Chapter 8. The Mail

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_ CHAPTER VIII. THE MAIL

"STILL raining, Phil?" asked Mrs. Merryweather, looking up from her writing.

"Still, honored parent! or rather, to be exact, anything but still. Up on the hill, the wind is fierce. I had to ride round the blast once or twice, instead of going through it. Solid old wind, that!"

He threw off his dripping oilskin jacket, and came in, unslinging the letter-bag from his shoulder as he came.

"Letters! letters!" he cried. "Who wants letters?"

Every one gathered around him, holding out eager hands.

"One for me, Phil!"

"For me, Protector of the Poor!"

"Oh! please, Phil! I want three at least."

"If there is none for me, Fergy my boy, I shudder at the consequences for you!"

Phil distributed letters and papers; the family subsided on chairs and benches with their treasures, and for some minutes nothing was heard but the rustle of paper and the steady downpour of the rain.

"Oh!" cried Peggy, presently. "Oh--eee! splendid!"

"Sapolio!" exclaimed Gerald; and "Well! well!" said Mrs. Merryweather.

The three exclamations were simultaneous, and Bell, who had no letters, raised her hand with an imperative gesture. "Exclamation must be followed by explanation!" she said. "Law of the Medes and Persians. We shall be glad to hear from the exclaimers."

"Who? me? did I?" asked Peggy, looking up with sparkling eyes. "Semiramis has eight puppies. Think of it! eight whole puppies!"

"I never buy more than half a puppy at a time," said Gerald, "unless it is for a veal and ham pie."

"Gerald!"

"Well, it's a fact, Mater; I never do. What kind of puppies, thou of Limavaddy?"

"Gordon setters, black and tan: oh, she says they are perfect beauties. She says--this is Jean, you know, my sister--'they are all like Semmy except one, and he is _blue_.' Who ever heard of a blue puppy? You shall have one, Snowy: I promised you one, don't you remember? oh--eee! and the new colt is a perfect beauty too, and they have named her Peggy. Oh!"

Peggy looked down at her letter, then looked up again shyly. "I--don't suppose you would care to hear any of it?" she said, interrogatively.

"Indeed we should!" said Mrs. Merryweather, heartily. "We should like it extremely, Peggy. A letter from the Far West; why, it will be a journey for all of us."

"Great!" said Phil.

"Corking!" said Gerald. And one and all, in their several ways, expressed their desire to hear the letter.

Dimpling with pleasure, her rosy face beaming, Peggy began to read.

"'Dear old'--oh, well, I won't read just the beginning, because it is just the way we talk to each other, you know. I wish you knew Jean, Snowy. Let me see! oh, yes, here it is.

"'This is eight birthdays all at once, for what do you think, Peggy? this morning we missed Semmy at breakfast, and could not find her anywhere. There were kidneys, and you know she always finishes the dish off, because she is so fond of them. Well, and so I went to look for her, and she wasn't in her box, or in the shed, or behind the kitchen stove, or anywhere where she usually is. So I went out to the stable, and there I heard little squeaks and squeals, the funniest you ever heard, and then a growl in Semmy's voice as I opened the door. Then the dear thing heard my step, and was ashamed of growling, and began thumping her tail on the floor till I should have thought she would break it. And there she was, all cuddled down in a pile of hay, and the dear little darling things all cuddled round her. I never saw anything so perfectly dear! they were all blind, and bald all over, and pink, and squealing like anything; you never _did_ see anything so lovely in all your life, at least I never did. Well, she let me take them up, one by one, old darling, though I could see that it made her nervous. Most of them are like her, beautifully marked, with pink noses, and black ears, and just the right blackness and tanness on them; but one is very queer, great splotches of black on his nose and his hind quarters, and all the rest of him white. So they named him "Magpie," right off; but I haven't come to the names yet. He is not very pretty, but he looks _very_ bright, and I shouldn't wonder if he was terribly clever, to make up for not being so handsome as the others. And the other different one is a perfect beauty, though you may not think so when I tell you that he is _blue_. Yes, truly blue; of course I don't mean sky blue, nor navy, but the black is all mixed in through the white,--I can't explain to you just how it is--but anyhow, at a little distance, he does truly and honestly look blue. Well, so--I was the first to find them, so Father said I might name them, but of course I wanted us all to do it together; so we all thought, and each made a list. Oh, Peggy, we did want you; and I wanted to wait till you could send your list too, but the others thought you would not mind, and it is nicer to have them named quickly, because then their names seem to belong to them more, and they look like them. Perhaps, I mean, if you had been called something else till you were two or three years old, you might not have been so just exactly Peggy as you are, you dear old thing.'

