Us and the Bottleman | Page 4

the
Sea Monster, and the pirates will find it."
"Glory!" said Jerry, "perhaps it will."
CHAPTER II
Just in the middle of the rainiest week came the thing that made Aunt
Ailsa so sad. She read it in the newspaper, in the casualty list. It was the
last summer of the war, and there were great long casualty lists every

day. This said that Somebody-or-other Westland was "wounded and
missing." We didn't know why it made her so sad, because we'd never
heard of such a person, but of course it was up to us to cheer her up as
much as possible. Picnics being out of the question, it had to be indoor
cheering, which is harder. Greg succeeded better than the rest of us, I
think. He is still little enough to sit on people's laps (though his legs
spill over, quantities). He sat on Aunt Ailsa's lap and told her long
stories which she seemed to like much better than the H.G. Wells books.
He also dragged her off to join in attic games, and she liked those, too,
and laughed sometimes quite like herself.
Attic games aren't so bad, though summer's not the proper time for
them, really. There is a long cornery sort of closet full of carpets that
runs back under the eaves in our attic, and if you strew handfuls of
beads and tin washers among the carpets and then dig for them in the
dark with a hockey-stick and a pocket flash-light, it's not poor fun.
Unfortunately, my head knocks against the highest part of the roof now,
yet I still do think it's fun. But Aunt Ailsa is twenty-six and she likes it,
so I suppose I needn't give up.
The day Aunt Ailsa really laughed was when Greg rigged himself up as
an Excavator. That is, he said he was an excavator, but I never saw
anything before that looked at all like him. He had the round Indian
basket from Mother's work-table on his head, and some automobile
goggles, and yards and yards of green braid wound over his jumper,
and Mother's carriage-boots, which came just below the tops of his
socks. In his hand he had what I think was a rake-handle--it was much
taller than he--and he had the queerest, glassy, goggling expression
under the basket.
He never will learn to fix proper clothes. He might have seen what he
should have done by looking at Jerry, who had an old felt hat with a bit
of candle-end (not lit) stuck in the ribbon, and a bandana tied askew
around his neck. But Aunt Ailsa laughed and laughed, which was what
we wanted her to do, so neither of us remonstrated with Greg that time.
Father plays the 'cello,--that is, he does when he has time,--and he
found time to play it with Aunt, who does piano. I think she really liked

that better than the attic games, and we did, too, in a way. The
living-room of our house is quite low-ceilinged, and part of it is under
the roof, so that you can hear the rain on it. The boys lay on the floor,
and Mother and I sat on the couch, and we listened to the rain on the
roof and the sound--something like rain--of the piano, and Father's
'cello booming along with it. They played a thing called "Air
Religieux" that I think none of us will ever hear again without thinking
of the humming on the roof and the candles all around the room and
one big one on the piano beside Aunt Ailsa, making her hair all shiny.
Her hair is amberish, too, like Greg's, but her eyes are a very golden
kind of brown, while his are dark blue.
We thought she'd forgotten about being sad, but one night when I
couldn't sleep because it was so hot I heard her crying, and Mother
talking the way she does to us when something makes us unhappy. I
felt rather frightened, somehow, and wretched, and I covered up my
ears because I didn't think Aunt would want me to hear them talking
there.
The next day the sun really came out and stayed out. All of us came out,
too, and explored the garden. The grass had grown till it stood up like
hay, and there were such tall green weeds in the flowerbeds that Mother
couldn't believe they'd grown during the rain and thought they were
some phlox she'd overlooked. The phlox itself was staggering with
flowers, and all the lupin leaves held round water-drops in the hollows
of their five-fingered hands. Greg said that they were fairy wash-basins.
He also found a drowned field-mouse and a sparrow. He was frightfully
sorry about it, and carried them around wrapped up in a