Three Little Cousins

"But when is she coming?" asked Molly.

"In about a week I should judge."

"Oh, we will be gone then," said Molly, turning to Polly. She hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry of the fact.

"I am glad I determined to wait a little later before going away with your father," continued Mrs. Shelton, "for now I shall be here to receive Arthur and Mary, and can bring Mary up with me on the way to Rangeley. Aunt Ada will be perfectly delighted to know she is to have a visit from Mary, for she has asked so many times that her parents would lend her for a summer."

"It will be just lovely to expect her," said Molly hospitably. "I do hope we shall like her, mother, and that she will be as easy to get acquainted with as Polly is. I feel as if I had always known Polly; she is just like a sister."

"I fancy you will find Mary somewhat different from Polly," said Mrs. Shelton, remembering her sister-in-law's exact little ways, and thinking of Polly's unfettered life on the ranch. "However, I am sure she is a dear child and that we shall love her very dearly."

"I wish she had been here to see the Garden of Verses and our costumes," said Polly, who was quite carried away by the morning's performance.

"Oh, I suppose she sees much finer things in England," said Molly. "I suppose she dresses much finer, too, than we do. Why, there are kings and queens and princesses over there, and they wear ermine and crowns and tiaras."

"I haven't the least idea what a tiara is," said Polly.

"I don't know exactly myself," acknowledged Molly, "but I know it is something you wear on your head and it is studded with diamonds or some kind of precious stones."

"Maybe it is some kind of hat," ventured Polly.

Molly wasn't quite sure, but she wondered if Mary would have one. "At least she can tell us what it is like," she remarked to Polly.

Mrs. Shelton had hurried from the room to tell the news to her brother and the little girls were left in the library alone. Molly was thinking very seriously. Presently she said: "Polly Perrine, if you will never, never tell any one, I'll tell you something. Cross your heart you won't tell."

Polly promptly crossed her heart. "I won't tell," she assured her cousin.

"Then," said Molly looking furtively around, "I am not sure I am glad Mary is coming."

"Oh, why not?" asked Polly, looking the least bit shocked.

"Why, she may be prim and fusty and spoil our plays. I notice often that two girls can play together beautifully, but when a third one comes she is sure to want to do something that one of the others doesn't like and either breaks up the play or gets mad and goes off making you feel sort of hurt and queer inside. You know it is hard to please everybody and the more people you have to please the harder it is."

Polly pondered upon this philosophy of her cousin's. "Well," she said finally, "perhaps if she doesn't like to play our way, she can find some one else to play with."

"Of course she can. I never thought of that," said Molly in a relieved tone. "I remember now before I knew you were coming mother told me that Mrs. Wharton was going to have her granddaughter with her this summer, and I was very glad because the Mowbrays have gone abroad, and I expected to have them to play with. Now we can pair off; you and I can go together and Mary can go with Grace Wharton. I don't suppose," she added after a minute, "that it would be quite polite always to have it that way, for Mary is our own cousin and we can't shove her off on a stranger."

"Maybe we shall not want to," said Polly. "If she is real nice, Molly, we won't mind taking turns, or we can all three play together when the Wharton girl isn't there."

"But don't you ever, ever tell that I said I wasn't sure of wanting Mary," said Molly impressively.

Polly promised, and just then they were called to luncheon and went down-stairs with their arms around each other.

CHAPTER III

Mary

A week later the family was settled for the summer in Miss Ada Reid's cottage by the sea. In front of them was a stretch of green; beyond were the jagged rocks, and then came the ocean. The landing was some distance from the cottage and was upon the bay side of the peninsula, so, although Polly had caught glimpses of the sea during her journey, she did not have a clear view of the wide expanse until they had nearly reached the house and the great blue ocean spread out before her. Then she danced up and down with sheer joy.

"It is just as big and just as blue as I thought," she cried. "Oh, I am so happy! I am so happy!"

Molly was delighted at Polly's enthusiasm, for she, too, loved the sea and the rocks and the wide stretches of grassy hummocks. "There is the cottage," she told her cousin; "the one peeping over that little hill. It looks just like a brownie, doesn't it, with its surprised window-eyes? I always call the cottage 'The Brownie,' and Aunt Ada says it is a very good name for it, because it is a sort of brown."

"I should call it gray," said Polly.

"It is really gray, but it is a sort of brownish gray, and anyhow I like the name of Brownie for it. There is Aunt Ada on the porch watching for us."

