PS SHIP SOPHIE, S^WE^TT 0(avn sn Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924012038141 Cornell University Library PS 2964.S77W8 The Wonder-ship 3 1924 012 038 141 THE GOLDEN HOUR SERIES A new series of books for youT^g people^ bound in extra cloth, with illuminated designs, illustrations, and title-pages made especially for each volume A LITTLE DUSKY HERO. By Harriet T. Comstock. THE CAXTON CLUB. By Amos R. Wells. THE CHILD AND THE TREE. By Bessie Kenyon Ulrich. DAISIES AND DIGGLESES. By Evelyn Raymond. HOW THE TWINS CAPTURED A HESSIAN. By James Otis. THE I CAN SCHOOL. By Eva A. Madden. MASTER FRISKY. By Clarence W. Hawkes. MISS DE PEYSTERS BOY. By Etheldred B. Barry. MOLLY. By Barbara Yechton. THE WONDER SHIP. By Sophie SwBTT. WHISPERING TONGUES. By Homer Greene. PRICE PER VOLUME, NET, 50 CENTS THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. NEW YORK HOSAY BROUGHT THE BEAR AND MADE HIM DANCE. The Wonder-Ship gf/ Sophie Swetr ' 'Author of "Caprain Polly"" Neu/ i/ork Thomas y. Crow el I 2? Company Publishers Copyright, 1902, By Thomas Y. Crowell & Company. CONTENTS Chapter. Page. I. The Beak-Boy 1 II. To Dobt's Wharf 8 III. The Wonder Ship Sails .... 15 IV. The Captain 21 V. A Present from the Captain . . 29 VI. The Man-Eating Shark .... 38 VII. Jo's Night Watch 43 VIII. Betty's Transformation .... 51 IX. The Show on the Wonder Ship . 55 X. Betty makes Strange Acquaint- ances 62 XI. All for Clarabella's Sake , . . 69 XII. Back to Bunchberry Corner . . 77 (iii) THE WONDER SHIP. I. THE BEAR-BOY. " No, it is n't a circus — it 's something a good deal better than a circus," said the bear- boy. Betty looked across at Jo to see whether he believed that. Jo and Betty were sitting on the stone wall when the bear-boy came along the road, and their hearts had beat fast when he stopped and spoke to them. When they first saw him coming over the top of the hill they knew him, and they had hoped, for one exciting moment, that he had the bear with him, as he had on the day when he passed through Bunchberry Corner. Still, it was very delightful and wonderful even to have him come along on their road, and to have him stop to speak to them, and to look at him. 2 THE WONDER SHIP. He was a tall boy with a very dark face and a broad row of flashing white teeth, and looked very pleasant when he smiled, and was dressed in a red jacket and yellow corduroy trousers, and wore earrings, — large hoops of gold, ■ — and a red feather at one side of his cap ; and he carried a little yellow-tasseled whip which he cracked in a way that made Betty jump. You can see that he did n't look in the least like any boy that you ever saw, and that he was quite worth looking at. " Hello ! " he had said, in as friendly a manner as if he were only an ordinary boy; and then he had lingered, cracking his whip, and Jo had felt the courage to inquire where the bear was. " Why, on board the Ship, of course, down at the Port," the bear-boy had said. " Have n't you been down to the Wonder Ship?" he added with great surprise. " Shells ! — every kind in the world — a baby seal, a man-eating shark, a pair of monkeys, — cute ones, — ■ and the bear ! " " Is it a circus ? " Betty had asked with breath- less eagerness ; and when the bear-boy had re- plied that it was better than a circus she could n't quite believe it. THE BEAR-BOY. 3 " Have n't you been ? " repeated the bear-boy, turning to Jo. " It 's only two miles ! " Jo's cheeks grew red with mortification. He had n't even heard of the Wonder Ship ; he never had known where the bear came from, although, as the bear-boy had said, the Port was only two miles from the Corner. " You see we live with Grandpa and Grandma," he explained, " and they are kind of old, and there are an awful sight of things they think we must n't " — " You must n't say ' awful sight,' " said Betty, severely, remembering what Grandma had taught her, even in the excitement of the bear-boy's society. " A great many things they think we " — and then Jo drew himself up in sudden defiance. " I will say what I like when I 'm talking to a boy, so long as 't is n't wicked words ! So now, Betty Pritchard, you just keep still! 'Most everything that is interesting Grandpa and Grandma think boys and girls ought not to do, especially when they 're small, — and they think we 're small ! " he added in an injured tone. The bear-boy looked at both Jo and Betty for a minute as if he had n't seen them before, and 4 THE WONDER SHIP. then he cracked his whip like a Fourth-of-July explosion. Jo thought it sounded as if he thought they were small, and he hastened to say, " I 'm three years older than she is ; I 'm eleven." "You're small of your age. You and she look like twins," said the bear-boy, candidly; and Jo felt as though he did n't like the bear- boy so well after all. Though Betty, who was only eight, was really an inch taller than he, Jo had always thought it was n't fair that she should be. " But of course you may take a start," added the bear-boy, consolingly. " I was small of my age when I was a youngster, and I took a start." " How did you do it ? " asked Jo, eagerly. Jo's private marks on the wood-shed door would not prove that he had grown more than an inch in the last year. " Oh, I went round and saw the world. If you only stay at home and go to school, of course you won't take a start," answered the bear-boy, nodding his head wisely at Jo. " We don't even go to school," said poor Jo. THE BEAR-BOY. 5 " Miss Simpkins, the minister's daughter, teaches us." "We might learn wicked words from bad children at school," explained Betty. The bear- boy looked at her, cracking his whip with louder explosions than ever, whistling a sharp note to each crack. " Well it is n't much fun to go to school ; I would n't cry about that if I were you," he said. " But really you 'd better come down to the Wonder Ship. She 's at Doby's wharf. You may ask for me ; see, this is my name." He drew a card from his pocket — a card with gilt edges and a flower in one corner. " J-o-s-e, Hosay," he spelled and pronounced. "You just ask for Hosay and they '11 know you 're friends of mine. I '11 let you shake hands with the bear." The two small figures sat motionless upon the stone wall while the bear-boy walked on and the resounding cracks of his whip came back to them through the noonday stillness. " J-o-s-e, Hosay," spelled Betty, slowly ; " that is worse than any spelling that Miss Simpkins teaches. Once when I was little I spelled f-o-x, 6 THE WONDER SHIP. wolf, and Miss Simpkins laughed ; but it was n't queerer than J-o-s-e, Hosay." " Pooh ! Miss Simpkins only knows Bunch- berry Corner spelling ; this other is the way people spell when they've been 'round in the world and seen things," said Jo. " Jo," said Betty suddenly, and with a little quiver in her voice, " should' you durst to shake hands with the bear ? " " Yes ; and I 'm going to," said Jo. " I 'm going down to the Wonder Ship." " Grandpa and Grandma won't let you," said Betty, shaking her head. " Just as soon as I 've eaten my dinner I 'm going," continued Jo as if he had n't heard her. " And, Betty, if you want to you may go too." Betty gasped as if she had suddenly lost her breath. Jo and she had never in their lives done anything without leave. " I do think I ought to go somewhere," she said, slowly. " Mary Ellen Beggs has been to the circus, and to the missionary meeting, and to the cattle-show. It might make me take a start." A horn tooted suddenly from the great white THE BEAR-BOY. 1 farmhouse on the hill and they both jumped down from the stone wall as if they had been found out. "It's Clarabella blowing the horn for dinner. How red in the face you are ! " said Betty. " So are you ! Now don't you go and be a silly, and let things out ! If you say one word ' that makes anybody get to looking at us I won't take you ! "' THE WONDER SHIP. II. TO dobt's wharf. As they walked up the hill Jo picked grass blades and blew shrill whistles, as if he had a mind at ease. But just before they reached the gate he stopped suddenly. " Have you any money?" he asked. Jo was always a little apt to be short of money, and since they had begun to keep tops and harmonicas at the village store, to say nothing of peppermint jaw-breakers, he was generally in money troubles. Betty had some — not a great deal — about forty cents. " But probably the bear-boy will let us in," she said hopefully. "He said we were his friends." " When people say you 're their friends it does n't always mean that they '11 let you in for nothing," said Jo, with an air of worldly ex- perience. " Can I go to the Port in my gingham TO DOBY'S WHARF. 9 apron ? " asked Betty. " Oh, I wish I could wear my best hat with the tall feather ! " " There ! if you 're going to be so silly as that, you better not think of going ; girls spoil every- thing, fussing about their clothes ! " said Jo, roughly. Betty bore this rebuke meekly, but she could n't get her best hat with the tall feather out of her mind. To go to the Port in her every-day hat seemed queer and improper — and certainly one would wish to have her best hat on when one went forward before people and shook hands with the bear. At dinner Betty ate so little that Grandma was worried about her and said she must have some thoroughwort tea. She blushed guiltily, and a lump came into her throat as Grandma's kind, anxious eyes searched her face ; Grandma was so dear and gentle that it seemed doubly wicked to disobey her and deceive her. But Jo ate a good hearty dinner, and had two pieces of- strawberry shortcake for dessert ; he explained to Betty afterwards that this was because a boy had a firmer mind than a girl. They went off in the direction of the grove 10 THE WONDER SHIP. not long after dinner ; from the grove one could go through the field of tall com into the road without being seen. Grandma stood watching them from the win- dow. She said to Grandpa that she was glad Betty was going to have a change of air soon ; she almost wished she had told the children at dinner that they were to go with her to Aunt Eunice's, at the sea-shore, next Monday, and let them enjoy it in anticipation. When they were almost 4own to the grove Betty heard a voice calling her, though she pre- tended not to hear it : " Elizabeth Augusta Pritchard, come back and get your sack ! " It was Clarabella, the hired girl, calling from the back-door. Clarabella was very kind, and Betty was fond of her. She never forgot at the Saturday baking to make a doughnut boy and an apple turnover for Betty, and she knew five different kinds of molasses candy. Still, when she had a touch of neuralgia, as she often had, she called Betty by her full name. Betty didn't even look back. There was a reason why it was inconvenient for her to return TO DOBY'S WHARF. 