Marjories Busy Days | Page 5

little nearer, and then stopped.
"Help! Help!" cried the children in chorus.
It was the butcher's wagon, and they knew it well, but this season there was a new driver who didn't know the Maynard children.
"What's the matther?" he cried, jumping from his seat, and running across the grass to the quartette.
"We're shipwrecked!" cried Marjorie. "We can't get home. Oh, save us from a cruel fate! Carry us back to our far-away fireside!"
"Help!" cried Kitty, faintly. "My child is ill, and I can no longer survive!"
Dramatic Kitty sank in a heap on the ground, and the butcher's boy was more bewildered than ever.
"Save me!" cried Rosy Posy, toddling straight to him, and putting up her arms. "Save Buffaro Bill first,--me an' Boffin."
This was more intelligible, and the butcher's boy picked up the smiling child, and with a few long strides reached his cart, and deposited her therein.
"Me next! Me next!" screamed Marjorie. "I'm fainting, too!" With a thud, she fell in a heap beside Kitty.
"The saints presarve us!" exclaimed the frightened Irishman. "Whativer is the matther wid these childher? Is it pizened ye are?"
"No, only starving," said Marjorie, but her faint voice was belied by the merry twinkle in her eyes, which she couldn't suppress at the sight of the man's consternation.
"Aha! It's shammin' ye are! I see now."
"It's a game," explained Kingdon. "We're shipwrecked on a desert island, and you're a passing captain of a small sailing vessel. Will you take us aboard?"
"Shure, sir," said the other, his face aglow with Irish wit and intelligence. "I persave yer manin'. 'Deed I will resky ye, but how will ye get through the deep wathers to me ship forninst?"
"You wade over, and carry this lady," said King, pointing to Kitty, "and the rest of us will swim."
"Thot's a foine plan; come along, miss;" and in a moment Kitty was swung up to the brave rescuer's shoulder, while King and Midget were already "swimming" across the grass to the rescue ship.
All clambered into the wagon, and the butcher drove them in triumph to the back door. Here they jumped out, and, after thanking their kind rescuer, they scampered into the house.
"Such a fun!" said Rosy Posy, as her mother bathed her heated little face. "Us was all shipperecked, an' I was Buffaro Bill, an' Boffin was my big wild bear!"
"You two are sights!" said Mrs. Maynard; laughing as she looked at the muddied, grass-stained, and torn condition of Kingdon and Marjorie. "I'm glad you had your play-clothes on, but I don't see why you always have to have such rough-and-tumble plays."
"'Cause we're a rough-and-tumble pair, Mothery," said King; "look at Kitty there! she kept herself almost spick and span."
"Well, I'm glad I have all sorts of children," said Mrs. Maynard. "Go and get into clean clothes, and be ready for luncheon promptly on time. I'm expecting Miss Larkin."
"Larky! Oh!" groaned Kingdon. "I say, Mothery, can't we--us children, I mean--have lunch in the playroom?" He had sidled up to his mother and was caressing her cheek with his far-from-clean little hands.
"No," said Mrs. Maynard, smiling as she kissed the brown fingers, "no, my boy, I want all my olive-branches at my table to-day. So, run along now and get civilized."
"Come on, Mops," said Kingdon, in a despairing tone, and, with their arms about each other, the two dawdled away.
Kitty had already gone to Nurse to be freshened up. Kitty loved company, and was always ready to put on her best manners.
But King and Midget had so much talking to do, and so many plans to make, that they disliked the restraint that company necessarily put upon their own conversation.
"I do detest old Larky," said the boy, as they went away.
"I don't mind her so much," said Marjorie, "except when she asks me questions."
"She's always doing that."
"Yes, I know it. But I promised Mother I'd be extra good to-day, and try to talk politely to her. Of course, I can do it if I try."
"So can I," said King, with an air of pride in his own powers. "All right, Mops, let's be 'specially 'stremely good and treat Miss Larkin just lovely."
Nearly an hour later the four shipwrecked unfortunates, now transformed into clean, well-dressed civilians, were grouped in the library to await Miss Larkin's arrival.
The lady was an old friend of Mrs. Maynard's, and though by no means elderly, was yet far from being as young as she tried to look and act.
She came tripping in, and after greeting her hostess effusively, she turned to the children.
"My, my!" she said. "What a group of little dears! How you have grown,--every one of you. Kingdon, my dear boy, would you like to kiss me?"
The request was far from acceptable to King, but the simper that accompanied it so repelled him that he almost forgot his determination to