Then we stood there in the sand, with the water nearly up to our knees every time the waves came in, and waited for a bite. There wasn't much biting. Menendez said that the tide was too low, but I've noticed that something is always too something, every time any one takes me out fishing, so I didn't mind that.

Menendez did hook one fellow, I think, for he gave a tremendous jerk at his line, and began to skip inshore as if he were but ten years old; but it was of no use. The fish changed his mind.

Then we stood and waited a while longer, until, all of a sudden, Rectus made a skip. But he went the wrong way. Instead of skipping out of the water, he skipped in. He went in so far that he got his trousers dripping wet.

"Hello!" I shouted. "What's up?"

He didn't say anything, but began to pull back, and dig his heels into the sand. Old Menendez and I saw, at the same moment, what was the matter, and we made a rush for him. I was nearest, and got there first. I seized Rectus by the shoulder, and pulled him back a little.

"Whew-w!" said he; "how this twine cuts!"

Then I took hold of the line in front of him, and there was no mistaking the fact—he had a big fish on the other end of it.

"Run out!" cried Menendez, who thought there was no good of three fellows hauling on the line; and out we ran.

When we had gone up the beach a good way, I looked back and saw a rousing big fish flopping about furiously in the shallow water.

"Go on!" shouted Menendez; and we ran on until we had pulled it high and dry up on the sand.

Then Menendez fell afoul of it to take out the hook, and we hurried back to see it. It was a whopping big bass, and by the powerful way it threw itself around on the sand, I didn't wonder that Rectus ran into the water when he got the first jerk.

Now, this was something like sport, and we all felt encouraged, and went to work again with a will, only Menendez untied the line from Rectus's waist and fastened it to his button-hole.

"It may pull out," he said; "but, on the whole, it's better to lose a fishin'-line than a boy."

We fished quietly and steadily for some time, but got no more bites, when suddenly I heard some one say, behind me:

"They don't ever pull in!"

I turned around, and it was a girl. She was standing there with a gentleman,—her father, I soon found out,—and I don't know how long they had been watching us. She was about thirteen years old, and came over with her father in a sail-boat. I remembered seeing them cruising around as we were sailing over.

"They haven't got bites," said her father; "that's the reason they don't pull in."

It was very disagreeable to me, and I know it was even more so to Rectus, to stand here and have those strangers watch us fishing. If we had not been barefooted and bare-legged, we should not have minded it so much. As for the old Minorcan, I don't suppose he cared at all. I began to think it was time to stop.

"As the tide's getting lower and lower," I said to Menendez, "I suppose our chances are getting less and less."

"Yes," said he; "I reckon we'd better shut up shop before long."

"Oh!" cried out the girl, "just look at that fish! Father! Father! Just look at it. Did any of you catch it? I didn't see it till this minute. I thought you hadn't caught any. If I only had a fishing-line now, I would like to catch just one fish. Oh, father! why didn't you bring a fishing-line?"

"I didn't think of it, my dear," said he. "Indeed, I didn't know there were any fish here."

Old Menendez turned around and grinned at this, and I thought there was a good chance to stop fishing; so I offered to let the girl try my line for a while, if she wanted to.

It was certain enough that she wanted to, for she was going to run right into the water to get it. But I came out, and as her father said she might fish if she didn't have to walk into the water, old Menendez took a spare piece of line from his pocket and tied it on to the end of mine, and he put on some fresh bait and gave it a tremendous send out into the surf. Then he put the other end around the girl and tied it. I suppose he thought that it didn't matter if a girl should be lost, but he may have considered that her father was there to seize her if she got jerked in.

She took hold of the line and stood on the edge of the dry sand, ready to pull in the biggest kind of a fish that might come along. I put on my shoes and stockings, and Rectus his; he'd had enough glory for one day. Old Menendez wound up his line, too, but that girl saw nothing of all this. She just kept her eyes and her whole mind centred on her line. At first, she talked right straight ahead, asking what she should do when it bit; how big we thought it would be; why we didn't have a cork, and fifty other things, but all without turning her head to the right or the left. Then said her father:

"My dear, you mustn't talk; you will frighten the fish. When persons fish, they always keep perfectly quiet. You never heard me talking while I was fishing. I fish a good deal when I am at home," said he, turning to us, "and I always remain perfectly quiet."

Menendez laughed a little at this, and said that he didn't believe the fish out there in the surf would mind a little quiet chat; but the gentleman said that he had always found it best to be just as still as possible. The girl now shut her mouth tight, and held herself more ready, if possible, than ever, and I believe that if she had got a bite she would have jerked the fish's head off. We all stood around her, and her father watched her as earnestly as if she was about to graduate at a normal school.

We stood and waited and waited, and she didn't move, and neither did the line. Menendez now said he thought she might as well give it up. The tide was too low, and it was pretty near dinner-time, and, besides this, there was a shower coming on.

"Oh, no!" said she; "not just yet. I feel sure I'll get a bite in a minute or two now. Just wait a little longer."

And so it went on, every few minutes, until we had waited about half an hour, and then Menendez said he must go, but if the gentleman wanted to buy the line, and stay there until the tide came in again, he'd sell it to him. At this, the girl's father told her that she must stop, and so she very dolefully let Menendez untie the line.

"It's too bad!" she said, almost with tears in her eyes. "If they had only waited a few minutes longer!" And then she ran up to Rectus and me, and said:

"When are you coming out here again? Do you think you will come to-morrow, or next day?"

"I don't know," said I. "We haven't settled our plans for to-morrow."

"Oh, father! father!" she cried, "perhaps they will come out here to-morrow, and you must get me a fishing-line, and we will come and fish all day."

We didn't stay to hear what her father said, but posted off to our boat, for we were all beginning to feel pretty hungry. We took Rectus's fish along, to give to our landlady. The gentleman and the girl came close after us, as if they were afraid to be left alone on the island. Their boat was hauled up near ours, and we set off at pretty much the same time.

We went ahead a little, and Menendez turned around and called out to the gentleman that he'd better follow us, for there were some bad shoals in this part of the harbor, and the tide was pretty low.

"All right, my hearty!" called out the gentleman. "This isn't the first time I've sailed in this harbor. I guess I know where the shoals are," and just at that minute he ran his boat hard and fast on one of them.

He jumped up, and took an oar and pushed and pushed: but it was of no good—he was stuck fast. By this time we had left him pretty far behind; but we all had been watching, and Rectus asked if we couldn't go back and help him.

"Well, I s'pose so," said Menendez; "but it's a shame to keep three decent people out of their dinner for the sake of a man like that, who hasn't got sense enough to take good advice when it's give to him."

"We'd better go," said I, and Menendez, in no good humor, put his boat about. We found the other boat aground, in the very worst way. The old Minorcan said that he could see that sand-bar through the water, and that they might as well have run up on dry land. Better, for that matter, because then we could have pushed her off.

"There aint nuthin' to be done," he said, after we had worked at the thing for a while, "but to jist wait here till the tide turns. It's pretty near dead low now, an' you'll float off in an hour or two."

This was cold comfort for the gentleman, especially as it was beginning to rain; but he didn't seem a bit cast down. He laughed, and said:

"Well, I suppose it can't be helped: but I am used to being out in all weathers. I can wait, just as well as not. But I don't want my daughter here to get wet, and she has no umbrella. Would you mind taking her on your boat? When you get to the town, she can run up to our hotel by herself. She knows the way."

Of course we had no objection to this, and the girl was helped aboard. Then we sailed off, and the gentleman waved his hat to us. If I had been in his place, I don't think I should have felt much like waving my hat.



Menendez now said that he had an oil-skin coat stowed away forward, and I got it and put it around the girl. She snuggled herself up in it as comfortably as she could, and began to talk.

"The way of it was this," she said. "Father, he said we'd go out sailing, and mother and I went with him, and when we got down to the wharf, there were a lot of boats, but they all had men to them, and so father, he said he wanted to sail the boat himself, and mother, she said that if he did she wouldn't go; but he said pooh! he could do it as well as anybody, and wasn't going to have any man. So he got a boat without a man, and mother, she didn't want me to go; but I went, and he stuck fast coming back, because he never will listen to anything anybody tells him, as mother and I found out long ago. And here we are, almost at the wharf! I didn't think we were anywhere near it."

"Well, you see, sis, sich a steady gale o' talkin', right behind the sail, is bound to hurry the boat along. And now, s'pose you tell us your name," said Menendez.

"My name's Cornelia; but father, he calls me Corny, which mother hates to hear the very sound of," said she; "and the rest of it is Mary Chipperton. Father, he came down here because he had a weak lung, and I'm sure I don't see what good it's going to do him to sit out there in the rain. We'll take a man next time. And father and I'll be sure to be here early to-morrow to go out fishing with you. Good-bye!"

