They hopped over the little rocks and climbed over the big ones; they crawled over some and slid down others which were very slippery. For the tide had gone out, and here[88] and there the rocks held little pools which the sun had not dried.
There were shells and seaweed and starfish in these pools, but the children did not stop to gather them, for they had seen others just like them often before. They scrambled on towards a big, big rock that stood up right across the way between the cliff and the foamy water.
“We can’t go any further,” said Rose.
“Oh, we must go further,” answered Kenneth. “Perhaps there is some big discovery just beyond. Why, Rose, supposing Columbus had stopped the first time he was discouraged, he would never have discovered America. And then where should we be now?”
Rose could not answer that question. So they decided to go on. Kenneth helped Rose and Rose helped Kenneth, and they scrambled and climbed and puffed and panted, and bumped their knees on the rock, which was the hardest one that they had ever climbed. But at last they came to the top; and beyond,[89] down below, was a flat rock which the tide had just washed clean as a spandy floor.
“Pooh!” said Kenneth. “I don’t think that is very much to find. I hoped there would be at least a cave.”
“Let’s go down,” said Rose. “I think it looks nice. See, there is a shelf over the edge. Perhaps there is a cave or something under this big rock. I want to go down and see.”
So they began to slide and scramble again; and it is a great deal easier to slide down than up, as every one knows. In a very few moments Kenneth landed on all fours on the flat shelf of rock, and in another minute Rose bumped down beside him. And then Rose said “Oh!”
Now perhaps you think that she said “Oh!” because she had bumped her little nose on the hard rock. But that was not the reason. Rose scarcely ever cried, even when she bumped herself hard, for she was a brave little girl, the nicest kind of a sister for a boy to have.
No; Rose said “Oh!” because she had[90] made a discovery. There was something under the shelf of rock down which they had slid. There was a pool of water; a long, shallow pool of sea-water as cold as ice, into which Rose had plunged her foot. But that was not all. It was a tiny, beautiful sea-garden full of flowers.
Kenneth cried “Oh!” too, when he saw where Rose was pointing, and in a minute the two children were lying flat on their stomachs staring at the wonderful garden. My! But I wish you could have seen how wonderful it was. I must try to tell you how it looked.
In the first place, the bottom of the basin, the rocky pool in which some of the sea-water had been glad to linger when the rest ran away with the tide,—this bowl was of a brilliant pink, bright as Rose’s own pink cheeks. It was covered with a thick painted coating like coral, and I suppose some kind of little animal like a coral-creature had made it so. In the next place, up from the pinkness grew tiny plants of seaweed, green and brown and yellow,[91] branching and spreading out like little trees and bushes, and waving in the water just as trees do in the wind. Among the seaweed lived pink and purple and yellow starfish and little crawling periwinkles carrying their shell houses upon their backs. Here and there a funny little hermit-crab scuttled busily about, keeping tightly hold of the shell which he had stolen to be his home. Among the leaves of the seaweed trees Rose spied a tiny conger eel moving to and fro, waving his fins as though they were wings, this queer ocean bird!
But what made Kenneth and Rose cry “Oh, oh, oh!” three times out loud and clap their hands with joy, was the living flowers.
Living flowers! You have read in fairy-books about flowers that came alive? But this is no fairy-story, and these flowers were real, truly live flowers,—flowers that were happy and hungry, that ate and drank and moved, opening and closing whenever they chose.
Some of the flowers were brown,—little brown sacks, with a daisy flower growing out of[92] the end, waving its petals to and fro to catch its dinner of tiny unseen things that live in the water. Some of the flowers were green, some were yellowish pink, some pale greenish blue. And they were all wide open under the water, staring up through it at the blue sky.
One flower was like a little ripe, red strawberry, growing from the roof of the cave; just the size and shape of a juicy strawberry, and looking good enough to eat. Each blue flower-star had a white centre, and when Rose put her little finger down very carefully into this mouth, it closed its petals tightly, for it thought it had found a nice bit of dinner. It was a funny, tickly feeling, and Rose drew away her finger quickly, but very gently so as not to hurt the sea-flower. Then Kenneth put his finger into the mouth of one of the pinkish flowers, and the petals did not move. He tickled the flower gently, and it seemed to like the feeling, which I dare say was as new to the flower as the flower was to Kenneth. For the children had never before seen a garden of live flowers.