11 and get her sack. She had gone up-stairs after dinner and made a little private visit to the spare chamber and mounted a chair in the closet and pulled down, by its string, the large blue box that held her best hat. At this very moment the hat was tucked away, tall feather and all, under her apron, and it was not safe even to turn around. Jo made unpleasant remarks while they stopped, out of sight, in the grove and Betty put on the best hat. But when she hung the every-day one on a tree he said that would be a good way to keep Dandy from following them. Dandy was a black-and-tan terrier, so excit- able that his company manners were not always agreeable, and it was very doubtful how he would get along with a bear. But he was al- ways proud to be left to guard anything and would never, never leave his post. He was tag- ging along at their heels as usual, and stood looking on while Betty changed hats. " Stay here and watch the hat. Dandy, till I come back ! " said Betty, sternly. Dandy came and sat down at the foot of the tree, but he wagged his stumpy bit of a tail and 12 THE WONDER SHIP. uttered a piteous little whine, for lie scented a holiday trip. " Now remember — till I come back ! " re- peated Betty, looking at him, as they started on, and shaking her finger at him. Till she came back ! oh, little Betty Pritchard, and oh, poor trusty Dandy ! As soon as they came out through the tall corn-field into the road, Jo and Betby slunk down the hill, keeping very close to the stone wall, and fancying that they heard voices calling them. But when they had turned the corner, at the foot of the hill, they took hold of hands and ran. Stella Gooch, who lived in the house at the foot of the hill, called out to them from behind the hollyhocks in her front yard: " Betty Pritchard ! Betty Pritchard ! where are you going in your every-day dress and your best hat ? " And at that the children ran faster and made no answer. But miles are long when legs are short, and they could n't run all the way to the Port, and so it was past the middle of the afternoon when they reached the place. There they had to ask the way to Doby's wharf, for they had been TO DOBY'S WHARF. 13 only in the iDrincipal streets of the Port, with Grandpa, or with Leander, the hired man, in the . carriage. But when at length they found the wharf, at the foot of a long side street, there lay a small, jaunty vessel with a flag flying, on which was painted, in large letters, "Wonder Ship." " That means a ship full of curiosities," said Jo ; and Betty thought if this was true that here was some more of the queer spelling that was in use out in the big world. It did n't seem as though it were going to be very easy to get on board the Wonder Ship, for the gang-plank had been drawn in. There was a great noise and shouting, both at the bow and the stern of the boat, but the side that was drawn up to the wharf was deserted. The ship lay very near the wharf and Jo soon descried a small plank that led to it, and walked across ; but Betty hesitated — the little plank was narrow, and beneath was the thick, greenish water. " All aboard ! " shouted a hoarse voice. " There ! that means everybody come on board 14 THE WONDER SHIP. for nothing, like the free day at the Fair," cried Jo. " Hurry up, 'fraid-cat ! " Betty thought how agreeable it would be to save her money and still shake hands with the bear ; but she came stepping along in silence, for it was very mortifying to be called a 'fraid-cat. " All aboard ! " shouted the voice again, and Betty hurried bravely after Joe over the narrow plank and on board the ship. THE WONDER SHIP SAILS. 15 III. THE WONDER SHIP SAILS. Jo and Betty, as if both were " 'fraid cats," drew back hastily into the shelterof a great coil of rope and an anchor, as some rough-looking sailors came rushing up to the ship's side. One of the sailors tossed off the little plank and it fell with a clatter on the wharf. " That means they don't intend to let any more people come on board without paying," whispered Jo. " Now see that you keep close to me." Jo made his way along, between barrels and boxes, to the after part of the ship, with Betty following him. There were a great many boxes piled upon the deck, and the sailors were hur- riedly carrying them downstairs into the ship's cabin. They were all too busy to notice the children. One, who was dark-skinned like Hosay, shook his head impatiently when Jo tried to speak to him. Jo whispered to Betty that he 16 THE WONDER SHIP. was afi-aid the show was all packed away in the boxes, and that he did n't see anything of the bear. Betty had kept behind Jo, feeling that she would prefer to meet the bear in cornpany rather than alone ; and now, when just at this minute a shower of peanut shells came suddenly down from aloft upon her best hat, she was so nervous that she jumped and screamed. Jo took her hand fast in his, and then he stopped and looked all about. It was a little grin- ning monkey that had thrown the shells. Jo spied him up on the jib-boom — that was what a good- natured sailor called it, who had stopped and was telling Betty not to be frightened. " He 's a bright little monk," said the sailor. " He '11 pull away at the ropes and think he 's taking a reef in the jib." " I know what that means," said Jo, proudly. " I 've been on board Captain Doby's vessel. It means taking a sail in a little, because there 's too much wind. Why — why ! " Jo's cheeks were growing red and then pale, all in a minute ! " See here ! the jib is set and the other sails, and the ship is moving ! " " Why, of course ! " The sailor laughed and THE WONDER SHIP SAILS. 17 pointed to the strip of water that already lay between them and the wharf. " Where do you two children belong ? Does n't the captain know you *re here ? " he asked. " No, he does n't ! " cried Jo. " And I did n't see the ship was moving — we were keeping watch to see the bear ! We only came for just a little while to see the bear and the things ! The bear-boy asked us to come — oh ! where is the bear-boy ? Please send him to us ! " There was a big lump growing in Jo's throat. In his fright he could n't remember the boy's name. Betty had begun to cry. Jo gave her a frightened, helpless look. " I can't remember his name at all, Betty," he whispered. Betty calmed herself suddenly. With her hand on Jo's arm, she spelled, " J-o-s-e, Hosay." That seemed to make her feel less helpless. She thought it would make the sailors see that she and Jo were persons of some importance, who really knew the bear-boy. " We are friends of his — he said so — and he invited us to come," she added with dignity. There was a little knot of sailors around the children by this time. One of them, when they 18- . THE WONDER SHIP. had listened to what Betty had to say, began shouting down into the cabin for Hosay. " It 's too bad," said another, " but it can't be helped, so don't you children go feeling bad ! We did n't calc'late to sail until morning, but the wind held and captain thought if we could get off this afternoon we 'd make Bar Harbor early to-morrow night." " But we can't stay now, to see the curiosities or even the bear." Although she was so frights ened Betty felt a pang of disappointment as she said it. " We must go straight back to Bunch- berry Corner or Grandma will be worried ! Won't you please stop the ship and tuni her back to the wharf ? Grandma will be very worried ! " The sailors looked at each other and smiled ; and one said to another in a low voice that he guessed the old lady would have time to worry some before those children got home again. Just at that moment Hosay came up the stairs; but you would scarcely have believed that it was the bear-boy ! His clothes were like an ordinary sailor-boy's and they were very far from being clean or whole. He had no earrings in his ears, and even his white teeth were not THE WONDER SHIP SAILS. 19 flashing, for instead of smiling he looked very- cross. He even looked worried. " Well, if here ain't the Bunchberry twins ! " he cried. "How came you on board the ship at this time of day ? Perhaps you 've joined the show ! Where did the captain pick you up ? " The sight of the bear-boy seemed to give Jo courage. He put Betty behind him and spoke up, ruffling like a little game-cock, and getting red in the face. " You know we 're not twins ; you know I 'm eleven ! We have n't joined the show, and no- body picked us up. You told us we were your friends and invited us to see the ship, and told us we could shake hands with the bear! " " So we came," added Betty, her voice shrill with tears ; " and I have on my best hat — and nobody knows it at home — and it is n't a show at all, and I don't think there is any bear, and you are just like any boy and wear just every- day clothes — and oli, Mr. Hosay, won't you ask them to tet us get off ? " Hosay's teeth flashed a little, now, though he still looked cross and perplexed. The sailors were laughing at him behind their hands. 20 THE WONDER SHIP. "I suppose you might get off 'most anywhere," he said, " but you would iBnd it pretty wet ! I 'm sorry, but how did I know the captain was go- ing to sail to-day? True-blue, I didn't know it ! Nohody knew it, not even himself ! It was just because there was a strawberry festival in the town hall, so the crowd did n't come down to the ship — and I tell you the wind won't hold, you see if it does ; it will go down as flat as a pancake by the time we 're out beyond the shoals, and we might as well be back at Doby's wharf ! " The bear-boy stopped suddenly, so suddenly the frightened children looked around to see what was the cause. The captain was standing there. The chil- dren soon saw it was the captain, for every face had smoothed out its smile. He was a tall man, in his shirtsleeves, with a long bright red beard which he kept stroking with a very large hand which had a great seal ring on the little finger. Betty thought he looked like the picture of the Huggermugger giant and did not dare even to let her lip quiver as he looked at her. THE CAPTAIN. '21 IV. THE CAPTAIN. The captain looked down for a moment, with a pair of sharp blue eyes, at Jo and Betty. " Well, I snum ! " he said. That was what the tin-peddler who came to see Clarabella often said, and Betty, who had almost expected the captain to say "fee-fi-fo- fum," in real giant language, felt a little better. She took courage to raise her eyes shyly to his face. For when the tin-peddler said " I snum ! " he only meant that he was very much surprised. Betty found the captain was looking down at her very pleasantly. He had a big nose and it was quite red, a different shade of red from his whiskers ; and he had very shaggy eyebrows that were quite white. But still Betty began to feel sure that though he might be a real giant, he was a kind one, and some tears that were a com- fort rolled down her cheek. " Well, it seems that we 've shipped some pas- 22 THE WONDER SHIP. sengers that we did n't count 6n," he said with a wink at the crew. At once Jo began to tell the captain how it happened ; it seemed to him the manly thing to do. But if that bear-boy did n't put his oar in and tell it just as he thought it would be best for himself with the captain ! Hosay said he only told these children about the Wonder Ship just as he always told all the boys and girls, that being a part of his duty. He did n't think they would come, however, — they were such a little pair of youngsters ! And he never thought of such a thing as their coming alone, all by themselves. Jo spoke up firmly then, and said that he was eleven ; and Betty explained that if they had asked Grandma she wouldn't have let them come alone. The captain sat down on a coil of rope and clasped his great hands around his knees. " Well, I snum ! " he said again. He seemed to be thinking deeply. "You know you must take us right back," said Betty, feeling her courage returning a little. " Grandma and Grandpa and Clarabella THE CAPTAIN. 