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THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
He 's asleep in (he poppy beds, they say, 
 He has been so busy the livelong day. 
 And now he is fast in slumber deep 
 In the field where the poppies close viyil keep. 
 But I have been there myself, I say, 
 And have noticed a ivonderful, broad highway. 
 Whose borders are fair with flowers, that blow 
 Beyond the field where the poppies grow. 
 
 * ^ * 
 
 / think, tvith his comrades, hand in hand, 
 He has gone away to a larger land 
 Under the sunlight and moonlight and stars. 
 Tliey have broken through the encircling bars 
 Which guard its, prisoners, from secrets deep. 
 Whose keys are kept in the Country of Sleep. 
 And he^s off on the highway grand, I know, 
 That crosses the field tohere the poppies grow. 
 
The Island Impossible • 
 % 
 
 Harriet Morgan 
 
 ^JlCCusira tecC By 
 C/^ Katharine Pyle '■>si? 
 
 ton/. 
 
 ^o/ii 
 Little , Brown ^ Co 
 1833. 
 
Copyright, 1S99, 
 By Little, Brown, and Company. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 SHnttirrsttg ^Strss: 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 
 
CnsatbrU to 
 
 TOM MURPHY, 
 
 JACK O'NORY'S 
 
 CLOSEST COMRADE, FAITHFULLEST FRIEND. 
 
 
rA 
 
Chapter Page 
 
 I The Island Impossi- 
 ble 1 
 
 II In the Maple-sugar 
 
 Forest .... 12 
 
 III In Charge op the 
 
 Light-house . . 31 
 
 IV At a South Ameri- 
 
 can Port ... 48 
 
 V In the Convalescent 
 
 Ward 70 "^^ 
 
 VI Jurors 
 
 VII On the Great Desert 
 
 VIII At the Queen's Drawing-room 
 
 IX The Rescue 
 
 X Amongst the Hop-pickers 
 
 XI Commissioners 
 
 XII AUF WiEDERSEHEN . . . 
 
 L'ENVOI 207 
 
"Jack O'Nory fell asleep in the field 
 
 WHERE THE POPPIES GROW " . . . . Frontispiece 
 
 " Their burdens were thrown on to the 
 
 BLAZING coals" Page 18 
 
 " So the nurses and the three little 
 
 convalescents began to dance a jig " " 86 
 
 " One man who was lying on the ground, 
 
 suddenly sat up " " 130 
 
 " so at last they came down to the pier, 
 
 gorgeous " " 179 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 TACK O'NORY fell asleep in the 
 J field where the poppies grow. 
 
 " Do you think the other children will 
 consent ? " said Jack O'Nory. 
 
 Rosey Pink said she did n't know why 
 they should not consent, and Tom Mur- 
 phy said he did n't know what they were 
 to consent about. 
 
 "Neither do I," said Rosey Pink. 
 
 Then Jack O'Nory explained : '• TVhy, 
 you two children and I are going to live 
 
THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 on that beautiful Island, ■which is so near the 
 shore of the city that avc can build a short bridge, 
 and never have to use a boat for coming or for 
 going, — but we must have the other children, 
 too, — and Anno. Then, if Anno comes, Roscoe 
 will surely come, and he could do the hard work 
 while we could help Anno to take care of us ; 
 and Mr. Rattles and Remus could keep their 
 boats at our wharf. You remember that there 
 is a lovely bay farther back, and we would 
 own the Island, and live on it, and grow up 
 on it." 
 
 " But what about the fathei-s and the mothers 
 and the dear auntie ? " 
 
 " That 's all right," said Jack, " they will cer- 
 tainly consent." 
 
 " Why, Jack," said Tom, " that will be the 
 most beautiful thing we have ever done," — 
 and Rosey Pink clapped her hands and danced 
 upon her toes. 
 
 " They are coming now," she cried, — " all the 
 children ; and Anno is along, and oh ! I will go 
 and tell them ! " 
 
 How pleased they were — Ernest and Calleen 
 and Mary and Jeanne, and Sam Holmes. Anno 
 said she would call Roscoe. Then they all ran 
 
THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 down to the wharves and found Mr. Rattles and 
 Remus Rattles, who immediately consented to 
 give up their berth at the wharf of the city, and 
 to begin at once to build a boat-house on the 
 little bay which ran into the Island. 
 
 The fathers and the mothers and the dear 
 auntie objected ; but the children made such 
 beautiful promises that they at last gave their 
 consent, insisting, however, that a school-house 
 should be built on the Island, — in which the 
 children should live, — and that every Sunday 
 they should come over to the city on the Conti- 
 nent to church. 
 
 " Make the school-house a college instead," 
 said Jack O'Nory, " for we will grow up, and we 
 must have all the education possible. We are 
 going to live on the Island forever." 
 
 " And we promise," said all the children, " to 
 come over to the Continent on Sundays and go 
 to church." 
 
 The fathers and the mothers and the dear 
 auntie said a great many times, to a great many 
 propositions, " That is impossible ; " but in the 
 end they all agreed that the children should be- 
 come islanders; and these elders looked very wise 
 as they nodded to each other and said very low, 
 
TUE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " It will bo just going to boarding-school, you 
 know, for there must be a professor and a pro- 
 fessor's wife, and the children must live in the 
 school ; " and it was decided that other boys and 
 girls should come over from the Continent to day- 
 school, and to college, — when everybody was 
 old enough to make it a college. 
 
 " Only," said the children, " they must never 
 come any farther than the college, — never in- 
 side of the Island, for that is ours." 
 
 Then the fathers and the mothers and the dear 
 auntie decided that there should be a professor 
 for the college, and a professor's wife, and that 
 the children must live in the college. 
 
 " All right," said the children ; " but we must 
 have our own rooms and our own table, and 
 Anno will wait on us and Roscoe will do the 
 hard work." 
 
 The elders were greatly pleased that Anno was 
 to be with them, so immediately the college was 
 built, and the bridge ; and a great many 
 laws and rules were made, one of which was 
 that no day-scholar crossing the bridge to the 
 college must ever go anywhere on the Island, 
 unless she was invited. 
 
 " Or he," suggested Tom Murphy. 
 
THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 Then there was a great time, — the elders 
 furnishing every room in the college, and the 
 children taking over all their belongings. Jack 
 O'Nory and Tom Murphy seemed to have more 
 pieces of paper and paints and pencils for their 
 artist work than you could put into a bushel 
 basket. 
 
 And Calleen had lots of prints of broken arms 
 and legs, and thigh-bones and ankle-bones, and 
 badly made hearts and livers, — just such things 
 as one sees in a medical museum, for medical 
 work was her bent, — though one of the children 
 said it was a curious thing to talk of Calleen's 
 bent, when she certainly was as straight as a 
 stick, 
 
 Jeanne insisted that she was to be a musician, 
 but as she had not a note of written music in 
 her possession, nothing was carried over which 
 could show any furthering of her intentions. 
 
 When Mary was asked what particular kind 
 of bent she was to follow, which might mean 
 some particular kind of belonging to be moved 
 over, she said she had no particular kind of 
 belongings, because her intention was to be a 
 house-mother. 
 
 "So also is mine," said Sam Holmes; and as 
 
6 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 Sam was always ready to follow Mary's lead, it 
 seemed quite natural that his vocation also was 
 to be that of a house-mother. 
 
 Ernest had a lot of engineering drawings ; and 
 as for Rosey Pink, she did not seem to have any 
 desire for belongings of any kind, — her busi- 
 ness was to do whatever Tom Murphy and Jack 
 O'Nory did, and to be ordered about by them at 
 a moment's notice. 
 
 Of course everybody knew what Anno's busi- 
 ness was, — which was to do everything and 
 attend to everybody and think of everything, 
 and put as much work as was possible ujion 
 Roscoe's shoulders ; while Roscoe was simply her 
 shadow, and you may be sure he had work enougli 
 in sight, — and the fathers and the mothers and 
 the dear auntie loaded him with all kinds of 
 packages and all sorts of advice. 
 
 The professor and the professor's wife, who 
 were to live in the college, left the children free 
 to make their own arrangements ; and so the life 
 on the beautiful Island began. 
 
 But at the table, where they were all assem- 
 bled a few days after taking possession, it was 
 decided that the Island must have a name. 
 
 Calleen said she had heard some of the day- 
 
THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 scholars making fun of the inhabitants and call- 
 ing them the " Robinson Cruso-ers." 
 
 Tom Murphy said that was n't a bad name, 
 and it would do very well, but it was not exactly 
 original, and it was time they had some other 
 name than " inhabitants," and certainly the 
 beautiful Island deserved to have a name of its 
 own. 
 
 Then there was uncertainty as to the means 
 of christening it. The boys thought there ought 
 to be champagne, as all the ships were christened 
 with champagne, — and this Island ought to 
 have the same honor that a ship of war has, 
 and certainly should be christened in the same 
 way. 
 
 Ernest said, " In the first place, we have n't 
 any champagne, and it would hardly do to 
 christen the Island with milk or lemonade or 
 soda-water or ginger-pop." 
 
 Rosey Pink interrupted to say that she thought 
 ginger-pop would be as good as champagne. 
 But Ernest went on speaking without noticing 
 the interruption. 
 
 "In the second place," he said, "one of our 
 most beautiful new battleships was christened 
 the other day with pure spring water." 
 
TEE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " Just as they christen a baby," interjected 
 Jeanne. 
 
 The opinion of all the children was immedi- 
 ately expressed, — that clear spring water was 
 the very thing to use, and there was a beautiful 
 spring of clear water just at the foot of the hill. 
 
 " And we must go to the top of the hill and 
 christen it," said Jack O'Nory ; " and we must 
 plant a long pole there, and put up a United 
 States flag that can be seen far out at sea." 
 
 '•'■ Jack will certainly be a sailor man," said 
 Mary, " he is so fond of the sea." 
 
 " Oh no ! never," said Rosey Pink. 
 
 Jack said that when they all went on their 
 expeditions, that would be the first land they 
 should see, coming back ; so they took a 
 crystal vase with them and started out to 
 christen the Island, When they came to the 
 spring they filled the vase with clear water. 
 Roscoe and Mr. Rattles and Remus Rattles had 
 joined them, carrying the long pole from which 
 the United States flag was to float : and Anno 
 took charge of the vase of water, thinking it 
 would go more safely up the hill in her hands 
 than in any of those smaller hands which were 
 in such a hurry now. 
 
THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " But what about the flag ? " said the children. 
 
 Mr. Rattles said that he had brought the 
 boat-house flag with him, because he had an- 
 other smaller one stowed away in a locker, 
 •which would do for the boat-house. 
 
 " What shall the name of the Island be ? " 
 ■was the next question. 
 
 After a little silence, while everybody was 
 looking at everybody else, Mary suggested that 
 as the elders had said so many times to so 
 many propositions, " That will be impossible," 
 it would be a good thing to call the Island 
 " The Island Impossible." 
 
 Rosey Pink cried out, " Yes, yes, let us call 
 it ' The Island Impossible,' and Jack O'Nory 
 shall christen it." 
 
 " No, indeed," said Jack O'Nory ; " this 
 Island is exactly like a ship, and so a girl must 
 christen it — girls always christen ships." 
 
 So it was decided that they should all form 
 a ring, and the eldest girl, who was Mary, and 
 who was about a month older than some of the 
 others, should throw the water, while every- 
 body should cry out, " Island Impossible ! " 
 " Good luck ! " " Besides, Mary ought to do 
 it," said Sam Holmes, " for it is she who thought 
 of the name." 
 
10 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 So they formed a circle, and while Mary was 
 throwing the water on the ground every child 
 shouted out, " Island Impossible, we wish you 
 good luck ! " 
 
 Then Mr. Rattles took some strong cord out 
 of his pocket and fixed it to the end of the pole, 
 and Remus and Roscoe helped him to dig a 
 place for the pole ; and after it was fixed steadily 
 in the ground, they put the cord through the 
 place for it in the flag, and they hoisted up 
 the flag, while everybody shouted " Hurrah ! 
 Hurrah ! " 
 
 After it was over Jeanne asked if they 
 thought the Continental children, who called 
 them the Robinson Cruso-ers, would now call 
 them the " Island Impossiblers." 
 
 It was decided that they would not let any 
 one know about this new name for their Island ; 
 and as it was to be a secret, they supposed that, 
 after all, they would have to be contented with 
 the name " inhabitants." 
 
 " And why not," said Ernest ; " when dis- 
 coverers land on an island they always call the 
 people who come to meet them 'the inhabi- 
 tants ; ' so that will do for us." 
 
 The children began now, in the afternoons 
 
THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE H 
 
 when school was over, to go on so many ex- 
 peditions in the boats,— sometimes also pretty 
 late on moonlight nights, — that Mr. Rattles 
 and Remus came near having nervous prostra- 
 tion, having to work so hard with sailing and 
 rowing; and these two people would many 
 times fall asleep, — sometimes when they were 
 quite far out to sea, — so that the children very 
 soon learned to manage the boats themselves. 
 
12 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IN THE MAPLE-SUGAR FOREST 
 
 " '"jT^HERE 'S a day's and a night's business 
 -■- waiting for you children, if you choose 
 to take it," said Mr. Rattles. 
 
 Mary asked, " What is the business, Mr. 
 Rattles?" 
 
 The children were all sitting about on the 
 beach, for it was a holiday, and though it was 
 very early in the spring, the day was warm, 
 and there was a smell of spring-time in the air. 
 The little waves were coming in to the shore 
 laden with a song, and the sun was shining 
 everywhere. 
 
 " Well, you see, my brother owns that Island, 
 which is covered with a maple forest, and it is 
 time for the sugar-boiling. Last year he had 
 helpers, — one is obliged to have helpers at 
 maple-sugar time, — but they behaved so badly, 
 and were the cause of so much loss to him, 
 that he told them they should never work for 
 
IN THE MAPLE-SUGAR FOREST 13 
 
 him again. Now they are his enemies, and they 
 have formed a plan to go and empty out all 
 the sap which has been flowing into the vessels 
 set to catch it. Then, of course, he would have 
 no maple sugar or maple syrup, and would 
 lose about one thousand dollars." 
 
 " Are n't there other helpers to be hired ? " 
 asked Ernest. 
 
 " Yes ; but these bad men would immediately 
 hear of that, and would at once go and empty 
 away the sap. What I want to do for him is to 
 have you children go there to-day and to-night. 
 Remus and I, and Anno and Roscoe, would go 
 with you. Then, you see, by dark all the sap 
 could be gathered, and we could set to work 
 boiling the sap down to molasses. There would 
 not be time to boil it down to sugar, but it 
 could easily be turned to syrup ; and with my 
 brother's boat and our two boats we could 
 bring the syrup to his home on the Continent, 
 where he could finish his boiling without 
 molestation, and so save his whole crop." 
 
 " But, Mr. Rattles," said Jack O'Nory, " what 
 is to prevent his enemies from going there to- 
 night and emptying out his sap. We could n't 
 drive them away." 
 
14 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " To-night they have another job, quite inland, 
 and so far away from the Maple Island that 
 they could not possibly see the light of the fires ; 
 and they feel safe, for they know one cannot 
 gather the sap and make the sugar without 
 helpers, and they know that my brother has not 
 engaged helpers." 
 
 " We '11 go," said the children. 
 
 " And right away," said Calleen, rising to her 
 feet. 
 
 " Well, this is a business matter," Mr. Rattles 
 went on to say in a very drawley tone, which 
 was not fair, just as he had succeeded in rous- 
 ing the children to a great impatience. " My 
 brother says that he can't take helpers unless 
 the helpers will take pay." 
 
 " Pay," said all the children. " Oh ! never," 
 
 " I allowed it would be so," said Mr. Rattles ; 
 " but I don't know what my brother can do if 
 you won't go. He will lose all his crop, and if 
 you do consent, it will take the whole crowd 
 of us to get through gathering the sap before 
 night-fall." 
 
 " But pay, Mr. Rattles ; you know we can't do 
 that," said Jack O'Nory. 
 
 Mr. Rattles was chewing a piece of stick, and 
 
IN THE MAPLE-SUGAR FOREST 15 
 
 he did not immediately answer. Remus Rattles 
 spoke up and said : — 
 
 " Why not let Uncle Sam build us a new boat- 
 house ; we want one, and that would n't be pay." 
 
 " All right," said the children, " we will take 
 the new boat-house. Hurrah for Mr. Sam 
 Rattles, and hurrah for this new business ! " 
 
 They all got into the two boats and rowed 
 away to the maple-sugar forest, looking so like 
 a party of people going to a picnic, that even if 
 they had met those bad helpers, the helpers 
 would not for a moment imagine that they were 
 working-people who were going to cheat them 
 out of their very wicked revenge. 
 
 Soon the whole party were in the maple for- 
 est, and when they saw the number of trees they 
 almost lost heart, for how could they ever empty 
 the sap which had been flowing from all those 
 trees, and carry it in pails to the great fire 
 which would be built for the sugar-boiling. 
 