Miss Reid came running out to meet them. She gave Molly a hug and a kiss and then turned to her other niece. "And this is our Polly, isn't it?" she said. "Bless the dear; I am so glad to see her. Come along in all of you; I know you are as hungry as hunters and I have dinner all waiting."

"Oh, Aunt Ada, is there to be baked mackerel?" asked Molly.

"Yes, and lobster salad, too."

"Are the wild roses in bloom yet, and are the wild strawberries ripe?" queried Molly.

"The strawberries are trying to get ripe, but I haven't seen a single wild rose yet. Come right in; I know by Dick's eager look that he is ready for my baked mackerel. I have Luella Barnes to help me this year," she whispered, "and she has a big white satin bow in her hair because we have a young man as guest." She laughed mirthfully and Polly thought the way her eyes squeezed up was perfectly fascinating. Her Aunt Ada had visited Colorado when Polly was a baby, but, of course, Polly did not remember it, nor would her aunt have recognized her baby niece in the little rosy-cheeked girl before her.

"This is something like our house," said Polly, looking around with a pleased expression at the unplastered room with its simple furnishings.

"Then you will feel at home," said her aunt. "Take off your hats, girlies, while I see to dinner, for you know the necessity, Molly, of looking after things yourself up this way."

Just here Luella appeared. She was a tall, angular young woman with a mass of fair hair, very blue eyes and a tiny waist. The white satin bow was conspicuous, and as she caught sight of Dick Reid she simpered and giggled in what the little girls thought a very silly way since it displayed Luella's bad teeth to which she evidently never gave the least attention. However, they all soon forgot everything but satisfying their appetites with the baked mackerel, deliciously fresh, the roasted potatoes, young peas and lobster salad.

"These taste so different from canned things," said Polly, passing up her plate for a second helping of lobster.

Luella reached out a bony arm and took the plate. "I'm glad to see you can eat hearty," she remarked. "Give her a real good help, Mr. Reid."

Molly giggled, though she knew the ways of the "hired help" her aunt employed in the summer. Aunt Ada gave her a warning look, for the natives were quick to take offense and Miss Ada had no wish to be left with no one in the kitchen. "And when is Mary coming?" she asked.

"Oh, we don't know exactly," Molly told her. "Mother will bring her up when she and papa go to Rangeley. Mother thought it would be in about a week. What will you do with three little girls to look after, Aunt Ada?"

"Oh, I expect them to look after me," returned Miss Ada.

"And if they don't do that properly, or if they get obstreperous," put in Uncle Dick, "it is the easiest thing in the world to throw them overboard. I'll do it for you, Ada; the rocks are very handy, and it will not be much of a job."

Polly made a face at him. "I know how much you'll throw us over," she said. "You'd better not try it with me, you sinful evil-doer."

"You see what is before you, Ada," said Dick. "You'll rue the day you consented to have three nieces with you for a whole summer; yet," he shook his head and said darkly, "I know what can be done if worse comes to worst."

"What then, Mr. Dicky-Picky?" said Polly.

"That's for me to know and for you to find out," he replied.

"My, ain't she sassy?" said Luella in a loud whisper to Miss Ada, "but then he ain't no more'n a boy the way he talks."

This was too much for Dick who could not keep his face straight as he rose from the table quickly. "Who's for the rocks, the cove or the woods?" he asked.

"The rocks, the rocks, first," cried both little girls.

"I want to show Polly the dear little pools where the star-fish are, and the cave under the rocks where we found the sea-urchins and where those queer bluey, diamondy shining things are," said Molly.

Polly squeezed her hand. "Oh, I'm so excited," she said. "I have been just wild to see all those things."

"You shall see them in short order," her uncle told her. "We keep our aquarium in the front garden."

"Where is the garden?" asked Polly innocently.

Her uncle laughed as he led the way over the hummocks down the rugged path to the rocks. Here they clambered over crags and barnacled boulders till they came to a quiet pool reflecting the blue of the sky. Its sides were fringed with floating sea-weeds and it was peopled by many sorts of strange creatures which thrived upon the supplies brought in by the ocean with its tides. A green crab scuttled out of sight under some pebbles; a purple star-fish crept softly from behind a bunch of waving crimson weeds; a sea-anemone opened and shut its living petals; by peering under the shelving rock one could see the dainty shell of a sea-urchin.

Polly gazed astonished at the pool's wonders. "It is like fairy-land," she whispered. "I never saw anything so beautiful. Can we come here every day and will the little pools with these queer creatures always be just this way?"

"We can always come at low tide," Molly told her.

"Then I'll always come down here at this time every day."