23 will be 'most crazy. And to-morrow is our les- son-day, and Miss Simpkins '11* be there. The reason we had no lessons to-day, and were sit- ting on the wall when the bear-boy came by, was because Miss Simpkins had to go to the city." " I only wish I could take you back, children," said the captain at last, "for of course your folks '11 be worried clean to pieces ! But you see it 's this way." He began as if he were going to tell a story, and Betty listened so intently that she scarcely knew it at all when more peanut shells came down on her hat. " We 're a good piece out on the water now," said he, " and to get back to Dobj^'s wharf, beating against the wind, would take a long time. It will be a good deal of money in my pocket to take advan- tage of this wind and get my show down to Bar Harbor before the other shows get to going full blast. We 're likely to get down to Limeport by morning, and then I can telegraph to your folks. Maybe 1 can send you home from Lime- port, and if there 's a captain that I can depend upon to take good care of you, I '11 do it. You 're too small to be travelling alone." " Jo's eleven and I 'm big inside," said Betty. 24 THE WONDER SHIP. The captain laughed; he opened his mouth very wide and it was a true giant's roar that came from it. " I know," said the captain, " but I should feel safer to send you home in charge of the cap- tain of a certain Bar Harbor steamer, who is a friend of mine. His steamer stops at Brown- port, and he 's trusty and he 'd send you from there in the stage. Your folks won't worry after they really hear from you, so I think you might as well make up your minds to see the world, now you're out, and have a real good time." " That 's just what we want to do," said Betty, eagerly. " The bear-boy said if we could it would make us take a start and grow." " I should n't wonder," said the captain. " Maybe when you get home you 'U be like the Injy-rubber girl that belonged to my show once. She could stretch herself up to be as high as the meetin'-house steeple." Betty seemed puzzled. Then she turned away with a look at the captain, as though she wished he would n't talk that way to her, and seated herself on a coil of rope. THE CAPTAIN. 25 When the captain went away Jo, who had been walkiag about the deck, came and sat down by Betty's side. " Of course," he said, " you 're not so small as to believe such things as that. Just think how a person would look as tall as the church steeple ! It could n't be done. There never was an India-rubber girl, anyway, Betty ; and if there was a make-believe one, she could n't have been made so as to look as tall as a church steeple." " Don't you suppose I know it ? " Betty whis- pered back, half vexed. And then she noticed suddenly that Jo looked white around the lips, and she asked if he were ill. " My legs are a little wobbly," said Jo ; " but don't you tell anybody." At this moment the captain came up from the cabin with a coat, which he wrapped around Betty, over her gingham apron. He said the wind was chilly ; very different from land winds. And then he saw Jo's white face. " Oho ! " he said, " we have n't got our sea legs on yet." He made Jo lie down upon some old blankets which the sailors had spread upon the deck, and Betty came and sat down beside him. 26 THE WONDER SHIP. As Betty sat there, she saw the captain speak to Hosay, and pretty soon Hosay brought the bear and made him dance to the music of one of the sailor's fiddles. He waltzed about a long time, with a monkey on each shoulder. (The second monkey was a good one, and tossed nuts at Betty, instead of shells.) He bowed to Betty, too, often, with one huge paw laid upon his heart. When he shook hands he raised his paw very high, in the fashionable way ; they did n't know anything about that way at Bunchberry Corner, and Betty thought it was a bear- fashion. Betty laughed a good deal, but Jo turned his face away from the bear and the monkeys ; and when they went to supper, with the captain, in a queer little cubby-hole that was no larger than the pantry at home, Jo could not eat. Very soon after supper they went to bed. Betty was glad to go. She was tired. She slept in a high bunk, in the captain's room, which he gave up to her, and she could look through the port-hole and see the moon follow- ing them, just as it did one night when she drove home from Brownport with Grandpa. Jo THE CAPTAIN. 27 lay on a bench, made comfortable with blankets, in the cabin just outside the door of the cap- tain's room, which was left open so the children would not feel lonesome and afraid. Betty thought Jo was asleep and would not ask him if he supposed Dandy was still watch- ing her every-day hat. They must have had hard work to drag him away if he were not. And oh, how worried Grandma and Grandpa must be feeling ! That thought was worse than seasickness or homesickness — and Betty was now feeling a little of both those troubles. She said, " Now I lay me," but it did n't seem as if God would be likely to hear so far away from Bunchberry Corner ; and then although she remembered that Jo had said one must be stout-hearted, as he lay down with his headache, she gave way to sobs. Jo heard her. " When I run away again it won't be with you ! " he said, from his bench. " Oh, I never shall want to again — never ! " sobbed Betty. " I 'd rather just do spelling or fractions forever, and not get a start." " I don't tliink, myself, that running away 28 THE WONDER SHIP. is what it 's cracked up to be," said Jo, gruffly. Betty did n't reprove him, as Grandma had asked her always to do when he talked slang. After that things became very queerly mixed up in Betty's mind. The bear danced with Miss Simpkins, and had on her spectacles, and the good monkey got drowned trying to say the mul- tiplication table backwards. It was a relief to sit up suddenly and see the bright sun shining through the port-hole. The vessel was not moving. A sailor was putting off in a boat. Betty heard the message that the captain was repeating to him, and which he was to send from the Limeport telegraph office, to Mr. Joseph Pritchard, Bunchberry Cor- ner (Jo had told him the name the night be- fore) : " Ohildren safe. Will he sent home soon as possible.'''' Oh, Grandpa and Grandma would know soon now that they were safe ! And since that was all made right, Betty's courage came back, and her heart thrilled with joy that she and Jo were going on to see the big world. A PRESENT FROM THE CAPTAIN. 29 V. A PRESENT PROM THE CAPTAIN. Jo had his sea-legs on, as the captain said, in the morning, but he still said that he did n't helieve in running away ; no, not even when one meant to be gone only for an afternoon. He admitted to Betty that it was a comfort to know that Grandpa and Grandma had heard from them and would n't be so worried, but he said that a boy who had so many cares as he had could not very well go away from home for overnight without making arrangements with somebody. He was afraid Leander would let his spotted calf get choked with a turnip, as he had once let the old cow, and he felt sure that his selfish rabbit was even now eating up all the good rabbit's breakfast. He thought it more than likely, too, that Clarabella would let his gray squirrel out of the cage, as she was always threatening to do ; and Iky Downer, no doubt, would come around 30 THE WONDER SHIP. and disturb his white turkey that was sitting on fourteen eggs. "I don't believe in running away either," confessed Betty. " I keep feeUng afraid that Grandma and Grandpa may feel as badly as they did that time when Uncle Jo ran away to sea. Grandma's hair turned gray all in a week, and Grandpa would n't mention Uncle Jo's name and never has since." Jo said he had trouble enough without going back to things that happened before he was born. For it was years before the children were born and when Uncle Jo was only fifteen that he had run away to sea, and it was a very sad story. He had run away because he had been suspected of stealing from a store, and it was not until he had been gone a year that they knew he was entirely innocent. It was another boy, and Jo knew it, but he would n't tell on the other boy, for it was a friend of his. " He was a fine fellow, that Uncle Jo of ours ! It 's only a sneak who tells of anybody. When I 'm a man I 'm going to find Uncle Jo." That was what Jo always said when Aunt A PRESENT FROM THE CAPTAIN. 