Sometimes Kenneth and Rose spied one or two of these children running away through the woods, but they had scarcely ever seen their faces, and did not know one from another. They called them just “the little Prouts,” and thought them very queer.
But the little Prouts knew Kenneth and Rose much better. They often watched them from a distance, when Kenneth and Rose did not know. And they thought the Thornton children the most wonderful creatures that ever lived, and their toys and their doings the[123] finest ever known. For you see, the little Prouts had no toys of their own, and were very different from Kenneth and Rose in every way, except in being little brothers and sisters.
Tommy and Mary, who were just the age of Kenneth, came stealing very quietly through the woods with the pail of milk, which they carried around to the back door and set upon the step, ready for Katie to take it when she came down to get breakfast. They had done their errand, and now were they not ready to tramp home? Oh, no! They stood for a minute listening, to be sure that no one was stirring in the cottage, and then very softly they tiptoed around to the front of the house, where the broad piazza was. Sometimes the city children left their toys all night out on the piazza. The little Prouts knew this, for they had often before done just this same thing in the early morning after their long tramp with the milk.
It was such a fine night that Rose had[124] swung her doll’s hammock on the piazza, and Alice, her beautiful new doll, was sleeping here very sweetly. Rose had heard that it was good for children to sleep in the open air. Kenneth had left his express wagon and his rocking-horse out here, too.
The little Prouts stood at the foot of the piazza steps, staring up at these wonderful things.
At last Mary Prout reached out her hand and touched her brother. “Ain’t I dreaming?” she said. “No, I ain’t. But Tommy! Ain’t they beautiful!”
Tommy took a step towards the piazza and paused, listening. There was no sound in the house. “Let’s go up,” he whispered. “No one will ever know. Come on.”
The two children stole noiselessly up the steps and crept over the piazza to the sheltered nook where the toys were safe from the dew. Mary sank down on her knees beside Alice. “Oh, oh!” she breathed. “I never saw anything so beautiful!”
[125]Tommy was looking eagerly at the rocking-horse. “Oh, how I wish ’t I dared ride on him, just once!” he thought. He reached out his hand to stroke the mane of the beautiful creature, the like of which he had never before seen. And at the same moment Mary stretched a trembling hand towards Alice’s golden curls. Think of having a doll like that for your very own, to kiss and play with, and carry around wherever you went! If only she might have it in her arms just once, Mary felt that she should be happy all the rest of her days.
But just at that moment there came a terrible sound, “Pr-r-r-jingle-jangle! P-r-r-r-r! Jang-jang!” In the stillness it seemed to sound louder than the loudest thunder. Tommy started as if he had been shot. Poor Mary drew back her hand as if Alice’s yellow curls had burned them. “Pr-r-r-jang-jang!” The dreadful noise continued, and it came from inside the house.
With one frightened leap Tommy and Mary[126] were down the piazza steps. Casting one wild look behind to see if they were being followed by the terrible creature that was growling to warn and punish them for daring to touch those precious treasures, they fled away like foxes across the garden and into the woods at the back of the house. Poor little frightened things! They thought that their early-morning secret had been discovered, and never again would they dare to venture near that piazza which was the only fairyland that they knew.
Meanwhile what was going on inside the house? “Pr-r-r-jang-jang!” The alarm clock still buzzed away fiercely. Kenneth had wound it up as far as it would go, and for several minutes the bell rang, until every one in the house, except Kenneth himself, was wide awake.
Papa and Mamma woke up instantly. Mrs. Thornton’s first thought was about the new baby. “Oh, John!” she cried, “has anything happened to the baby? Do call Eliza.”
[127]Mr. Thornton was already out of bed. “It can’t be burglars,” he said, “for we haven’t any burglars down here on the island, nor any burglar alarm, either. Don’t be frightened. I will go and look through the house.”
In the hall he met Aunt Claire and the servants, shivering in their wrappers. “Oh, John,” cried Aunt Claire, “is the house afire? I certainly heard a fire-alarm.”
“Nonsense!” said Mr. Thornton. “It must be some one pulling the door-bell.” But when he went down to open the door, with the servants following in a frightened, huddled group, there was no one waiting outside. The piazza was empty. Only Alice swung peacefully in her hammock, seeming not the least frightened.
“It is very strange,” muttered Mr. Thornton. “It certainly seemed to me inside the house.”