And with this, having mounted the steps to the pier, off ran Miss Corny.

"I wouldn't like to be the ole man o' that family," said Mr. Menendez.

That night, after we had gone to bed, Rectus began to talk. We generally went to sleep in pretty short order; but the moon did not shine in our windows now until quite late, and so we noticed for the first time the curious way in which the light-house—which stood almost opposite on Anastasia Island—brightened up the room, every minute or two. It is a revolving light, and when the light got on the landward side it gave us a flash, which produced a very queer effect on the furniture, and on Rectus's broad hat, which hung on the wall right opposite the window. It seemed exactly as if this hat was a sort of portable sun of a very mild power, which warmed up, every now and then, and lighted the room.

But Rectus did not talk long about this.

"I think," said he, "that we have had about enough of St. Augustine. There are too many Indians and girls here."

"And sea-beans, too, perhaps," said I. "But I don't think there's any reason for going so soon. I'm going to settle those Indians, and you've only seen one girl, and perhaps we'll never see her again."

"Don't you believe that," said Rectus, very solemnly, and he turned over, either to ponder on the matter, or to go to sleep. His remarks made me imagine that perhaps he was one of those fellows who soon get tired of a place and want to be moving on. But that wasn't my way, and I didn't intend to let him hurry me. I think the Indians worried him a good deal. He was afraid they would keep on troubling us. But, as I had said, I had made up my mind to settle the Indians. As for Corny, I know he hated her. I don't believe he spoke a word to her all the time we were with her.

The next morning, we talked over the Indian question, and then went down to the fort. We hadn't been there for three or four days, but now we had decided not to stand nagging by a couple of red-skinned savages, but to go and see the captain and tell him all about it. All except the proclamation—Rectus wouldn't agree to have that brought in at all. Mr. Cholott had introduced us to the captain, and he was a first-rate fellow, and when we told him how we had stormed his old fort, he laughed and said he wondered we didn't break our necks, and that the next time we did it he'd put us in the guard-house, sure.

"That would be cheaper for you than buying so many beans," he said.

As to the two Indians, he told us he would see to it that they let us alone. He didn't think that Maiden's Heart would ever harm us, for he was more of a blower than anything else; but he said that Crowded Owl was really one of the worst-tempered Indians in the fort, and he advised us to have nothing more to do with him, in any way.

All of this was very good of the captain, and we were very glad we had gone to see him.

"I tell you what it is," said Rectus, as we were coming away, "I don't believe that any of these Indians are as innocent as they try to make out. Did you ever see such a rascally set of faces?"

Somehow or other, I seldom felt sorry when Rectus changed his mind. I thought, indeed, that he ought to change it as much as he could. And yet, as I have said, he was a thoroughly good fellow. The trouble with him was that he wasn't used to making up his mind about things, and didn't make a very good beginning at it.

The next day, we set out to explore Anastasia Island, right opposite the town. It is a big island, but we took our lunch and determined to do what we could. We hired a boat and rowed over to the mouth of a creek in the island. We went up this creek quite a long way, and landed at a little pier, where we made the boat fast. The man who owned the boat told us just how to go. We first made a flying call at the coquina quarries, where they dig the curious stuff of which the town is built. This is formed of small shells, all conglomerated into one solid mass that becomes as hard as stone after it is exposed to the air. It must have taken thousands of years for so many little shell-fish to pile themselves up into a quarrying-ground. We now went over to the light-house, and climbed to the top of it, where we had a view that made Rectus feel even better than he felt in the cemetery at Savannah.

When we came down, we started for the beach and stopped a little while at the old Spanish light-house, which looked more like a cracker-bakery than anything else, but I suppose it was good enough for all the ships the Spaniards had to light up. We would have cared more for the old light-house if it had not had an inscription on it that said it had been destroyed, and rebuilt by some American. After that, we considered it merely in the light of a chromo.

We had a good time on the island, and stayed nearly all day. Toward the end of the afternoon, we started back for the creek and our boat. We had a long walk, for we had been exploring the island pretty well, and when, at last, we reached the creek, we saw that our boat was gone!

This was astounding. We could not make out how the thing could have happened. The boatman, from whom we had hired it, had said that it would be perfectly safe for us to leave the boat at the landing if we tied her up well and hid the oars. I had tied her up very well and we had hidden the oars so carefully, under some bushes, that we found them there when we went to look for them.

"Could the old thing have floated off of itself?" said Rectus.

"That couldn't have happened," I said. "I tied her hard and fast."

"But how could any one have taken her away without oars?" asked Rectus.

"Rectus," said I, "don't let us have any more riddles. Some one may have cut a pole and poled her away, up or down the creek, or——"

"I'll tell you," interrupted Rectus. "Crowded Owl!"

I didn't feel much like laughing, but I did laugh a little.

"Yes," I said. "He probably swam over with a pair of oars on purpose to steal our boat. But, whether he did it or not, it's very certain that somebody has taken the boat, and there isn't any way, that I see, of getting off this place to-night. There'll be nobody going over so late in the afternoon—except, to be sure, those men we saw at the other end of the island with a flat-boat."

"But that's away over at the upper end of the island," said Rectus.

"That's not so very far," said I. "I wonder if they have gone back yet? If one of us could run over there and ask them to send a boatman from the town after us, we might get back by supper-time."

"Why not both of us?" asked Rectus.

"One of us should stay here to see if our boat does come back. It must have been some one from the island who took it, because any one from the mainland would have brought his own boat."

"Very well," said Rectus. "Let's toss up to see who goes. The winner stays."

I pitched up a cent.

"Heads," said Rectus.

"Tails," said I.

Tails it was, and Rectus started off like a good fellow.

I sat down and waited. I waited a long, long time, and then I got up and walked up and down. In about an hour I began to get anxious. It was more than time for Rectus to return. The walk to the end of the island and back was not much over a mile—at least, I supposed it was not. Could anything have happened to the boy? It was not yet sunset, and I couldn't imagine what there was to happen.

After waiting about half an hour longer, I heard a distant sound of oars. I ran to the landing and looked down the creek. A boat with a man in it was approaching. When it came nearer, I saw plainly that it was our boat. When it had almost reached the landing, the man turned around, and I was very much surprised, indeed, to see that he was Mr. Chipperton.



CHAPTER VII.

MR. CHIPPERTON.

I took hold of the boat, and pulled the bow up on the beach. Mr. Chipperton looked around at me.

"Why, how do you do?" said he.



For an instant I could not answer him, I was so angry, and then I said:

"What did you——? How did you come to take our boat away?"

"Your boat!" he exclaimed. "Is this your boat? I didn't know that. But where is my boat? Did you see a sail-boat leave here? It is very strange—remarkably strange! I don't know what to make of it."

"I know nothing about a sail-boat," said I. "If we had seen one leave here, we should have gone home in her. Why did you take our boat?"

Mr. Chipperton had now landed.

"I came over here," he said, "with my wife and daughter. We were in a sail-boat, with a man to manage it. My wife would not come otherwise. We came to see the light-house, but I do not care for light-houses,—I have seen a great many of them. I am passionately fond of the water. Seeing a small boat here which no one was using, I let the man conduct my wife and Corny—my daughter—up to the light-house, while I took a little row. I know the man. He is very trustworthy. He would let no harm come to them. There was a pair of oars in the sail-boat, and I took them, and rowed down the creek, and then went along the river, below the town; and, I assure you, sir, I went a great deal farther than I intended, for the tide was with me. But it wasn't with me coming back, of course, and I had a very hard time of it. I thought I never should get back. This boat of yours, sir, seems to be an uncommonly hard boat to row."

"Against a strong tide, I suppose it is," said I; "but I wish you hadn't taken it. Here I have been waiting ever so long, and my friend——"

"Oh! I'm sorry, too," interrupted Mr. Chipperton, who had been looking about, as if he expected to see his sail-boat somewhere under the trees. "I can't imagine what could have become of my boat, my wife, and my child. If I had staid here, they could not have sailed away without my knowing it. It would even have been better to go with them, although, as I said before, I don't care for light-houses."

"Well," said I, not quite as civilly as I generally speak to people older than myself, "your boat has gone, that is plain enough. I suppose, when your family came from the light-house, they thought you had gone home, and so went themselves."

"That's very likely," said he,—"very likely indeed. Or, it may be that Corny wouldn't wait. She is not good at waiting. She persuaded her mother to sail away, no doubt. But now I suppose you will take me home in your boat, and the sooner we get off the better, for it is growing late."

"You needn't be in a hurry," said I, "for I am not going off until my friend comes back. You gave him a good long walk to the other end of the island."

"Indeed!" said Mr. Chipperton. "How was that?"

Then I told him all about it.

"Do you think that the flat-boat is likely to be there yet?" he asked.

"It's gone, long ago," said I; "and I'm afraid Rectus has lost his way, either going there or coming back."