31 Luella came home from the city and talked to them about him. Aunt Luella was the only one who ever spoke to them of the poor boy who had been gone so many years. But to-day Jo did n't want to think about any one who had run away ; in truth, to get home himself, with Betty safe, as soon as possible, was all that he wanted. It was a little more cheerful for Betty by and by, out on deck, where Hosay was busy clean- ing aad polishing the shells and teaching the bear and monkeys new tricks. Hosay said there were a great many rich and fashionable people at Bar Harbor, and the captain expected to make as much money there in a month as he did in all his travels for the rest of the year. The cook's wife, who had been ill in her berth, came up to help Hosay after a' while. She tried to pierce the bad monkey's ears for his earrings. She was as dark-skinned as Hosay, and very fat and jolly ; she shook all over when she laughed, and spoke with a queer little lisp. Sometimes she and Hosay talked together in a foreign language, which Betty did n't believe that even Miss Simpkins or the Bunchberry min- 32 THE WONDER SHIP. ister could understand. It was n't " pig Latin," which she and Jo could both speak, and it was n't real Latin, which Jo was just begin- ning to study; and Betty thought that the Wonder Ship seemed more and more like some- thing in a fairy book. But Jo, who knew a great deal, said they were probably Spanish or Italian and were simply speaking in their own language. Clarabella, who told beautiful fairy stories, often snubbed Jo when he made fun of them; she said there was such a thing as boys know- ing too many " cold facts." When he was out of sorts and cross, as he was this morning on the Wonder Ship, Jo never believed anjrthing whatevier excepting "cold facts." The bad monkey would n't have his ears pierced, and the cook's wife said it was be- cause he' knew the good monkey's earrings were gold, while his were only brass, but Jo said he didn't believe it. And he didn't believe that the bear could dance better to the Sailor's Hornpipe than to any other tune — he didn't believe the bear knew one tune from another ! The cook's wife called him " a-wet-a-blanket- A PRESENT FROM THE CAPTAIN. 33 a ; " and Betty was really ashamed of him for being so sullen and rude. There was another thing of which Betty was ashamed — that she had no earrings, and had n't even her ears pierced. The whole ship's company except the captain and the bear and the bad monkey wore ear- rings ; and the cook's wife was very much sur- prised that Betty had none and said it was a great pity. After she had to give up trying to pierce the bad monkey's ears she offered to pierce Betty's so that she would be all ready to wear them when she got them. Jo was very fierce about this. " Don't you be a silly and let her ! " he whis- pered. " You know Grandma would n't like it at all. Little girls don't wear earrings, and I 've noticed that ladies don't as much as they used to." But Jo only knew what people wore at Bunch- berry ; the cook's wife knew the big world. Betty had longed for earrings ever since she was a little child, and had tied dandelion-curls and acorns to her ears. Glarabella had said it 34 THE WONDER SHIP. was a providence when her uncle left her, in his will, his great silver watch, because the thing she had always wanted most was a watch. Betty remembered this, and wondered if it were not a " providence " that she had come on board the Wonder Ship where the cook's wife knew how to pierce people's ears ; she had always wished so much to wear earrings. When the cook's wife whispered to her that there were some pretty little coral earrings among the curiosities and she should n't wonder a bit if the captain would give her a pair, then Betty felt sure that it was a providence ! And so when the cook's wife winked at her, slyly, Betty followed her eagerly down into the cabin, and from there to a queer little place that was called the cook's galley. The cook's wife perched her upon a high stool, and the cook himself gave her a cake — filled with caraway seeds, but not as nice as Clarabella's cara- way cakes — to eat while her ears were being pierced. " Boy-a he know notting but to be pig-a ! " said the cook's wife, who had understood that Jo did n't approve of having Betty's ears pierced. A PRESENT FROM THE CAPTAIN. 35 " Jo is n't that ; he 's not a pig," said Betty, and she repeated it firmly so that the woman would be sure to underatand. Jo never had even a penny's worth of candy without dividing with her, and he had always saved her the red pepper- mints when she was little and liked those. And when one of their two bantams died, that were so much alike that you could scarcely tell them apart, he let her have the live one. A person who is only eight remembers such things as those. " Oh, no," thought Betty to herself, " Jo is not a — what the cook's wife said ! " Neither Grandma nor Miss Simpkins would have thought it right to call any one by such a name; Betty felt that "pig" was almost "a wicked word." Still perhaps people spoke differ- ently out in the big world. But when she had told the cook's wife three times, very earnestly, that that was not what was the matter with Jo, the woman only laughed. " All boys are," she said. " They are all a- pig-a ! " Then her lean little husband, who was so small that she could almost have put him in her pocket, laughed and threatened to throw a ladleful of 36 THE WONDER SHIP. soup at her, and she scolded him in her funny foreign tongue. Betty explained further that Jo did n't think that girls ought to care too much for pretty things to wear, and that he was afraid Grandma would blame him if she had her ears pierced — for he thought he took care of her ; which was very foolish when she was an inch taller than he was ! The woman lifted the long heavy braid of yellow hair that hung down Betty's back and ad- mired it very much. She said to her husband that Betty would make a beautiful angel-a, and asked her whether she had ever acted in a show. Betty told her that she had been in a tableau once at a Sunday-school festival — she had been Little Red Riding Hood ; she was afraid she was too freckled for an angel. The cook and his wife talked together again in their own language, and then the woman went away suddenly, leaving Betty perched upon the high stool. When she came back 'she brought a little box which had a wad of pink cotton in it, and on the pink cotton lay a pair of beautiful A PRESENT FROM THE CAPTAIN. 37 little coral earrings. Betty thought they were the very prettiest things she had ever seen. " But I have only forty cents ! " she said sud- denly, the delight fading from her face. " A little-a present-a from the captain ! " ex- plained the cook's wife. And she added that perhaps there was something — oh, something lovely-a — that Betty could do to help the cap- tain when the Wonder Ship reached Bar Harbor. "With those earrings in one's hand, the needle, although it was sharp, could not hurt very much. Nor could Betty think of what Grandma would say or how she would feel ! As for Jo — when it was really done and he could n't help it, he would probably make a little fun, as he did of one's best hat ; but that would n't matter. 38 THE WONDER SHIP. VI. THE MAN-BATING SHAEK. While Betty was having her ears pierced down in the cook's galley, Jo was helping Hosay to polish the shells and being shown the delight- ful curiosities that Hosay had in his charge. There were the strangest sponges that any one ever saw ; beautiful coral and tortoise-shell ; pink conches and great pearl snails from the West Indies, and the queer cowries which the Africans use for money. There were sea-fans and sea-feathers as large and tall as the feather on Betty's best hat, and handsome shell boxes and shell picture-frames, besides necklaces and bracelets made entirely of shells. But, after all, it was the animals which inter- ested Jo the most. The great turtles were funny fellows that looked like boxes walking around ; they thrust their long, stupid-looking heads out once in a while and drew them in again at the least noise. THE MAN-EATING SHARK. 39 The baby seal was a dear little fellow ; yel- lowish gray in color, as smooth as satin, and as frolicsome as a kitten. Jo stood and smiled down at him for some time. "But where is the man-eating shark?" he asked, remembering, suddenly, that this had been among the wonders that the bear-boy had promised to show him and Betty when he had stopped at the stone-wall and invited them to come to the Wonder Ship. Jo intended to boast to Iky Downer of the wonders he had seen, and he was afraid that Iky, who had been to the circus, would scoff at them as tame. Iky had made the acquaintance of the lion-tamer and the lion had eaten a chocolate- drop out of his hand, and Iky had not been so easy to get along with since that time. When Jo asked that question Hosay looked up quickly from the conch shell he was polish- ing and half closed his black eyes and shook his head seriously. " We don't have him lying around loose, I can tell you ! " he said. " Why, he had eaten a whole ship's crew, crunched them up bones and all, before he was caught. I '11 tell you where 40 THE WONDER SHIP. he is " — Hosay drew nearer to Jo and spoke in a whisper. " He 's in a great box — tank, I mean, under the bunk in the captain's room. But don't you tell your sister, because she might be afraid to sleep in the bunk ! " " The man-eating shark was in a tank under the bunk where Betty slept ! " Jo repeated it after the bear-boy and his lips felt stiff and his face was white. " He would n't mind chewing up a few, boards between him and anything that he liked to eat," said Hosay, wagging his head more solemnly still. "But don't you say a word about it to the captain ! He 'd put you adrift, you and her anywhere," — Hosay looked impressively around upon the broad expanse of water, — "if he knew you 'd found out how dangerous that shark was ! You see it would hurt the show ; people would n't dare to come near." "But we shall get to Bar Harbor before night," said Jo, and drew a long breath of re- lief. They would wait for no steamer captain ! they would run away, he and Betty, he resolved, rather than that Betty should sleep another night above the tank of the man-eating shark ! THE MAN-EATING SHARK. 41 " Get to Bar Harbor before night ? — not much ! " said Hosay, knowingly. And Jo perceived that the wind, which had been blowing fitfully, had dropped to a dead calm. Only the faintest breath stirred the sails. The Wonder Ship scarcely moved. " There 's no knowing when we shall get to Bar Harbor," said Hosay, " and the captain will be cross enough to pitch us all overboard. You 'd better not, for your life, let him know that you 're afraid of that shark ! You mustn't speak out, or disturb the captain if you do hear the shark snap his jaws ! " " How does the shark breathe shut up in a tight tank? " asked Jo after a pause, in which he had put on his thinking-cap. " Holes in the side of the vessel," answered Hosay, promptly. " You may have noticed them when you came on board." " We did n't," said Jo ; " but we were in a hurry." Oh, if they had n't been in such a hurry ! If he and poor little Betty were only at home in Bunchberry, where it was so safe and pleasant ! Jo did n't even notice when Betty came up. 42 THE WONDER SHIP. with a very red face, from the cook's galley, that she had little yellow strings tied into her ears. He walked away presently, and went search- ing all over the vessel for some kind of a club. At length he found a piece of a broken oar, and this he secreted under the blankets on his bench. When night came the ship was still rocking on a calm sea, a good many miles from Bar Harbor. As soon as the captain, who lay on a sofa in the cabin, was asleep and snoring, Jo arose softly and with his club stationed himself beside Betty's bunk to protect her from the man-eating shark. A cretonne curtain hung from the bunk, but under its folds Jo could feel the wooden sides of the tank. He did not dare even to sit down lest he should fall asleep and leave Betty, un- protected, in such peril. When he did begin to feel a little drowsy he heard a very strange sound, as if the shark were snapping its jaws together. JO'S NIGHT WATCH. 