In the hall outside the nursery he met old Eliza, the nurse.
“Have you been into Master Kenneth’s[128] room?” she asked. “I thought the noise came from there, though I don’t see how it could be so.”
“It can’t be, of course,” said Mr. Thornton, but he went into Kenneth’s room, where the boy was still sleeping soundly. It was just at this moment that Kenneth at last woke up.
“What is the matter?” he murmured, blinking sleepily. “What is the matter, Papa?”
“We heard a bell ring,” said his father, “and Eliza thought that it came from here. Did you hear it?”
“No, Papa,” said Kenneth drowsily, “I didn’t hear any bell,” and turning over he went fast asleep again. It was a quarter past four, and Captain Prout was just rowing away from the beach, where he had looked in vain for his little passenger.
“I knew he would forgit to come!” he chuckled.
From Kenneth’s room Mr. Thornton went to Rose’s. He found her standing by the[129] window in her little blue wrapper, looking out towards the woods.
“Oh, Papa, what is it?” she said eagerly. “Do you think it was the fairies?”
“Fairies? Why, what makes you think it was fairies?” asked Mr. Thornton, “though I must confess that I don’t know what else it could have been.”
“I looked out of the window,” said Rose, “and I saw two little creatures run into the woods as fast as they could go. One was a little girl and one was a little boy, and I think they were fairies who had been ringing our door-bell.”
“Pooh-pooh! Fairies don’t ring doorbells,” said her father. “And at this time in the morning it isn’t likely that any of the island children were ringing our bell and running away, as the naughty boys do in the city sometimes. I don’t understand it at all. But the noise has stopped, so let us finish our naps, as Kenneth is doing. He is the wisest of us all, not to bother his head about it.”
[130]And so they all went back to bed and slept soundly until breakfast time.
At the breakfast table the first thing Kenneth said was,—
“Oh, goodness me! I was going to fish with Captain Prout at four o’clock in the morning. But I didn’t wake up. How he will laugh at me! But why didn’t my alarm clock go off?”
“Alarm clock?” said his father. “So you set the alarm, did you? Well, that accounts for everything. What a sleepy head you are, Kenneth!”
Yes, that accounted for everything, except for Rose’s fairies. They never were accounted for. And indeed, those poor little fairies never again dared visit that scene of their terrible early-morning alarm.
CHAPTER XIII BROTHERS AND SISTERS
THE summer passed away only too quickly, as summers do, and almost before the children knew it the fall had come, and it was time to go back to the city to school. It was very hard for Kenneth and Rose to leave the island, with all its beautiful playgrounds and wonderful playthings, so different from what one has in the city. And yet it was pleasant to be back in the city, too, to see all their little friends again, and to begin new studies at school. Kenneth and Rose soon forgot to long for the beach, and the rocks, and the woods behind their little summer home, they were so happy in their other home in the city. They scarcely ever thought of the island nowadays, and when they did it seemed very far away and unreal, almost like an island in a dream. They forgot that there were people[132] still living there to whom this was the only home; people who would be there all through the long winter, when the rough winds would sweep through those evergreen trees, whew! so loudly, and the waves would dash up over the bare rocks, splash! so fiercely, while all the island lay cold and dreary and deserted, wrapped in a blanket of snow.
One rainy Saturday morning Mrs. Thornton was dusting the shelves in the play-room closet, where the children’s books lived. “Oh, dear!” she sighed, “It is such a bother to take care of all these old magazines! I wish I knew some one who would like these papers after you children have finished reading them.”
“All the other children have more books of their own than they can read,” said Kenneth.
“I know it,” said his mother. “But there might be some one who would be so glad to have the pictures and stories, if only we could know.”
[133]Rose was playing with her dolls in the window seat, when she had a sudden idea.
“Mamma!” she cried, clapping her hands. “Why can’t we send them away off down to the island where the little Prouts live? Don’t you think the little Prouts would like the magazines?”
“That is a good idea, Rose,” said her mother. “I fancy the poor little things never see a magazine. They will be sure to like the pictures, anyway, whether they can read or not. I wonder if any of them can read?”
“I don’t know what their names are,” said Rose, “but there are ever so many of them, boys and girls. Mamma, I should like to send my magazine to the little girl Prouts.”