 But Mr. Sam Rattles arranged everything 
 splendidly. He counted that with Remus and 
 Anno there would be five boys and five girls, 
 and then his brother and himself with Roscoe 
 would make three strong men. 
 
 A boy and a girl should each take a different 
 
16 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 piece of ground with their pails for emptying ; 
 then each detachment should set its pails at 
 a given spot, and the three strong men, Mr. 
 Rattles, Mr, Sam Rattles, and Roscoe, should 
 carry the pails over to the boiling-kettles and 
 bring them back to be filled again. And it was 
 amazing to see how much work was done by 
 the busy helpers, so that the sun was really low 
 in the sky before they began to be hungry and 
 to be glad of the delicious sandwiches and the 
 fresh milk which the owner of all this wealth 
 had furnished for them ; and before sunset there 
 was only a small patch of the forest to be fin- 
 ished. The children joined together for that 
 patch, and said they could easily carry the pails, 
 as there would be so many of them in the one 
 place. So the three men lighted the fires for 
 boiling. 
 
 Mr. Sam Rattles knew that by this time all 
 the bad helpers had gone inland to the other 
 maple forest. 
 
 " Have you tasted the sap ? " said Tom 
 Murphy. 
 
 " Yes," answered Jack O'Nory. " I tasted it, 
 thinking that it would be at least sweet, if it 
 was as thin as water. Instead of sweet, I call 
 
IN THE MAPLE-SUGAR FOREST 17 
 
 it bitter, and very nasty. Do you suppose tliey 
 put sugar in it when they boil it ? " 
 
 " No indeed," interrupted Calleen. " It is 
 just this sap which makes the maple sugar. I 
 know, for I was once in a country, with the dear 
 auntie, where the Indians make the maple 
 sugar, and I tasted it then, and was very dis- 
 appointed. So I know about it." 
 
 But pretty soon the last pailful was gathered, 
 and the children trooped over the ground carry- 
 ing the pails and guarding their precious freight, 
 from risk of spilling, by being very careful about 
 stepping over old roots and blackberry vines and 
 low impeding bushes. 
 
 And then how beautiful it was when they 
 reached the boiling place and saw three im- 
 mense kettles hung from stakes over the fires, 
 and how important they felt when they discov- 
 ered that the whole business of keeping the fires 
 up was to be theirs, as the three men from this 
 time out must be busy with the boiling. 
 
 The night had fallen, and there was no moon ; 
 but how far the light of these glowing fires 
 extended ! Indeed it seemed to the children 
 that the whole island was lighted up, and they 
 could see the sticks and broken branches which 
 
 2 
 
18 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 ■were needed to feed those monster fires much 
 more easily than if it had been daylight, and it 
 was easy to see which down-reaching branches 
 were brittle and easily broken. But the helpers 
 had to work very hard and were really earning 
 their new boat-house, for the fires were truly 
 monsters, with appetites that were never satis- 
 fied ; and the moment the children advanced 
 with their sheaves of dry wood, their burdens 
 were thrown on to the blazing coals, and such 
 a stirring with long poles was going on now 
 that Mr. Rattles and his brother and Roscoe 
 had faces almost as red as the coals. 
 
 Mr. Sam Rattles said, " Now, children, if you 
 can make a spurt and bring double the quantity 
 of fuel on this bout, you will have time to stop 
 over one journey and eat some bread and syrup. 
 I have brought the bread with me, and although 
 we have not yet the thick syrup, it is sufficiently 
 boiled to be very good." 
 
 So the helpers started off with new strength 
 to do double work. The thought of a rest was 
 delightful, although they hardly put much faith 
 in the idea that the tasteless sap they had been 
 so busy about could be really good for anything 
 as syrup. 
 
IN THE MAPLE-SUGAR FOREST 19 
 
 But it 'Was good^ — " delicious," the helpers 
 said, and they did n't think it could be much 
 better even when it should be thicker. And 
 when they went to work again, their task was 
 lighter, for Mr. Sam Rattles said it would not be 
 necessary to bring so much fuel now. Slower 
 fires were better when the sap was beginning 
 to thicken. Mr. Rattles said to his brother : — 
 
 " Why not wait and boil it down to sugar 
 here ? " But Mr. Sam Rattles said there would 
 be danger that way, for they would have to go 
 on boiling till six o'clock in the morning, which 
 would be daylight, and then the sugar could not 
 be moved until it was quite cold ; and after all 
 this work the enemies might come and take all 
 the sugar, which would be worse than taking the 
 sap. As it was now, the fires could be put out 
 by four o'clock, and the syrup could be carried to 
 the boats in the large covered pails ; and indeed 
 by four o'clock the syrup was so thick that it 
 was splendid, and one hundred pails of it were 
 standing in the cool morning air waiting for 
 transportation. 
 
 The three strong men were obliged to make 
 forty trips between the boats and the kettles 
 before it was all embarked, so it was very wise 
 
20 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 of Mr, Sam Rattles to have thought of that, and 
 to have made his fires so near the boat-landing. 
 
 When it came time for rowing the cargo over 
 to the Continent, Mr. Rattles made some demur 
 about leaving the children without him, and 
 yet there was no one who could manage the 
 sail-boat and take care of the sugar at the same 
 time, and Remus would have to help him with 
 the sail. 
 
 The children told him not to fear for them ; 
 they would be very comfortable till the boats 
 should return ; " and," they said, " there are no 
 wild beasts on the Island. So, good-bye, Mr. 
 Rattles ; " and then they began to sing " Good- 
 bye, John, don't stay long," and Mr. Rattles, 
 whose name was John, went off, smiling, to the 
 boat. 
 
 " And now, what shall we do ? " said the 
 children. 
 
 " Anno, you will have to be the bravest, be- 
 cause you are grown up." 
 
 " I don't feel brave at all," said Anno. " I 
 did n't know that it would be so lonesome after 
 the men should go ; but it is lonesome." 
 
 " That 's the truth," said Rosey Pink. " And 
 the tires are nearly dead out, and it is very dark. 
 
IN THE MAPLE-SUGAR FOREST 21 
 
 and growing colder. Shall we keep up one of 
 the fires ? " 
 
 Anno said, " Better not, for in some way the 
 enemies might have come back from the other 
 sugar-boiling, and if they saw a light they would 
 come over to the Island." 
 
 Tlie boys said it was all nonsense for the girls 
 to be afraid of the dark, and although it was 
 growing pretty cold, that was because they were 
 sitting still ; better get up and run about. 
 
 " Seems to me," said Ernest, " that we have 
 had enough of running about since we came 
 here." 
 
 And Sam Holmes agreed " that was so," and 
 suggested that they had better all huddle up 
 together and tell stories in order to keep each 
 other warm. But nobody seemed to be in the 
 humor for telling stories, and it tvas cold. 
 
 An hour passed away. Certainly it was time 
 for the boats to come back, and the dawn had 
 come into the sky. The tired children were 
 glad to hear oars striking the water. Tom 
 Murphy and Jack O'Nory ran out from behind 
 the patch of bushes which screened them from 
 the bay to see the boats, but they came back 
 trembling with excitement. 
 
22 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " There is just one boat, and there are six 
 men in it." 
 
 " The enemies," said all the others. 
 
 " The enemies, and what shall we do ? " said 
 Anno. 
 
 Callecn said, " Anno, you are more friglit- 
 ened than any of the rest of us, and you are the 
 biggest." 
 
 " I am frightened," Anno said. 
 
 Tom and Jack said the men in the boat were 
 not coming down to the place from which their 
 boats had pushed off ; they were going to land 
 just where they had landed when they started to 
 gather in the sap. 
 
 " So we will have time to hide," said Rosey 
 Pink. 
 
 " Where ? " 
 
 " In the trees." 
 
 " Sure enough, in the trees," assented all the 
 children. 
 
 Then it was decided that only two children 
 should go into each tree, so as not to attract 
 the attention of the men, should they come to 
 this place ; and all those rapid climbers soon 
 arranged themselves. Rosey Pink insisted upon 
 climbing into the same tree with Tom and Jack, 
 
IN THE MAPLE-SUGAR FOREST 23 
 
 because there was an uneven number, and it 
 would not do for any one of them to occupy a 
 tree all to herself. 
 
 " Or himself," said Jack. 
 
 " Are you all comfortable," asked Anno out of 
 her tree, where she was perched up with Mary. 
 
 Jeanne said she was not comfortable ; her foot 
 had caught in a crotch, and she could n't get it 
 out, and most likely by the time the robbers got 
 there, she would be so far from comfortable that 
 she would have to tumble out head first. 
 
 So Ernest, who was in the same tree, came 
 down a notch, and pulled Jeanne's foot out of 
 its prison, and by that time they heard the 
 robbers calling to each other and saying, 
 "Sold!" 
 
 Jack O'Nory said, " They will soon be coming 
 this way, so no more laughing or complaining 
 in the camp." 
 
 Calleen said, " What if we should sneeze ?" 
 
 Silence fell on all the tenants of the trees, 
 and they heard the steps of " the enemies " 
 coming nearer and nearer. 
 
 "Sam Rattles has boiled his sugar," said a 
 voice directly beneath Rosey Pink, " for here 
 are the kettles." 
 
24 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " But how in the world did he get time to 
 empty all that sap and boil the sugar without 
 helpers. It was all safe enough this morning, 
 for I reconnoitred when he was absent, and I 
 made sure we would have it all our own way if 
 we could get here by this liour this morning." 
 
 " Well, you see that evidently he has had it 
 his own way." 
 
 " There has not been time for him to make 
 the sugar," said another voice, " and the fires 
 are almost out." 
 
 Then the six men came forward and sur- 
 rounded the kettles. 
 
 " Only syrup," said one ; " pretty thick at 
 that. He must have taken it all away in the 
 shape of syrup. You can see that there is no 
 sugar here." 
 
 " A rather sharp trick," drawled out another 
 voice. 
 
 The strange birds in the trees found it hard 
 to keep quiet. It would have been so comfort- 
 able to have a hearty laugh at the expense of 
 " the enemies," of whom, nevertheless, they 
 were deadly afraid. 
 
 " Well, I don't think there is anything to be 
 done about it," said one enemy. 
 
IN THE MAPLE-SUGAR FOREST 25 
 
 " The kettles," said another. 
 
 " Yes, to be sure, the kettles." 
 
 " And they are very good ones." 
 
 " It would be a grand revenge to take them 
 away with us." 
 
 " No way to take them." 
 
 "That's so; the boat is small and they are 
 unwieldy, and there are three of them." 
 
 " I '11 tell you what : let 's hide them, and 
 come back for them with a large boat to-night. 
 We can sell them for a pretty penny." 
 
 " Agreed. All lend a hand, and we can hide 
 them." 
 
 " But where ? " 
 
 " To be sure, where ? He '11 be back by sun- 
 rise and hunt the Island for them. He knows 
 every hole and corner of this forest." 
 
 The drawley voice said, " Better sink them 
 in shallow water." 
 
 That idea appeared to be pleasing to the 
 whole band of " enemies," and pretty soon they 
 had dispersed and were sounding the water 
 along the shore. 
 
 " I have a very bad crick in my neck," said 
 Calleen. " I shall have to get out of my tree in 
 order to rub it out." 
 
26 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " Calleen, be quiet," said Ernest ; " they will 
 be coming back immediately.'" 
 
 But Calleen slipped down out of the tree. 
 
 " Oh, it feels delightful to be on land again, 
 and I certainly am going to follow and see what 
 place they are choosing for the kettles." 
 
 All the other children commanded her to 
 climb into her tree again, but in vain. Then 
 Jack O'Nory said : — 
 
 " One of us must follow her, Tom ; she must 
 not be allowed to go alone. I will go, and if I 
 need your help I will whistle." 
 
 Pretty soon Jack joined Calleen, and they 
 went creeping through the bushes, ready to 
 crouch down if the men should turn and look 
 back. 
 
 The children could hear their voices as they 
 walked along the shore. One of the men 
 said : — 
 
 " Here is a good place ; just about four feet 
 deep. Rattles will never think of looking for 
 them here." 
 
 " Yes," said another voice. " This is a jolly 
 place, and we can easily get them to-night. It 
 will be a good revenge for us, and a good prize, 
 as the kettles are new and expensive. But I 
 
IN THE MAPLE-SUGAR FOREST 27 
 
 wish we had come sooner and emptied out his 
 crop." 
 
 " Whom do you suppose he could find to help 
 him ? for he has not engaged any of the men 
 who make it their business." 
 
 A third voice said : — 
 
 " It has just struck me, from a little thing I 
 saw, that he mai/ have employed children." 
 
 " Oh ! nonsense, Pete. What children could 
 possibly do such work as that, and in less than 
 a day ? And what did you see ? " 
 
 " Just nothing but a little bow of ribbon that 
 looks as if it had come off of a girl's hair." 
 
 " Pete has a high old imagination," said 
 another man. 
 
 Calleen and Jack turned very quietly and 
 made their way behind the screening bushes 
 back to the open, near which the other trees full 
 of these new birds were standing. 
 
 Calleen climbed up like a squirrel into her 
 place, while Jack was very glad to get back to 
 his. There was not much time for talk, for 
 they knew that the men, who were sounding the 
 water with a long pole, would be returning right 
 away. 
 
 It was very silent in the maple-sugar camp. 
 
28 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 and almost immediately the enemies came back 
 and began to cany away the kettles, two men 
 carrying a kettle between them. 
 
 "Where is your 'girl's hair-ribbon,' Pete?" 
 said one of them. 
 
 " There it is, caught on the bush at your side." 
 
 " Sure enough, that 's what it is, and it smells 
 as sweet as any flower ; but I can't imagine little 
 girls as helping in this kind of work. If Sam 
 Rattles could n't do any better than have chil- 
 dren to help him, he would not have had pails 
 of syrup by this time. I just suppose some little 
 girl of his acquaintance was along, — and I 
 suppose a sonsie little lassie, — but who were 
 his helpers it is hard to say." 
 
 Then the men started off carrying the kettles, 
 and pretty soon the children heard their voices 
 turning inland from the shore. 
 
 " They have drowned the kettles," said Cal- 
 leen, " and they are crossing the Island to get to 
 the place where they left their boat. Let 's get 
 down." 
 
 " No," said Anno ; " wait awhile, one of them 
 might come back." 
 
 " To see about that hair-ribbon," suggested 
 Tom. 
 
IN THE MAPLE-SUGAR FOREST 29 
 
 " Whose was it, any way ? " said Sam Holmes. 
 
 " Mine," said Mary ; " for my hair is all 
 untied." 
 
 Soon the children heard the sound of oars, 
 and they all climbed down from their perches, 
 and began praising each other because nobody 
 had coughed or sneezed, and so got the whole 
 party into trouble. Their anxiety now was 
 lest " the enemies " should meet the returning 
 boats ; but a whole hour passed, and it was day- 
 light before Mr. Rattles and his party returned. 
 
 They told the children that they had had 
 trouble getting a wagon to carry the syrup up to 
 Sam Rattles' house, as they had landed at an un- 
 frequented place, for fear of attracting attention. 
 
 " Good that you did, Mr. Sam Rattles," said 
 Ernest, " for ' the enemy ' has been here." 
 
 Then there was great amazement and many 
 questions, and a great deal of commendation 
 bestowed upon the children for their presence 
 of mind in getting into the trees ; and Mr. Sam 
 Rattles was lavish in his thanks to Calleen, 
 through whose courage they were now able to 
 find the place where the kettles were hidden ; 
 but the other Mr. Rattles shook his head and 
 said that Calleen was a very foolhardy young 
 
30 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 lady, and what would the people on the Conti- 
 nent say if they could know of the danger to 
 which the children had been subjected. 
 
 The whole troop set off to inspect the place 
 where the kettles were " drowned," as Calleen 
 said, and everybody was eager to see them taken 
 out of the water again. 
 
 But the men agreed that the only way was to 
 row two of the boats over to their anchorage 
 and lift them in. Mr. Rattles said that Remus 
 might bring the small boat around, and Sam 
 Rattles would have his also there, and there 
 would be plenty of room for the three kettles ; 
 but he, for his part, was going now to take his 
 whole party home in the sail-boat, and he hoped 
 this night's adventures would not be the cause 
 of whooping-coughs or croups or " locked jaws," 
 on their part. 
 
 The children promised to steer clear of all 
 these delightful complaints, but they insisted 
 that their boat should go round with the others 
 to see the embarkation of the kettles. 
 
 When they started for home Mr, Sam Rattles 
 said : — 
 
 " It shall be a beautiful boat-house, with bath- 
 houses attached." 
 
IN CHARGE OF THE LIGHT-HOUSE 31 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 m CHARGE OF THE LIGHT-HOUSE 
 
 " T WISH we were in the sail-boat," said Tom 
 
 ^ Murphy, " for theu we might go across the 
 sea. Rowing is slow work." 
 
 " The little sail is right here under ray foot," 
 said Rosey Pink, who was managing the rudder. 
 " Remus Rattles left it in here the day he went 
 fishing with his father ; you know he never takes 
 anything out." 
 