I said this as much to myself as to my companion, for I had walked back a little to look up the path. I could not see far, for it was growing dark. I was terribly worried about Rectus, and would have gone to look for him, but I was afraid that if I left Mr. Chipperton he would go off with the boat.

Directly Mr. Chipperton set up a yell.

"Hi! hi! hi!" he cried.

I ran down to the pier, and saw a row-boat approaching.

"Hi!" cried Mr. Chipperton. "Come this way! Come here! Boat ahoy!"

"We're coming!" shouted a man from the boat. "Ye needn't holler for us."

And in a few more strokes the boat touched land. There were two men in it.

"Did you come for me?" cried Mr. Chipperton.

"No," said the man who had spoken. "We came for this other party, but I reckon you can come along."

"For me?" said I. "Who sent you?"

"Your pardner," said the man. "He came over in a flat-boat, and he said you was stuck here, for somebody had stole your boat, and so he sent us for you."

"And he's over there, is he?" said I.

"Yes, he's all right, eatin' his supper, I reckon. But isn't this here your boat?"

"Yes, it is," I said, "and I'm going home in it. You can take the other man."

And, without saying another word, I picked up my oars, which I had brought from the bushes, jumped into my boat, and pushed off.

"I reckon you're a little riled, aint ye?" said the man; but I made him no answer, and left him to explain to Mr. Chipperton his remark about stealing the boat. They set off soon after me, and we had a race down the creek. I was "a little riled," and I pulled so hard that the other boat did not catch up to me until we got out into the river. Then it passed me, but it didn't get to town much before I did.

The first person I met on the pier was Rectus. He had had his supper, and had come down to watch for me. I was so angry that I would not speak to him. He kept by my side, though, as I walked up to the house, excusing himself for going off and leaving me.

"You see, it wasn't any use for me to take that long walk back there to the creek. I told the men of the fix we were in, and they said they'd send somebody for us, but they thought I'd better come along with them, as I was there."

I had a great mind to say something here, but I didn't.

"It wouldn't have done you any good for me to come back through the woods in the dark. The boat wouldn't get over to you any faster. You see, if there'd been any good at all in it, I would have come back—but there wasn't."

All this might have been very true, but I remembered how I had sat and walked and thought and worried about Rectus, and his explanation did me no good.

When I reached the house, I found that our landlady, who was one of the very best women in all Florida, had saved me a splendid supper—hot and smoking. I was hungry enough, and I enjoyed this meal until there didn't seem to be a thing left. I felt in a better humor then, and I hunted up Rectus, and we talked along as if nothing had happened. It wasn't easy to keep mad with Rectus, because he didn't get mad himself. And, besides, he had a good deal of reason on his side.

It was a lovely evening, and pretty nearly all the people of the town were out-of-doors. Rectus and I took a walk around the "Plaza,"—a public square planted thick with live-oak and pride-of-India trees, and with a monument in the centre with a Spanish inscription on it, stating how the king of Spain once gave a very satisfactory charter to the town. Rectus and I agreed, however, that we would rather have a pride-of-India tree than a charter, as far as we were concerned. These trees have on them long bunches of blossoms, which smell deliciously.

"Now, then," said I, "I think it's about time for us to be moving along. I'm beginning to feel about that Corny family as you do."

"Oh, I only objected to the girl," said Rectus, in an off-hand way.

"Well, I object to the father," said I. "I think we've had enough, anyway, of fathers and daughters. I hope the next couple we fall in with will be a mother and a son."

"What's the next place on the bill?" asked Rectus.

"Well," said I, "we ought to take a trip up the Oclawaha River. That's one of the things to do. It will take us two or three days, and we can leave our baggage here and come back again. Then, if we want to stay, we can, and if we don't, we needn't."

"All right," said Rectus. "Let's be off to-morrow."

The next morning, I went to buy the Oclawaha tickets, while Rectus staid home to pack up our handbags, and, I believe, to sew some buttons on his clothes. He could sew buttons on so strongly that they would never come off again without bringing the piece out with them.

The ticket-office was in a small store, where you could get any kind of alligator or sea-bean combination that the mind could dream of. We had been in there before to look at the things. I found I was in luck, for the storekeeper told me that it was not often that people could get berths on the little Oclawaha steam-boats without engaging them some days ahead; but he had a couple of state-rooms left, for the boat that left Pilatka the next day. I took one room as quick as lightning, and I had just paid for the tickets when Mr. Chipperton and Corny walked in.

"How d' ye do?" said he, as cheerfully as if he had never gone off with another fellow's boat. "Buying tickets for the Oclawaha?"

I had to say yes, and then he wanted to know when we were going. I wasn't very quick to answer; but the storekeeper said:

"He's just taken the last room but one in the boat that leaves Pilatka to-morrow morning."

"And when do you leave here to catch that boat?" said Mr. Chipperton.

"This afternoon,—and stay all night at Pilatka."

"Oh, father! father!" cried Corny, who had been standing with her eyes and ears wide open, all this time, "let's go! let's go!"

"I believe I will," said Mr. Chipperton,—"I believe I will. You say you have one more room. All right. I'll take it. This will be very pleasant, indeed," said he, turning to me. "It will be quite a party. It's ever so much better to go to such places in a party. We've been thinking of going for some time, and I'm so glad I happened in here now. Good-bye. We'll see you this afternoon at the depot."

I didn't say anything about being particularly glad, but just as I left the door Corny ran out after me.

"Do you think it would be any good to take a fishing-line?" she cried.

"Guess you'd better," I shouted back, and then I ran home, laughing.

"Here are the tickets!" I cried out to Rectus, "and we've got to be at the station by four o'clock this afternoon. There's no backing out now."

"Who wants to back out?" said Rectus, looking up from his trunk, into which he had been diving.

"Can't say," I answered. "But I know one person who wont back out."

"Who's that?"

"Corny," said I.

Rectus stood up.

"Cor——!" he exclaimed.

"Ny," said I, "and father and mother. They took the only room left,—engaged it while I was there."

"Can't we sell our tickets?" asked Rectus.

"Don't know," said I. "But what's the good? Who's going to be afraid of a girl,—or a whole family, for that matter? We're in for it now."

Rectus didn't say anything, but his expression saddened.

We had studied out this trip the night before, and knew just what we had to do. We first went from St. Augustine, on the sea-coast, to Tocoi, on the St. John's River, by a railroad fifteen miles long. Then we took a steam-boat up the St. John's to Pilatka, and the next morning left for the Oclawaha, which runs into the St. John's about twenty-five miles above, on the other side of the river.

We found the Corny family at the station, all right, and Corny immediately informed me that she had a fishing-line, but didn't bring a pole, because her father said he could cut her one, if it was needed. He didn't know whether it was "throw-out" fishing or not, on that river.

There used to be a wooden railroad here, and the cars were pulled by mules. It was probably more fun to travel that way, but it took longer. Now they have steel rails and everything that a regular grown-up railroad has. We knew the engineer, for Mr. Cholott had introduced us to him one day, on the club-house wharf. He was a first-rate fellow, and let us ride on the engine. I didn't believe, at first, that Rectus would do this; but there was only one passenger car, and after the Corny family got into that, he didn't hesitate a minute about the engine.

We had a splendid ride. We went slashing along through the woods the whole way, and as neither of us had ever ridden on an engine before, we made the best of our time. We found out what every crank and handle was for, and kept a sharp look-out ahead, through the little windows in the cab. If we had caught an alligator on the cow-catcher, the thing would have been complete. The engineer said there used to be alligators along by the road, in the swampy places, but he guessed the engine had frightened most of them away.

The trip didn't take forty minutes, so we had scarcely time to learn the whole art of engine-driving, but we were very glad to have had the ride.

We found the steam-boat waiting for us at Tocoi, which is such a little place that I don't believe either of us noticed it, as we hurried aboard. The St. John's is a splendid river, as wide as a young lake; but we did not have much time to see it, as it grew dark pretty soon, and the supper-bell rang.

We reached Pilatka pretty early in the evening, and there we had to stay all night. Mr. Chipperton told me, confidentially, that he thought this whole arrangement was a scheme to make money out of travellers. The boat we were in ought to have kept on and taken us up the Oclawaha; "but," said he, "I suppose that wouldn't suit the hotel-keepers. I expect they divide the profits with the boats."

By good luck, I thought, the Corny family and ourselves went to different hotels to spend the night. When I congratulated Rectus on this fact, he only said:

"It don't matter for one night. We'll catch 'em all bad enough to-morrow."

And he was right. When we went down to the wharf the next morning, to find the Oclawaha boat, the first persons we saw were Mr. Chipperton, with his wife and daughter. They were standing, gazing at the steam-boat which was to take us on our trip.

