckon."

"Never--never! I'm glad you made me come. I didn't want to. I wanted to read, but this is better than any book could be, because like you said--G.o.d made it."

Aurora and Mabel had already turned back toward the Lily and now called that it was time to go. Though the little outing had meant less to them than it had to Elsa and Dorothy, it had still given them a pleasure that was simple and did them good. Aurora had gathered a big bunch of purple asters for the table, thinking how well they would harmonize with the dainty lavender of her hostess's gown; and Mabel had plucked a lot of "boneset" for her mother, remembering how much that lady valued it as a preventive of "malary"--the disease she had been sure she would contract, cruising in shallow streams.

"Come on, girls! Something's happened! The boys are waving to us like all possessed!" shouted Mabel, when they had neared the wharf and the boat which already seemed like home to them.

Indeed, Gerald and Melvin were dancing about on the little pier beckoning and calling: "Hurry up, hurry up!" and the girls did hurry, even Elsa moving faster than she had ever done before. Already she felt stronger for her one visit to that wonderful forest and she was hoping that the Water Lily might remain just where it was, so that she might go again and again.

Then Gerald came to meet them, balancing a water-melon on his head, trying to imitate the ease with which the colored folks did that same trick. But he had to use his hands to keep it in place and even so it slipped from his grasp and fell, broken to pieces at Elsa's feet.

"Oh! What a pity!" she cried, then dropped her eyes because she had been surprised into speaking to this boy who had never noticed her before.

"Not a bit! Here, my lady, taste!"

She drew back her head from the great piece he held at her lips but was forced to take one mouthful in self-defence. But Dorothy, in similar fix was eating as if she were afraid of losing the dainty, while Gerald merrily pretended to s.n.a.t.c.h it away.

"Ha! That shows the difference--greed and daintiness!"

Then in a changed tone he exclaimed:

"Pretty close shave for the pickaninny!"

Dorothy held her dripping bit of melon at arm's length and quickly asked:

"What do you mean? Why do you look so sober all of a sudden?"

"Metty came near drowning. Tried to follow his mother over the field to the melon-patch and fell into the water. Mrs. Calvert was walking around the deck and heard the splash. n.o.body else was near. She ran around to that side and saw him. Then she screamed. Old Cap'n says by the time he got there the little chap was going under for the last time. Don't know how he knew that--doubt if he did--but if he did--but he wouldn't spoil a story for a little thing like a lie. Queer old boy, that skipper, with his pretended log and his broken spy-gla.s.s.

He----"

"Never mind that, go on--go on! He was saved, wasn't he? Oh! say that he was!" begged Dolly, wringing her hands.

"Course. And you're dripping pink juice all over your skirt!"

"If you're going to be so tantalizing----" she returned and forgetful of lame Elsa, sped away to find out the state of things for herself.

Left alone Elsa began to tremble, so that her teeth chattered when Gerald again held the fruit to her lips.

"Please don't! I--I can't bear it! It seems so dreadful! Nothing's so dreadful as--death! Poor, poor, little boy!"

The girl's face turned paler than ordinary and she shook so that Gerald could do no less than put his arm around her to steady her.

"Don't feel that way, Elsa! Metty isn't dead. I tell you he's all right. He's the most alive youngster this minute there is in the country. Old Cap'n is lame; of course he couldn't swim, even if he'd tried. But he didn't. He just used his wits, and they're pretty nimble, let me tell you! There was a boat-hook hanging on the rail--that's a long thing with a spike, or hook, at one end, to pull a boat to sh.o.r.e, don't you know? He caught that up and hitched it into the seat of Metty's trousers and fished him out all right. Fact."

Elsa's nervousness now took the form of tears, mingled with hysterical laughter, and it was Gerald's turn to grow pale. What curious sort of a girl was this who laughed and cried all in one breath, and just because a little chap wasn't drowned, though he might have been?

"I say, girlie, Elsa, whatever your name is, quit it! You're behaving horrid! _Metty isn't dead._ He's very much happier than--than I am, at this minute. He's eating water-melon and you'd show some sense if you'd do that, too. When his mother got back, after stealing her melon, she found things in a fine mess. Old Cap'n had fished the youngster out but he wasn't going to have him drip muddy water all over his nice clean 'ship.' Not by a long shot! So he carries him by the boat-hook, just as he'd got him, over to the gra.s.s and hung him up in a little tree that was there, to dry. Yes, sir! Gave him a good spanking, too, Mrs. Bruce said, just to keep him from taking cold!

Funny old snoozer, ain't he?"