 " Good for you, Rosey. What do you say, 
 Jack ? Shall we hoist the little sail and go 
 across the sea ? " 
 
 " Of course we shall. Let her go for a min- 
 ute, Rosey, while we put it up. I did n't even 
 know that the Rattles' firm oivned a sail for the 
 row-boat." 
 
 " Mr, Rattles made it only four days ago," 
 said Rosey Pink. 
 
 So very soon these mariners hoisted sail and 
 headed out to sea, — a sea as quiet as their 
 own harbor, and tinted with beautiful changing 
 
32 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 colors; overhead the blue sky with its sleepy 
 little white clouds, looking so good-liumored that 
 they seemed to take the place of comrades inter- 
 ested in the doings of these sailors, and ready 
 for their share of whatever should be going on. 
 
 So on and on over the sea they sailed, and 
 pretty soon they saw in the distance a light- 
 house, and set their sail for it. As they came 
 towards it, Rosey Pink said, " I don't think it 
 is exactly the Eddystone Light-house, for it is 
 not very much like the pictures, but I know it is 
 some celebrated light-house." And the boys 
 agreed that it must be a celebrated one ; it 
 looked as if it might be celebrated. 
 
 Sailing along in the smooth water, pretty 
 soon they reached the little pier and landed, 
 but nobody came out from the light-house to 
 see about them, so they moored their boat and 
 made their way round till they came to an open 
 door, which they entered. A woman was iron- 
 ing, and a little girl was sitting beside the iron- 
 ing-table watching her — a quite small little 
 girl, much younger than Rosey Pink. 
 
 " Well, you did give me a start," said the 
 woman, raising her eyes from her work and set- 
 ting the iron down on its rest. " Who in the 
 
IN CHARGE OF THE LIGHT-HOUSE 33 
 
 world could dream of three children suddenly 
 walking into a light-house, and without giving 
 any notice of their coming. Did you fall out of 
 the sky?" 
 
 "No," said Jack O'Nory. "We rose out of 
 the sea, but no one came to the front door to 
 meet us, so we wandered round to this door." 
 
 The woman said that people who lived in 
 light-houses never luere in the habit of expecting 
 visitors. Since they had come, they were all 
 welcome to a seat ; but as for her, she was too 
 busy to pay them much attention. Then she 
 sent her little girl, whom she called Isadora, to 
 call her father. 
 
 When the little girl came back with her 
 father, he appeared to be much pleased. He 
 said, " Bridget, the fates are with us to-day in- 
 stead of being against us, as they generally are, 
 for I really wa"S greatly perplexed, casting about 
 in my mind how I could possibly feel it right to 
 go away and leave the place unprotected." 
 
 " Unprotected," said his wife. " You could 
 leave the place a year without any one coming 
 near it, except the Light-house Board." 
 
 " And they might appear this very day, for 
 all we know." 
 
 s 
 
34 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " No fear of that ; it is n't six weeks since 
 their last visit, and they are not due for another 
 six weeks. Perhaps you think it such an invit- 
 ing place that they may come unexpectedly on a 
 picnic." 
 
 " Well, that is neither here nor there, but you 
 see (turning to the children) we are obliged to 
 go away to-day for a little while. My wife's 
 grandfather has just died, and has left everything 
 he owned to her. We must be at the funeral, 
 and we must be present at the reading of the 
 will. We will come back before dark, or, at 
 any rate, /will. I am not sure about the wife 
 and daughter. If you children could stay until 
 I come back it would be a great kindness to 
 me." 
 
 The children all said that to stay would be 
 about the most pleasant thing they could pos- 
 sibly do. They had never been anywhere near 
 a light-house, except on the outside, and then 
 only a very small one; and to really live in a 
 light-house for an hour or two, and go up the 
 stairs and see the lantern, and look away out to 
 sea, would be a delightful thing to do. 
 
 " What would you say to a year or two in a 
 light-house ? " asked the woman. 
 
IN CHARGE OF THE LIGHT-HOUSE 35 
 
 " That would be such a beautiful thing that it 
 could never happen," said Rosey Pink. 
 
 The woman smiled and went on ironing. It 
 was a pretty, thin, white dress for Isadora that 
 she was at work on. 
 
 " You see," she said, " it is not necessary for 
 a child to wear black at a funeral, and after all it 
 is only a great-grandfather in her case. White 
 will do very well, and be sweet and cool, for, of 
 course, it will be warmer there on the farm than 
 it is on this wide ocean. I shall wear black my- 
 self, because I have a cousin who will lend me a 
 dress ; but, you see, I didn't know my grandfather 
 very well. I was married very young, and have 
 lived in light-houses ever since, — that is my hus- 
 band's profession, light-houses. Gracious, won't 
 it seem good to live on the land again, and see 
 flowers growing and hear the birds singing." 
 
 " Shall we have birds ? " asked the little girl. 
 
 " Birds and flowers, and trees growing right 
 up out of the ground, and gardens full of vege- 
 tables and fruits, and all of it ours, Isadora." 
 
 Isadora kept her eyes fixed on the little white 
 dress, which was now almost ready to be taken 
 from the ironing-table. 
 
 " She is not used to dressing up," said her 
 
36 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 mother to Rosey Pink. " People don't need 
 much dressing in light-houses." 
 
 " I suppose they don't," said Rosey ; " and I 
 know you must be very happy even if your grand- 
 father lias died. But what will you do ? Will 
 you come back to the light-house ? " 
 
 " Only to pack up," said Isadora's mother. 
 " Everything is mine. The whole beautiful farm, 
 and he has written his letter of resignation to 
 the Light-house Board already. He began to 
 write it very early, and we will put it in the 
 post-office when we land ; so that matter will be 
 settled. And, oh ! I am so glad, so glad that 
 we will not have to live here any longer." 
 
 So very soon these happy people were ready 
 to go, and they invited the strangers to sit down 
 to luncheon with them ; but there were neither 
 fruits nor vegetables nor flowers on the table, 
 and the children began to think that if they 
 lived always in a light-house they would perhaps 
 be just as glad to get away as the woman who 
 had been ironing was. 
 
 She said again, while sitting at the table : 
 " Oh ! my heart is overwhelmed to think of hear- 
 ing the birds sing, and of smelling the red 
 roses." 
 
IN CHARGE OF THE LIGHT-HOUSE 37 
 
 Her husband said, as they started, " I will be 
 sure to be back before sunset ; " so the new ten- 
 ants saw them safely off, and observed that their 
 own little boat was moored securely to the pier, 
 and then they went back to explore and to run 
 up the stone steps and take a kind of awed 
 notice of the immense lantern, and look out of 
 the small windows, beneath which lay the wide, 
 shoreless ocean. 
 
 Rosey Pink said after awhile that she could 
 easily see how this place might be, after all, a 
 little lonely ; and the boys said that it would be 
 better if they could all get into their boat and sail 
 about awhile, — but that, of course, they could 
 not do, as they had been left in charge. After 
 all it would be rather dull if it was not that they 
 had each other, and they wished the other chil- 
 dren had come with them. 
 
 The light-house man had told them all about 
 the great light, and of how necessary it was that 
 every night that light should shine across the 
 sea, as there were sunken rocks all about. " In- 
 deed," he had said, " this is the most dangerous 
 place in all the ocean, and the most important 
 light-house, for so many ships pass near; and 
 but for this light they might steer a little out 
 
38 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 of their course, and everybody on board would 
 perish." 
 
 As it began to be near sundown, the children 
 became anxious for the return of the keeper. 
 They went up to examine the lantern again, and 
 Rosey Pink said : ^- 
 
 " What if the light-house man should be 
 drowned and not come back." 
 
 " He won't be drowned," said Jack O'Nory ; 
 " but then it might happen that he could not get 
 back, and what in the world should we do ?" 
 
 " Light the lantern," said Rosey Pink. 
 
 " Easy saying ' light the lantern.' Do you 
 know how to hght it ? " 
 
 "That's not my business," said Rosey Pink, 
 " it 's the business of you boys." 
 
 Each moment that passed made their anxiety 
 greater, and these three light-house keepers 
 took observations every minute or two to see if 
 it was possible to discover the management of 
 this revolving light, or how to get at it in case 
 its keeper was detained. 
 
 Soon the sun had set, and still no sign of a 
 small boat appeared on the darkening sea. 
 
 The children determined that (as in a very 
 little while the lie,ht must show out from the 
 
IN CHARGE OF THE LIGHT-HOUSE 39 
 
 high tower, because if it did not all the ships 
 that came along would be wrecked) they must 
 certainly find other means of providing a warn- 
 ing for the sailors on the sea. 
 
 Of course, the lamp on the table in the front 
 room must be brought up, but that would be of 
 little use. So every moment the anxiety grew. 
 
 Rosey Pink could almost see the ships going 
 down with all their passengers and crews, and 
 Jack O'Nory kept staring out in the rapidly 
 growing darkness to discern any ships which 
 might be warned off by shouts and prayers that 
 they would turn another way. 
 
 Tom Murphy was poking about in a kind of 
 lumber room, which he found downstairs, and 
 from which he unearthed some pieces of lumber, 
 and, better than all, he thought, a number of old 
 corn-cobs. 
 
 " They will make a fine old light," he said to 
 himself. 
 
 In the meantime the sea became quite rough, 
 and the waves began to beat against the founda- 
 tion of the light-house in a very unpleasant 
 way. He opened the kitchen door and looked 
 out upon the troubled water, from which the 
 last vestige of light from the setting sun had 
 
40 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 disappeared. In a few minutes the others 
 joined him. 
 
 "I say, Jack O'Norj," said Tom, "here's 
 a go." 
 
 Eosey Pink agreed witli Tom that it was " a 
 
 go." 
 
 Jack O'Nory was very quiet. He seemed to 
 be thinking of the people who " go down to the 
 sea in ships." But after awhile he said that 
 any way they had better take the lamp from 
 the table in the front room and carry it upstairs. 
 So they did this ; and when they had set it upon 
 a projection in the tower, and come down again, 
 Tom Murphy showed them all the bits of lum- 
 ber he had discovered and the old corn-cobs, 
 and the three of them became quite interested, 
 and believed that after all they could succeed 
 in making a light which would be ^a warning 
 to all the mariners on the sea. 
 
 So they took up a large preserving-kettle full 
 of corn-cobs, and they also carried armfuls of 
 old sticks, for they agreed that as there was not 
 a bit of wood in the composition of the light- 
 house, it would make no difference about the 
 smoke, — anything so that there could be light 
 enough for the people on the ships to know that 
 
IN CHARGE OF THE LIGHT-HOUSE 41 
 
 it was a -warning, and tliat they must keep out 
 of tlie way of danger. 
 
 So they put some of the corn-cobs into the 
 kettle and set fire to them, and they did make 
 a smoke, — indeed, so much smoke that the 
 children had to sit on the stairs and keep wip- 
 ing the tears out of their eyes. 
 
 Rosey said she had better go down for more 
 corn-cobs. While she was down there a small 
 steam-yacht landed, and three gentlemen got 
 out of it. They too came round to the kit- 
 chen door, and Rosey, who had hoped to see 
 the light-house keeper, stood there with aston- 
 ished eyes. 
 
 " Young lady," said one of the gentlemen, 
 after a little hesitation, " why is there no light 
 in the tower, and what is all this smell of 
 smoke ? " 
 
 " There is no light in the tower," she an- 
 swered, " because we do not know anything 
 about the lantern, and we are trying to make a 
 light, but it will smoke." 
 
 " We are the Light-house Board," said another 
 gentleman, " and we must go up and see about 
 it, but first let us be sure that our boat is fast." 
 
 So while they went out to see the captain of 
 
42 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 their boat, Rosey Pink ran up to the upper steps 
 where Tom and Jack were sitting, with such 
 tearful, miserable eyes that they could not open 
 them to look at her. 
 
 " The Light-house Board is coming up the 
 stairs," said Rosey breathlessly. 
 
 " Is it a board that we can set fire to ? " asked 
 Tom. 
 
 " No, it is three gentlemen." 
 
 " Are they mermen ? " said Jack. 
 
 " I told you that they are the Light-house 
 Board, and they are coming up to see about 
 the lantern." 
 
 " Nobody can see the lantern with this smoke," 
 said Tom, who had become too much discour- 
 aged on account of the smoke to care about the 
 lantern or anything else for the present. 
 
 " But they are coming right up," said Rosey, 
 pressing her handkerchief into her eyes; "so 
 let us slip down while they are talking to their 
 captain, and leave it to them to light the lan- 
 tern. I suppose they know how." 
 
 The children immediately all stumbled down 
 the stairs and shut themselves into the front room 
 while they tried to get the smoke out of their 
 eyes, and after a while they heard the " Board " 
 
IX CHARGE OF THE LIGHT-HOUSE 43 
 
 going upstairs and exclaiming and complaining. 
 Almost immediately they came down again, and 
 one of them said to the others : — 
 
 " What do you suppose has hecome of that 
 young girl who was here a few minutes ago ? 
 If she went up to the lantern-tower she is proba- 
 bly smothered by this time, and what are we 
 going to do about her ? " 
 
 Rosey immediately stepped into the kitchen ; 
 she said, " We all came down, because the 
 smoke is so strong up there." 
 
 " Who is all ? " 
 
 " Tom Murphy, Jack O'Nory, and I." 
 
 " Can you tell us the cause of the smoke ? " 
 
 " Corn-cobs." 
 
 " Corn-cobs ? " 
 
 " To make a light," said Rosey. " We don't 
 know how to light the lantern." 
 
 " Who are you, anyway ? " 
 
 " Strangers," said Rosey. 
 
 The whole Board looked perplexed. 
 
 "The light-house keeper has gone away to 
 a funeral," added Rosey, " and we are keeping 
 the light-house for him. Perhaps, — I think, — 
 you had better go up again. You may know 
 how to manage the lantern." 
 
44 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 The light-house Board went up and im- 
 mediately came down, blowing its nose and 
 wiping its eyes and clearing its throat very 
 vigorously. 
 
 The boys had now come into the kitchen and 
 had been able to open their eyes and look about, 
 and to be filled with consternation on account 
 of the danger to the ships. 
 
 " We have been left in charge," said Jack 
 O'Nory, " and it is a dreadful thing that we 
 should not have known what to do." 
 
 " And if we did know what to do," said Tom, 
 '• we could not do it with all this smoke." 
 
 After awhile the Board too began to look 
 about. 
 
 " What is the meaning of it all ? " they asked. 
 
 Jack O'Nory said that the light-house keeper 
 had gone away to a funeral and had left them 
 in charge, but he had promised to come back 
 before sunset, and so had not shown them what 
 to do about the light. 
 
 " He shall be dismissed," said the Board. 
 
 The children did not know whether it was 
 more honorable to say that he had taken his 
 resignation away with him or not to say it. 
 They said nothing. 
 
IN CHARGE OF THE LIGHT-HOUSE 45 
 
 " And now what is to be done," the Board 
 said to each other, "about this infernal smoke?" 
 
 " It is nothing but corn-cobs," said Tom, 
 " and it will soon go out. We thought it would 
 make a bright light, but it made a smoke." 
 
 " I should think it did," said the Board. 
 
 Just then there was a noise outside, and all 
 the other children hurried into the room. Cal- 
 leen and Mary and Jeanne began to hug the 
 three light-house people, and to exclaim that 
 they thought they had lost them, and were full 
 of trouble about it, while Ernest and Sam Holmes 
 drew up shoulder to shoulder with the boys and 
 told how good Mr. Rattles had been, when they 
 all became anxious, and how he and Remus also 
 had determined that they must come out on 
 the ocean and hunt them up, and how delighted 
 they were when they saw the boat fastened to 
 the pier, for though there was another boat 
 also there, there was no mistaking the one that 
 belonged to the Island Impossible. 
 
 Then the children all turned and made curt- 
 sies and bows to the Light-house Board, for 
 Rosey had introduced them, saying : " These are 
 the children," and then, " and these gentlemen 
 are the Light-house Board ! " 
 
46 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 The gentlemen appeared to be very much 
 pleased, but in the meantime Mr. Rattles had 
 passed through the kitchen and up the stairs 
 unobserved by anybody, and immediately such 
 a light shone out over the sea, that everybody 
 in the room cried out, " Oh ! oh ! " and Mr. 
 Rattles came down with very watery red eyes 
 and the kettle of smoking corn-cobs, which he 
 quietly threw into the sea, and the three children 
 who had been so anxious began to laugh and to 
 cry in such a manner that everybody had to 
 comfort them. 
 
 The Light-house Board looked on with ob- 
 servant and interested eyes, while these young 
 inhabitants of this old world comforted and 
 heartened and cherished the three of their num- 
 ber who had suffered such anxiety, and who 
 now, in the reaction from their very real grief, 
 seemed to need the loving sympathy which their 
 comrades were bestowing upon them. And 
 there was a moistness in the older eyes, which 
 was not caused by tbe smoke from the corn- 
 cobs. 
 