"Isn't this a funny boat?" said Corny, as soon as she saw us. It was a very funny boat. It was not much longer than an ordinary tug, and quite narrow, but was built up as high as a two-story house, and the wheel was in the stern. Rectus compared her to a river wheelbarrow.

Soon after we were on board she started off, and then we had a good chance to see the St. John's. We had been down to look at the river before, for we got up very early and walked about the town. It is a pretty sort of a new place, with wide streets and some handsome houses. The people have orange-groves in their gardens, instead of potato-patches, as we have up north. Before we started, we hired a rifle. We had been told that there was plenty of game on the river, and that most gentlemen who took the trip carried guns. Rectus wanted to get two rifles, but I thought one was enough. We could take turns, and I knew I'd feel safer if I had nothing to do but to keep my eye on Rectus while he had the gun.

There were not many passengers on board, and, indeed, there was not room for more than twenty-five or thirty. Most of them who could find places sat out on a little upper deck, in front of the main cabin, which was in the top story. Mrs. Chipperton, however, staid in the saloon, or dining-room, and looked out of the windows. She was a quiet woman, and had an air as if she had to act as shaft-horse for the team, and was pretty well used to holding back. And I reckon she had a good deal of it to do.

One party attracted our attention as soon as we went aboard. It was made up of a lady and two gentlemen-hunters. The lady wasn't a hunter, but she was dressed in a suitable costume to go about with fellows who had on hunting-clothes. The men wore long yellow boots that came ever so far up their legs, and they had on all the belts and hunting-fixings that the law allows. The lady wore yellow gloves, to match the men's boots. As we were going up the St. John's, the two men strode about, in an easy kind of a way, as if they wanted us to understand that this sort of thing was nothing to them. They were used to it, and could wear that style of boots every day if they wanted to. Rectus called them "the yellow-legged party," which wasn't a bad name.

After steaming about twenty-five miles up the St. John's River, we went in close to the western shore, and then made a sharp turn into a narrow opening between the tall trees, and sailed right into the forest.



CHAPTER VIII.

THE STEAM-BOAT IN THE FOREST.

We were in a narrow river, where the tall trees met overhead, while the lower branches and the smaller trees brushed against the little boat as it steamed along. This was the Oclawaha River, and Rectus and I thought it was as good as fairy-land. We stood on the bow of the boat, which wasn't two feet above the water, and took in everything there was to see.

The river wound around in among the great trees, so that we seldom could see more than a few hundred yards ahead, and every turn we made showed us some new picture of green trees and hanging moss and glimpses into the heart of the forest, while everything was reflected in the river, which was as quiet as a looking-glass.

"Talk of theatres!" said Rectus.

"No, don't," said I.

At this moment we both gave a little jump, for a gun went off just behind us. We turned around quickly, and saw that the tall yellow-legs had just fired at a big bird. He didn't hit it.

"Hello!" said Rectus; "we'd better get our gun. The game is beginning to show itself." And off he ran for the rifle.

I didn't know that Rectus had such a bloodthirsty style of mind; but there were a good many things about him that I didn't know. When he came back, he loaded the rifle, which was a little breech-loader, and began eagerly looking about for game.

Corny had been on the upper deck; but in a minute or two she came running out to us.

"Oh! do you know," she called out, "that there are alligators in this river? Do you think they could crawl up into the boat? We go awfully near shore sometimes. They sleep on shore. I do hope I'll see one soon."

"Well, keep a sharp look-out, and perhaps you may," said I.

She sat down on a box near the edge of the deck, and peered into the water and along the shore as if she had been sent there to watch for breakers ahead. Every now and then she screamed out:

"There's one! There! There! There!"

But it was generally a log, or a reflection, or something else that was not an alligator.

Of course we were very near both shores at all times, for the river is so narrow that a small boy could throw a ball over it; but occasionally the deeper part of the channel flowed so near one shore that we ran right up close to the trees, and the branches flapped up against the people on the little forward deck, making the ladies, especially the lady belonging to the yellow-legged party, crouch and scream as if some wood-demon had stuck a hand into the boat and made a grab for their bonnets.

This commotion every now and then, and the almost continual reports from the guns on board, and Corny's screams when she thought she saw an alligator, made the scene quite lively.

Rectus and I took a turn every half-hour at the rifle. It was really a great deal more agreeable to look out at the beautiful pictures that came up before us every few minutes; but, as we had the gun, we couldn't help keeping up a watch for game, besides.

"There!" I whispered to Rectus; "see that big bird! On that limb! Take a crack at him!"

It was a water-turkey, and he sat placidly on a limb close to the water's edge, and about a boat's length ahead of us.

Rectus took a good aim. He slowly turned as the boat approached the bird, keeping his aim upon him, and then he fired.

The water-turkey stuck out his long, snake-like neck, and said:

"Quee! Quee! Quee!"

And then he ran along the limb quite gayly.

"Bang! bang!" went the guns of the yellow-legs, and the turkey actually stopped and looked back. Then he said:

"Quee! Quee!" again, and ran in among the thick leaves.

I believe I could have hit him with a stone.

"It don't seem to be any use," said Mr. Chipperton, who was standing behind us, "to fire at the birds along this river. They know just what to do. I'm almost sure I saw that bird wink. It wouldn't surprise me if the fellows that own the rifles are in conspiracy with these birds. They let out rifles that wont hit, and the birds know it, and sit there and laugh at the passengers. Why, I tell you, sir, if the people who travel up and down this river were all regular shooters, there wouldn't be a bird left in six months."

At this moment Corny saw an alligator,—a real one. It was lying on a log, near shore, and just ahead of the boat. She set up such a yell that it made every one of us jump, and her mother came rushing out of the saloon to see if she was dead. The alligator, who was a good-sized fellow, was so scared that he just slid off his log without taking time to get decently awake, and before any one but Rectus and myself had a chance to see him. The ladies were very much annoyed at this, and urged Corny to scream softly the next time she saw one. Alligators were pretty scarce this trip, for some reason or other. For one thing, the weather was not very warm, and they don't care to come out in the open air unless they can give their cold bodies a good warming up.

Corny now went up on the upper deck, because she thought that she might see alligators farther ahead if she got up higher. In five minutes, she had her hat taken off by a branch of a tree, which swept upon her, as she was leaning over the rail. She called to the pilot to stop the boat and go back for her hat, but the captain, who was up in the pilot-house, stuck out his head and said he reckoned she'd have to wait until they came back. The hat would hang there for a day or two. Corny made no answer to this, but disappeared into the saloon.

In a little while, she came out on the lower deck, wearing a seal-skin hat. She brought a stool with her, and put it near the bow of the boat, a little in front and on one side of the box on which Rectus and I were sitting. Then she sat quietly down and gazed out ahead. The seal-skin cap was rather too warm for the day, perhaps, but she looked very pretty in it.

Directly she looked around at us.

"Where do you shoot alligators?" said she.

"Anywhere, where you may happen to see them," said I, laughing. "On the land, in the water, or wherever they may be."

"I mean in what part of their bodies?" said she.

"Oh! in the eye," I answered.

"Either eye?" she asked.

"Yes; it don't matter which. But how are you going to hit them?"

"I've got a revolver," said she.

And she turned around, like the turret of an iron-clad, until the muzzle of a big seven-shooter pointed right at us.

"My conscience!" I exclaimed; "where did you get that? Don't point it this way!"

"Oh! it's father's. He let me have it. I am going to shoot the first alligator I see. You needn't be afraid of my screaming this time," and she revolved back to her former position.

"One good thing," said Rectus to me, in a low voice; "her pistol isn't cocked."

I had noticed this, and I hoped also that it wasn't loaded.

"Which eye do you shut?" said Corny, turning suddenly upon us.

"Both!" said Rectus.

She did not answer, but looked at me, and I told her to shut her left eye, but to be very particular not to turn around again without lowering her pistol.

She resumed her former position, and we breathed a little easier, although I thought that it might be well for us to go to some other part of the boat until she had finished her sport.

I was about to suggest this to Rectus, when suddenly Corny sprang to her feet, and began blazing away at something ahead. Bang! bang! bang! she went, seven times.

"Why, she didn't stop once to cock it!" cried Rectus, and I was amazed to see how she had fired so rapidly. But as soon as I had counted seven, I stepped up to her and took her pistol. She explained to me how it worked. It was one of those pistols in which the same pull of the trigger jerks up the hammer and lets it down,—the most unsafe things that any one can carry.

"Too bad!" she exclaimed. "I believe it was only a log! But wont you please load it up again for me? Here are some cartridges."

"Corny," said I, "how would you like to have our rifle? It will be better than a pistol for you."

She agreed, instantly, to this exchange, and I showed her how to hold and manage the gun. I didn't think it was a very good thing for a girl to have, but it was a great deal safer than the pistol for the people on board. The latter I put in my pocket.

