Stories from Everybodys Magazine, 1910 | Page 4

would have been astounded to the verge
of doubting her reason. Little did he know, as he stood now on the
bulkhead and looked down at her, that at the moment Dorothea was
finishing mentally a poem in which with "wild tears" and "clasping
hands," he had bidden her an eternal farewell--by moonlight. She was,
moreover, perturbed by the paucity of her native language. There
appeared to be nothing to rhyme with "love" except "shove," "above,"
and "dove." Of these one was impossible and two were trite. Scowling
fiercely at the ocean, she finally gave the bird to the hungry line and
repeated the final couplet doubtfully:
" `Farewell,' he said. `Ah, love, my love, My heart is breaking for thee,
Dove.' "
"Look out!" said a voice above her. "I'm going to jump."
Dorothea sat up delightedly, with her bare, brown legs tucked beneath

her, Turk-like, as she welcomed him. ("Ah! Beloved," said Lady Ursula
with her hand on her fluttering heart.) "Hello," said Dorothea, with a
wide grin.
He flung himself down beside her and surveyed her with amusement.
"Been digging holes with your head?" he asked affably. "Your hair and
eyelashes look it. Been here all the afternoon?"
"Yes," she said. "I saw you go riding after lunch. I've been here ever
since. I love to be on the beach when there isn't a lot of people
bothering around. Then"--she made a wide gesture with her brown
hand-- "all of it seems to belong to me, not broken up in little bits for
everybody." She shook her cropped head vigorously, and the sand
pelted down her shoulders.
"Well," he said, watching this operation, "you came near taking your
little bit to the house with you to keep, didn't you? How long have you
worn your hair cropped like that, Dorothea? Was it when you decided
to be captain of a ball team?"
He drew a box of chocolates from his pocket and tossed it over to her.
She caught it neatly on her outstretched palm, as a boy would have
done, and nibbled squirrel-like as she talked. She did not resent being
teased by Amiel--she liked it, rather, as representing a perfect
understanding between them. Also, once removed from the high hills of
romance, she was not devoid of humor.
"It was cut in June--before you came. They didn't want me to, but I just
begged them. It was such a nuisance bathing and then flopping about
drying afterward, and being sent upstairs all day long to make it
smooth."
"You funny kid," he said. "You don't care how you look, do you? You
ought to have been a boy. What have you been doing down here all by
yourself?"
"Reading--and--listening," said Dorothea vaguely. She folded Godey's
Lady Book tightly to her chest. Lady Ursula or no Lady Ursula, she

would have died--with black, bitter shame at the thought of any eye but
her own falling upon the penciled lines therein. The horror of ridicule is
the black shadow that hangs over youth. That strange, inner world of
her own Dorothea shared with nothing more substantial than her
dreams.
"Listening?" he inquired.
"To the ocean," explained Dorothea. "It was high tide when I came
down, and the waves boom-boomed like that, as though it were saying
big words down in its chest, you know."
"And what were the wild waves saying?"
"Oh, big words like--" she thought a moment, her small, sunburnt face
serious and intent. "Oh, like
"Robert of Sicily, Brother of Pope Urbane And Valmond, Emperor of
Allemaine."
she intoned deeply. "You see?"
"Absolutely," he said enjoyingly. "And so you weren't lonesome?"
Dorothea, who had spent her afternoon in a region peopled with
interesting and exquisite figures, shook her head.
"You don't get lonesome when you think," she said--"imagine" was the
word she meant; she used the other as appealing to his understanding.
Suddenly the vague, introspective look left her face; she turned to him
with the expression of one imparting pleasing tidings. "My friend is
coming to-morrow to stay a week," she said. "You remember I told you
that mother had asked her. Well, she's coming down with father
to-morrow. She has never been to the seashore before. You'll take us
crabbing, won't you, Amiel? And if we have a bonfire you'll ask father
to let us stay up, won't you?"
"Sure," he said good-naturedly. "What's her name?"

"Her name is Jennie Clark, and she lives next door to us in the city, and
we're going to have fun--fun--fun," chanted Dorothea. "Come on." She
sprang lightly to her feet and dug her shoes and stockings out of the
sand. "We can have a game of tennis before dinner."
Clutching her book with her shoes and stockings, she raced with him to
the steps that led to the