"Perhaps I ought not to have read that," said Peggy, looking up with a blush; "but it is as like Jean as I am like Peggy, if I am like it, whatever it is."

"You certainly are like 'it,'" said Gertrude, laughing, "and 'it' certainly is a dear old thing. Go on, please. We are all longing to hear the list."

Peggy threw her a kiss, and went on.

"'I will not give you all the lists, for that would take up all the rest of my letter; but here is the one we finally made out. There are three females, and five males, you know: _Cleopatra_, _Meg_ (Merrilies; that was Flora's, because she is just reading "Guy Mannering"), _Diana_, _Guy_ (for the same reason), _Shot_, _Hector_, _Ajax_, and _Magpie_.'

"Well, I do think that is a queer list," Peggy concluded, folding up the letter. "I wish they had called one 'Gray Brother,' or 'Bagheera.'"

"But they are not wolves or panthers," objected Mr. Merryweather. "I should say that was a very fair list of names, Peggy, as names go. It is always hard to find a good name for a dog. 'Shot' is an excellent name. We had a good old dog named Shot, and I have always liked the name."

"Mammy," said Bell, "are we not to hear something from you?"

"From me, my dear?" repeated Mrs. Merryweather. "What would you like to hear?"

"I should think you were an amiable gramophone," replied her daughter, with affectionate disrespect. "And I _think_ you really know what I mean, madam, in spite of that innocent look. On reading your letters, you and Jerry exclaimed: 'Well, well!' and 'Sapolio!' at the same instant, and your letters are on the same kind of paper, I cannot help seeing that. Have you something to break to us? 'Sapolio' is a baleful utterance, delivered as Jerry delivered it just now."

"Gee! I should think it was!" muttered Gerald, gloomily. He had brightened up while Peggy was reading her letter, but now his usually bright face was clouded with unmistakable vexation.

"Oh!" said Mrs. Merryweather, with what seemed a rather elaborately cheerful expression. "My letter? It is from Cousin Anna Belleville. She tells me that Claud has been with her at Bar Harbor for some time, and that he is coming to visit us on his way back. He will be here some day next week, she thinks."

A certain pensiveness stole over the aspect of the Merryweathers. Bell and Gertrude exchanged a swift glance, but said nothing. Gerald whistled, "Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket!"

After a brief silence, Mr. Merryweather said, thoughtfully, "I was thinking of taking the boys off on a camping trip next week."

"You cannot, Miles," said his wife, quickly. "It is out of the question."

"Oh, certainly," said Mr. Merryweather. "I only--a--quite so!"

He relapsed into inarticulate murmurs over his pipe. Mrs. Merryweather, after a reproachful glance at him, turned to Gerald, as she folded her letter. "You have a letter from Claud, Gerald?" she asked, cheerfully.

"I have, madam," said Gerald, with a brow of thunder. "He informs me that he is looking forward with the greatest pleasure to roughing it a bit with us, and says that we must make no preparations, but let him take things just as they are. He's a Christian soul, that's what he is."

"What is to be the order of the evening?" asked Mrs. Merryweather, addressing Bell with a shade of warning in her voice. "Are we to have games, or boat-building?"

"Oh! boat-building! the regatta is to-morrow, and we are not half ready."

There was a general rush toward cupboards and lockers, and in an incredibly short space of time the whole room was a pleasant litter of chips, shingles, and brown paper. The rules for the regattas at Merryweather were few and simple. All boats must be built by their owners, unaided; no boat must be over a foot long from stem to stern; all sails must be of paper. Aside from these limitations, the fancies of the campers might roam at will; accordingly, the boats were of every shape and description, from Kitty's shingle, ballasted with pebbles, to Phil's elaborate catamaran. Peggy was struggling with a stout and somewhat "nubbly" piece of wood, which was slowly shaping itself under the vigorous strokes of her jack-knife.

"She's coming on!" Peggy declared, cheerfully. "She really begins to look quite like a boat now, doesn't she, Mr. Merryweather?"

"Certainly!" the Chief assented. "I don't see why she should not make a very good boat, Peggy. I would round off her stern a bit, if I were you. So! that's better."

"What is her name, Peggy?" inquired Mrs. Merryweather. "I must be entering the names in the Log."

"The _Lovely Peggy_, of course!" said Phil. "What else should it be?"

"It might be the _Limavaddy_!" said Gerald.

"Gerald, I _wish_ you would tell me what you mean by 'Limavaddy,'" said Peggy. "It sounds like--I don't know what; tea-caddy, or something like that. Mrs. Merryweather, won't you tell me what it means?"

"It is a compliment he is paying you, Peggy," said her hostess, smiling. "Peg of Limavaddy is the charming heroine of a charming ballad of Thackeray's.