For a long time they lay and watched the wonderful little pool and the beautiful flowers, that moved their petals so gracefully in the water. And they never noticed that a storm was gathering out to sea. But by and by they saw that the flowers were closing one by one, closing tightly and not opening again.
“Why, what makes the flowers go to sleep?” cried Rose sorrowfully. “It is not night yet, and garden flowers do not close till the sun sets.”
“It is growing dark,” said Kenneth. “There is a cloud coming over the sun.”
Sure enough! A heavy cloud rolled over the sun, and all the sea-flowers closed their eyes tightly, just as earth-flowers do at night. Then Kenneth and Rose sat up and looked around. My! They were surprised! A heavy fog was rolling in from sea, and it was going to rain very soon. They had been so interested in the flowers that they had not thought of this.
“Oh, it is going to rain!” cried Rose.
[94]“The flowers have warned us just in time. Let us hurry home, Kenneth, before the fog shuts down so that we cannot see the way.” For they knew how cruel the fogs were about the island, so thick and heavy that the fishermen themselves were afraid of being caught in them, and of losing the way home.
The children jumped up and said good-by to the beautiful garden. Then they climbed, slid, hopped, and scrambled back over the rocks towards home, racing with the storm. And they reached the house just as the first drops of rain began to fall. They rushed up onto the piazza, where their mamma was looking anxiously for them.
“Oh, Mamma,” they cried both together, “we have seen a garden of live flowers.”
“Pink and blue and red!” cried Rose.
“And they closed tight so as to let us know that the storm was coming,” said Kenneth.
“What, you have found a pool of sea-anemones?” cried their mother, delighted. “I[95] am so glad! I did not know there were any on this island.”
“And will you come with us to-morrow to see them?” begged Rose. “We will show you, but it is going to be a great secret. Sh! Don’t let any one hear!”
“I am not a good climber,” said their mother, shaking her head. “I am afraid I cannot get down that steep cliff. But you must take your Aunt Claire, who is coming to-morrow. She will love to go with you, I know.”
“Oh, is Aunt Claire coming to-morrow? Hurray!” cried Kenneth. For the children thought that their Aunt Claire was great fun.
“Oh, yes! We will take Aunt Claire to see the flowers,” said Rose. “But we mustn’t tell any one else.”
“Yes, you must keep the discovery a great secret,” said their mamma. “Some one might want to transplant the little flowers, and that would be a great pity. You must let them live there in their own sea-garden just as they[96] are. But what clever little explorers you were to find them!”
And, indeed, it is not every one who can discover a garden of live flowers outside a fairy-book. But this was nicer than any fairy-book, as their Aunt Claire said when Kenneth and Rose showed it to her the very next day after she came to the island. And she ought to know, for she writes fairy-books and tells stories better than any one else, so the children think.
CHAPTER X BURIED TREASURE
ONE day Kenneth and his father went out fishing with Captain Prout. Rose and Aunt Claire did not care to go, because they did not enjoy fishing. But instead they decided to spend the morning on the sandy beach, not far from the cottage, which was a grand play-room and bathing-place for the children. It was the only sandy beach on that rocky island.
Rose ran ahead of her Aunt Claire, and as soon as she reached the beach she sat down to pull off her shoes and stockings. For in this lovely play-room she never wore shoes, nor even sandals, but ran around with bare toes on the smooth, soft floor, making funny little tracks just as the sandpipers do. But of course Rose’s footprints were larger than their three-toed ones.
[98]When they reached the beach they saw that the tide was very low, and that the sand stretched out like a great sheet of paper, smooth and white, without a mark upon it, from the seaweed line to the water. For it was early in the morning, and they were the very first persons on the spot. Yesterday they had made houses of sand and had dug deep wells all up and down the beach. But in the night the sea had stolen up and swept everything smooth again, even wiping out the tracks of feet which had crossed and criss-crossed it everywhere,—Aunt Claire’s tennis shoes, Kenneth’s and Rose’s little bare footprints, the deep tread of the clam-digger’s rubber boots, and the sandpipers’ light steps. The beach looked like a field covered with newly fallen snow on which nothing has yet made a mark.
Then Aunt Claire, who was always having splendid ideas, thought of a lovely game to play upon this smooth whiteness.
“Oh, Rose,” she cried, “let us play a new[99] kind of hide-and-seek. I will shut my eyes, and you take this pretty whirly-shell which we found yesterday and hide it somewhere in the sand. Then I will try to find it by following the track of your bare feet.”