“And I will send mine to the Prout boys,” said Kenneth promptly. “Won’t they be glad to see it coming, every week?”
“Yes, indeed they will,” said Mrs. Thornton. “And you must be sure not to disappoint them. If you are going to send the magazines at all, I want you to do it regularly,[134] every week. It will be a good practice lesson in remembering. Promise not to forget, children, if I let you send the papers this time?”
“We promise, Mamma, we promise,” said Kenneth and Rose. And that promise was the beginning of a very interesting thing.
Every week after that, when they had finished reading their two magazines, Kenneth and Rose rolled them up, each in brown stamped wrapper, and Rose wrote on hers in big letters, “The Misses Prout,” and Kenneth wrote on his “The Masters Prout,” and they sent them away down to the island in Maine. It wasn’t much trouble to do that. But my! you should have seen what pleasure it gave the little Prouts.
All the year round, in summer and in winter, too, the little Prouts lived with their father, Captain Prout, in a tiny cottage on the island, close beside the sea. It was a very nice place in the summer; for then, like Kenneth and Rose, they were happy all day long,[135] playing out of doors, fishing and picking berries. But best of all, they enjoyed carrying the milk to the Thornton cottage on the cliff, two miles away. For then they sometimes had a peep at the wonderful things which the strangers had brought to the island, and at the two children playing at games which were so different from any ever before seen thereabout. The little Prouts used almost to quarrel over their turns to carry the milk.
But in the fall the summer people sailed away. Then the little Prouts went to school for a time, as they did in the spring; and that was pleasant, too. But in the winter there was no school, because of the cold and the deep snow, and the long road which the island children had to travel to the schoolhouse in the village. Also it was hard to get a teacher for these bitter winter months. The winters were lonely enough for the little Prouts. They seldom saw any other children, and there was not much for them to do except housework and patchwork and knitting, and helping[136] father to mend nets and make lobster-pots for the next summer.
The little Prouts had few playthings. They hardly knew what playthings were. They had seen Kenneth’s express wagon and rocking-horse, and Rose’s beautiful dolls on the piazza of the cottage. They had almost dared to touch the wonderful things one early morning; but a terrible alarm had warned them away, so they knew that these marvelous and lovely things were not meant for children like themselves. They thought that the city people were a different kind of creature.
Tom and Mary and Susan knew how to read, but they had no books. On the island people did not read much, because there were no books. In some houses there was not even a Bible. There was no public library. There was no Sunday-school library, for there was not even a church on the island. In summer a minister came there to spend his vacation, and he preached every Sunday on the hill-top near the village. But in winter every one,[137] even the minister, seemed to forget the island. The little Prouts were very ignorant, and they wondered if the Lord himself forgot the island in the dreary months of snow and cold.
“Of course He forgets,” said Tommy, when they were talking about it one day. “He lives in the city, and comes down here only in the summer, just as the city people do.”
“But He must remember us,” sighed little Polly. “The minister said He was our Father.”
“Pooh!” said Tommy scornfully. “He ain’t our Father, either! You know he ain’t. He is their Father in heaven. I heard them talking to Him, one day, on the hill.”
“But the minister said He was everybody’s Father, Tommy,” answered Mary wistfully.
“But how can He be?” argued Tommy. “He is the Father of Kenneth and Rose Thornton, and of people like them who live in the city. He can’t be our Father, too; for if He was, we should be the brothers and[138] sisters of Kenneth and Rose. And you know we ain’t that.”
“Oh, no! We ain’t that!” echoed all the little Prouts sadly, and then they were silent for a long time. The little girls sighed, and their lips trembled. They admired Rose Thornton more than anybody they had ever seen. Many and many a time when Rose did not know it, the little Prout girls were peeping at her from behind some big tree in the woods or rock on the shore; wondering at her long, golden curls and at her pretty, pink skin, which never seemed to grow brown and rough like theirs, and at the simple little dresses, which seemed wonderfully beautiful to them. Rose’s blue cambric frock with the red leather belt and red hair-ribbon was their favorite.
The Prout boys thought that Kenneth was the most wonderful person, with his bicycle and his Indian suit and bow and arrows. But they never dreamed of speaking to Rose or to Kenneth. They were ashamed even to[139] be seen by them, and always ran away and hid, especially after that terrible morning of the early alarm. Oh, no! Of course these children could not be their brothers and sisters!
