Aladdin OBrien | Page 7

gleamed out,
ever larger and always more blue. The good wind living far to the south
had heard that in a few days a little girl was to be alone and comfortless
upon a foggy island, and, hearing, had filled his vast chest with warmth
and sunshine, and puffed out his merry cheeks and blown. The great
breath sent the blue waves thundering upon the coral beaches of Florida,
tore across the forests of palm and set them all waving hilariously,
shook the merry orange-trees till they rattled, whistled through the
dismal swamps of Georgia, swept, calling and shouting to itself, over
the Carolinas, where clouds were hatching in men's minds, banked up
the waters of the Chesapeake so that there was a great high tide and the
ducks were sent scudding to the decoys of the nearest gunner, went
roaring into the oaks and hickories of New York, warmed the veins of
New England fruit-trees, and finally coming to the giant fog, rent it
apart by handfuls as you pluck feathers from a goose, and hurled it this
way and that, until once more the sky and land could look each other in
the face. Then the great wind laughed and ceased. For a long time

Margaret looked down the cleared face of the river, but there was no
trace of Aladdin, and in life but one comfort: the sun was hot and she
was getting warm.
After a time, in the woods directly behind where she sat hoping and
fearing and trying to dry her tears, a gun sounded like an exclamation
of hope. Had Aladdin by any incredible circumstance returned so soon?
Mindful of his warning not to stray from where she was, Margaret
stood up and called in a shrill little voice
"Here I am! Here I am!"
Silence in the woods immediately behind where Margaret stood hoping
and fearing!
"Here I am!" she cried. And it had been piteous to hear, so small and
shrill was the voice.
Presently, though much farther off, sounded the merry yapping bark of
a little dog, and again, but this time like an echo of itself, the
exclamation of hope--hope deferred.
"Here I am! Here--I--am!" called Margaret.
Then there was a long silence--so long that it seemed as if nothing in
the world could have been so long. Margaret sat down gasping. The sun
rose higher, the river ran on, and hope flew away. And just as hope had
gone for good, the merry yapping of the dog broke out so near that
Margaret jumped, and bang went the gun--like a promise of salvation.
Instantly she was on her feet with her shrill,
"Here I am! Here I am!"
And this time came back a lusty young voice crying:
"I'm coming!"
And hard behind the voice leaves shook, and a boy came striding into
the sunlight. In one hand he trailed a gun, and at his heels trotted a

waggish spaniel of immense importance and infinitesimal size. In his
other hand the boy carried by the legs a splendid cock-grouse, ruffled
and hunger-compelling. The boy, perhaps two years older than Aladdin,
was big and strong for his age, and bore his shining head like a young
wood-god.
Margaret ran to him, telling her story as she went, but so incoherently
that when she reached him she had to stop and begin over again.
"Then Senator St. John is your father?" said the boy at length. "You
know, he's a great friend of my father's. My father's name is Peter
Manners, and he used to be a congressman for New York. Are you
hungry?"
Margaret could only look it.
They sat down, and the boy took wonderful things out of his wonderful
pockets--sandwiches of egg and sandwiches of jam; and Margaret fell
to.
"I live in New York," said the boy, "but I'm staying with my cousins up
the river. They told me there were partridges on this island, and I rowed
down to try and get some, but I missed two." The boy blushed most
becomingly whenever he spoke, and his voice, and the way he said
words, were different from anything Margaret had ever heard. And she
admired him tremendously. And the boy, because she had spent a night
on a desert island, which he never had, admired her in turn.
"Maybe we'll find 'Laddin on the way," said Margaret, cheerfully, and
she looked up with great eyes at her godlike young friend.

V
Meanwhile to Aladdin and his log divers things had occurred, but the
wonderful lamp, burning low or high at the will of the river, had not
gone out. Sliding through the smoking fog at three miles an hour,
kicking and paddling, all had gone well for a while. Then, for he was

more keen than Margaret