 All the children looked upon Mr. Rattles as a 
 hero, whose wisdom and presence of mind had, 
 in a moment, made everybody so happy, and 
 
IN CHARGE OF THE LIGHT-HOUSE 47 
 
 had probably saved the lives of hundreds of 
 passengers and crews, whose ships were sailing 
 in these dangerous waters. 
 
 The Light-house Board shook hands heartily 
 with Mr. Rattles, and said that it never could be 
 thankful enough that the children had come, for 
 if they had not done so, he, Mr. Rattles, would 
 not have felt obliged to come in search of them, 
 and as they, the Board, did not know a thing 
 about managing the lantern, there would have 
 been great danger to the ships, and great blame 
 to the Board. 
 
 Mr. Rattles said that he must now take all 
 these youngsters home with him, and the Board 
 promised Tom and Jack and Rosey that it would 
 stay until the keeper should come home, which 
 would probably be somewhere in the middle of 
 the night, and in answer to a few words which 
 Rosey had ventured, one of them said with a 
 smile : " Yes, he supposed they would have to 
 be lenient to the keeper, as people did n't often 
 have to go to funerals, especially if they lived 
 all their lives in light-houses." 
 
 So away again, sitting in the boat hand in 
 hand, to the beautiful Island Impossible. 
 
48 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 AT A SOUTH AMERICAN PORT 
 
 npOM MURPHY and Jack O'Nory had started 
 off on an expedition in the sail-boat. Mr. 
 Rattles said : — 
 
 " And where would you like to go on this 
 bout?" 
 
 " What do you think about it, Jack ? " said 
 Tom. 
 
 Jack thought it was a queer business that they 
 had never been to a South American port, — so 
 it was decided to sail to a South American port, 
 and they sailed, — and pretty soon they arrived. 
 
 But as their boat entered the harbor, and 
 landed at the wharf, they noticed that there 
 was great confusion, and a crowd of people who, 
 as soon as they saw them, began to call out and 
 to shout at each other in a language that neither 
 one of the boys, nor indeed Mr. Rattles, under- 
 stood at all. 
 
 Pretty soon there was a division among the 
 people, — some running one way, some the other 
 
AT A SOUTH AMERICAN PORT 49 
 
 way, — and after a while the crowd seemed to 
 separate to make way for a man accompanied 
 by two or three others who appeared to be con- 
 voying him through the pressing multitude. 
 
 " They are coming right towards us, Tom, 
 and everybody is bowing and scraping, and as 
 they appear to be looking at us all the time 
 they are doing it, I am embarrassed, — what 
 about you ? " 
 
 " I am a little embarrassed myself," said 
 Tom, " but it would never do to let them see 
 that, — I guess we had better begin to bow- 
 ourselves." 
 
 So these boys began to bow and scrape and 
 put their hands on their hearts, just as this 
 other strange company was doing, and they felt 
 encouraged to go on in this line of action, when 
 they saw that it pleased the whole crowd, which 
 had greatly increased in the vicinity of their 
 boat. 
 
 Mr. Rattles, too, became imbued with the 
 spirit of the scene, and he began to bow and 
 make contortions of his face, which were in- 
 tended to express pleasure, but which certainly 
 might have suggested to the onlookers the belief 
 that he had a very bad pain in his stomach. 
 
 4 
 
50 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 When the crowd reached their hoat, the man 
 who had been convoyed to the spot said : — 
 
 " I am the court interpreter." 
 
 "How do you do, Mr. Interpreter?" said 
 Tom and Jack, holding out their hands in a very 
 friendly way. 
 
 Then the whole multitude began to make a 
 great noise which sounded like cheering, and 
 everybody took off his hat. Of course Tom 
 and Jack took off their hats and Mr. Rattles 
 took off his. 
 
 "There has been a revolution," said the in- 
 terpreter. 
 
 " Is that so," said Tom. 
 
 Jack suggested that a revolution was a bad busi- 
 ness and a very breaking up kind of business. 
 
 " No, it is a good business," said the interpre- 
 ter, — "we have had a king and a queen, — but 
 we have put them down and intend pretty soon 
 to take off their heads. Before we do that we 
 must form a new government, and we intend 
 that it shall be a republic." 
 
 The boys said that a republic was the best 
 kind of government. 
 
 " And we did not know whom to choose for a 
 President," said the interpreter. 
 
AT A SOUTH AMERICAN PORT 51 
 
 Each time the interpreter spoke it appeared 
 to be by the direction of a proud-looking person 
 who stood close at his side in the midst of all 
 this confusion. Jack said that he thought there 
 must be a great many people from whom to 
 choose a President. 
 
 " That is not so," said the interpreter, " we 
 had not much of a choice, for nobody trusts 
 anybody else — but this is the Feast Day of 
 San Antonio, who always finds things which 
 people are looking for, and he has sent you to 
 our shores." 
 
 " Were you looking for us ? " said Jack 
 O'Nory. 
 
 " We were looking for a President." Tom 
 and Jack both said " Oh." 
 
 "And it appears that we were looking for 
 you," continued the interpreter, " for you have 
 come, and you are to be our President." 
 
 " Which one of us ? " asked Jack. 
 
 The interpreter listened a moment to some- 
 thing the high personage standing beside him 
 was saying, then he answered : — 
 
 " You are so young and so small that it will 
 take two of you to make one good President, so 
 you are both to be FJresident." 
 
f)2 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " Let us understand you, Mr. Interpreter," 
 said Tom Murphy, — " is each one of us to be 
 half of a President ? " 
 
 "That is just the way of it," answered the 
 interpreter. 
 
 " That will suit us very well," said Jack 
 O'Nory. 
 
 Almost before he had finished saying these 
 few words, some one had come forward and 
 mounted him very high on his shoulder, while 
 another gold-laced man had done the same 
 by Tom Murphy. These two high officers ap- 
 peared to be exceedingly high-shouldered, and 
 the boys began their unusual kind of ride up 
 through a very talkative populace from the 
 wharf into the town, while Mr. Rattles was also 
 convoyed with them towards the same place, 
 but he was allowed to walk on his own feet and 
 was evidently more comfortable, and was ob- 
 viously regarded as being not of the same rank 
 as these two halves of a President of a new 
 republic. 
 
 Pretty soon, accompanied by the shouts and 
 cheers of the population, which noises were 
 really needed to keep up the spirit of the 
 boys, they arrived at a palace, and were carried 
 
AT A SOUTH AMERICAN PORT 53 
 
 — still on the shoulders of their magnificently 
 arrayed beasts of burden — right into an im- 
 mense and imposing hall of State, and up to 
 a dais on which stood two thrones ; but the 
 bearers stood still a few moments while some 
 attendants stepped forward and rolled the 
 thrones away from their place, throwing them 
 from the dais, as if they were pieces of furniture 
 which had gone out of fashion, — which, it ap- 
 peared, they had. 
 
 Then some chairs of State were brought in, 
 and pretty soon the boys found themselves 
 seated in them, — very well satisfied to come 
 down from their high and precarious positions. 
 
 Then an officer in a fine uniform came for- 
 ward and stood by the interpreter. He began 
 to speak, and as he spoke the interpreter took 
 every word from his lips and translated it into 
 English, so that this new double-headed Presi- 
 dent could understand everything that was said. 
 In the meantime. Jack had said, very low : — 
 
 " Tom, I wish we were in the boat again," to 
 which Tom answered : — 
 
 " I wish we were at this moment landing 
 at our wharf on the shore of The Island 
 Impossible, but I guess we had better pretend 
 
54 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 to be pleased, for if we appear not to like 
 their gQings on, these funny people may make 
 us prisoners." 
 
 The interpreter went on to say that they had 
 come to the conclusion to have a republican 
 form of government, and, having arrived at 
 that conclusion, they had that morning deposed 
 their king, and as they did not know what 
 better to do with him, they had made up their 
 minds to take off his head and also the heads 
 of all his advisers, also of the queen and her 
 maids of honor ; and that as soon as the new 
 President had become somewhat accustomed 
 to the chairs of state, — and the people who 
 were thronging into the hall, and thronging 
 out again, had become accustomed to the sight 
 of this new form of government, — they would 
 have the prisoners brought in so that the new 
 President should pass sentence of decapitation. 
 
 Jack said to Tom, quite low, "I feel very 
 uncomfortable." 
 
 " So do I," said Tom. 
 
 Then they brought in the prisoners, but what 
 was the astonishment of this twin President, to 
 see, advancing with the King and Queen — with 
 pale faces and eyes cast down — Rosey Pink 
 
AT A SOUTH AMERICAN PORT 55 
 
 and Mary and Calleen and Jeanne. These girls 
 did not raise their eyes at all to look at the new- 
 President ; at that moment the interpreter was 
 called away — the President learned afterwards 
 that the interruption was caused by the fact 
 that the crowd who had accompanied Mr, Rat- 
 tles to the door did not know what to do with 
 him, as they could not understand a word he 
 said, and he evidently could not understand 
 them; for that reason the interpreter was 
 called, and as soon as he had gotten out of 
 hearing, Tom said : — 
 
 "Rosey Pink, and you other girls, don't 
 look frightened, and don't look at us as if you 
 had ever seen us before ; Jack and I will look 
 at each other and speak, and you girls must 
 look at each other, — not at us, — and answer." 
 So Tom looked very severely at Jack and 
 said : — 
 
 " How in the name of sense did you get 
 here?" 
 
 And Rosey Pink, who had given a great start 
 when she heard Tom's voice, stared at the other 
 girls, who had also given starts, and said : — 
 
 " And how in the name of sense did i/ou get 
 here ? " 
 
56 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " That is neither here nor there," said Tom, 
 with his eyes fixed on Jack, — " go on." 
 
 " We were out bathing, and Ernest and Sam 
 were with us, swimming about, but we girls 
 took the row-boat that Remus Rattles attends 
 to — " 
 
 " I noticed that it was gone," said Jack to 
 Tom. 
 
 " And we amused ourselves pushing it before 
 us and swimming — then we thought we would 
 get into it, and we did — and let it float until it 
 had gotten round the point where the waves 
 were very rough. So we began to look for the 
 oars, but there was not an oar to be found. I 
 don't know what Remus could have done with 
 them," continued Rosey, looking strenuously at 
 Mary. 
 
 " You 'd better not stop for meditation, 
 Rosey," said Calleen ; " the interpreter will be 
 back in a minute — " 
 
 " We were in very rough waters," continued 
 Rosey, changing the position of her eyes so 
 that Jeanne must become her chief audience, 
 "and we did not feel that it would be quite 
 safe to try to swim to shore, — then we all felt 
 alarmed, though Calleen declared that our only 
 
AT A SOUTH AMERICAN PORT 57 
 
 safety was in forsaking the boat and swimming 
 for the shore, but you know Calleen is very rash." 
 
 Jeanne assented, she said, " Calleen is very 
 rash." 
 
 " Go on," said Jack, speaking, apparently to 
 Tom. 
 
 " We did go on," continued Rosey, " till we 
 were quite out at sea and were very much 
 frightened, — we thought of Ernest and Sam 
 swimming about in the harbor free from anxiety 
 about us, for though they had seen us start off, 
 pushing the boat, I suppose they thought we 
 would get in and come back. They had no 
 idea that Remus Rattles was probably lying 
 asleep on the oars, — and then we thought of 
 you two boys who had just pushed off from 
 shore in the boat with Mr. Rattles, with all 
 sails up, and we began to say our prayers — and 
 after we had said our prayers, we saw a ship, 
 and they sent out a little yawl which took us in 
 and brought us to the ship, and we all sailed for 
 this place and landed ; but you had better 
 speak now, Mary, for the people will think it 
 queer that I should be telling such a long 
 story." 
 
 So Mary said, " And we were brought up 
 
58 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 to this palace and were maids of honor to the 
 Queen, so the interpreter told us." 
 
 " The Queen also told us so," said Calleen, — 
 " she can speak English." 
 
 Then Mary continued : — 
 
 " And afterwards all this fuss was made, and 
 they deposed the King and the Queen, and 
 although we had not been maids of honor more 
 than an hour or two, they said that we also 
 must have our heads taken off, which is very 
 unpleasant." 
 
 Tom looked at Jack intently and said, " Never 
 mind, Mary, and you other girls, for we are the 
 President, and your heads shall not be taken 
 off." 
 
 Calleen said to Mary, " I wonder what 
 Ernest and Sam think about it. Won't they 
 be astonished ? " Mary's cheeks flushed a beau- 
 tiful red, and some of the severe-looking men 
 who were standing about, and did not under- 
 stand a word they said, looked with admiration 
 at her, — many of them seemed to feel sym- 
 pathy for the maids of honor. 
 
 Calleen again informed tlie President that the 
 Queen spoke English. The Queen nodded her 
 head and smiled a sorrowful little smile. 
 
AT A SOUTH AMERICAN PORT 59 
 
 " That is a good thing," said Jack, with his 
 eyes on Tom's face, " then she will understand 
 what shall be done to save her." 
 
 Then the interpreter came back ; he said that 
 Mr. Rattles did not desire any position in the 
 civil government, but that he wished to ask 
 the President to make him admiral of the fleet 
 and to let his own boat be the flag-ship. As it 
 appeared that this was the first question to be 
 disposed of, the new President, who was obliged, 
 according to the interpreter, to speak with both 
 his voices at once, announced to the officials, 
 through the interpreter, that Mr. Rattles was 
 to be admiral and was to have full power over 
 the fleet, though he might, if he should choose 
 to do so, live in his own boat and constitute 
 that the flag-ship. 
 
 Mr. Rattles at once advanced to the presi- 
 dential chairs and inclined himself, while Tom 
 Murphy said, in a low voice, — the interpreter 
 being engaged in translating the words of the 
 President (making the appointment of Mr. 
 Rattles) to the other officials : — 
 
 "Mr. Rattles, don't start when you see the 
 girls, but be up here in about half an hour so 
 that we can decide what to do." 
 
60 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 , So when Mr. Rattles did turn and did see the 
 maids of honor, he gave them only a reassuring 
 wink of the eye, though he did not feel very 
 much reassured himself. 
 
 But when he walked out as admiral of the 
 fleet, and the whole assembly, to whom the 
 interpreter had announced in a loud voice and 
 in an unknown tongue, so far as the President 
 was concerned, the fact of his present rank, — 
 he was greeted with bows and cheers, and 
 perhaps he thought it was a very fine thing to 
 be admiral of a fleet in a South American port, 
 and perhaps he did n't. 
 
 Then the interpreter said it was time the 
 President shdlild choose his advisers, and the 
 President answered with both his voices that 
 he would do so, and that the interpreter must 
 give him a clear idea as to whom should be 
 chosen as advisers, — but that they — the Presi- 
 dent — would choose for his Secretary of the 
 Navy the man who had just been declared Ad- 
 miral of the fleet, as it would be well to have 
 one adviser who could speak the same language 
 with the President, and as the advisers would 
 not have to work continuously, but only by fits 
 and starts, the two duties thus devolving upon 
 
AT A SOUTH AMERICAN PORT 61 
 
 Mr. Rattles would not interfere with each other 
 in the least. 
 
 After hearing from the interpreter what the 
 choice of the President for his Secretary of the 
 Navy was, the officials declared themselves well 
 pleased, and the interpreter was immediately 
 despatched to intercept the new admiral and 
 bring him back at once. 
 
 Jeanne said after the interpreter was out of 
 hearing — looking affectionately at Calleen — 
 " Tom and Jack, that was a good move — to 
 make Mr. Rattles Secretary of the Navy and 
 the admiral, — do you think he can get us 
 away ? " 
 
 Tom said to Jack, " Maid of honor, you 
 must not question the President." 
 
 Then the interpreter returned with Mr. 
 Rattles, and the task of choosing the other ad- 
 visers began. 
 
 It appeared to be the impression in the South 
 American port that in a republic all of the 
 advisers were, as a necessity, to sit on chairs 
 placed on the dais where the President sat, — 
 and that as much of the population of the coun- 
 try as could get into this immense and magnifi- 
 cent hall was necessarily to be present at all 
 
62 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 the consultations of the President and his 
 advisers. 
 
 Then all the other advisers were soon chosen, 
 and chairs placed for them on the dais, while 
 the poor King and Queen looked on, — and the 
 maids of honor, comforted now, because Jack 
 and Tom and Mr. Rattles were in power, began 
 to look around them, very much interested in 
 this new and surprising situation — stranger 
 than anything they had ever got into before. 
 
 The first question to be brought up was about 
 the decapitation of the prisoners, and the maids 
 of honor, as they were foreigners, and girls, 
 were given precedence, so their fate was to be 
 decided first. 
 
 The Secretary of State said, through the 
 interpreter, that he did not know whether it 
 was he or the Secretary of War who ought to 
 be most interested in advising as to this question 
 — and the President said he thought it was the 
 duty of the Secretary of State, as these maids 
 of honor were foreigners, and it was his busi- 
 ness to attend to everything involved in foreign 
 relations. 
 
