Families -- Juvenile fiction; New England -- Juvenile fiction
Dora laughed hard at Uncle Dan waving the fish and pretending to wipe his
eyes. Olive understood and laughed also, but Lucy and Mrs. Merrill didn’t
understand the joke at all.
Then the fishermen were told about the launch trip and Dora was rather
sorry they had to know that she did not enjoy it. But she felt comforted
when Father confided to her that he did not like the motion of the boat
himself.
“It was all right as long as we kept moving,” he said, “but when we
anchored to fish, I felt as though my dinner wasn’t to be depended upon.”
“I know just how you felt,” said Dora earnestly. “I grew so jiggly that
my stomach came up on top of me.”
And the very next day they had to go home. The truck was to come over
early in the afternoon and everything must be ready. Uncle Dan and Olive
were going back by trolley and they said they would take the children,
but Lucy and Dora decided to ride on the truck.
For that last dinner they had another chowder, because it was easy to
make and to heat when there was not a great deal of time for cooking.
And it was odd how easy the packing seemed. Scarcely five minutes were
needed to tuck into the suit-case the clothes it had taken so long to
choose. The cookies and cake and apples were all eaten.
Only, as Dora folded the last rug and looked around the empty tent,
ready now to be taken down, she thought of Arcturus and the tears came
to her eyes. She did not mean anybody to see them, because they had all
been so kind. Mother had not said one word about her being careless and
Lucy offered to give back the pink coral heart Dora had lent to her. But
when the tent was all pulled to pieces, the thought of her dear bear was
more than she could stand. Olive saw her wipe away a tear and put an arm
around her.
“I am so sorry, Dora,” she said. “Indeed, if I could, I would get you
another bear.”
“It wouldn’t be Arcturus,” choked Dora.
“No,” agreed Olive, “but it might be his twin brother. I don’t suppose it
would be possible to buy one in this country, and I shall never be lucky
enough to go to Switzerland. But I am _thinking_ you a little bear, Dora.
Can’t you feel him growing?”
Dora pretended she could, and when she came out of the tent, nobody could
have suspected any tears. But as they left White Beach, her last look was
not for the sea nor the sky nor the gulls, nor the goldenrod and asters
along the sandhills, but for the place where the tent had stood, and in
her heart she was hoping that Arcturus would be very happy in his new
life by the shore.
CHAPTER V
WHEN SCHOOL BEGINS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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