"But it will not be low tide always at this time," said Molly.

"Oh, won't it?" returned inland little Polly, quite taken aback. "Why won't it?"

Then her uncle told her how the coming in of the tide changes just as the rising of the moon does, and that one must know the difference in time to be sure. Then he went on to explain something about the small creatures which inhabited the pools, the barnacles which covered the rocks up to a certain point.

"Why don't the barnacles go any higher?" asked Polly. "I should think they would grow and grow just like grass does over bare places in the ground.

"They extend only to high water-mark," her uncle told her, "for you see they are fed by the ocean. If you will watch closely, you can see them open and close as the waves come and go."

"Isn't it wonderful?" said Polly in an awe-struck voice.

"I like it best when the tide is up," remarked Molly, "for I don't think all that dark sea-weed that covers the rocks is very pretty."

Polly looked down at the long ropes of seaweed which clung to the craggy places beneath them. "It makes the rocks look just like buffaloes or some strange kind of animals," she said. "I shall call that Buffalo Rock, and that other the Lion's Den, for it looks like a lion lying down."

"There is a dear place further down," said Molly. "It is sheltered from the wind and we have tea there sometimes. There is a cunning fireplace that Uncle Dick built there last year. I wonder if it is still standing. Let's go and see."

They followed the shore a little further and found a flat rock not far below the top of the bluff. The fireplace was nearly as they had left it, and only required a few stones to make it as good as new. Molly viewed it with a satisfied air as her uncle topped it with a final stone. "There," she exclaimed, "it is ready for our first afternoon tea! We'll toast marshmallows, too, as soon as we can get some at the store."

"Why can't we get them to-day?" asked Polly who did not want to put off such a pleasure.

"Because Mr. Hobbs never has any before the Fourth of July. He always gets in his good things then, but never a day sooner or later. I know him of old," said Dick.

"By that time Mary will be here," said Molly thoughtfully, "and we can have our first tea-party in her honor."

"Yes, and she can help us make our Fourth," said Uncle Dick, laughing. "She has never known our great and glorious Fourth over there in England."

"Of course not," said Polly. "I forgot she was a wicked Britisher."

"Not very wicked," said Uncle Dick.

"But we must never let her think we have any grudge against her because we were the ones that won the Revolution," said Molly. "It wouldn't be polite to pick at her because she isn't an American. Do you suppose she will be very snippy, Polly? and will be disagreeable and run down America?"

"Oh, my, I hope not; I'd hate her to be that way," returned Polly alarmed at such a prospect. "It would be dreadful for us to be quarreling all the time and of course we couldn't keep still if she runs down our country. What shall we do if she does?"

"Send her to me," said Uncle Dick.

This settled the matter and was a relief to both little girls, who considered that what Uncle Dick didn't know was not worth knowing, besides he had a smiling way of putting down persons who bragged too much, as the cousins well knew.

"I am just crazy to see her, and yet somehow I dread it," Polly told Molly.

Molly confessed to much the same feeling and declared that she would be glad when the first meeting was over and they were all acquainted. Then she undertook to show Polly more of her favorite haunts and it was suppertime before they had begun to see all they wished to.

The next week Mary arrived with Mrs. Shelton who remained but a short time before she resumed her journey. Mary was a slim, pale, plainly-dressed little girl who looked not at all as her cousins imagined. She did not seem shy but she had little to say at first, sitting by herself in a corner of the porch as soon as dinner was over and answering only such questions as were put to her.

"Did you have a pleasant trip?" asked Molly by way of beginning the acquaintance.

"No," returned Mary. "Fancy being seasick nearly all the way."

"Oh, were you? Wasn't that disagreeable?"

"Most disagreeable," returned Mary.

There was silence for a few minutes and then Mary put her first question: "Do you always eat your meals with your parents, or only when you are at a curious place like this?"

"Why, we always do," Polly answered. "Where would you expect us to eat them? In the kitchen?"

"No," returned Mary; "in the nursery."

"There is no nursery here, you know," Molly informed her.

"Yes, I know; that is why I asked. But in the city, or in your own home you have a nursery?"

"Yes, we have," Polly told her, "but we don't eat there."

"Really?" Mary looked much surprised. "And do you come to the table with the grown persons?"

"Why, certainly."

"How curious!"

Polly looked at Molly. "Don't you ever go to the table with your parents?" asked Polly.

"Sometimes we go for dessert."

"Well," returned Polly, "if I couldn't stay all the time, I must say I'd like better to come in for dessert than just for soup."