 Then one of the maids of honor said quite 
 audibly, that she did not believe they had a single 
 
AT A SOUTH AMERICAN PORT 63 
 
 foreign relation in this wliole population, unless 
 it might be the Queen, and on account of their 
 being her maids of honor, perhaps they ought to 
 regard her as a kind of stepmother, and indeed, 
 in the short time they had been serving her, 
 they had become much attached to her. 
 
 The Queen smiled. Then these four prisoners 
 were brought forward and asked through the 
 interpreter to what nation they belonged. 
 
 The girls looked at Tom and Jack, not feel- 
 ing quite sure whether the boys wished their 
 nationality to be made known. 
 
 The President immediately said, " I think 
 these maids of honor look like citizens of the 
 United States, so if you please, Mr. Interpreter, 
 we can understand them without translation, — 
 if you will just translate to the advisers." 
 
 " Maids of honor, from what country do you 
 come ? " 
 
 " From the United States of America." 
 
 " In that case," said the President, turning his 
 four eyes towards the other advisers, "there 
 can be no question about these prisoners. They 
 belong to the United States, to which country 
 we ourselves belong, and if any evil should 
 happen to them this port would be in great 
 
64 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 danger, for the United States is a very power- 
 ful nation." 
 
 Some of the advisers looked relieved when 
 this speech of the President's was translated ; 
 others looked the reverse, and suggested that 
 the United States had no navy. 
 
 The President answered that the United 
 States had a navy — one or two, or perhaps 
 half a dozen ships of war, and about one 
 thousand yachts and tug-boats and canal-boats. 
 
 When the advisers heard this, they at once 
 said that the maids of honor ought to be set 
 free. 
 
 The maids of honor smiled at all the advisers 
 and made a succession of little curtsies, which 
 seemed to please the officials of this new 
 government. 
 
 Then a question arose as to the procedures 
 in the case of the King and the Queen. The 
 President said that of course the Queen must 
 be released with the maids of honor, as she 
 was a woman. There was great opposition to 
 this ruling. The President reminded the ad- 
 visers that the United States would not toler- 
 ate the decapitation of a woman, because there 
 was a kind of a Salic law in the United States 
 
AT A SOUTH AMERICAN PORT 65 
 
 by which no woman was ever permitted to lose 
 her head, — no matter how high her rank — 
 that was a privilege accorded only to men. 
 
 " But after all, this port is not the United 
 States," said one of the advisers. 
 
 " You are right," said the President, " but as 
 the present government is to be modelled on the 
 plan of the United States government, and as the 
 nations of the world, including ' The Powers,' 
 will hear about this new government, the United 
 States will be sure to remonstrate with all the 
 power of the navy, of which we have been talk- 
 ing, for she could not endure that any govern- 
 ment modelled after hers should take off a 
 woman's head." 
 
 All the advisers instantly agreed that it would 
 be better to leave the Queen's head on. And at 
 last it was agreed that all the prisoners should 
 be let off except the King, and he certainly 
 must lose his head — for they did not know 
 what else to do with him. 
 
 The President agreed to this, saying that 
 otherwise the King might become troublesome, 
 but that no sentence must be passed until the 
 next day, as there was so much other business 
 to be done. 
 
 5 
 
66 TEE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 Then the advisers said — always speaking 
 through the interpreter — that they could not 
 wait for that order of decapitation till the next 
 day, as there was no suitable place in which to 
 imprison the King, — all the prisons were in 
 such unsafe condition that a prisoner of State 
 could, at any time, escape. 
 
 The President reminded them that there was 
 a fine frigate lying in the harbor which they had 
 noticed as they sailed in — and a ship of war 
 was at any time as good as a fortress for pur- 
 poses of imprisonment. 
 
 Then the advisers declared that this was a 
 good idea — and the order for the removal of 
 the King was given at once. Also the Presi- 
 dent thought it would be well to let the Queen 
 accompany him, for no disposition could be 
 made of her until the next day, and although 
 she was to keep her head, she was of course, for 
 the present, a prisoner of State ; and the maids 
 of honor might accompany her to the ship of 
 war in order to bid her good-bye. 
 
 All the prisoners who had been released said 
 they also would like to go down to this new 
 prison to bid the King good-bye. Then the 
 King was taken in charge by the admiral of 
 
AT A SOUTH AMERICAN PORT 67 
 
 the fleet, who in his position as Secretary of the 
 Navy, had suggested to the President the advisa- 
 bility of using the ship of war as a prison, and 
 the meeting was broken up. 
 
 After the audience dispersed, the President 
 proposed to take a walk to the shore in order 
 to inspect the conditions on the frigate. The 
 whole population was hungry — and although 
 the advisers, who were also hungry, wished to 
 show courtesy to the new head of the govern- 
 ment, the President reminded them that they 
 must be hungry and had better go home to 
 dinner, while, so far as the new government was 
 concerned, it had taken dinner on the sail-boat 
 before arriving. 
 
 So everything was arranged as they desired ; 
 the advisers informing the President that after 
 dinner they would go down to the shore for 
 them, and again they should be carried up on 
 the shoulders of officials. 
 
 On arriving at the frigate the President found 
 the poor King, not in chains at all, but very 
 comfortably seated at dinner, with the Queen 
 and the maids of honor and the other released 
 prisoners, while the admiral was very busy 
 having the ship put in order for sailing immedi- 
 
68 rilE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 ately. The captain was enthusiastically helping 
 him in this work, for he was a cousin to the 
 Queen, and was warmly attached to the King, 
 and when the Queen said : — 
 
 " But to-morrow they will take him up to 
 that hall of State again and pass that dreadful 
 sentence upon him — " 
 
 " No, they wont," said the smiling captain, 
 " for the admiral has commanded us to sail 
 away in ten minutes, all hands on board, and 
 we are to land you wherever you choose — for 
 we are your ship of war, and under your com- 
 mand — after the admiral shall have sailed 
 away in his flag-ship ; and all the men are 
 delighted to have their King for their ruler 
 again." 
 
 " But what about my lovely maids of honor ? " 
 said the happy Queen. 
 
 " The admiral says they are to go in his flag- 
 ship to their own country, and those two halves 
 of a President are going with them; just so 
 soon as we are at a safe distance from the shore 
 they will all get into the flag-ship." 
 
 The new admiral jumped into the flag-ship 
 and pushed off from shore, while the ship of 
 war loosed her anchorage and put on full steam, 
 
AT A SOUTH AMERICAN PORT 69 
 
 and started off just as they saw the population 
 gathering again together to come down to the 
 shore, — and pretty soon there was a great 
 demonstration and a great running about, — but 
 the ship of war was a fast sailer, and the flag- 
 ship could never be beaten by anything on the 
 water, and, besides these, there were no other 
 ships in the harbor. 
 
 And after they had gotten well out to sea, 
 the maids of honor said good-bye to the King 
 and to the Queen and to the King's advisers, — 
 and each half of the President said good-bye to 
 the royal party, and to everybody on board, and 
 wished them good luck, and then these United 
 States people dropped into the flag-ship which 
 had come alongside, and the whole ship's com- 
 pany gave three cheers for the two halves of a 
 President, and three cheers for the maids of 
 honor, and three cheers for the flag of the 
 United States of America. 
 
70 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 IN THE CONVALESCENT WARD 
 
 ^Tp'HE children were out in the harbor bathing 
 -*■ when a boat came along, and the oarsmen 
 drew in their oars while one of them began to 
 talk. 
 
 " Are you busy ? " said the man. 
 
 " Yes," said the children ; " don't you see that 
 we are bathing and swimming ? we are busy." 
 
 " Then I suppose there is no use in asking 
 you to help us in our need." 
 
 " What is your need ? " said Tom Murphy. 
 
 " We are nurses in the convalescent wards of 
 the hospital. You know where the hospital is ? 
 Right on the shore, on the other side of the 
 city." 
 
 " Yes, we know the place," said Calleen ; 
 " we have often rowed past there : it is a very 
 pretty place." 
 
 " Oh, a charming place," said one of the 
 women in the boat ; " you will like it very 
 much." 
 
IN THE CONVALESCENT WARD 71 
 
 " But we are not sick," said Rosey Pink ; 
 " we are not thinking of going to a hospital." 
 
 " We are not sick either," answered the 
 woman, who was young and pretty, " but we live 
 there." 
 
 " Oh," said Rosey Pink. 
 
 " We are nurses, and we have very pleasant 
 times in the hospital." 
 
 Rosey Pink said " Oh," again. 
 
 " You see, this is the way of it," said the oars- 
 man who had first spoken : " There is to be an 
 excursion starting this afternoon for the Falls, 
 and we, the nurses in the convalescent wards, 
 want to go on this excursion very much. We 
 should be back in twenty-four hours. The head 
 matron and the head superintendent said that 
 we might all go if we could find some one to fill 
 our places, because, although they could not 
 spare the nurses from the serious wards, any 
 careful people could attend to the convalescent 
 cases." 
 
 Jack O'Nory said, " What do you think about 
 it, Ernest?" 
 
 Ernest said that any way he could not go, for 
 he had promised to meet Margaret Parker on 
 the bridge that afternoon ; they proposed to 
 
72 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 gather seaweed on the north shore, and Marj 
 and Sam were going with them. 
 
 " That leaves only five of iis," said Jack. 
 " How many nurses would you want, Mr. 
 Oarsman ? " 
 
 " Well, about three boys and three girls." 
 
 " We could let you have two boys and three 
 girls." 
 
 The people in the boat talked together and 
 then they said, " That will do." 
 
 " Must we go right away ? " asked Jeanne. 
 
 " If you please," said the people in the boat. 
 
 " Must we wear any special dress ? " asked 
 Calleen. 
 
 The pretty nurse said that it would be neces- 
 sary for the girls to wear caps and aprons, but 
 the boys could go in their ordinary clothes. 
 
 Calleen said that the girls had no caps. 
 
 " We have thought of that," said the pretty 
 nurse, " and have brought our caps to lend you. 
 You can leave them at the hospital when you 
 come away to-morrow." 
 
 " Let us try them on," said the girls, as they 
 swam up to the boat. 
 
 But the pretty nurse said the caps would be 
 spoiled if they should try them on when their 
 
IN THE CONVALESCENT WARD 73 
 
 hair was so wet, and she thought the best way, 
 after all, would be for her to leave them at the 
 hospital, and they could try them on there. 
 
 " Shall we be obliged to sit up all night ? " 
 asked Tom Murphy. 
 
 Calleen said, " Tom, that is a foolish question 
 to ask ; of course, if we are to be trained nurses 
 we will be obliged to sit up all night." 
 
 " Are we trained nurses ? " asked Tom. 
 
 " Of course we are not going to take charge of 
 the convalescent wards unless we are trained 
 nurses for the time being;." 
 
 " I see," said Tom. " Well, you people in the 
 boat, you may go away happy, for we will take 
 your places for twenty-four hours. Remus Rat- 
 tles will row us round to the hospital in our own 
 boat, but you '11 have to come home square to 
 the minute, because we shan't stay beyond the 
 time we have promised." 
 
 " You children are trumps," said two or three 
 voices at once ; " and we will be sure to come 
 home on time." 
 
 So very soon after this the children were 
 rowed round to the hospital, and the matron 
 gave the nurses' caps to the girls. As trained 
 
74 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 nurses' caps are very small and simply stand up 
 on the top of the head, they were quite large 
 enough for the girls, who looked into a small 
 glass in the matron's room, and were much 
 pleased with themselves. 
 
 The matron said she hoped they would be 
 very careful, for she had a great deal to do in 
 superintending the nurses in the serious wards, 
 and she could not attend to the substitutes at 
 all ; but they must all be careful to keep 
 awake, for one could never rely upon the con- 
 valescents, — they were so apt to do things 
 which might be very hurtful to them. 
 
 The boys who were standing with Rosey Pink 
 and Calleen and Jeanne in the matron's room 
 looked very much concerned, and were wishing 
 in their hearts that they had not been so ready 
 to promise; but the matron took them to the 
 head nurse for the men's convalescent ward, 
 which was immediately next to the women's 
 and children's ward and connected with it by 
 a wide, open door, 
 
 " It is a very good thing," said Calleen, " for 
 one of us will be constantly obliged to go in 
 and wake up those boys; as for me, I feel as 
 if I never want to sleep again." 
 
IN THE CONVALESCENT WARD 75 
 
 " Calleen is always ready for a lark," said 
 Jeanne. 
 
 Calleen said she wondered how Jeanne could 
 think it was a lark to come and sit up all night 
 with poor, sick people, and see their sufferings. 
 
 Jeanne said these were not poor sick people, 
 — they were convalescents, and most likely, 
 from what the matron said, they would be 
 fussing about getting up at night and careering 
 around ; perhaps they would want to get out 
 of the windows, and it would be a lark any 
 way. 
 
 Rosey Pink was looking very serious now, for 
 they had gotten far enough into the room to see 
 the convalescents, and the pretty white beds, — 
 some of them small, for the children, — and 
 through the open door they could see other 
 long rows of beds, and Tom and Jack stepping 
 about on tiptoe and stopping to speak to pale 
 men who were sitting in chairs or walking 
 slowly about the room. 
 
 There were no little beds in the men's ward, 
 for all the children were together in one corner 
 of the women's ward. 
 
 The girls did not know what to do at first, 
 for nobody seemed to want anything, and they 
 
76 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 supposed it would not do for them to sit down 
 like the convalescents — it was their business to 
 be busy. 
 
 At last a very cranky old voice said, " Am I 
 not to have any supper at all to-night ? " 
 
 " Certainly you are," said Jeanne ; " I will 
 get your supper immediately." 
 
 " Don't mind her, new nurse," said another 
 quiet voice ; " she is always asking for dinner or 
 supper or breakfast, and she knows very well 
 she will get it when the proper hour comes, — 
 it is still twenty minutes to supper time, and 
 then the trays are brought to the door, and all 
 you have to do is to bring them in and serve 
 us, for you will notice that there is a small 
 table for every chair." 
 
 " We are very much obliged to you for telling 
 us," said Rosey Pink ; " you see, we are quite 
 strangers here, and don't exactly know what we 
 ought to do first." 
 
 " Young^'' said the cranky woman, in a very 
 discontented tone. 
 
 " Cheer up, you old Mrs. Cranky," said 
 Calleen. " Here, I will rub your back for you, 
 and that will make you feel better." 
 
 When Jeanne and Rosey Pink saw how 
 
IN TEE CONVALESCENT WARD 77 
 
 pleased the cranky woman was with Calleen 
 for rubbing her back, they immediately began 
 to rub other convalescents' backs, with so much 
 success that when the supper-trays arrived, the 
 patients did not seem willing that the rubbing 
 should stop ; but these new nurses were de- 
 lighted at the interruption, and immediately 
 began to make themselves useful, running about 
 with the trays and serving everybody at the 
 different little tables. Rosey thought that per- 
 haps the boys had not made as much progress 
 in their wards, so she went to the door and 
 said : — 
 
 "Tom, have you and Jack served supper to 
 your convalescents ? " 
 
 " No ; where is the supper ? " said Tom. 
 
 " Most likely, just outside the door ; that 's 
 where the dumb-waiter is, with all the trays, on 
 our side." 
 
 So Jack and Tom went to the door, and sure 
 enough there were all the trays waiting, so the 
 boys were soon as busy as the girls. 
 
 Pretty soon Tom came to the open door and 
 said, "• There is a man here who already wants 
 to get out of the window." 
 
 " But you must not let him," said Rosey. 
 
78 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " "We are not letting him ; Jack is tackling 
 him now, but we are afraid to turn our backs for 
 a minute." 
 
 " That is a good thing, — he will keep you 
 awake all right ; if he were not here, you might 
 drop asleep by and by, and that man will keep 
 you awake like a soldier on duty." 
 
 " You don't seem to care much about the 
 trouble we are having." 
 
 " No, I don't pity you at all, for we have some 
 queer cases in our room. One of the women 
 says she will not eat her supper any way but 
 lying fiat on her back in the middle of the 
 room, and Calleen is feeding her and making 
 much of her, just as if the cross thing were 
 an angel." 
 
 When it came time for all these convalescents 
 to be made ready for bed, the girls were at their 
 wits' ends, for everybody was calling to them at 
 once ; but the quiet woman said at last : — 
 
 " New nurses, just don't listen ; all of us are 
 really well enough now to help ourselves to bed, 
 except the lame ones and the children. All these 
 patients are imposing upon you because they 
 know that they can. As for that patient who 
 lay on her back on the floor to take her supper, 
 
IN THE CONVALESCENT WARD 79 
 
 — she ought to be ashamed of herself, and she 
 would never have tried that trick on the regular 
 nurses." But the woman on the floor said she 
 was unable to move. 
 
 " Then how did you get down there ? " said 
 Calleen. 
 
 " It was easy enough to get down, but I can- 
 not get up." 
 
 " Never mind, after we have the children in 
 bed we will call the nurses from the men's ward 
 to get you up." 
 
 The woman on the floor got up in a minute. 
 
 The children, — there were five of them, two 
 little boys and three girls, — who appeared to 
 be quite as old as the nurses, were the first ones 
 to be attended to. 
 