“Oh, goodie!” said Rose, clapping her hands. “That is a nice game. Play I am a pirate going to hide my treasure in the ground, and you are another pirate hunting for it. Blind your eyes, Auntie. Blind them tight, and don’t you peek!”
Aunt Claire blinded her eyes and waited until she heard Rose call, “Coo!” like a pirate. Then she looked up, and Rose was standing in the deep, soft sand not very far away. But Aunt Claire knew that she had not hidden the treasure so near. Oh, no! Rose was too sly a pirate to do that.
Aunt Claire peered all around very carefully, and finally she spied the marks of little bare toes in the sand near the spot where Rose had stood when they first began to play. And she followed the tracks down to the water and[100] up again, winding about in the funniest way,—something like this:—
Up and down and round about, twisting in and out, went the funny little marks, till Aunt Claire’s head whirled dizzily. Rose clapped her hands and laughed to see her trying to set her tennis shoes exactly in the track of those crazy wanderings. But at last, close by the water’s edge, Aunt Claire saw a little something which rose up like a bump on the sand; and about it were the marks of finger-scrapings. She stooped down and dug with her fingers, and soon she cried: “I spy!” and held up the pretty shell which Rose had hidden. “The treasure is found!” said Aunt Claire. “But what a search you made for me, wicked Pirate!”
“It is a lovely game,” said Rose, hopping[101] up and down with excitement. “Now you hide, Aunt Claire,” Rose put her hands over her eyes, and her auntie came back to the soft sand in order to start fair on a smooth piece of beach. Pretty soon she cried, “Coo!” And the marks of her shoes looked something like this:—
“Oh, I never, never can find the treasure in all that whirly-whirly!” cried Rose, shaking her curls like a Skye terrier. And indeed, it looked very hard. But Rose walked right along in the big prints of her auntie’s shoes, and without much trouble she found the shell where it was hidden in the middle of the whirly-figure.
“That was a good hide,” she said.
They played the pirate game for a long time, until the sand was covered up and down with[102] the strangest patterns, and there was hardly room for a fresh footprint anywhere; for this was not a large beach.
“We shall have to stop, now, I suppose,” said Rose with a sigh, “and wait until Mr. Sea has washed out all our marks with his ocean sponge. See, he is creeping up and has begun already. To-morrow the beach will be all smooth and white again so that we can show Kenneth how to play buried treasure, too.”
“Let us play just once more,” said Aunt Claire. “It is my turn to hide the treasure, and I think I can find a place which will not be too hard, all among these markings. Blind your eyes, little Pirate.”
“All right,” said Rose, who was a very good-natured pirate. And she closed her eyes.
Now there was not much smooth sand for Aunt Claire to walk in, but she managed to go up and down the beach in a funny parallel-lined pattern, like this:—
And when she called, “Coo,” Rose started off upon the trail, laughing every time she turned the sharp corner and came back upon the long stretch up or down.
At last she came to the little bubbly mound in the sand where Aunt Claire had hidden the treasure. She stooped over and her yellow curls swept the sand as she thrust in all her ten fingers with a shout of triumph. Presently she jumped up with the treasure in her hand and stood still, examining it curiously. Then she gave a squeal of joy and came racing up the beach to her auntie, with her curls flying madly.
“Why, Aunt Claire,” she cried, “it is a really, truly treasure, this time! See what was hidden inside the whirly-shell!” and she held up a bright ten-cent piece which she had pulled out of the little treasure-box.
[104]“So there is,” said her auntie. “I wonder how it got there?”
Rose looked at Aunt Claire and laughed. “I like this game; very specially the end of it,” she said. “Now what shall we do next, Auntie?”
“We can’t play here any more,” said Aunt Claire. “The beach is so marked up that if a pirate should hide his treasure here he might never be able to find it again. I would not risk mine, if I were you.”
“No, I suppose I had better not,” said Rose, shaking her head. “I think I ought to keep the money for the game to-morrow, shouldn’t I, Auntie?” she added, rather wistfully.
“Oh, no!” said Aunt Claire. “A pirate would never do that. You must go up to the store and change it for merchandise. That is what pirates always did in the old days.”
“What is merchandise?” asked Rose brightening. Then with a sudden thought, “Is candy merchandise?” And Aunt Claire said that it was.
[105]“Well, then, you must come with me to the store and share,” said Rose, pulling her auntie by the hand. And away both pirates went to the little village store which was about a mile from the cottage.