Corny made one shot, but did no execution. The other gunners on board had been firing away, for some time, at two little birds that kept ahead of us, skimming along over the water, just out of reach of the shot that was sent scattering after them.

"I think it's a shame," said Corny, "to shoot such little birds as that. They can't eat 'em."

"No," said I; "and they can't hit 'em, either, which is a great deal better."

But very soon after this, the shorter yellow-legged man did hit a bird. It was a water-turkey, that had been sitting on a tree, just as we turned a corner. The big bird spread out its wings, made a doleful flutter, and fell into the underbrush by the shore.

"Wont they stop to get him?" asked Corny, with her eyes open as wide as they would go.

One of the hands was standing by, and he laughed.

"Stop the boat when a man shoots a bird? I reckon not. And there isn't anybody that would go into all that underbrush and water only for a bird like that, anyway."

"Well, I think it's murder!" cried Corny. "I thought they ate 'em. Here! Take your gun. I'm much obliged; but I don't want to kill things just to see them fall down and die."

I took the gun very willingly,—although I did not think that Corny would injure any birds with it,—but I asked her what she thought about alligators. She certainly had not supposed that they were killed for food.

"Alligators are wild beasts," she said. "Give me my pistol. I am going to take it back to father."

And away she went. Rectus and I did not keep up our rifle practice much longer. We couldn't hit anything, and the thought that, if we should wound or kill a bird, it would be of no earthly good to us or anybody else, made us follow Corny's example, and we put away our gun. But the other gunners did not stop. As long as daylight lasted a ceaseless banging was kept up.

We were sitting on the forward deck, looking out at the beautiful scenes through which we were passing, and occasionally turning back to see that none of the gunners posted themselves where they might make our positions uncomfortable, when Corny came back to us.

"Can either of you speak French?" she asked.

Rectus couldn't; but I told her that I understood the language tolerably well, and asked her why she wished to know.

"It's just this," she said. "You see those two men with yellow boots, and the lady with them? She's one of their wives."

"How many wives have they got?" interrupted Rectus, speaking to Corny almost for the first time.

"I mean she is the wife of one of them, of course," she answered, a little sharply; and then she turned herself somewhat more toward me. "And the whole set try to make out they're French, for they talk it nearly all the time. But they're not French, for I heard them talk a good deal better English than they can talk French; and every time a branch nearly hits her, that lady sings out in regular English. And, besides, I know that their French isn't French French, because I can understand a great deal of it, and if it was I couldn't do it. I can talk French a good deal better than I can understand it, anyway. The French people jumble everything up so that I can't make head or tail of it. Father says he don't wonder they have had so many revolutions, when they can't speak their own language more distinctly. He tried to learn it, but didn't keep it up long, and so I took lessons. For, when we go to France, one of us ought to know how to talk, or we shall be cheated dreadfully. Well, you see, over on the little deck, up there, is that gentleman with his wife and a young lady, and they're all travelling together, and these make-believe French people have been jabbering about them ever so long, thinking that nobody else on board understands French. But I listened to them. I couldn't make out all they said, but I could tell that they were saying all sorts of things about those other people, and trying to settle which lady the gentleman was married to, and they made a big mistake, too, for they said the small lady was the one."

"How do you know they were wrong?" I said.

"Why, I went to the gentleman and asked him. I guess he ought to know. And now, if you'll come up there, I'd just like to show those people that they can't talk out loud about the other passengers and have nobody know what they're saying."

"You want to go there and talk French, so as to show them that you understand it?" said I.

"Yes," answered Corny, "that's just it."

"All right; come along," said I. "They may be glad to find out that you know what they're talking about."

And so we all went to the upper deck, Rectus as willing as anybody to see the fun.

Corny seated herself on a little stool near the yellow-legged party, the men of which had put down their guns for a time. Rectus and I sat on the forward railing, near her. Directly she cleared her throat, and then, after looking about her on each side, said to me, in very distinct tones:

"Voy-ezz vows cett hommy ett ses ducks femmys seelah?"[B]

I came near roaring out laughing, but I managed to keep my face straight, and said: "Oui."

"Well, then,—I mean Bean donk lah peetit femmy nest pah lah femmy due hommy. Lah oter femmy este sah femmy."[C]



At this, there was no holding in any longer. I burst out laughing, so that I came near falling off the railing; Rectus laughed because I did; the gentleman with the wife and the young lady laughed madly, and Mr. Chipperton, who came out of the saloon on hearing the uproar, laughed quite cheerfully, and asked what it was all about. But Corny didn't laugh. She turned around short to see what effect her speech had had on the yellow-legged party. It had a good deal of effect. They reddened and looked at us. Then they drew their chairs closer together, and turned their backs to us. What they thought, we never knew; but Corny declared to me afterward that they talked no more French,—at least when she was about.

The gentleman who had been the subject of Corny's French discourse called her over to him, and the four had a gay talk together. I heard Corny tell them that she never could pronounce French in the French way. She pronounced it just as it was spelt, and her father said that ought to be the rule with every language. She had never had a regular teacher; but if people laughed so much at the way she talked, perhaps her father ought to get her one.

I liked Corny better the more I knew of her. It was easy to see that she had taught herself all that she knew. Her mother held her back a good deal, no doubt; but her father seemed more like a boy-companion than anything else, and if Corny hadn't been a very smart girl, she would have been a pretty bad kind of a girl by this time. But she wasn't anything of the sort, although she did do and say everything that came into her head to say or do. Rectus did not agree with me about Corny. He didn't like her.

When it grew dark, I thought we should stop somewhere for the night, for it was hard enough for the boat to twist and squeeze herself along the river in broad daylight. She bumped against big trees that stood on the edge of the stream, and swashed through bushes that stuck out too far from the banks; but she was built for bumping and scratching, and didn't mind it. Sometimes she would turn around a corner and make a short cut through a whole plantation of lily-pads and spatterdocks,—or things like them,—and she would scrape over a sunken log as easily as a wagon-wheel rolls over a stone. She drew only two feet of water, and was flat-bottomed. When she made a very short turn, the men had to push her stern around with poles. Indeed, there was a man with a pole at the bow a good deal of the time, and sometimes he had more pushing off to do than he could manage by himself.

When Mr. Chipperton saw what tight places we had to squeeze through, he admitted that it was quite proper not to try to bring the big steam-boats up here.

But the boat didn't stop. She kept right on. She had to go a hundred and forty miles up that narrow river, and if she made the whole trip from Pilatka and back in two days, she had no time to lose. So, when it was dark, a big iron box was set up on top of the pilot-house, and a fire was built in it of pine-knots and bits of fat pine. This blazed finely, and lighted up the river and the trees on each side, and sometimes threw out such a light that we could see quite a distance ahead. Everybody came out to see the wonderful sight. It was more like fairy-land than ever. When the fire died down a little, the distant scenery seemed to fade away and become indistinct and shadowy, and the great trees stood up like their own ghosts all around us; and then, when fresh knots were thrown in, the fire would blaze up, and the whole scene would be lighted up again, and every tree and bush, and almost every leaf, along the water's edge would be tipped with light, while everything was reflected in the smooth, glittering water.

Rectus and I could hardly go in to supper, and we got through the meal in short order. We staid out on deck until after eleven o'clock, and Corny staid with us a good part of the time. At last, her father came down after her, for they were all going to bed.

"This is a grand sight," said Mr. Chipperton. "I never saw anything to equal it in any transformation scene at a theatre. Some of our theatre people ought to come down here and study it up, so as to get up something of the kind for exhibition in the cities."

Just before we went into bed, our steam-whistle began to sound, and away off in the depths of the forest we could hear every now and then another whistle. The captain told us that there was a boat coming down the river, and that she would soon pass us. The river did not look wide enough for two boats; but when the other whistle sounded as if it were quite near, we ran our boat close into shore among the spatterdocks, in a little cove, and waited there, leaving the channel for the other boat.

Directly, it came around a curve just ahead of us, and truly it was a splendid sight. The lower part of the boat was all lighted up, and the fire was blazing away grandly in its iron box, high up in the air.

To see such a glowing, sparkling apparition as this come sailing out of the depths of the dark forest, was grand! Rectus said he felt like bursting into poetry; but he didn't. He wasn't much on rhymes. He had opportunity enough, though, to get up a pretty good-sized poem, for we were kept awake a long time after we went to bed by the boughs of the trees on shore scratching and tapping against the outside of our state-room.

When we went out on deck the next morning, the first person we saw was Corny, holding on to the flag-staff at the bow and looking over the edge of the deck into the water.

"What are you looking at?" said I, as we went up to her.

"See there!" she cried. "See that turtle! And those two fishes! Look! look!"

We didn't need to be told twice to look. The water was just as clear as crystal, and you could see the bottom everywhere, even in the deepest places, with the great rocks covered with some glittering green substance that looked like emerald slabs, and the fish and turtles swimming about as if they thought there was no one looking at them.