43 VII. jo's night watch. Jo listened, wide awake now. He held the piece of broken oar clinched firmly in both hands, and waited to hear if that queer sound would come again. It certainly was like the snapping of the shark's jaws that Hosay had told him of. It did come again, and he almost cried out in terror. Betty stirrf^d in her sleep, as if the sound had disturbed her. Then for a long time all was still. The moon looked in through the port-hole, and Jo found it some comfort that it was just like the Bunch- berry moon, and seemed to be watching over them. He tried to say a little prayer or hymn ; but when he began " Gentle Jesus," he could only think of the piece that Iky Downer's big brother had spoken at the school exhibition about a fellow who " held the bridge in the brave days of old." 44 THE WONDER SHIP. He was n't going to sleep and leave Betty to the shark, any more than that fellow would have left the bridge. " Gentle Jesus " was Betty's hymn, anyway, — a hymn for a little girl rather than for a big boy. But when he tried " Our Father " he could remember only as far as " who art in heaven," and he added eagerly, intensely, over and over, " don't let the shark get Betty ! " And then a noble courage awoke suddenly in him — perhaps the people who knew Jo best would hardly have believed him capable of it, but there is often more that is noble in a small soul than any one knows of. Jo explained to God that it was he who had asked Betty to run away to the Wonder Ship, and the shark ought to eat Mm if it must eat anybody. After that Jo felt more calm. The strange, dreadful noise did n't come again, but by-and-by he thought he would better prop his eyes open with his fingers ; sleep will play queer tricks with a boy, you know, — -and he must not sleep ! If you have never kept awake for a whole night in your life, as Jo never had, except per- haps the night before the Fourth of July, when, JO'S NIQHT WATCH. 45 as he explained to Grandpa, the " Yankee " in him kept him awake, why then you don't know how long a night can be. The moon and stars had gone off to bed, and morning was beginning to turn the port-hole gray, when the small, crouching figure at the foot of Betty's bunk, with its back actually rest- ing against the shark's tank, sprang up from sleep, with a cry, and seized the club that had fallen from its hands. That noise, like the snapping of the shark's jaws, had come again, and awakened Jo from a sound sleep that had lasted for hours. In the terror and haste of his sudden awaken- ing he brought his club down twice, three times, upon the wooden side of the shark's tank, with a resounding noise that aroused every one in the ship. Betty's face, rosy with sleep, peered down from her high bunk, and Jo's heart jumped for joy ; the shark had not snapped his jaws upon Betty ! The captain, so angry that his face was all as red as his nose, appeared at the door with a lan- tern, and the cook's wife pushed herself in be- 46 THE WONDER SHIP. fore him, in a flowing wrapper and a nightcap that made her look like the good-natnred ogress in Betty's fairy book. " I thought he was eating Betty — the shark, you know ! " explained Jo. " I stayed here all night to watch, and I 've heard him snap his jaws, oh, twice before — just the way Hosay said he would ! And if you had put me to sleep there it would n't have been so bad, but she is only eight, and Grandma told me always to take care of her, and I could n't change places with her because you would have known, and Hosay told me not to let you know that I had found out that the shark would eat people." " Oh, that Hosay ! " The captain laughed one of his great roars. Then his face grew redder than ever, and angry-looking. " Here you, Ho- say ! " The bear-boy's face had been seen be- hind the cook's wife's ample skirts for one moment — and then came the sound of his bare, scurrying feet. " You '11 get the rope's end now, my pretty rascal ! " the captain called after him. " Your precious yarns have about frightened this poor little land-lubber out of his senses ! " JO'S NIGHT WATCH. 47 The cook's wife had her hand on Jo's shoulder. " Oh, the brave-a boy ! the splendid-a child ! " she cried. " He have guard-a his little sister all the long night with the club-a as large-a as himself ! " She seized Jo and kissed him — which, it must be owned, Jo disliked as much as he disliked the laughter of the sailors that could be heard as sooiT as Hosay got among them. " My young friend," said the captain, with his great forefinger under Jo's chin, " Hosay has been selling you. When he sees an innocent little boy from Bunchberry, with round blue eyes like yours, he likes to tell him big yarns. There is, to be sure, a shark in that box, but he is a dead one ; he was as dead as a door-nail be- fore you were born ! " " He is stuff-a, my child, stuff-a ! " explained the cook's wife. " But his jaws — don't they snap ? " asked Jo, feeling bewildered ; he had had that idea of the snapping jaws in his mind so long. " Yes," said the captain. " We had him fixed up with machinery. The little boys that come to the show like to see the jaws snap." 48 THE WONDER SHIP. " I heard him snap them in the tank," said Jo. " That is nonsense, my boy ! he is n't wound up," said the c^^ptain. "His jaws don't snap until the machinery is wound up." " Listen ! " cried Jo, and his face grew pale, even though he had been told that the shark was not alive. " Was that the noise that frightened you ? " laughed the captain ; " why, that is only a chain clanking against the ship's side. The wind has risen a little, and there is more motion of the ship, so it makes more noise." It came again ; any one might know it was the clanking of a chaia, unless he was expecting to hear the snapping of a shark's jaws. Still poor Jo turned white. " See here ! " said the captain, and he drew out the gi-eat box from under the bunk ; not a tank, with water, but only an old box filled with , straw, and in it a huge lifeless fish which the captain turned half way over with the broken oar. It was stuffed, as the cook's wife had said, and it looked as if it might be alive ; at least it JO'S NIGHT WATCH. 49 looked sufficiently so to make Jo draw back to a safe distance. But Betty — just think of that for a girl ! as Jo said when he afterwards told Iky Downer all about it • — • Betty calmly leaned over out of her bunk to look, until her long braid almost touched the shark, and did n't appear to be in the least afraid. The captain offered to wind up the shark's machinery, so his jaws would snap, but Jo po- litely declined. And that girl Betty was disap- pointed. She wanted to see the shark's jaws snap, and she called Jo " 'fraid-cat." As Jo and Iky Downer afterwards agreed, you never can tell what to make of a girl. Then the captain said he thought Jo had better " turn in," although it was almost broad daylight, for if he did n't he would be too tired to have any fun when they reached Bar Harbor. At that, the cook's wife took him up in her arms, and carried him back to his bed, kissing and cuddling him and saying that he was a brave-a boy to take care of his little twin-a sister. " She 's not my twin sister ! I 'm 'leven and 60 THE WONDER SHIP. she's eight," insisted Jo in a tearful, angry- voice. And to himself Jo said that if eyer he got back to Bunchberry Corner he would stay there ; but first he meant to give that Hosay a piece of his mind ! He slipped off to sleep before the angry tears were dry in his eyes, and he dreamed a very queer dream, in which the shark, dressed in a red flannel wrapper and a nightcap exactly like the cook's wife, said that he should n't have eaten Betty anyway, because twins disagreed with him. While Jo was almost suffocating in an effort to explain to the shark that Betty and he were not twins, he awoke suddenly ; and for a while he was not quite sure whether he were awake or dreaming. The sunlight was stream- ing into the cabin, and its rays fell upon the most beautiful little being that Jo had ever seen. BETTY'S TRANSFORMATION. 51 VIII. Betty's teansfoemation. Jo knew in a moment that it was a mermaid. Even if you live in Bunchberry Corner you know a mermaid when you see one, by the pictures in your books. There was a picture exactly like this mermaid in Betty's fairy book. But Jo had never expected to see one out of a fairy book. Mermaids were not the kind of " cold facts " that Clarabella said he believed in. The upper part of the mermaid was girl, just as it is in the pictures. She had long golden hair, and a green gauze dress all shining with spangles that looked like water drops. The lower part of her was like a fish, and the most beautiful fish that ever was seen, all shining, pearly scales ; and it ended in a fish's tail that flopped upon the floor when she moved. The beautiful fan that she waved before her face seemed all covered with pearls and diamonds ;' in fact, she glittered so, as the sun's rays fell 52 THE WONDER SHIP. upon her, that it fairly dazzled one's eyes to look at her. Was it strange that Jo thought at first he must be dreaming, and then punched himseK to see if he really were Jo Pritchard of Bunchberry Comer? The mermaid lowered her fan a little and looked at him, laughing, over the top ; and if you '11 belieye it she was nobody but Betty ! Jo said to himself that he was pretty glad that he had n't said anything to let her know that she had fooled him ; for that would have been worse than the shark. " You thought I was a truly mermaid, did n't you ? " cried Betty in breathless delight, and Jo answered scornfully, " I guess I should know you anywhere, Betty Pritchard, if you did have a fish's tail on ! " And he soothed his conscience by saying to himseK that he had known her the very minute he saw her face. The cook's wife had dressed Betty, and she seemed very proud of her work. She said that of all the mermaids she had ever seen Betty was the most beautiful, and she had had a great ex- perience in mermaids, for they always had a BETTY'S TRANSFOliMATION. 