Mary looked serious, but Molly laughed. "Don't you want to go down on the rocks with us?" asked the latter.

"I think I would prefer to sit here," said Mary.

"All by yourself?" said Molly, surprised.

"Oh, yes, I like to be alone."

This was too decided a hint for the others not to take, so they marched off together. "Well," said Polly when they were out of hearing, "I don't think much of her manners, and I don't think I shall trouble her much with my company. She likes to be alone; well, she will be, as far as I am concerned."

"Oh, she feels strange at first," said Molly by way of excusing her English cousin. "After while she will be more 'folksy,' as Luella says."

"Well then, when she wants to come with us she can say so. I shall not ask her, I know. She is just like what I was afraid she would be stand-offish and airish. She reminds me of 'the cat that walks by herself.' I was always afraid the girls I might meet would be that way."

At this Molly looked quite hurt.

"Oh, I don't mean you," Polly went on, putting her arm around her cousin to reassure her. "You are just dear, Molly. I loved you right away."

Molly's hurt feelings disappeared at this. "I am sure," she remarked, "Mary needn't be so high and mighty; she hasn't half as pretty clothes as we have."

"And she doesn't look nice in those she does have," returned Polly.

From this the two went on from one criticism to another till finally they worked themselves up into quite hard feelings against Mary, and resolved to let her quite alone and not invite her to join their plays. This plan they began to carry out the next day to such a marked extent that their Aunt Ada noticed it.

"I did suppose Molly and Polly would want to show more hospitality to their little English cousin," she said to her brother.

Dick smiled. "They will in time," he said. "A dose of their own medicine might do them good."

"Perhaps Mary has really said something to offend them," said Miss Ada thoughtfully, "or possibly they misunderstand each other's ways. I will watch them for a day or two and try to discover what is wrong." She kept Mary at her side after this, and when she was not doing something to entertain her, Dick was, till both Molly and Polly began to add jealous pangs to their other grievances, yet they would only sidle up to their aunt and uncle or would sit near enough to hear what was said without joining in the conversation.

"They are jealous; that's what it is, poor dears," said their aunt to herself. "I must gather them all together in some way." So the next evening when she and Mary were established in a cozy corner by the open fire, she called the other two little girls, "come here, lassies. Mary has been telling me some very interesting things about England. Don't you want to hear them, too?"

Molly and Polly came nearer and sat on the edge of the wood-box together.

"Now," said Miss Ada, "I think it would be a good way to pass the time if each were to tell her most exciting experience. Mary can tell of something that happened to her in England; Polly can give us some experience of hers in Colorado, and Molly can choose her own locality. Molly, you are the eldest by a month or two, you can begin."

Molly was silent for a few minutes and then she began. "My most exciting time was last fall when we were going home from here. We took the early boat, you remember, Aunt Ada, and the sea was very rough. We were about half way to the city when a tremendous wave rushed toward us and we were all thrown down on deck. I went banging against the rail, but Uncle Dick caught me, though he said if the rail hadn't been strong we all might have been washed off into the sea. It was two or three minutes before we could get to our feet and I was awfully scared; so was everybody."

"It was not rough at all when we came down here from the city," remarked Mary.

"It is usually very smooth," said Miss Ada, "but the time of which Molly speaks it was unusually rough and we all had reason to be terrified. Now your tale, Polly."

Polly sat looking into the fire for a moment before she said, "I think the time I was most scared was once when Uncle Dick and I were riding home on our ponies. It was most dark and the sun was dropping behind the mountains; it always seems lonely and solemn then anyhow. I wasn't riding my own pony that day for he had hurt his foot, so I had Buster, Ted's broncho: I'd often been on him before and I wasn't a bit afraid to ride him. Well, we were coming along pretty fast because it was getting so late and we were a good distance from home. Of course there were no houses nearer than ours, and that was three miles away. I was a little ahead when a jack-rabbit jumped up right before Buster's nose and he lit out and ran for all he was worth. I held on tight, but he kept running and pretty soon I saw we were making toward a bunch of cattle. Buster used to be a cattle pony and I thought: suppose that bunch should stampede and I should get into the thick of them. I was always more scared of a stampede than anything else. Well, the cattle did begin to run but I jerked at Buster's bridle and managed to work him little by little away from the cattle, but he never stopped running till we got home and then I just tumbled off on the ground, somehow, and sat there crying till Uncle Dick came up. He had no idea that Buster was doing anything I didn't want him to, but just thought I was going fast for a joke and because I wanted to get home."

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