I couldn't understand how the water had become so clear; but I was told that we had left the river proper and were now in a stream that flowed from Silver Spring, which was the end of our voyage into the cypress woods. The water in the spring and in this stream was almost transparent,—very different from the regular water of the river.

About ten o'clock, we reached Silver Spring, which is like a little lake, with some houses on the bank. We made fast at a wharf, and, as we were to stop here some hours, everybody got ready to go ashore.

Corny was the first one ready. Her mother thought she ought not to go, but her father said there was no harm in it.

"If she does," said Mrs. Chipperton, "she'll get herself into some sort of a predicament before she comes back."

I found that in such a case as this Mrs. Chipperton was generally right.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] "Voyez-vous cet homme et ces deux femmes cela?"—Do you see that man and those two women there?

[C] "Bien donc, la petite femme n'est pas la femme du homme. La autre femme est sa femme."—Well, then, the little woman is not the wife of the man. The other woman is his wife. [Of course, the French in this, and the preceding, foot-note is Corny's.—THE AUTHOR.]



CHAPTER IX.

THE THREE GRAY BEANS.

Corny went ashore, but she did not stay there three minutes. From the edge of the wharf we could see that Silver Spring was better worth looking at than anything we should be likely to see on shore. The little lake seemed deeper than a three-story house, and yet, even from where we stood, we could see down to the very bottom.

There were two boys with row-boats at the wharf. We hired one of the boats right off, and Corny gave me such a look, that I told her to get in. After she was in the boat, she asked her mother, who was standing on the deck of the steam-boat, if she might go. Mrs. Chipperton said she supposed so, and away we went. When we had rowed out to the middle of the spring, I stopped rowing, and we looked down into the depths. It was almost the same as looking into air. Far down at the bottom we could see the glittering sand and the green rocks, and sometimes a fish, as long as my arm, would slowly rise and fall, and paddle away beneath us. We dropped nickels and copper cents down to the bottom, and we could plainly see them lying there. In some parts of the bottom there were "wells," or holes, about two feet in diameter, which seemed to go down indefinitely. These, we were told, were the places where the water came up from below into the spring. We could see the weeds and grasses that grew on the edges of these wells, although we could not see very far down into them.

"If I had only known," said Rectus, "what sort of a place we were coming to, I should have brought something to lower down into these wells. I tell you what would have been splendid!—a heavy bottle filled with sweet oil and some phosphorus, and a long cord. If we shook up the bottle it would shine, so that, when we lowered it into the wells, we could see it go down to the very bottom, that is, if the cord should be long enough."

At this instant, Corny went overboard! Rectus made a grab at her, but it was too late. He sprang to his feet, and I thought he was going over after her, but I seized him.

"Sit down!" said I. "Watch her! She'll come up again. Lean over and be ready for her!"

We both leaned over the bow as far as was safe. With one hand I gently paddled the boat, this way and that, so as to keep ourselves directly over Corny. It would have been of no use to jump in. We could see her as plainly as anything.

She was going down, all in a bunch, when I first saw her, and the next instant she touched the bottom. Her feet were under now, and I saw her make a little spring. She just pushed out her feet.

Then she began to come right up. We saw her slowly rising beneath us. Her face was turned upward, and her eyes were wide open. It was a wonderful sight. I trembled from head to foot. It seemed as if we were floating in the air, and Corny was coming up to us from the earth.

Before she quite reached the surface, I caught her, and had her head out of water in an instant. Rectus then took hold, and with a mighty jerk, we pulled her into the boat.

Corny sat down hard and opened her mouth.

"There!" she said; "I didn't breathe an inch!"

And then she puffed for about two minutes, while the water ran off her into the bottom of the boat. I seized the oars to row to shore.

"How did you fall over?" said Rectus, who still shook as if he had had a chill.

"Don't know," answered Corny. "I was leaning far over, when my hand must have slipped, and the first thing I knew I was into it. It's good I didn't shut my eyes. If you get into water, with your eyes shut, you can't open them again." She still puffed a little. "Coming up was the best. It's the first time I ever saw the bottom of a boat."

"Weren't you frightened?" I asked.

"Hadn't time at first. And when I was coming up, I saw you reaching out for me."



"Did you think we'd get you?" said Rectus, his face flushing.

"Yes," said Corny, "but if you'd missed me that time, I'd never have trusted you again."

The gentleman-with-a-wife-and-a-young-lady was in another boat, not very far off, but it was nearer the upper end of the little lake, and none of the party knew of our accident until we were pulling Corny out of the water. Then they rowed toward us as fast as they could, but they did not reach us until we were at the wharf. No one on shore, or on the steam-boat, seemed to have noticed Corny's dive. Indeed, the whole thing was done so quietly, and was so soon over, that there was not as much of a show as the occasion demanded.

"I never before was in deep water that seemed so little like real water," said Corny, just before we reached the wharf. "This was cold, and that was the only thing natural about it."

"Then this is not the first time you've been in deep water?" I asked.

"No," said Corny, "not the very first time;" and she scrambled up on the wharf, where her mother was standing, talking to some ladies.

"Why, Cornelia!" exclaimed Mrs. Chipperton, as soon as she saw the dripping girl, "have you been in the water again?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Corny, drawing her shoulders up to her ears, "and I must be rubbed down and have dry clothes as quick as lightning."

And with this, she and her mother hurried on board the steam-boat.

Rectus and I went back on the lake, for we had not gone half over it when Corny went into it. We had rowed about for half an hour or so, and were just coming in, when Corny appeared on the deck of the steam-boat, with a handkerchief tied around her head.

"Are you going to take a walk on shore?" she called out.

"Yes!" we shouted.

"All right," said she; "if you'll let me, I'll go with you, for mother says I must take a good run in the sun. I look funny, don't I? but I haven't any more hats."

We gave her a good run, although it was not altogether in the sun. The country hereabout was pretty well wooded, but there were roads cut through the woods, and there were some open places, and everywhere, underfoot, the sand was about six inches deep. Rectus took Corny by one hand, and I took her by the other, and we made her trot through that sand, in sunshine and shade, until she declared she was warm enough to last for a week. The yellow-legged party and some of the other passengers were wandering about, gathering the long gray moss,—from limbs where they could reach it,—and cutting great palmetto leaves which grew on low bushes all through the woods, and carrying them about as fans or parasols; but although Corny wanted to join in this fun, we would not stop. We just trotted her until she was tired, and then we ran her on board the boat, where her mother was waiting for her.

"Now, then," said Mrs. Chipperton, "immediately to bed."

The two disappeared, and we saw no more of Corny until supper-time. Her mother was certainly good at cure, if she didn't have much of a knack at prevention.

Just as the boat was about to start off on her return trip, and after she had blown her whistle two or three times, Mr. Chipperton appeared, carrying an immense arm-load of gray moss. He puffed and blew as he threw it down on deck. When his wife came out and told him of Corny's disaster, he stopped dusting his clothes, and looked up for an instant.

"I declare," said he, "Corny must keep out of the water. It seems to me that I can never leave her but she gets into some scrape. But I'm sure our friends here have proved themselves good fellows, indeed," and he shook hands with both of us.

"Now then, my dear," said he to his wife, "I've enough moss here for the parlor and sitting-room, and the little back-room, upstairs. I didn't get any for the dining-room, because it might blow about and get into the food."

"Do you mean to take that moss all the way home?" asked Mrs. Chipperton, in surprise. "Why, how will you ever carry it?"

"Of course I mean to take it home," said he. "I gathered this with my own hands from the top of one of the tallest trees on the banks of this famous Silver Spring."

"Mr. Chipperton!" exclaimed his wife.

"To be sure, the tree was cut down, but that makes no difference in the fact. It is both an ornament and a trophy of travel. If necessary, I'll buy a trunk for it. What did you do with Corny after they got her out?"

Our journey home was very much like our trip up the river, but there were a few exceptions. There was not so much firing, for I think the ammunition got pretty low; we saw more alligators, and the yellow-legged party, which had joined us at Pilatka, went all the way to St. Augustine with us. There was still another difference, and that was in Rectus. He was a good deal livelier,—more in the spirit that had hatched out in him in the cemetery at Savannah. He seemed to be all right with Corny now, and we had a good time together. I was going to say to him, once, that he had changed his mind about girls, but I thought I wouldn't. It would be better to let well enough alone, and he was a ticklish customer.

The day after we returned to St. Augustine, we were walking on the sea-wall, when we met Corny. She said she had been looking for us. Her father had gone out fishing with some gentlemen, and her mother would not walk in the sun, and, besides, she had something to say to us.

So we all walked to the fort and sat down on the wide wall of the water-battery. Rectus bestrode one of the cannon that stood pointing out to sea, but Corny told him she wanted him to get down and sit by her, so that she wouldn't have to shout.