53 mermaid, when they could, on the Wonder Ship. Hosay had been the last mermaid; but Hosay had outgrown the scales and he had to wear a wig, to say nothing of having an unsuitable com- plexion, and not being able to understand that a mermaid must keep still and only smile and wave her fan. " Betty can't stay and be a mermaid in the show ! " cried Jo. " We 've got to get home to Bunchberry Corner." And Betty drew down the corner of her mouth as if she were going to cry. Of course you would know that a girl who thought so much of her best hat would do any- thing for the sake of being dressed up in green gauze and spangles, and a fish's tail ! — that was what Jo whispered to Betty scornfully. The Wonder Ship would n't get into Bar Har- bor until noon, the cook's wife said; and by that time the steamer in which they were to be sent home would have gone. They could n't go home anyway until the next day, she said, so Betty might appear as a mermaid in the show for one afternoon and charm-a the little ladies and gentlemen of Bar Harbor. The mermaid dropped her fan to clap her 54 THE WONDER SHIP. hands ; and it was plain to see that she would have jumped up and down if the fish's tail would have let her. The cook's wife had to caution her to be careful or her feet-a would go through the delicate scales. Another day away from home, and Betty to be a mermaid in a show ! If seeing the big world would make people take a start and grow, Jo thought that both Betty and he might be as tall as the India-rubber girl before they got home ! It was a fine thing to go to Bar Harbor on board the Wonder Ship, he thought, and Iky Downer and Dave Saunders could n't have much more to say about circuses when he told them where he had been ! Only he feared that Betty was really growing foolish ; she tossed her head, and flirted her fan, and fingered the coral necklace that hung around her neck, and had an air quite unlike his little sister when at home in Bunchberry Corner. And then, suddenly, he caught sight of some- thing else upon Betty that made his eyes grow big and round. " You wait until Grandma sees those things in your ears — that 's all I have to say ! " he cried. THE SHOW ON THE WONDER SHIP. 55 IX. THE SHOW ON THE WONDER SHDP. The mermaid on tke "Wonder Ship was just now having too good a time to think much of what Grandma would say about her earrings. Grandma had begun to seem to belong away off in Bunchberry Corner, and to have nothing to do with the big world ! At first, down in the very bottom of the mer- maid's heart there had been a little homesick longing, a desire to cuddle down in Grandma's lap, and tell her that home was far, far better than the big world. But now, since the Wonder Ship had sailed gayly up to Bar Harbor and cast anchor at the steamboat landing, Betty had forgotten all that homesickness. • Bar Harbor seemed like a fair and a picnic and a circus and all the nice times that you ever heard or read of mingled in one. The blue water was covered with beautiful 56 THE WONDER SHIP. yachts and tiny sail-boats and birch canoes, and flags were flying and music was playing. In the streets of the town fine carriages and chil- dren's donkey-carts and queer buckboards, all decked with flowers and ribbons, went gayly up and down, and all the shops, little and big, were trimmed like booths at a fair. It seemed as if life had turned into a holiday, and that nobody thought of anything but having a good time. And the deck of the Wonder Ship was as pretty and gay a place as there was any- where in Bar Harbor. Hosay and the cook's wife had decorated it with flags and streamers, and the curiosities were spread out in gay array. Hosay wore the handsome clothes, cap and feather and earrings and all, in which the chil- dren had first seen him ; and the bear carried, with much dignity, a gold-headed cane and an embroidered handkerchief ! Both the good monkey and the bad one had on scarlet tunics trimmed with gold braid. The shark was on deck in a great glass tank full of water, to appear that he was alive, and he was snapping his jaws in a way that was truly terri- ble — though it only made Jo feel sheepish and THE SHOW ON THE WONDER SHIP. 57 grow red in the face and look all around at the sailors to see if they were laughing at him. That girl, Betty, who was now a mermaid reclin- ing on a yellow silk cushion, simply waved her fan and said, " I never should have thought of being afraid of a shark ! " Betty who, when she was at home at Bunchberry Corner, would hide her head under the bed-clothes if she heard a mouse nibble in the wall ! " Wait 'till you get a chance to run away with me again ! " said Jo, scowling at her. " And just wait, too, until Grandma sees how your ears are swollen around those homely old earrings ! " By this time poor Betty did n't need to see that her ears were swollen ; she could feel that they were. Sometimes they smarted until she could hardly keep the tears from her eyes. The cook's wife had told her not to mind if her ears did smart a little, for the earrings were so pretty and so becoming, and just matched the necklace ! Of course that would make a differ- ence in a person's feelings ; and besides the captain had given her both the earrings and the necklace for her own and all that he asked her to do in return was to be a mermaid in the show 58 THE WONDER SHIP. for that one afternoon. So Betty bore the smart- ing, and when the people began to come trooping on board and admired her, she really did almost forget the pain. But still the poor ears went on swelling more and more until the little red coral roses of the earrings were almost buried in the redder flesh. One of the visitors, a lady, noticed this and told Betty that her mother ought not to allow her to wear the earrings, and that they must have been put in too soon after the ears were pierced. Betty replied that she had no mother, but that she had a grandma at Bunchberry Comer, and that she was going home to her in the morning. The lady said she was glad to hear that she was going home, and she added to the people who were with her — in a low voice, but Betty heard — that a show was no place for a httle girl ! The lady did n't seem to think that it was a thing to be proud of to be a mermaid in a show ! She looked around again at Betty as if she pitied her. Then a little girl stopped to talk, and asked the mermaid if she did n't find it very hard to sit still all day on a cushion, and if she would n't THE SHOW ON THE WONDER SHIP. 59 like to run about and plaj' ; and the girls and boys who were with her began to scamper about as if they felt suddenly how good it was that they could use their legs. The poor little glittering mermaid, who was in truth very tired, realized how cramped and lame she was, tied up in the scaly fish-skin as if in a bag, and began to think that it was not so much fun to be in a show, after all. And when the children had gone by, Jo said cruelly, " You 're just like an India-rubber girl, or a fat lady that they blow up like a balloon ; you !re only make- believe, and I 'm ashamed of you ! " Even Betty could see that the people, for the most part, seemed to like the bear and the monkeys, who were real and could dance and play tricks, better than the mermaid who could only wave her fan and look pretty. It hap- pened sometimes that she would be quite de- serted and very lonesome. Jo had gone off to the other side of the deck and was having a gay time, showing the boys how the shark would snap his jaws. He had forgotten, now, to be ashamed of having been "fooled," and Hosay said that you would think he had caught the 60 THE WONDER SHIP. shark, judging from the airs he put on; and he added, so Jo could hear him, that for his part he shouldn't be sorry when the Wonder Ship got rid of those Bunchberry twins ! Betty had been sitting all alone for some time on her yellow silk cushion; for at the farther end of the deck the bear was dancing a jig, and away up in the rigging the monkeys were pre- tending to be sailors and obeying the captain's orders, and everybody was watching one or the other. She leaned her head against the railing and shut her eyes to keep back some homesick tears. Then all at once she opened them very suddenly, and her gaze fell upon the most alarm- ing creature she had ever beheld. He was black, but his cheeks were painted in strange devices with red and blue and yellow paint. He wore a tall silk hat, and beneath it locks of long, coarse, black hair fell over a gay blanket of red and black stripes that covered his shoulders. Queer and frightful as he was at the top, he wore the trousers and boots of an ordinary man ! Even in her terror, Betty thought that he must be something of the mer- maid kind, because half of him was just like THE SHOW ON THE WONDER SHIP. 61 anybody ! (She told Jo so after they were at home in Bunchberry Corner.) The poor little mermaid really was terrified and got down from her cushion in haste. Her feet went through the delicate scaly skin, — which was made of muslin and spangles, — but off she ran, looking very funny indeed with the fish-tail dragging behind her. The frightful being called after her; she heard him say that Big Injun would n't hurt little Squaw-Fish, and then she knew that he was an Indian, like those in the geography and in the books that Jo liked. He spoke very pleasantly, but Indians always carried toma- hawks and scalped every one, — at least they did in Jo"s books, — and Betty hurried on, feeling as if he might at any minute catch her by her long hair. She ran out on to the gang-plank and was making for the shore, when some one caught her up in his arms — a big tall man with blond whiskera who was just going on board the Wonder Ship. 62 THE WONDER SHIP. X. BETTY MAKES STRANGE ACQUAINTANCES. The man who caught Betty up on the gang- plank said he really did n't know whether he had captured a fish or a little girl ; but he was very kind and seemed to understand her troubles about the Indian, without making fun or say- ing that she was a "'fraid cat." And though she did not really mean to, Betty sobbed out- right, and told him even about the smarting ears, and that it was n't as nice as one would think to be a mermaid in a show, and that she wished she were at home in Bunchberry Corner ! When she said "Bunchberry Corner" the gentleman seemed very much surprised ; he looked as if he had heard of Bunchberry Corner before — though Hosay had teased her and said it was a little out-of-the-way place that was n't even on the map. He carried Betty back on board the ship — the Indian was n't anywhere STRANGE ACQUAINTANCES. 