"'This I do declare,
Happy is the laddy
Who the heart can share
Of Peg of Limavaddy.
Married if she were,
Blest would be the daddy
Of the children fair
Of Peg of Limavaddy.
Beauty is not rare
In the land of Paddy,
Fair beyond compare
Is Peg of Limavaddy.'

That is not one of the prettiest stanzas, but it shows you why Gerald has nicknamed you."

"I say with Captain Corcoran," Gerald observed, pausing in the critical adjustment of a sail:

"'Though I'm anything but clever,
I could talk like that forever.'

As thus!

"When she makes the tea,
Brews it from a caddy,
Who so blithe as she,
Peg of Limavaddy?

"See her o'er the stove,
Broiling of a haddie;
Thus she won my love,
Peg of Limavaddy.

"But building of a boat,
Her success is shady;
Bet you she won't float,
Peg of Limavaddy!"

"Wait till to-morrow," cried Peggy, laughing, "and you'll see whether she floats or not. And anyhow, she is my first boat. Isn't there a special class for beginners, Mr. Merryweather?"

"No, no! no fear or favor shown; the rigor of the game, little Peggy. Margaret, have you given up?"

"Oh, yes, please, Mr. Merryweather!" said Margaret, looking up from her knitting with a smile. "I could not; it simply was not possible. Gerald was positive at first that he could teach me, but after one lesson he was equally positive that he could not. I needed no conviction, because I knew I could not."

"Nobody can do absolutely everything," said Gerald, "except the Codger,--I allude to my revered uncle, Margaret,--and I have at times desired to drown him for that qualification. You shall be the starter, Margaret; you'll do that to perfection."

"What are the duties of a starter?" asked Margaret; "I shall be very glad to do anything I really can."

"To sit still and look pretty!" said Gerald, demurely. "I _think_ you can manage it."

"Have I the full list?" asked Mrs. Merryweather. "I'll read it aloud.

"The _Principal Whale_,--Papa."

"I wish you would not call my father names!" murmured Gerald.

"Jerry, do be still!

"The _Tintinnabula_, Bell.

"The _Jollycumpop_, Gertrude.

"The _Come-at-a-Body_, Gerald.

"The _Molasses Cooky_, Phil.

"The _Polly Cologne_, Kitty.

"The _Whopper_, Willy."

"Is that all?"

"All but Peggy's," said Gertrude. "Peggy, you must decide on the name of your boat."

"Oh! Gertrude, that is the hardest part of all. Margaret, you must name her for me."

"Why not _Semiramis_, after the happy mother of the puppies?" suggested Margaret.

"The whole puppies!" echoed Gerald. "Don't half name them, Margaret!"

"Why isn't that the name for the boat?" cried Phil.

"It is! it is!" cried all the rest. "The _Whole Puppy_, it is!" And Peggy laughing, submitted.

"I never _was_ so teased in all my life!" she said; "but I feel it doing me good."

"That is our one object, my charming child!" said Gerald, gravely. "We invited you here in the hope that our united efforts might counteract the pernicious influences of Fernley House."

"Nobody will ever explain to me what a Come-at-a-Body is!" said Margaret. "Whenever I ask, you all say, 'Oh, hush! it might come!' Mrs. Merryweather, won't you tell me?"

"I will read you the description of it in the Log," said Mrs. Merryweather, smiling; "that is the best I can do for you."

She turned over the pages of the book that lay open in her lap. "Here it is!" she said. "Now mark and learn, Margaret.

"'The Come-at-a-Body is found only in its native habitat, where it may be observed at the proper season, indulging in the peculiar actions that characterize it. It has more arms than legs, and more hair than either. It moves with great rapidity, its gait being something between a wallop and a waddle; and as it comes (one of its peculiarities is that it always comes, and never goes), it utters loud screams, and gnashes its teeth in time with its movements.'

"Now, my dear, you know all that I do!" Mrs. Merryweather concluded with a candid smile.

"Thank you so much!" said Margaret, laughing. "I am certainly enlightened."

At this moment Phil, who was sitting near the door, laid down his work, and held up a warning hand. "Hark!" he said. "What is that?"

"Only the wind!" said some one.

"Or the car rattling o'er the stony street!" said another.

"No!" said Phil. "I heard a voice, I am sure. Listen!"

All were silent. Outside the rain was pouring, the wind wailing in long sighing gusts; but--yes! mingling with the wind, a voice was certainly calling:

"Hallo! hallo, there! Merryweather!"

Gerald sprang to his feet, and struck his twin brother on the shoulder. "The Philistines are upon thee, Samson!" he cried. "I should know that voice in the shock of spears: it is Claud Belleville!" _

Read next: Chapter 9. Mr. Belleville

Read previous: Chapter 7. Water Play

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