 After the little boys were safe in bed, and 
 while the trained nurses were undressing the 
 girls, one of them said to Rosey Pink : — 
 
 " Can you dance ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Rosey Pink. 
 
 " Jigs ? " 
 
 " Jigs and other dances." 
 
 " Then let us have a jig to-night ; with you 
 nurses and the two little boys and us three girls 
 there will be eight, just enough for a good jig." 
 
80 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " But you must not think of such a thing, — 
 you are too sick for jigs." 
 
 "We are not sick, we have got over our 
 troubles. I have never been sick, — it was only 
 my shoulder." 
 
 " And my back," said another girl ; while the 
 third one said it was only her head. 
 
 " But we can't do it," said Rosey. 
 
 Calleen interrupted to say, " Why not ? " 
 
 " Because, even if it should not hurt the chil- 
 dren, it would keep all the other convalescents 
 awake, and I suspect that, anyway, it would be 
 against orders." 
 
 The girl who wanted to dance said, "But we 
 won't have the jig until the middle of the night, 
 then all the otliers will be asleep, and we shall 
 dance on tiptoes, and be as merry as grigs and 
 as quiet as butterflies. Do you know what a 
 grig is ? " 
 
 " Do you ? " said Rosey Pink. 
 
 " No, but I thought you would know — trained 
 nurses learn everything." 
 
 "Well, I am not going to tell you now, any- 
 way ; you go to sleep, and ask me again by and 
 by." 
 
 " In the middle of the night ? " 
 
IN THE CONVALESCENT WARD 81 
 
 " No, to-morrow morning." 
 
 " But in the middle of the night it will be to- 
 morrow morning, — don't you know that ? " 
 
 " Good night," said Rosey Pink. 
 
 The trained nurses soon had the convales- 
 cents tucked away comfortably in bed. They 
 were much disturbed when they opened the beds 
 to notice that all the under sheets were pinned 
 very carefully to the mattress with safety-pins 
 and that they were as smooth as ivory. 
 
 They said to each other that they never would 
 be able to make those beds right in the morning, 
 and as they took a pride in their work and would 
 like to have the other trained nurses pleased 
 with the substitutes, it would be very disappoint- 
 ing if they could n't get the beds to look just as 
 they found them ; they wished Anno was here. 
 
 When the convalescents were all comfortably 
 in bed, Rosey went to the communicating door, 
 which was now only partly open, into the men's 
 room. 
 
 "Tom," she said (Tom was sitting perched 
 up on the only window-sill, which was a low one. 
 The other windows were higher up in the wall 
 and had no sills, this one was a beautiful wide 
 window) ; " What are you doing, Tom ? " 
 
 6 
 
82 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 "I am sitting here the enduring time, hom's 
 and hours, because that man, just as soon as 
 Jack turns his back, comes over here to jump 
 out of this window. I have just had a tussle 
 with him." 
 
 "Tom, you know everything, — what is a 
 grig ? " 
 
 " A grig is sometimes a grasshopper, some- 
 times a sand-eel, sometimes anything else." 
 
 " Are all your men quiet ones except the one 
 who wants to get out of the window ? " 
 
 " Mostly quiet ; but I say, Rosey, they have 
 some funny notions. They asked Jack if 1 was 
 a priest ; and Jack, you know, tells fibs some- 
 times, — he said I was," 
 
 " Then what ? " 
 
 " Then some of them told him that to-morrow 
 morning they would come and tell me about 
 their sins." 
 
 " Tlien what will you do ? " 
 
 " Oh, I will say that Jack was only joking ; 
 for you know, Rosey, I can't do anything about 
 their sins." 
 
 " Of course not. Do you believe that you 
 will keep awake, you two boys ? You had 
 better leave this door wide open, so that if we 
 
IN THE CONVALESCENT WARD 83 
 
 hear anybody calling for water, we can come in 
 and wake you up." 
 
 " No fear about our going to sleep while that 
 window-man is awake, and he seems so restless 
 that I suppose he will be awake all night. Look 
 here, Rosey." 
 
 " What ? " said Rosey, who had started for 
 the other ward. 
 
 " Don't you suppose it is beautiful on our 
 Island now, with the moonlight coming in at 
 the windows and the air smelling of honey- 
 suckles and our beds so comfortable?" 
 
 "To-morrow night we will have all those 
 things, Tom, and this night those trained nurses 
 are having such a holiday." 
 
 " That 's so," said Tom. 
 
 Jeanne told Rosey when she came back that 
 although the two little boys were fast asleep, the 
 girls were not thinking of sleep — they were 
 thinking of the jig. 
 
 " But we did not tell them they could have a 
 
 jig-" 
 
 " They say we did not say that they could 
 not have it, and so it is the same thing." 
 
 "Jeanne, tell them to go to sleep now, and 
 that we will wake them in the middle of the 
 
84 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 night ; you know wc can do that and give them 
 a glass of water or something, so as to keep our 
 promise, but they will be too sleepy then to 
 remember about the jig." 
 
 The trained nurses found it a very difficult 
 matter to keep awake, especially as there did 
 not seem to be anything to do, — so they deter- 
 mined to take turns, one watching the clock 
 for half an hour while the others would sleep ; 
 but at one o'clock there was a stir in the 
 small beds, so Calleen, whose watch it was, 
 took a glass of water in her hand and met 
 the wide-open eyes of the proposer of the 
 dance. 
 
 " Time for the jig," said she, beginning to get 
 out of bed. 
 
 " Good gracious, child ! " said Calleen, " you 
 will disturb the whole ward." 
 
 " Not a bit of it," was the answer ; and this 
 girl who had said that it was only her shoulder 
 that was the matter proceeded to wake the two 
 older children, and was going to rouse the little 
 boys when Calleen said they could do just as 
 well without the boys, who were so small that 
 they would be peevish and cry, and spoil every- 
 thing. 
 
IN THE CONVALESCENT WARD 5^5 
 
 " The other nurses are asleep," said the larg- 
 est girl, in an astonished voice. 
 
 " They are only just resting," answered 
 Calleen. 
 
 " You can go and tell them that it is time for 
 the dance ; and ask that other nurse whom you 
 call Rosey, what is a grig?" 
 
 Calleen awoke Jeanne and Rosey. " Rosey," 
 said she, " what is a grig ? " 
 
 " It is a grasshopper and a sand-eel and one 
 or two other things." 
 
 So Calleen went back to the convalescent 
 girl and said, " It is a grasshopper and a sand- 
 eel and one or two other things." 
 
 " That 's all right — well, make those other 
 nurses get up and we will begin and be as merry 
 as grigs." 
 
 Rosey and Jeanne now came forward ; they 
 said : — 
 
 " Calleen, it is never going to do to let these 
 children get up in the middle of the night." 
 
 " But," said Calleen, " they are already up." 
 
 " Yes," said the largest convalescent girl, " and 
 if we don't dance, I shall put my shoulder out 
 of joint again, — I can." 
 
 " Oh, for any sake, don't do that," said Rosey. 
 
86 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " Come along, and we will dance the jig with 
 you on our tiptoes, but we must do it without 
 music of any kind, — we must not sing." 
 
 So the nurses and the three little convales- 
 cents began to dance a jig without a grain of 
 music, and really and truly on their tiptoes ; 
 but as they got more and more in the spirit of 
 the jig, there was some pretty sudden shrill 
 laughter, and the steps grew faster, and, say 
 what you will, there was a noise. The nurses 
 in the next room were disturbed, and stood at 
 the door looking in ; now and then they made 
 remarks : — 
 
 " Good for you, convalescent ! Well done, 
 Jeanne ! Hurrah for you, Rosey Pink ! " 
 
 When Rosey looked toward the white beds 
 she found every convalescent sitting up looking 
 at the jig. 
 
 " Get me my shoes and stockings immedi- 
 ately," said one, " I am going to Ireland." 
 
 " Never mind her," said the largest convales- 
 cent girl, " she is always going to Ireland." 
 
 " Go on dancing," said another convalescent. 
 " You look like fairies." 
 
 But the girl who could put her shoulder out of 
 joint said, " We are not fairies, we are grigs." 
 
IN THE CONVALESCENT WARD 87 
 
 " Go on dancing, grigs," said the woman. 
 
 " I want my shoes and stockings put on, I 
 am going to Ireland." 
 
 " What shall we do ? " said Calleen ; " every 
 one of them is awake." 
 
 Jeanne said there was nothing to be done 
 except to make these girls go at once to bed ; 
 they had had their dance and had been very 
 happy, and no doubt it was all very bad for 
 them, and it had waked up all the grown ones ; 
 and it would not be a bit surprising if all the 
 convalescents should die the next day, and if 
 they did, they (the substitutes) would certainly 
 be blamed for it, so the best thing to do would 
 be to make them all go to sleep at once, and 
 try if sleep would not restore them. 
 
 " I tell you, I want my shoes and stockings, 
 — I am going to Ireland." 
 
 " You had better put them on for her," said 
 the woman in the next bed ; " then she '11 be 
 satisfied, and likely drop asleep. She 's been 
 going to Ireland just this way for twenty-five 
 years, they do say." 
 
 After a while this woman and all the others 
 went to sleep; but in the morning everybody 
 refused to be disturbed, even for breakfast, and 
 when the matron came in she said : — 
 
88 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " You must have been humoring these pa- 
 tients, and you will have a hard time, for they 
 will be querulous all day, and give you enough 
 to do ; but I will sit here while you go into 
 my room and take breakfast." 
 
 Oh, how long the day seemed till the after- 
 noon, when the real trained nurses came back, 
 and all the substitutes — boys and girls — were 
 in the boat again and on their way to The 
 Island Impossible. 
 
JURORS 89 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 JURORS 
 
 " '^J^^ ""^ tJ^is lovely summer time," said 
 -*-^ Calleen, "when it is the holidays, I 
 think we ought to go on a longer excursion; 
 we have been making such small journeys 
 lately." 
 
 " What do all you others say about it," said 
 Jack O'Nory. 
 
 " Let us go," answered the others. 
 
 So they started, all the children, and Anno 
 and Roscoe and Remus, in the sail-boat. 
 
 "And where are we to go?" asked Mr. 
 Rattles. 
 
 " To see the world." 
 
 " In that case we must cross the ocean," said 
 Mr. Rattles. 
 
 So they crossed the ocean, and Tom Murphy 
 said, that although they had often had great 
 fun in going down-hill on a sled, this was a 
 hundred times better, sliding down these great 
 
90 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 waves ; and the best part of it was, that there 
 was no walking up-hill about it, and as for 
 the sight of the beautiful ships sailing by so 
 straight and proud, it would never be possible 
 to see that sight on The Island Impossible. 
 And so for his part he was very glad they 
 had started off on a voyage to see the world. 
 
 " And they sailed and they sailed," and they 
 came near to the land, and pretty soon they 
 followed a great ship until she came to a place 
 of landing where there seemed to be a city of 
 ships ; but Mr. Rattles steered his boat past this 
 white city, right into the loveliest river, which 
 very soon carried these passengers away from 
 all the bustle and commotion, and led them 
 along swiftly till the river began to grow quite 
 narrow, so that they could smell the sweet- 
 scented hay which was drying in heaps on the 
 meadows, while in other fields the women and 
 the children were raking it together and the 
 men were loading the great hay-wagons ; and 
 some of these boys and girls thought they would 
 very much like to land and take a hand in this 
 business, but as nobody expressed this wish 
 aloud, there was no move made for landing. 
 
 The great barns stood so near the river that 
 
JURORS 91 
 
 the passengers could look right through their 
 open doors, — doors which framed lovely laud- 
 scapes on the other side. 
 
 Mr. Rattles said, " All these smooth meadows 
 and the hedges between, and the greenness 
 of the grass, and the neatness of everything, — 
 all this means, ' England.' " 
 
 " Then we are in England," said the whole 
 boat-load. " Hurrah for merry England, and 
 God save the Queen ! " and very soon they landed 
 at the wharf of a pretty town and moored their 
 boat, while they, all of them, set off to explore 
 the town, whose streets seemed to be full of 
 dancing girls and boys, who carried flowers in 
 their hands, at their waists, on their hats, on 
 their shoulders, — everywhere where flowers 
 could possibly find a place. They smiled at the 
 strange children, who asked them, " And where 
 are you going, so blythe and gay ? " 
 
 "We are going to a Sunday-school picnic, 
 and will you all come with us ? " 
 
 The children hesitated, but Mr. Rattles said : 
 
 " If you go to the Sunday-school picnic, you 
 will not have much time left for seeing the rest 
 of the world." 
 
 So they shook their heads at the happy Sun- 
 
92 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 day-school picnickers, and passed along up the 
 shady street. 
 
 They saw two policemen, who regarded them 
 intently and with apparent interest. These 
 policemen appeared to be looking for something, 
 but whether it was for a thief or for something 
 smaller they could not tell ; however, after 
 passing them the policemen turned and passed 
 them again, and the children heard one say to 
 the otlier : — 
 
 " Just twelve of them, exactly the right 
 number." 
 
 " Do you suppose they think any one of us is 
 a thief ? " said Sam Holmes. 
 
 Calleen said, " No ; the men had said, ' Just 
 twelve of them, exactly the right number,' 
 and it was not likely they were looking for 
 twelve thieves." 
 
 " They are very uncomfortable-looking men," 
 said Mary, " They look warm, and that may 
 make them so ill-natured as to imagine tliat 
 everybody is a thief." 
 
 The policemen walked on and came to a 
 standstill at the head of the street, so that these 
 strangers, who were exploring the shady streets, 
 soon came up to them. 
 
JURORS 93 
 
 " Have yon formed any opinion in the case of 
 Silas against Silas ? " asked one of them. 
 
 As he looked at the whole crowd when he 
 spoke, the whole crowd answered that they 
 didn't know anything about either one of the 
 Silases. 
 
 " Then you have n't read the papers," said 
 the other policeman. 
 
 And the whole crowd answered again : — 
 
 " No, we have n't read the papers." 
 
 " If you are examining the town, we want to 
 show you the very handsomest building in the 
 place, the Court House, so will you come with 
 us?" 
 
 The children assented ; but as they walked 
 along, Rosey Pink said : — 
 
 " It looks as if we had all been arrested." 
 
 When they came to the Court House, they 
 were carried by their guides right up to a chair 
 where a judge was sitting, and as they passed 
 up they noticed that the Court House was quite 
 full, that there were lawyers standing about, 
 and that they, the children, attracted a good 
 deal of attention on their way to the Judge's 
 seat. 
 
 " Your Honor," said one of the policemen : 
 
94 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " here are twelve jurymen, good men and 
 true, who do not know anything about either 
 one of the Silases, who have n't read the papers, 
 and who are at your service ; that five of them 
 are girls will not, your Honor, make any differ- 
 ence, as the movement about women's rights 
 has become very strong in the country, and 
 they will be accepted just as soon as your 
 Honor shall order them to be sworn in." 
 
 " Swear them in," ordered the Judge. 
 
 Then somebody with a big staff in his hand 
 came forward and began to speak. 
 
 First he asked if they had formed any opinion 
 in the case of Silas against Silas, and Tom 
 Murphy said : — 
 
 " We have already said that we don't know 
 either of the Silases, and now — " but the 
 Judge interrupted and said again, " Swear 
 them in ; " so, somehow or another, they were 
 sworn in, and were then conducted to a kind 
 of fenced-off place, which the man with the 
 big staff called a jury-box, and were all seated, 
 by that same man, — the boys in the front row, 
 the girls in the second row, and Mr. Rattles and 
 Roscoe, who looked rather sheepish, behind the 
 others. 
 
JURORS 95 
 
 Rosey Pink leaned forward, and asked Jack 
 O'Nory : — 
 
 " Is this a lark ? " 
 
 " A pretty good-sized lark," said Jack. " How- 
 are we going to get away ? " 
 
 " We are not going to get away at all," said 
 Tom Murphy. 
 
 Calleen said it was just as inconvenient as if 
 they had been thieves ; " and what are we, any 
 way ? " she continued. 
 
 " Don't you see," said Jack, " that we are 
 jurors." 
 
 Then the Judge pounded something on the 
 table before him, and all the buzz which was 
 going on stopped in a minute. 
 
 The children understood then, when every- 
 thing was so quiet that you could almost hear 
 a spider spinning hia web between the ceiling 
 and the floor, that they could not speak to each 
 other any more. 
 
 Then one of the lawyers stood up and said : — 
 
 " Your Honor, my client, Peter Silas, owns 
 twenty acres of land, and his cousin, Solomon 
 Silas, wishes to take it away from him." 
 
 " What a shameful thing to do," said Jeanne, 
 quite low, to Rosey Pink. 
 
96 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 In a minute another lawyer, a quick-speaking 
 man, jumped up and said : — 
 
 " Your Honor, my client, Solomon Silas, has 
 lived on that land for twenty years, and has dug 
 a well on it, and done a great many things to 
 improve it, and now Peter Silas wants to turn 
 him out of the place where he was so comfort- 
 able with his wife and children." 
 