63 to be seen — and set her down beside him, and asked her a great many questions, especially about Grandpa and Grandma. He even wanted to know how Grandma looked, and Betty told him how her hair had turned gray in a single week, years before, when Uncle Jo ran away to sea. Then he asked her questions about Uncle Jo, but of course there was nothing to tell about him, except that they supposed that he was dead, because he had never been heard from after he went away, — though her brother Jo would never believe that he was dead, and meant to go in search of him as soon as he was old enough. "You see," explained Betty, "if we could find him. Grandma wouldn't cry any more on stormy nights, and Grandpa's voice wouldn't break down when he prays for those in peril on the sea — oh, dear ! I have known what that meant," she added, with a wise shake of the head, " ever since we were carried away on board this Wonder Ship." " And I know," said the stranger, gravely, "because I am a sailor." 64 THE WONDER SHIP. Then he told Betty that' he was the captain of a great ship that had come across the" ocean from England to St. John. On its way from St. John to Bos ton it had been disabled and obliged to make the nearest port, which was a town a little way below Bar Harbor. While he was waiting for repairs, he had come to Bar Harbor to pass away the time. He added, in a voice that shook in a very strange way, that he did n't know but that he might have time to go home with them to Bunchberry ! He had been in Bunchberry Corner when he was a boy and he thought he should like to see the place again. Then he went away very hurriedly, saying he would see her again, soon ; and if he had n't been such a big, strong man, Betty would have thought that he wanted to cry. " Are n't you ashamed, Betty Pritchard ! You 've put your feet right through the mermaid and you can't be one any more ! " That was Jo, of course. Betty heard his voice behind her as she was watching the strange gentleman, who turned and waved his hand at her as he walked away. And when Betty STRANGE ACQUAINTANCES. 65 looked around she saw the disagreeable Indian standing beside Jo ! Jo took hold of her arm, as if he expected she would run away again, but she did n't try to ; she stood still, although she trembled. " Little Squaw-Fish not afraid of Big Injun Medicine-Man ? " said the Indian, very politely. But he looked still more disagreeable, if possi- ble, when he smiled ! " He 's Doctor Sockobesin, a very celebrated Indian doctor. He can cure everything that ails people," said Jo. The doctor gave her a long hand-bill from a pile that he had upon his arm. His own like- ness was at the top of the hand-bill, and Betty thought it looked better than he did. Perhaps, however, that was because the picture was not colored ; the gay paint upon his cheeks did n't show. As Betty looked at him now, she began to think she had been very silly to feel afraid of Doctor Sockobesin. Jo had a hand-bill, too. He read aloud from it, when he saw Betty trying to read hers. It said that Doctor Sockobesin had travelled all 66 TUB WONDER SHIP. over the world, and cured kings and queens of everything that ailed them, especially neuralgia. The neuralgia word was in very large letters, and Jo pronounced it in large letters, and of course Betty thought at once of Clarabella. Oh, what joy it would be to cure Clarabella's neuralgia, so that she would never lie awake in pain all night, and think in the morning that picnics and best clothes and frosted cakes were a waste of time, and never again call her " Eliza- beth Augusta Pritchard ! " " Will it surely cure a person who has neural- gia every time the wind is east or she gets damp feet ? " Betty asked this eagerly, quite forget- ting her fear of the Indian. With queer, grunting noises, that seemed to mean a great deal. Doctor Sockobesin pointed to the names upon the hand-bill of the famous people who had been cured of neuralgia by this valuable medicine. They were all long names, in strange languages, and this seemed to Betty to prove the more surely that it was a wonderful world-wide medicine. " Oh, where is it kept ? Does it cost more than forty cents ? " she asked. STRANGE ACQUAINTANCES. 67 The Indian pointed to a row of tents along the shore, nearly half a mile away from the ship. "Little Squaw-Fish come over in the morn- ing ? " he asked. " Big Injun Medicine Man got little squaw; his little squaw like beads." He fingered the coral necklace on Betty's neck. "Give Squaw-Fish bottle so big" — he spread his hands far apart — " for red beads and ear- rings." " Oh, I don't think I could," gasped Betty. She felt as if she had paid so dearly for those treasures ; and yet to cure Clarabella of neural- gia ! Even Grandma would be glad that they had run away for such a happy and fortunate thing as that. And there was a chance that Grandma would n't let her wear the earrings anyway ; Jo said she would n't. And they certainly did make her ears smart dreadfully. "Show little Squaw-Fish nice things at the tents — sweet-grass baskets, little fur pocket- books, moccasins of beads," said the Indian, coaxing. " I can't ; we are going home to Bunchberry 68 THE WONDER SHIP. Corner on the steamer in the morning," sud- denly said Betty, with a sigh. "Come early; steamer go at half-past ten," said the Indian. "See there! Big Injun's son; " he pointed to a boy as dark-skinned as himself, but dressed like any boy in a red sweater, and astride a bicycle. " He take you on bicycle, you small ; I come take you in canoe early in the morning." Betty looked around for Jo ; but Hosay had called him away to see the bad monkey at the top of the tallest mast. These were not like the Indians in Jo's books ; they were a sort of white-folks Indian. " I will go," said Betty. " But I would rather go in the canoe, if you please, Doctor Socko- besin." ALL FOR CL ARABELLA'S SAKE. 69 XI. ALL FOE CLAEABELLA'S SAKE. As soon as Betty opened her eyes next morn- ing, in the high comfortable bunk in the cap- tain's room, she remembered the promise she had made to the big Indian Medicine Man. She began to dress at once and hoped it was n't too late, and that she should be ready when Doctor Sockobesin came in his canoe, though it fright- ened her a little to think she was going to be alone in the boat with an Indian. But then he was not like the real Indians, in Jo's books. She even thought he might be " make-believe," as so many things seemed to be out in the big world. He certainly did n't seem to care for any one's scalp — but only for a neck- lace for his little squaw girl. It would be hard to part with the necklace — but as for the earrings, the little squaw girl was welcome to them ! Betty had been obliged to have the cook's wife take them out of her 70 THE WONDER SHIP. swollen and smarting ears before she went to bed, and even then the pain had been so great as to keep her awake half of the night. Still she felt that it would be a very selfish little girl who would think more of a coral necklace than of medicine that would cure Clarabella's neuralgia. And when they knew, at home, what a beautiful necklace she had given for the med- icine, and that she haa gone bravely by herself to the Indian tents to get it, they would praise her, she was sure, just as the cook's wife had praised Jo-a for protecting her from the huge-a shark. No one would have a chance to laugh at her brave deed afterwards, either, as the sailors had laughed at Jo ; for neuralgia was a " truly " trouble, not like a stuffed shark. Betty decided not to tell Jo that she was going to the Indian tents, if it were possible to slip away without letting him know it. He would be likely to object to her going. He might even think that the medicine was " make- believe." Betty had a chance to slip away just as she had hoped for, for Jo went with the captain of the Wonder Ship to make arrangements with the ALL FOR CLARABELLA'S SAKE. 71 steamer captain to carry them home to Bunch- berry Corner. They were scarcely out of sight when around the point came the big Indian doc- tor in his canoe. He was not so frightful to Betty as he had been at first; indeed, she now thought that his face was painted in a rather pretty pattern, very much like the rising-sun bed-quilt that Clara- bella had made for the fair.*^* Doctor Sockobesin drew his canoe on shore and waved his paddle to Betty, whom he saw watching him from the deck of the Wonder Ship, and Betty put on her best hat with the tall feather, and ran across the gang-plank to the wharf. She looked back cautiously, but the cook's wife was down in the cabin mending the mermaid's scales that Betty had torn, and Hosay was teaching the bear a new dancing step. No one saw her except the cross monkey, who only scolded a little more fiercely than usual. The coral earrings were in a little box in her pocket, but she wore the necklace around her neck out- side her gingham apron. Two little girls in a village cart drawn by a donkey gazed at her curiously, and Betty heard 72 THE WONDER SHIP. one say to the other, " I think that 's the mer- maid that lives on the Wonder Ship ! Do you suppose she is just like any girl ? She looks as though she was, does n't she ? " " Oh, I am ! " cried Betty, eagerly, for it hurt her feelings to be thought different. "I am only just Betty Pritchard when I 'm at home in Bunchberry Corner. I don't belong on the Wonder Ship ! I don't belong to the show ! There won't be any mermaid till the cook's wife mends her, and then she will be somebody else, for I am going home ! They are going to get a little girl, as soon as they can, to come and stay. They are veri/ nice people." " Your earrings must have been brass," said one of the little girls, frankly. " If they had been of gold they wouldn't have made your ears so sore. They look dreadfully sore." Betty's heart sank. A lump came in her throat. If the earrings were brass perhaps the Indian doctor would not give her the neuralgia medicine ! She turned away and walked on. " Where are you going ? " called one of the girls from the donkey-cart. " I 'm going in the Indian doctor's canoe to ALL FOB. CLARABELLA'S SAKE. 73 the Indian tents to get some medicine to cure a very intimate friend of mine. She 's Clarabella, our hired girl at home in Bunchberry Corner," explained Betty. The cart went on, bumpety-bump, drawn by the sturdy little donkey. Poor Betty felt that her conscience would oblige her to tell the Indian that perhaps the ear- rings were brass, even though he probably would not let her have the medicine. The cook's wife had said her ears were sore because the rings had been put in too soon. She wondered whether it was certain that she ought to tell Doctor Sockobesin. She had no- body to advise her. She knew what Jo would say. Once when he and Dickey Small had " swapped " fish-poles he had got up at four o'clock in