St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 13, May 1886, No. 7.: An Illustrated Magazine for Young FolksVarious
General
St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 13, May 1886, No. 7.: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks
Various
Children's literature -- Periodicals; Children's periodicals, American
"Curtin Harbor!" exclaims the farmer, with his eyes still full of mute
amazement. "No, it's not. 'T any rate not the direct one. If you've come
over from Harwich, you've gone two miles out of yer way. You should have
taken the other road, back there by the old school-house."
"Dar's whar I missed it!" cries Joe, slapping his knee. "I was suah I
did sumfin' wrong somewhar, but I couldn't locate it, to save me! I'se
much obliged."
"You can cut across to the main road by crossing my field yonder and
going up by the house just beyond----"
"Hi, den dere is a house over yar!" says Joe.
"Why, certainly," says the farmer, "not more than forty rods from here."
And when Joe finds how very near he has been to a comfortable farmhouse
he says he feels "like kickin' hisself."
"But," says the visitor, still eying the camp. "How did it all happen.
Are you traveling on foot?"
"No, sar; on tricycles," explains Joe, proudly; "we are de Girls'
Tricycle Club, all de way from Sherridoc, wid Mas'r Starrett an' me
along to look arter 'em and see 'em safe down to Curtin Harbor. We los'
de track back yondah, an' de young gemman an' I jes' rig up dis tent for
to keep the young ladies dry an' gib 'em a chance to rest till de shower
was ober."
The farmer's surprise grows to interest.
"And so this is a tricycle," he says. "And did the young ladies ride
those things all the way from Sherridoc?"
"All de way, sar," answers Joe, proudly, "'cept when we wus stuck in de
Sandywiches and had to be carted froo wid a team."
After the good man's curiosity has been satisfied, and Starrett has
summoned the girls to appear, the worthy farmer strolls off after his
lost cow, first inviting the club to the farm to another supper. One by
one, the girls emerge from their camp, but when they hear how near to a
house they have been during the rain, great is the laughter.
"I don't care, though," cries Cornelia Hadwin; "we've really had a sort
of a camping-out time, and I'm glad of it."
After hearing Joe's report, the club determines to push on at once to
Curtin Harbor in the early evening, without accepting the hospitable
invitation to supper at the farmhouse.
The two miles to the main road are quickly traversed, and before long
the club wheels around a long curve in the road, and the blue expanse of
Curtin Harbor lies beneath them. The clouds are gone by this time; the
rising moon shoots slantwise through a few thin, dissolving folds, and
brings out ripples of gold and silver on the long seas. There seems to
be a breeze that stirs the water to darker ruffles beyond the head-land,
but where the young folk sit on their tricycles, enjoying the beauty of
the scene and the salty damp of the evening air, not a blade of the
coarse, silvery beach-grass stirs; every spire and blade stands in
sheeny silver in the mellow light.
Below the beach-road branches off a long winding descent to the quiet
cottages which lie in the evening glow, seemingly fast asleep.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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