 " What a shameful thing to do," said Rosey 
 Pink, leaning over and speaking to Tom Murphy. 
 
 Then the first lawyer rose and said that his 
 client, Peter Silas, was quite willing to let his 
 cousin, Solomon Silas, remove his house and all 
 his improvements off the land, except, indeed, 
 the improvement of the well, which he had dug, 
 which could not very well be moved. 
 
 " That seems fair enough," said Ernest, in a 
 distinct voice. 
 
 The Judge said, quite sternly : — 
 
 " The jury will please refrain from express- 
 ing an opinion, and, indeed, it has no right even 
 to form an opinion at this stage of the proceed- 
 ings, — it lays itself open to the danger of being 
 challenged." 
 
 " Challenged," said Jeanne in a whisper, her 
 face pale with fright. 
 
JURORS 97 
 
 " Don't be so frightened, Jeanne," said Mary, 
 in the same low whisper. " He does n't mean 
 that we would have to fight a duel." 
 
 " Then what does he mean ? " said Jeanne. 
 
 " No matter ; don't talk ; if we do, we will 
 get into trouble." 
 
 The lawyer who had just been speaking con- 
 tinued, saying that his client, Peter Silas, did 
 not even ask payment of rent for all these years 
 that Solomon Silas had lived on his land, but 
 that he wanted the land himself now. He was 
 going to marry a widow with eleven small 
 children, many of them twins, and he wished 
 to have as much room about him as he possibly 
 could have, and he was obliged to build a new 
 house at once, if his cousin would only be so 
 obliging as to move off the land. It was very 
 inconvenient, as he could not marry until he 
 had possession of the land, and meantime all 
 these young children must remain without his 
 protection. 
 
 " I think Solomon ought to move off at once," 
 whispered Tom to Jack. 
 
 Jack made eyes of assent to Tom's opinion. 
 Then the other lawyer rose and said that Solo- 
 mon Silas had already twelve children of his 
 
 7 
 
98 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 own ; that it would cost him a <^reat deal of 
 money to move his house and all his other im- 
 provements, and in the meantime, what was he 
 going to do with his children ? 
 
 Sam said to Ernest, under his hreath, that it 
 would be a very cruel thing in Peter Silas to 
 expect Solomon Silas to move. 
 
 Then there was a great deal more talk, first 
 from one lawyer then from the other ; and the 
 Judge now and again opened different big books, 
 which lay on a desk before him, and read long 
 lectures out of these books in a very drony kind 
 of a way, so that the jurors thought the Judge 
 was pretty nearly asleep, and they were not 
 quite sure of themselves ; they realized that 
 they were pretty nearly asleep, and that if any- 
 body should call upon them to read out of those 
 big books, they too would be very likely to read 
 in a drony kind of way. 
 
 They stopped paying attention to anything 
 that either the lawyers or the Judge was saying, 
 for it did seem so silly to be going over the 
 same thing all the time, backward and forward, 
 and nothing coming of it, and no one being 
 satisfied, and the lawyers were getting very red 
 in the face, and were looking as if they would 
 
JURORS 99 
 
 like to kill each other ; and the spider, who 
 had gone down from the ceiling to the floor, was 
 now going up again, and that was interesting. 
 
 Then their attention was again attracted, for 
 the lawyers stopped talking and everybody sat 
 down, except those who did not have any seats ; 
 and the Judge began to speak, and turned him- 
 self towards the penned-in place in which they 
 were sitting, and said : — 
 
 " Gentlemen of the Jury," and a great deal 
 more besides. 
 
 He kept constantly saying, " And you are to 
 take care ; " but of what, and about what, the 
 children could not for the life of them find out. 
 And after the Judge stopped speaking, the man 
 with the staff came and told them to follow him. 
 He took them into a room, which was empty 
 except that it had twelve chairs in it, and the 
 man with the staff said : — 
 
 " Here is a bell on the floor, and when you 
 have come to a decision, ring that bell and I 
 will come and take you into court again." 
 
 Then he went away. 
 
 The children had no desire to be taken into 
 court again, neither had Anno or Mr. Rattles 
 or Roscoe, so they thought it was most likely 
 
100 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 they would not ring the bell, but would quietly 
 go out of the door and walk down the pretty 
 street till they should come to the wharf and 
 get into their boat. 
 
 Calleen told Mr. Rattles it was a pity he did 
 not let them go with the picnickers, for certainly 
 they had lost about as much time here as they 
 would have done in the other way, and the 
 other way would have been far pleasanter. Then 
 they went to the windows and looked out, and 
 saw the pretty river, and became quite anxious 
 to hurry down and sail away again to see the 
 rest of the world, and hoped they were going 
 to have no more hindrances such as this had 
 been. But when Tom Murphy tried to open 
 the door he found that it was locked. What 
 was to be done now ? The children were very 
 much disconcerted. The whole company sat 
 down on the twelve chairs to meditate, but 
 nobody seemed to have any idea what was to be 
 done next. At last, Rosey Pink suggested that 
 there was the bell, of which the man with the 
 staff had spoken, and he said when they had 
 come to a decision to ring the bell, which, of 
 course, must have meant, when they had de- 
 cided to go, they were to ring the bell. He 
 
JURORS 101 
 
 certainly did not think they were going to de- 
 cide to go back into the court-room, even if he 
 had said he would take them back there; and 
 perhaps he had thought they were warm and 
 would like to get cool in this room, which 
 had no furniture anywhere about it to an- 
 noy them, and most likely he had locked the 
 door to prevent any chance of their being 
 annoyed. 
 
 Mr. Rattles said that, not being a landsman, 
 of course, he did not know much about things, 
 but he believed the man with the staff expected 
 them to go back to the court-room again. 
 
 " Any way, let 's ring the bell," said Jack 
 O'Nory ; and so they rang it, and were all stand- 
 ing: in a row near the door when the man with 
 the staff opened it. 
 
 " You have decided pretty quick," said the 
 man. " Who do you think had the right of it ?" 
 
 " What did you say ? " said Ernest. 
 
 "Who do you think had the right of it, — 
 Peter Silas or Solomon Silas ? " 
 
 Tom Murphy looked round at the others. 
 
 " Oh ! " he said. Then Calleen stepped for- 
 ward. 
 
 " I don't think we have quite decided yet," 
 
102 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 she said. " But will you please bring u§ a 
 pitcher of water and some tumblers ? " 
 
 " Certainly," said the man with the staff. 
 And then when he was gone, locking the door 
 behind him, Calleen said : — 
 
 " Children, he means us to decide which of 
 those people should have the land, and then we 
 would have to go in and tell the Judge about it. 
 I remember now, a long time ago, uncle had to 
 be a juror, and I heard him talking to the dear 
 auntie about it. So when the water comes, 
 let 's tell him we have not decided, and then he 
 will go away and we can talk to each other and 
 sec what we can do." 
 
 So they said they had not yet decided, and 
 the door was again locked. 
 
 Mary said, "There is no use talking about 
 deciding. I can't do it, for one. I am so 
 sorry for both those people, — for Peter and 
 for Solomon, and for all those unhappy chil- 
 dren, and those mothers who must be very 
 much perplexed, and it would be impossible 
 for mc to decide." 
 
 All the others said it would be impossible for 
 them to decide, and Mr. Rattles said he was 
 dashed if he could decide. Anno began to cry, 
 
JURORS 103 
 
 because she did not know how they could get 
 out of that place. Then they went to the win- 
 dows and looked out, and said that no windows 
 were at the back of the Court House, and if 
 they were only on the ground they could run 
 down to the wharf quite easily with no fear of 
 being seen, but, alas ! these windows were two 
 stories high, and it would not do to risk break- 
 ing any of their bones here and being taken 
 back to the court-room for the lawyers to make 
 a speech about them. 
 
 Mr. Rattles seemed to be very intent and 
 abstracted while he was looking out of the win- 
 dow. He was evidently measuring something 
 with his eye, and weighing something in his 
 mind. 
 
 " You see," said Ernest, " you girls are just 
 as good climbers as we are, but this two-story 
 business is a little high for any of us. Of 
 course, if we had a rope." 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Rattles slowly, " that is all 
 that is necessary — a rope — I have been look- 
 ing out of that window pretty sharp, and I don't 
 see anything to hinder in the way of getting 
 down to the wharf. There are no windows in 
 the room beneath, so they could not see us, and 
 
104 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 I know all you young ones are like cats about 
 climbing, and as I always carry a rope — " 
 
 " Oil ! do you, do you ? "' said everybody. 
 
 " In case of accidents," continued Mr. Rattles. 
 
 " And this is an accident, this is an accident," 
 said everybody. 
 
 " We might as well," continued Mr. Rattles, 
 " start." 
 
 " But where is the rope ? " said Rosey Pink. 
 
 " Coiled round my waist ; " so they uncoiled 
 the rope, yards and yards and yards of it, and 
 really Mr. Rattles looked more like himself than 
 he had looked when they started on their journey. 
 
 " I thought you had grown fat very suddenly," 
 said Jeanne ; " but I didn't like to notice it." 
 
 Then it was a question to what the rope 
 should be fastened. It would not do to tie it to 
 a chair, for the chair would certainly, in that 
 case, go out of the window with them ; but on 
 exploring, they found a very convenient hook 
 driven into the wall of the house just outside 
 of the window, and it did not take any time to 
 fasten the rope very securely, and then these 
 climbers very soon let themselves down hand 
 over hand, and all alighted on the ground safe 
 and sound. Of course, the rope had to be left 
 
JURORS 105 
 
 behind, but then Mr. Rattles could easily get 
 another one. There was no time lost in run- 
 ning through the pretty streets and getting 
 down to the river again, where they pushed off 
 from shore joyful in their escape. 
 
106 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 ON THE GREAT DESERT 
 
 QO they sailed out into the wide ocean again, 
 ^ far away, and far away. 
 
 They passed many places on the shores of 
 Palestine, whose names they had always known, 
 and now and again one would say to Mr. 
 Rattles : — 
 
 " Why should we not land at this beautiful 
 place of which we have read so much ? " 
 
 And another would say : — 
 
 " Oh, let us land at tlie old-fashioned Joppa, 
 — I know they call it Jaffa now, but it is Joppa 
 in the Bible ; so let us land and ' go up to 
 Jerusalem.' " 
 
 But Mr. Rattles said, " If we land anywhere 
 now, we certainly cannot see The Great Desert, 
 or ride on the camels, for pretty soon we must 
 be at home again." 
 
 So the children were quiet, and decided that 
 no stop must bo made until they should sail 
 up tlie river Nile, and leave their boat, and 
 
ON THE GREAT DESERT 107 
 
 travel overland to the place where they must 
 take their camels to go across The Great 
 Desert. 
 
 They were all glad to see Cairo, and to stop 
 for a minute and walk about. They said Cairo 
 must really be the capital of the world, because 
 people from all parts of the world were walking 
 through its sunny streets ; but Mr. Rattles 
 hurried them so much that their eyes were 
 always turning backward, looking at the glit- 
 tering cities and the green shores which they 
 had reluctantly passed. Mary said the longer 
 the time before they reached the camels, the 
 better for her, for she was sure that she would 
 be sea-sick on the back of a camel, and certainly 
 she thought it a hazardous business, and she was 
 very much in dread of that experience. 
 
 At last they reached the starting-place, and 
 Jack O'Nory said that so far they had seemed 
 to be making a journey in a dream. 
 
 The camels were waiting for them, and a 
 dragoman, and a cook, and two or three other 
 men, and there was a crowd of people waiting 
 for more camels; but the Director of Affairs 
 said that this party of children was to have the 
 first choice, and as there were still three vacant 
 
108 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 camels left, with this dragoman, the children 
 should choose which three of the waiting travel- 
 lers they would take for companions. 
 
 Tom Murphy said, " Jack, there is a bishop 
 standing over there, and he has a young lady 
 with him, and a young man, — they would just 
 suit for the three camels." 
 
 " So they would, and I rather like the looks 
 of the bishop ; the young lady is as pretty as a 
 violet, and the young man looks as if he might 
 be good fun." 
 
 So it was decided that the bishop and his 
 party should join this very young party. 
 
 But oh, what a business it was to mount, — 
 to see these great, lazy-looking animals lie down, 
 to get on to them, and be suddenly jerked up 
 somewhere into the air, and to know that, after 
 one was safely on and safely jerked up, it would 
 require quite a long step-ladder to take one 
 down again, should he wish to dismount in a 
 hurry. As for Mary, she would certainly have 
 come down, if she could have done so without 
 breaking her neck. 
 
 After the camels started the children were 
 full of glee. 
 
 " It seems as if we were up in the rigging of 
 
ON THE GREAT DESERT 109 
 
 a ship and were sailing through the bluest, soft- 
 est air," said Jeanne, and the bishop's daughter, 
 who was riding near her, said Jeanne was right, 
 — that was just the way she felt also. 
 
 The dragoman, who spoke English perfectly, 
 was greatly pleased with these tourists ; and the 
 bishop kept smiling, partly with pleasure be- 
 cause he had so soon been furnished with his 
 camels and his guides, and partly because he 
 and his companions were delighted with the 
 society of their fellow-travellers. 
 
 The bishop's daughter was not yet twenty 
 years old, and she was so charming that both 
 the boys and the girls were always trying for a 
 chance to ride beside her. She told the girls 
 that pretty soon she was to be married; that 
 she and her father lived in the United States, 
 and that they had met, in Jerusalem, a gentle- 
 man who was also from the United States; 
 and in answer to a question from Calleen, she 
 said that somehow or other this gentleman 
 and she had become engaged and were to be 
 married. 
 
 " Is the gentleman you are to marry riding 
 on that camel over by the bishop ? " asked 
 Rosey Pink. 
 
110 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " Yes ; but how did you know ? " 
 
 " I don't know how I know ; but I do know." 
 
 " We all know," said Calleen ; " the boys as 
 well." 
 
 " Oh," said the charming girl, whose name 
 was Antoinette ; and then she said, after a little 
 pause, "You are good guessers." 
 
 " Why don't you be married here on the 
 desert ? " said Rosey Pink, — " your father is a 
 bishop." 
 
 Antoinette laughed and blushed and looked 
 so pretty that the traveller who was riding by 
 the bishop, having turned and caught sight of 
 the smiling face, immediately drew up his camel 
 beside her. 
 
 " Why are you smiling ? " he asked. 
 
 Rosey Pink said, " We are all smiling because 
 we think it would be a lovely thing if you and 
 Antoinette should be married here on the desert. 
 What is your name ? " 
 
 " My name is John." 
 
 " Would n't you think that would be pleasant, 
 John?" 
 
 " Oh, the most lovely thing, and why not ? " 
 said John, turning to the pretty girl. 
 
 But Antoinette laughed again, and hurried 
 
ON THE GREAT DESERT 111 
 
 her camel on to her father's side, John follow- 
 ing close behind. 
 
 Jeanne confided to Calleen that it was very 
 interesting. Meantime, the boys had been 
 listening to wonderful tales which the bishop 
 was telling about the Moslems and the Arabians 
 and the inhabitants of Palestine whose shores 
 they had passed ; and Mr. Rattles had settled 
 himself by the dragoman, and very soon acquired 
 so much information that he could make him- 
 self quite useful, assuring the children of their 
 safety when the camels prepared to lie suddenly 
 down again at evening time ; helping to build 
 the tents for the night, and watching the cook as 
 he made preparations for the supper, — indeed, 
 the cook, with his little travelling-stove to help 
 him, made such beautiful pancakes that every- 
 body praised them heartily, and Anno became 
 quite jealous, for she was famous at home for 
 making pancakes. 
 
 To sleep out under the stars was a wonderful 
 delight, for really the tents were hardly meant 
 to cover them. 
 
 Mary asked the dragoman if there was ever 
 danger in crossing the desert. 
 
 *' Danger from what ? " said he. 
 
112 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " Well, from robbers — and things." 
 
 He answered quite slowly, " There is some- 
 times danger, for you see, the desert is like the 
 ocean, and there is no one upon whom we could 
 call for protection ; generally on our trips, we 
 have a good many armed, good-sized men 
 amongst the travellers ; but you children could 
 not make much of a fight," He looked at her 
 with a very dubious expression in his eyes, 
 which expression and the slowness of his speech 
 added very much to Mary's alarm, which had 
 been increasing momentarily from the time he 
 began to speak. 
 
 " Who would be the robbers ? " she asked. 
 
 " Bedouins." 
 
 " The people who ride the beautiful Arabian 
 horses ? " asked Mary. 
 
 " The same," answered the dragoman. 
 
 Mary did not feel that she could be very much 
 alarmed about the Bedouins ; she had always 
 thought of them with admiration, their chief 
 characteristic, so far as she had formed an 
 opinion, being that they loved their mothers and 
 adored their horses — and rode like the wind. 
 
 " And when shall we come to an oasis ? " 
 asked Calleen. 
 
ON THE GREAT DESERT 113 
 
 " Pretty soon after we start out on our morn- 
 ing journey. Your camel will tell you (for the 
 camel can smell the water a mile away), and he 
 will begin to sniff and shake his head about in 
 such a way, that if you should not know the 
 cause for it, you would think something very 
 serious was the matter with him." 
 