"Now then," said she, after pausing a little, as if she wanted to be sure and get it right, "you two saved my life, and I want to give you something to remember me by."

We both exclaimed against this.

"You needn't do that," said I, "for I'm sure that no one who saw you coming up from the bottom, like the fairy-women float up on wires at the theatre, could ever forget you. We'll remember you, Corny, without your giving us anything."

"But that wont do," said she. "The only other time that I was ever really saved was by a ferryman, and father gave him some money, which was all right for him, but wouldn't do for you two, you know; and another time there wasn't really any danger, and I'm sorry the man got anything; but he did.

"We brought scarcely anything with us, because we didn't expect to need things in this way; but this is my own, and I want to give it to you both. One of you can't use it by himself, and so it will be more like a present for both of you together, than most things would be." And she handed me a box of dominoes.

"I give it to you because you're the oldest, but, remember, it's for both of you."

Of course we took it, and Corny was much pleased. She was a good little girl and, somehow or other, she seemed to be older and more sensible when she was with us than when she was bouncing around in the bosom of her family.

We had a good deal of talk together, and, after a while, she asked how long we were going to stay in St. Augustine.

"Until next Tuesday," I said, "and then we shall start for Nassau in the 'Tigris.'"

"Nassau!" she exclaimed, "where's that?"

"Right down there," I said, pointing out to sea with a crook of my finger, to the south. "It's on one of the Bahamas, and they lie off the lower end of Florida, you know."

"No," said she; "I don't remember where they are. I always get the Bahamas mixed up with the Bermudas, anyway. So does father. We talked of going to one of those places, when we first thought of travelling for his lung, but then they thought Florida would be better. What is there good about Nassau? Is it any better than this place?"

"Well," said I, "it's in the West Indies, and it's semi-tropical, and they have cocoa-nuts and pineapples and bananas there; and there are lots of darkeys, and the weather is always just what you want——"

"I guess that's a little stretched," said Corny, and Rectus agreed with her.

"And it's a new kind of a place," I continued; "an English colony, such as our ancestors lived in before the Revolution, and we ought to see what sort of a thing an English colony is, so as to know whether Washington and the rest of them should have kicked against it."

"Oh, they were all right!" said Corny, in a tone which settled that little matter.

"And so, you see," I went on, "Rectus and I thought we should like to go out of the country for a while, and see how it would feel to live under a queen and a cocoa-nut tree."

"Good!" cried Corny. "We'll go."

"Who?" I asked.

"Father and mother and I," said Corny, rising. "I'll tell them all about it; and I'd better be going back to the hotel, for if the steamer leaves on Tuesday, we'll have lots to do."

As we were walking homeward on the sea-wall, Rectus looked back and suddenly exclaimed:

"There! Do you see that Crowded Owl following us? He's been hanging round us all the afternoon. He's up to something. Don't you remember the captain told us he was a bad-tempered fellow?"

"What did he do?" asked Corny, looking back at the Indian, who now stood in the road, a short distance from the wall, regarding us very earnestly.

"Well, he never did anything, much," I said. "He seemed to be angry, once, because we would not buy some of his things, and the captain said he'd have him told not to worry us. That may have made him madder yet."

"He don't look mad," said Corny.

"Don't you trust him," said Rectus.

"I believe all these Indians are perfectly gentle, now," said Corny, "and father thinks so, too. He's been over here a good deal, and talked to some of them. Let's go ask him what he wants. Perhaps he's only sorry."

"If he is, we'll never find it out," I remarked, "for he can only speak one word of English."

I beckoned to Crowded Owl, and he immediately ran up to the wall, and said "How?" in an uncertain tone, as if he was not sure how we should take it. However, Corny offered him her hand, and Rectus and I followed suit. After this, he put his hand into his pocket, and pulled out three sea-beans.

"There!" said Rectus. "At it again. Disobeying military orders."

"But they're pretty ones," said Corny, taking one of the beans in her hand.

They were pretty. They were not very large, but were beautifully polished, and of a delicate gray color, the first we had seen of the kind.

"These must be a rare kind," said Rectus. "They are almost always brown. Let's forgive him this once, and buy them."

"Perhaps he wants to make up with you," said Corny, "and has brought these as a present."

"I can soon settle that question," said I, and I took the three beans, and pulled from my pocket three quarter-dollars, which I offered to the Indian.

Crowded Owl took the money, grinned, gave a bob of his head, and went home happy.

If he had had any wish to "make up" with us, he had shown it by giving us a chance at a choice lot of goods.

"Now," said I, reaching out my hand to Corny, "here's one for each of us. Take your choice."

"For me?" said Corny. "No, I oughtn't to. Yes, I will, too. I am ever so much obliged. We have lots of sea-beans, but none like this. I'll have a ring fastened to it, and wear it, somehow."

"That'll do to remember us by," said I.

"Yes," said Rectus, "and whenever you're in danger, just hold up that bean, and we'll come to you."

"I'll do it," said Corny. "But how about you? What can I do?"

"Oh, I don't suppose we shall want you to help us much," I said.

"Well, hold up your beans, and we'll see," said Corny.



CHAPTER X.

THE QUEEN ON THE DOOR-STEP.

We found that Corny had not been mistaken about her influence over her family, for the next morning, before we were done breakfast, Mr. Chipperton came around to see us. He was full of Nassau, and had made up his mind to go with us on Tuesday. He asked us lots of questions, but he really knew as much about the place as we did, although he had been so much in the habit of mixing his Bahamas and his Bermudas.

"My wife is very much pleased at the idea of having you two with us on the trip over," said he; "although, to be sure, we may have a very smooth and comfortable voyage."

I believe that, since the Silver Spring affair, he regarded Rectus and me as something in the nature of patent girl-catchers, to be hung over the side of the vessel in bad weather.

We were sorry to leave St. Augustine, but we had thoroughly done up the old place, and had seen everything, I think, except the Spring of Ponce de Leon, on the other side of the St. Sebastian River. We didn't care about renewing our youth,—indeed, we should have objected very much to anything of the kind,—and so we felt no interest in old Ponce's spring.

On Tuesday morning, the "Tigris" made her appearance on time, and Mr. Cholott and our good landlady came down to see us off. The yellow-legged party also came down, but not to see us off. They, too, were going to Nassau.

Rectus had gone on board, and I was just about to follow him, when our old Minorcan stepped up to me.

"Goin' away?" said he.

"Yes," said I, "we're off at last."

"Other feller goin'?"

"Oh, yes," I answered, "we keep together."

"Well now, look here," said he, drawing me a little on one side. "What made him take sich stock in us Minorcans? Why, he thought we used to be slaves; what put that in his head, I'd like to know? Did he reely think we ever was niggers?"

"Oh, no!" I exclaimed. "He had merely heard the early history of the Minorcans in this country, their troubles and all that, and he——"

"But what difference did it make to him?" interrupted the old man.

I couldn't just then explain the peculiarities of Rectus's disposition to Mr. Menendez, and so I answered that I supposed it was a sort of sympathy.

"I can't see, for the life of me," said the old man, reflectively, "what difference it made to him."

And he shook hands with me, and bade me good-bye. I don't believe he has ever found anybody who could give him the answer to this puzzle.

The trip over to Nassau was a very different thing from our voyage down the coast from New York to Savannah. The sea was comparatively smooth, and, although the vessel rolled a good deal in the great swells, we did not mind it much. The air was delightful, and after we had gone down the Florida coast, and had turned to cross the Gulf Stream to our islands, the weather became positively warm, even out here on the sea, and we were on deck nearly all the time.

Mr. Chipperton was in high spirits. He enjoyed the deep blue color of the sea; he went into ecstasies over the beautiful little nautiluses that sailed along by the ship; he watched with wild delight the porpoises that followed close by our side, and fairly shouted when a big fellow would spring into the air, or shoot along just under the surface, as if he had a steam-engine in his tail. But when he saw a school of flying-fish rise up out of the sea, just a little ahead of us, and go skimming along like birds, and then drop again into the water, he was so surprised and delighted that he scarcely knew how to express his feelings.

Of course, we younger people enjoyed all these things, but I was surprised to see that Corny was more quiet than usual, and spent a good deal of her time in reading, although she would spring up and run to the railing whenever her father announced some wonderful discovery. Mr. Chipperton would have been a splendid man for Columbus to have taken along with him on his first trip to these islands. He would have kept up the spirits of the sailors.

I asked Corny what she was reading, and she showed me her book. It was a big, fat pamphlet about the Bahamas, and she was studying up for her stay there. She was a queer girl. She had not been to school very much, her mother said, for they had been travelling about a good deal of late years; but she liked to study up special things, in which she took an interest. Sometimes she was her own teacher, and sometimes, if they staid in any one place long enough, she took regular lessons.