the morning to carry back the five cents that Dickey had paid him " to boot " and all because he had not told Dickey that the pole had been broken and mended. Jo said that a fellow or a girl who was n't hon- est was a sneak. And Jo would n't have any- thing to do with a sneak. Just as soon as Betty came within hearing of 74 THE WONDER SHIP. the Indian doctor she called to him almost with a sob, " Perhaps they 're brass and that 's why they made my ears sore ! The bargain is off, if you don't think it 's fair ! " It was rather hard work to make the Indian understand. But when he did he only laughed. He said, " Little squaw's ears heap tough ; brass not hurt little squaw girl." " I can only stay a little while," went on Betty, " for the steamer sails at half-past ten. I would like to have you make the boat go fast." " Heap time ; but we make canoe fly like bird ! " said the Indian. The canoe did skim over the blue waves, scarcely seeming to touch them. Betty was not at all afraid of the Indian now, and she felt rather proud when people in the boats that they passed turned back to look at his strange painted face. She thought she now knew more about In- dians than Miss Simpkins or the geography ; and Stella Gooch would never dare to boast to her again that her big brother Thaddeus had seen a wild man of Borneo. Once Betty had thrilled with a mixture of fear and of envy of Thaddeus ALL FOR CLARABELLA'S SAKE. 75 Gooch ; but now, compared to the wonders she had seen, a wild man of Borneo seemed quite a common person. Such a lot of papooses as there were around those tents, their faces shining like copper tea- kettles, and so much alike that Betty wondered how their own mothers ever knew them apart ! The little Indians did n't take much notice of Betty until they caught sight of her coral neck- lace ; then they crowded around her. But the doctor pushed them roughly away, and took Betty into his own tent. He had a good many children, and they were all plump and merry, except one poor little girl, who lay upon a mat of skins, her features pinched and drawn by illness. But her face lighted and she tried to raise herself when she saw the neck- lace. " It 's for her," said the Indian doctor. Betty drew it from her neck. " Oh, I would give it to her for nothing ! " she said. It was another little girl who was to have the earrings. Betty tried to tell the mother that perhaps they were brass, but the woman only laughed and said, " No hurt." The girl, whose 76 THE WONDER SHIP. ears were already pierced, put the little coral roses in and strutted proudly about ; and Betty didn't moum at all that they were no longer hers. They gave Betty, besides the big bottle of medicine which she hugged tightly to her ging- ham apron, a beautiful little sweet-grass basket and a fur pouch to hang at her belt, and a birch- bark glove-box that was the prettiest of all. Betty thought that even Jo, who always said she had n't " a business bump," could n't say that tliis was a bad bargain. Just as she had set out for the canoe to return, there appeared upon the shore near the tents the donkey- cart and the girls who had said her ear- rings must be brass ! " Hop in ! We '11 drive you back to the ship," said one of the girls. It was a nice yellow little donkey-cart, and the way it went bumpety-bump was fascinating. There were no donkey-carts at Bunchberry Corner ; besides, when you 've been for a long time with grown. people and boys you do like the company of girls. So Betty hopped in ; and Doctor Sockobesin went off alone in his canoe. BACK TO BUNCHBERHY CORNER. 77 XII. BACK TO BTJNCHBEERY CORNEE. Betty began to feel nervous as soon as she was in the cart, and she at once told her new friends that she was going away in the steamer that sailed at half-past ten. One of the girls looked at a tiny watch that hung at her side and said Pippins could do it very well. But Betty was frightened when she looked at the watch to iind how long she had stayed at the tents ; and she wished she had let the Indian doctor take her to the ship in the canoe, for he seemed to be a man that did as he agreed. Pippins went at a good gait — so good that Betty's breath was nearly taken away — over the stubbly, hubbly ground between the Indian tents and the regular road. But after he had gone on a little way in the road he came to a sudden halt. He braced his lumpy little fore- feet and firmly refused to move. & 78 THE WONDER SHIP. There seemed to be no reason for such con- duct unless it were the tooting of a horn from a passing buckboard. Pippins' mistress said he had a sensitive ear and never did like anything that sounded like the Fourth of July. She got out and held clover invitingly a few feet before the donkey's nose. But he did n't stir. " I 'm really afraid Pippins is going to have one of his behaving times," she said anxiously. She presently cut a switch from a bush beside the road and she used it, too, though one could see that it made her heart ache. But Pippins did n't move ! At last when she gave up and said she did n't know what to do. Pippins started. They all got in and Pippins went a few rods. Then he stopped again. In the distance they could see a dark cloud rising from the smokestack of the steamer, and Betty said, " Oh ! oh ! it 's going to sail ! " " It does that smoking for a long time before it goes," said Pippins' mistress. " Pippins will go on soon." But Betty jumped from the donkey-cart and ran. And as she got near the wharves she saw BACK TO BUNCHBERHY CORNER. 79 the steamer puffing and snorting steadily along out of the harbor. " Jo ! Jo ! " she cried, so loud that people stopped in the street. Oh, could it be true that Jo was going home 'to Bunchberry Corner, to Grandma and Grandpa and Glarabella, and leaving her behind ! Surely one cannot be expected when one is but eight to bear up against such a trouble as that! " I should n't think you were the one to make a fuss ! " said a very cross voice — and there, at Betty's back, was Jo, with the tall, whiskered gentleman who had promised to go home with them. He had some pity for the troubles of a person who was only eight. He took Betty up in his arms, and they walked along, and he heard all about the big bottle which Betty still tightly clutched. He wouldn't let Jo say it was only a make- believe cure, and not good for anything. " You can't possibly know anything about it ! " he said to Jo. Then he whispered in Betty's ear something that seemed too beautiful to be true — that he 80 THE WONDER SHIP. was their Uncle Jo who had gone away to sea when he was only fifteen, the Uncle Jo whom Jo had always meant to go in search of as soon as he grew up. He had been shipwrecked and carried by a vessel that rescued him to the other side of the world ; and in all these years he had never been in his own country until now. And he had not known, until Betty told him, that his father and mother had learned that he was innocent of the wickedness of which he was accused. Now he had the heart to go home to them, he said ; and they would all go there in his ship, for the repairs were so far finished that she could sail that afternoon. So they were not at all delayed by Betty's kind deed for Clarabella — only her running away had made a good deal of anxiety on the Wonder Ship. One can't run away, even a small person of eight, without causing anxiety and trouble. " He is the truly Uncle Jo, is n't he ? " Betty asked in a bewildered way, as soon as she and Jo were alone. "He isn't like the India-rubber girl, or the shark that was stuffed, or the mer- mg,id that was nobody but me ? " BACK TO BUNCHBERRY CORNER. 81 " Of course he is really Uncle Jo ! don't be a silly ! " said Jo. When Jo said a thing was n't " make-believe " you might be sure it was n't. Uncle Jo sent another telegram to Bunchberry Comer, and then he took them to his own ship at once ; and every one on the Wonder Ship looked sorry when they left, even Hosay, though he made the bad monkey turn somersaults as if he were glad. There was a fair wind all the afternoon, and Uncle Jo's great, beautiful ship sailed directly to Bunchberry Port, and the little runaways, who had been through so much, went joyfully home from there with a swift horse and carriage, leaving the ship at the port and taking Uncle Jo with them to Grandpa and Grandma. Of course it seemed too good to be true ; but Betty told Grandma very soon that she had found out that the beautiful things in the world were never "make-believe ! " And Betty, as we know, was an experienced person. Although things had turned out very delight- fully, Jo and Betty agreed that they would never go away again without leave. Jo said that he 82 THE WONDER SHIP. had felt from the very first step that it was " sneaking." Clarabella cried for joy over Betty, and said she would take every drop of Doctor Sockobesin's medicine. I can't say that it has cured her, but I know that from that day to this she has never called Betty " Elizabeth Augusta Pritchard." Dandy — faithful Dandy — had become worn and thin from watching the everyday hat under the tree ; and Betty's ears stayed very sore a long time, so that the doctor feared blood-poisoning ; besides, she had left the sweet-grass basket and the little fur pouch and the birch-bark glove-box in the donkey-cart. But these troubles turned out well, after a while, as troubles so often do. Dandy got fat and well (though he always barks and whines dolefully whenever Betty puts on her best hat), and Betty's ears are now perfectly well ; and not long after she reached home there came a package, by express, contain- ing the treasures she had left in the donkey-cart and a photograph which showed her friends, in the cart, just like life. Underneath was written " Us and Pippins." BACK TO BUNCHBERRY CORNER. 83 Miss Simpkins pointed out to Betty that " us and Pippins " was not good grammar ; but Betty thinks that the grammar, in the big world, like the spelling, may be different from Miss Simp- kins'. Jo had a trouble, too, which was more annoy- ing and lasting. An article appeared in the papers — the " Bunchberry Port Banner," and others — about the carrying away of the chil- dren by the Wonder Ship. It was headed in large letters : " The BmsrcHBEREY Twins ! " They were called " twins " all the way through ! Jo thought at first that he would send a notice to the papers that they were not twins ; but he did n't, because Uncle Jo said it might hurt Betty's feelings to have it in the papers that she was only eight. Jo was comforted when he measured himself by his marks on the wood-shed door, for he had grown nearly an inch. Betty had grown almost as much. It really seemed as if they had taken a start, as the bear-boy said they would.