"I teach her as much as I can," said her mother, "although I would much rather have her go regularly to school. But her father is so fond of her that he will not have her away from him, and as Mr. Chipperton's lung requires him to be moving from place to place, we have to go, too. But I am determined that she shall go to a school next fall."

"What is the matter with Mr. Chipperton's lung?" I asked.

"I wish we knew," said Mrs. Chipperton, earnestly. "The doctors don't seem to be able to find out the exact trouble, and besides, it isn't certain which lung it is. But the only thing that can be done for it is to travel."

"He looks very well," said I.

"Oh, yes!" said she. "But"—and she looked around to see where he was—"he doesn't like people to tell him so."

After a while, Rectus got interested in Corny's book, and the two read a good deal together. I did not interrupt them, for I felt quite sure that neither of them knew too much.

The captain and all the officers on the steamer were good, sociable men, and made the passengers feel at home. I had got somewhat acquainted with them on our trip from Savannah to St. Augustine, and now the captain let me come into his room and showed me the ship's course, marked out on a chart, and pointed out just where we were, besides telling me a good many things about the islands and these waters.

I mentioned to Corny and Rectus, when I went aft again,—this was the second day out,—that we should see one end of the Great Bahama early in the afternoon.

"I'm glad of that," said Corny; "but I suppose we sha'n't go near enough for us to see its calcareous formation."

"Its what?" I exclaimed.

"Its cal-car-e-ous formation," repeated Corny, and she went on with her reading.

"Oh!" said I, laughing, "I guess the calcareous part is all covered up with grass and plants,—at least it ought to be in a semi-tropical country. But when we get to Nassau you can dig down and see what it's like."

"Semi-tropical!" exclaimed Mr. Chipperton, who just came up; "there is something about that word that puts me all in a glow," and he rubbed his hands as if he smelt dinner.

Each of us wore a gray bean. Rectus and I had ours fastened to our watch-guards, and Corny's hung to a string of beads she generally wore. We formed ourselves into a society—Corny suggested it—which we called the "Association of the Three Gray Beans," the object of which was to save each other from drowning, and to perform similar serviceable acts, if circumstances should call for them. We agreed to be very faithful, and, if Corny had tumbled overboard, I am sure that Rectus and I would have jumped in after her; but I am happy to say that she did nothing of the kind on this trip.

Early the next morning, we reached Nassau, the largest town in the Bahamas, on one of the smallest islands, and found it semi-tropical enough to suit even Mr. Chipperton.

Before we landed, we could see the white, shining streets and houses,—just as calcareous as they could be; the black negroes; the pea-green water in the harbor; the tall cocoa-nut trees, and about five million conch-shells, lying at the edges of the docks. The colored people here live pretty much on the conch-fish, and when we heard that, it accounted for the shells. The poorer people on these islands often go by the name of "conchs."

As we went up through the town we found that the darkeys were nearly as thick as the conch-shells, but they were much more lively. I never saw such jolly, dont-care-y people as the colored folks that were scattered about everywhere. Some of the young ones, as joyful skippers, could have tired out a shrimp.

There is one big hotel in the town, and pretty nearly all our passengers went there. The house is calcareous, and as solid as a rock. Rectus and I liked it very much, because it reminded us of pictures we had seen of Algiers, or Portugal, or some country where they have arches instead of doors; but Mr. Chipperton wasn't at all satisfied when he found that there was not a fireplace in the whole house.

"This is coming the semi-tropical a little too strong," he said to me; but he soon found, I think, that gathering around the hearth-stone could never become a popular amusement in this warm little town.

Every day, for a week, Mr. Chipperton hired a one-horse barouche, and he and his wife and daughter rode over the island. Rectus and I walked, and we saw a good deal more than they did. Corny told us this, the first walk she took with us. We went down a long, smooth, white road that led between the queer little cottages of the negroes, where the cocoa-nut and orange trees and the bananas and sappadilloes, and lots of other trees and bushes stood up around the houses just as proudly as if they were growing on ten-thousand-dollar lots. Some of these trees had the most calcareous foundations anybody ever saw. They grew almost out of the solid rock. This is probably one of the most economical places in the world for garden mould. You couldn't sweep up more than a bucketful out of a whole garden, and yet the things grow splendidly. Rectus said he supposed the air was earthy.

Corny enjoyed this walk, because we went right into the houses and talked to the people, and bought cocoa-nuts off the trees, and ate the inside custard with a spoon, and made the little codgers race for pennies, and tried all the different kinds of fruits. She said she would like to walk out with us always, but her mother said she must not be going about too much with boys.

"But there are no girls on the island," said she; "at least, no white ones,—as far as I have seen."

I suppose there were white children around, but they escaped notice in the vast majority of little nigs.

The day after this walk, the shorter "yellow-legs" asked me to go out fishing with him. He couldn't find anybody else, I suppose, for his friend didn't like fishing. Neither did Rectus; and so we went off together in a fishing-smack, with a fisherman to sail the boat and hammer conch for bait. We went outside of Hog Island,—which lies off Nassau, very much as Anastasia Island lies off St. Augustine, only it isn't a quarter as big,—and fished in the open sea. We caught a lot of curious fish, and the yellow-legs, whose name was Burgan, turned out to be a very good sort of a fellow. I shouldn't have supposed this of a man who had made such a guy of himself; but there are a great many different kinds of outsides to people.

When we got back to the hotel, along came Rectus and Corny. They had been out walking together, and looked hot.

"Oh," cried Corny, as soon as she saw me. "We have something to talk to you about! Let's go and sit down. I wish there was some kind of an umbrella or straw hat that people could wear under their chins to keep the glare of these white roads out of their eyes. Let's go up into the silk-cotton tree."

I proposed that I should go to my room and clean up a little first, but Corny couldn't wait. As her father had said, she wasn't good at waiting; and so we all went up into the silk-cotton tree. This was an enormous tree, with roots like the partitions between horse-stalls; it stood at the bottom of the hotel grounds, and had a large platform built up among the branches, with a flight of steps leading to it. There were seats up here, and room enough for a dozen people.

"Well," said I, when we were seated, "what have you to tell? Anything wonderful? If it isn't, you'd better let me tell you about my fish."

"Fish!" exclaimed Rectus, not very respectfully.

"Fish, indeed!" said Corny. "We have seen a queen!"

"Queen of what?" said I.

"Queen of Africa," replied Corny. "At least a part of it,—she would be, I mean, if she had stayed there. We went over that way, out to the very edge of the town, and there we found a whole colony of real native Africans,—just the kind Livingstone and Stanley discovered,—only they wear clothes like us."

"Oh, my!" exclaimed Rectus.

"I don't mean exactly that," said Corny; "but coats and trousers and frocks, awfully old and patched. And nearly all the grown-up people there were born in Africa, and rescued by an English man-of-war from a slave-ship that was taking them into slavery, and were brought here and set free. And here they are, and they talk their own language,—only some of them know English, for they've been here over thirty years,—and they all keep together, and have a governor of their own, with a flag-pole before his house, and among them is a real queen, of royal blood!"

"How did you find out that?" I asked.

"Oh, we heard about the African settlement this morning, at the hotel, and we went down there, right after dinner. We went into two or three of the houses and talked to the people, and they all told us the same thing, and one woman took us to see the queen."

"In her palace?" said I.

"No," said Corny, "she don't live in a palace. She lives in one of the funniest little huts you ever saw, with only two rooms. And it's too bad; they all know she's a queen, and yet they don't pay her one bit of honor. The African governor knows it, but he lives in his house with his flag-pole in front of it, and rules her people, while she sits on a stone in front of her door and sells red peppers and bits of sugar-cane."

"Shameful!" said I; "you don't mean that?"

"Yes, she does," put in Rectus. "We saw her, and bought some sugar-cane. She didn't think we knew her rank, for she put her things away when the women told her, in African, why we came to see her."

"What did she say to you?" I asked, beginning to be a good deal interested in this royal colored person.

"Nothing at all," said Corny; "she can't talk a word of English. If she could, she might get along better. I suppose her people want somebody over them who can talk English. And so they've just left her to sell peppers, and get along as well as she can."

"It's a good deal of a come-down, I must say," said I. "I wonder how she likes it?"

"Judging from her looks," said Rectus, "I don't believe she likes it at all."

"No, indeed!" added Corny. "She looks woe-begone, and I don't see why she shouldn't. To be taken captive with her people—may be she was trying to save them—and then to have them almost cut her acquaintance after they all get rescued and settled down!"

"Perhaps," said I, "as they are all living under Queen Victoria, they don't want any other queen."

"That's nothing," said Corny, quickly. "There's a governor of this whole island, and what do they want with another governor? If Queen Victoria and the governor of this island were Africans, of course they wouldn't want anybody else. But as it is, they do, don't you see?"