 So Calleen immediately went to all the other 
 travellers and told them what their camels would 
 be apt to do to-morrow. 
 
 And sure enough, they did it. But the oasis 
 was very beautiful after travelling on the sandy 
 plain, and Ernest said he would like to live here 
 forever where the fresh water and the green 
 grass were so delightful. 
 
 " Huh," said Sam, " you would pretty soon 
 get tired of this business, and any way, you 
 know that there are crowds of oases in the 
 United States." 
 
 The girls took the opportunity afforded by the 
 oasis to get into very close conversation with 
 the charming Antoinette and to examine the 
 beautiful whiteness of the back of her neck and 
 the smallness of her ears, and they made her let 
 her amber hair fall down about her waist, be- 
 cause they said that Anno, who could be an 
 
114 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 excellent ladies' maid, could put it up for her so 
 that it would look better than before she had 
 let it down, and indeed, Anno was pleased to 
 pass her fingers through the bright scented 
 hair and to arrange it again on Antoinette's 
 pretty head. 
 
 While her hair was being arranged she was 
 telling the children about Jerusalem, but all the 
 time she was telling, it seemed to be mostly 
 about John, — " There we met John," and 
 " When we turned the corner John was coming 
 down the street," and " Whom should we meet 
 when we came down the street, but John, talk- 
 ing to an Arab," — so the listeners did not 
 acquire a great deal of information about Jeru- 
 salem proper, — only about this temporary 
 inhabitant of that city. 
 
 " But I am in a hurry to go on," said Rosey 
 Pink, " and to see a troop of Bedouins." 
 
 " Better not wish for that," said the drago- 
 man, " they are sometimes dangerous." And 
 Mary, who thought that now she knew every- 
 thing about the Bedouins, said : — 
 
 " They are dangerous." 
 
 " Dangerous ? Oh, how delightful," said all 
 the boys. But the traveller whose name was 
 
ON THE GREAT DESERT 115 
 
 John turned very pale and looked at Antoinette 
 with concern. 
 
 After that, he seemed to be having a very 
 earnest conversation with the bishop, who said, 
 " Oh, nonsense," and he kept on having a con- 
 versation, and the bishop kept on saying " Oh, 
 nonsense," while Antoinette, who w'as sitting 
 huddled up among the children, looked with 
 some curiosity at her father and at John. 
 
 " I know what they are talking about," said 
 Rosey Pink. 
 
 " No, — do you ? " asked Antoinette. 
 
 "About the 'Bedouins' and the dangerous- 
 ness of them." 
 
 "Yes," added Calleen, "and I heard the 
 bishop say quite distinctly — ' Married, oh, non- 
 sense.' " 
 
 Then Antoinette's face became very red. 
 " Calleen," she said, " you heard wrong about 
 the ' married,' but I know father said ' Oh, 
 nonsense.' " 
 
 " He said the other too," insisted Calleen. 
 
 Everybody was busy looking for troops of 
 Bedouins, and it seemed that John had begun 
 to talk to Antoinette upon the subject which 
 had interested him when he was talking to the 
 
116 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 bishop, for she too said, "Oh, nonsense," and 
 then, " What nonsense," and her eyes were 
 shining like stars while her cheeks were rosy 
 red. 
 
 " All you children," said John, — " don't you 
 think it would be a lovely thing to have a wed- 
 ding when we get to the next oasis ? — then the 
 girls could be bridesmaids, and the boys could 
 be ' best men ' and ushers and everything else, 
 and the cook could make a fine wedding feast 
 for us, — for, do you know, he says he can 
 make ice-cream out here in the desert just as 
 well as if he was in a house in a city." 
 
 John had come away from Antoinette when 
 he made this proposition and was standing by 
 himself. The girls and the boys took hands 
 and made a ring and danced around him, crying 
 out — "It will be beautiful, — it will be delight- 
 ful, — it will be splendid, — Oh, let us have the 
 wedding ! " 
 
 They made such a noise that the bishop came 
 to see what was the matter, and Antoinette 
 seemed to be half laughing, half crying. 
 
 John said, " You see, Bishop, that the other 
 tourists who did us the honor to choose us for 
 their comrades will be very much disappointed 
 
ON THE GREAT DESERT 117 
 
 if they cannot have this wedding, and where in 
 civilization could we find such bridesmaids and 
 such best men ; and oh, Bishop, what if the 
 Bedouins should attack us, and I should not 
 have the right to defend her ? " 
 
 " You certainly intend that I shall be killed 
 by the Bedouins," said the bishop, laughing 
 heartily. 
 
 And when John and the children heard the 
 bishop's cheery laughter, they felt encouraged, 
 and this time they surrounded the bishop, hav- 
 ing dragged Antoinette over to make part of 
 the ring ; and they danced round the bishop 
 and said, "You are our prisoner, and we cannot, 
 cannot let you out until you surrender, — and 
 promise, and we will sing, ' Open the ring and 
 take her in, and kiss her when you get her in ' 
 — and you may take her, and may kiss her, if 
 you will only promise." 
 
 And the bishop kept saying " Oh, nonsense," 
 and " What nonsense," and Antoinette did not 
 say anything, but John separated himself from 
 the others and stood by the bishop. 
 
 " Believe me, it would be better so," he said, 
 "and if /were to be killed by the Bedouins, I 
 would like to feel that she would be my widow 
 
118 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 and would hare a right to mourn for me after 
 you and she should go back to the United 
 States." 
 
 "What nonsense," said the bishop, looking 
 into John's smiling face ; " you seem to be 
 pleased with the idea of Antoinette's being a 
 widow." At last the bishop said : " Well, if 
 I do consent, this will be the queerest wed- 
 ding I have ever seen, and the queerest company 
 and the queerest surroundings, — and yet I 
 don't know but what it would be just as solemn, 
 perhaps more solemn, and certainly there will 
 be all the elements of youth and sincerity 
 (added to complete lawlessness). What do you 
 say, Antoinette ? " 
 
 Antoinette said nothing, but the children all 
 answered for her : — 
 
 " She will be delighted, — she will think it 
 the greatest fun that ever was," and they un- 
 loosed her hands from theirs and gave her a 
 gentle push, singing out, " Open the ring and 
 let her in, and you may both kiss her when you 
 get her in." 
 
 The dragoman was greatly pleased with the 
 idea of the wedding, and Anno said how good it 
 would be if everybody could be married on the 
 
ON THE GREAT DESERT 119 
 
 desert, for then there would be no trouble about 
 dressing up, and no worry and fuss about recep- 
 tions and cards and presents and all that. 
 Then Roscoe said that if Anno thought that 
 way, it would be a very good thing if they 
 could have their wedding now, but Anno said 
 that was a different matter. She ivould like a 
 little more fuss when she was married, espe- 
 cially about the veil, and the presents — and 
 the cook said there could be a wedding break- 
 fast which would be just like any other break- 
 fast. 
 
 " Except that there shall be ice-cream," said 
 the children ; and the cook promised that 
 there should ])e ice-cream. 
 
 Then it was time for the camels to be brought 
 up, and to lie down again and jerk the travellers 
 up into the air and then settle down into a gait 
 which is used for a ship at sea. 
 
 And when they came to the next oasis every- 
 body was busy with preparations for the wed- 
 ding, but in the midst of their preparations 
 there was a great cloud of sand seen in the 
 distance, which cloud grew nearer and nearer 
 till it was so close that the travellers could see 
 the beautiful horses and the wild-looking men 
 
120 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 who dashed past on the other side of their green 
 stopping place. 
 
 The dragoman said " Bedouins," — and the 
 bishop said, " Now that the enemy has passed, 
 it will not be necessary to keep my promise." 
 
 But both John and the children interrupted 
 to say very solemnly, " There will be other 
 enemies." 
 
 So the promise was kept, and the beautiful 
 wedding service ^was read out of the Prayer- 
 Book which the bishop carried in his pocket, 
 while the four girls and Anno stood behind 
 Antoinette, and the four boys stood behind 
 John, — and Mr. Rattles and Remus and 
 Roscoe, with the dragoman and the cook and 
 the guides, formed the congregation, and the 
 great desert, with the sky touching it on every 
 side, stretched away in the distance — like a 
 picture in a dream. 
 
 The children had done a great deal of dress- 
 ing up with the green things that they could 
 find on the oasis, so that the bishop said An- 
 toinette looked very much like an artichoke, 
 while the bridesmaids made him think of green 
 radish-tops; but it was a charming wedding 
 — everybody was smiling, and there was a 
 
ON THE GREAT DESERT 121 
 
 splendid wedding feast, with pancakes — and 
 ice-cream. 
 
 The best men acted as ushers and waited on 
 everybody, while the bridesmaids sat on the 
 bank beside Antoinette, and did n't do a single 
 thing in the way of being useful. 
 
 But suddenly, when everybody was feeling 
 very comfortable, and John was sitting holding 
 Antoinette's hand, another great cloud of dust 
 and sand rose on the desert, travelling very 
 quickly towards the oasis ; and the children 
 said, " Now we shall see some more flying 
 horses," — but the dragoman stood up and 
 looked towards the advancing cloud, shading 
 his eyes with his hand and looking very serious. 
 Then he said something in an unknown lan- 
 guage to one of the guides, and going over to 
 the pack-camel, he took out a small parcel and 
 put it in his bosom. 
 
 He came over to the bishop then, and said to 
 him quite low, " If these people should mean 
 mischief, there is nothing that we can do, for 
 though the guides and I are armed, and I believe 
 also you and the young man, the others of 
 our party are without weapons or the habit of 
 using them, — and from the size of the sand 
 
122 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 cloud they are bringing with them, it is a much 
 more numerous party than the one which lately 
 passed." 
 
 " What would they do to us ? " asked the 
 bishop. 
 
 " Take possession of us, and decide upon 
 terms for a ransom ; that is, if we do not at- 
 tempt resistance, — and you had better tell the 
 rest of the party what we have been talking 
 about before they come up." 
 
 The rest of the party did not appear alarmed 
 when they heard about being taken prisoners, 
 and about the ransom, — the boys were rather 
 excited with the thought of seeing these beauti- 
 ful horses, with a chance to examine them and 
 to touch them, and the girls shared in this 
 excitement. 
 
 Pretty soon the Bedouins came up, and 
 stopped at the oasis. They all dropped from 
 their Irtjrscs in an instant, and the leader 
 stepped up to the dragoman, who had come 
 forward ; then there was a long conference, all 
 the other Bedouins standing immovable and 
 mute. 
 
 " What does he say ? " asked the bishop, as 
 the dragoman turned towards him, 
 
ON THE GREAT DESERT 123 
 
 " He sajs that I can send a guide back on 
 one of the camels, to the camel-master, desiring 
 ransom-money for the camels and the attend- 
 ants, that they will make terms with you for 
 ransom for yourself and your daughter and her 
 husband, and that they will keep the children." 
 
 " That they shall never do," said the bishop. 
 
 " And oh, father, cannot you ransom the 
 children also ? " said Antoinette. 
 
 " I will do anything to save the children," 
 said the bishop. 
 
 The children heard what was going on and 
 the girls were very pale. 
 
 "Never mind," said Antoinette, "you shall 
 be ransomed." But the Bedouins said to the 
 dragoman that they preferred to keep the 
 children. 
 
 Tom went up to the bishop and spoke to him. 
 Of course the Bedouins did not understand any- 
 thing that was said in English, — all their talk- 
 ing had to be done through the dragoman. 
 
 " Bishop," said Tom, " don't say anything to 
 them about us just now ; let us all stay quiet 
 till the night comes down to the earth, and then 
 decide what is to be done. You see Jack 
 O'Nory and I know a good deal about Arabian 
 
124 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 horses, and we know that if you just whisper in 
 their ears they will do anything you want them 
 to." 
 
 " But these are Arabian horses, Tom, and 
 they would not understand our language." 
 
 " They understand every language," answered 
 Tom, " and we have been counting the horses, 
 and there is just the same number as the num- 
 ber of our camels, so there would be a horse 
 for every one of us ; let us ' lay low,' Bishop, 
 and ' watch out,' and not talk about the ransom 
 or anything else just now." 
 
 So the bishop " lay low " and " watched out," 
 and Tom and Jack with Ernest and Sam walked 
 out amongst the horses and watched them 
 drinking the clear spring water and patted 
 their necks ; and the Bedouins liked the boys 
 and were still more determined to keep the 
 children. 
 
 Then the boys helped the Bedouins to clean 
 down the shining coats of their horses, and, as 
 sand is not a sticky thing, they soon had them 
 clean and bright, and polished so that their 
 bodies shone like bronze and like silver, and 
 the Bedouins showed the boys many little tricks 
 which the horses could perform. After a little 
 
ON THE GREAT DESERT 125 
 
 while Jack O'Nory made signs to one of the 
 Bedouins that he would like to see how they 
 made their horses go so fast, — what they said 
 to them ; so the Bedouin leaned down and 
 twisted the ear of his horse, and while he did 
 so, he said something and darted on to the back 
 of the horse which had already started and was 
 going like the wind. 
 
 When he turned and came back Tom Murphy 
 made signs, asking what words he had said, and 
 the Bedouin said, " Kismunalalu." 
 
 Jack O'Nory wrote down on a piece of paper 
 (which he had in his pocket along with a hun- 
 dred other things), "Kismunalalu," and then 
 he went to every one of the tourists, and to the 
 dragoman and to the cook, and to all the guides 
 except the one who had gone back to see about 
 the ransom-money for the camels, and taught 
 every one to say in a very low voice the word 
 " Kismunalalu," and he told everybody about the 
 little twist which must be given to the left ear 
 of the horse. 
 
 " Because," he said, " we may, perhaps, have 
 a chance to get away, every one of us, and if we 
 do, it must be on their horses ; and, dear Bishop, 
 if we can. there will be nothing to be said about 
 
126 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 ransoms ; and oh, how we love you, because you 
 said, ' I will do anything to save the children.' " 
 
 So the night fell, and the Bedouins let their 
 horses wander about, for they knew they would 
 not leave the green oasis, and there was cer- 
 tainly nobody near who could steal horses that 
 never went anywhere unless a magic word was 
 whispered into their twisted ears ; even the one 
 who had told Tom Murphy about the magic 
 word felt no disturbance in his mind as to that 
 matter, for what harm could be done by having 
 satisfied the curiosity of a young and thought- 
 less boy ; and these travellers were quite de- 
 fenceless, for even if the dragoman should be 
 so foolish as to make an attempt to escape on 
 the camels, the getting ready to escape with 
 those noisy beasts would make confusion enough 
 to waken the inhabitants of the tombs of the 
 prophets. 
 
 So these robbers, who had travelled far and 
 ridden fast, and who were overcome with fatigue, 
 lay down on one side of the high ground, and 
 the tourists all seated themselves on the other 
 side. These two parties were entirely out of 
 sight of each other, as there was quite a hill 
 between them, and the horses were eating the 
 
ON THE GREAT DESERT 127 
 
 grass very near the place where the tourists 
 were sitting, talking in a low voice. 
 
 " The first thing to be done," said Rosey Pink, 
 " is for you boys to steal away and find out if 
 the Bedouins are asleep." 
 
 " Too soon yet," said Jack O'Nory ; " we 
 must give them time, and while we are giving 
 them time, we must, each one of us, choose 
 which horse we will take, for we will have to 
 march up to the horses, and each one must twist 
 the ear of the one he has chosen, and whisper 
 the right word while we are getting on. That is 
 the way they are educated — they start before the 
 rider gets on. I know that we boys can do that 
 
 — and all the girls — but I don't know about 
 Antoinette, and the bishop, and Mr. Rattles. 
 You see John cannot wait to put Antoinette on, 
 because the horse will start at once and might 
 wake the Bedouins before we could all get away, 
 
 — everybody must say the word into the ear of 
 his horse at the same time." 
 
 Antoinette said that she had been a rider all 
 her life, and could get on to a horse while he 
 was running very fast, and Mr. Rattles said, all 
 that was necessary was to give him the informa- 
 tion which had already been given. He said that 
 
128 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 people who " go down to the sea hi ships " — in 
 which way he had spent his youth — were always 
 pretty ready to jump quick Avhen there was 
 danger, and as there seemed to be danger to- 
 night, he was ready. 
 
 Everybody else knew all about jumping in a 
 hurry — ■ even the bishop, — so the only thing 
 that remained to be done was for each traveller 
 to make sure of the horse at whose side he must 
 stand, when somebody should make a sign and 
 the word should be whispered into the twisted 
 ears of the horses. 
 
 Antoinette had the first choice, and she chose 
 a Avhite one with a silver mane, while Mary chose 
 a white one with a dark mane. All the girls 
 then had their choice, and there were many gray 
 horses, but each one had some distinguishing 
 mark ; so the girls said, " We will all take the 
 gray ones." 
 
 The bishop chose a fine bronze fellow, and 
 each person had very soon made his selection 
 and kept an eye on that particular animal, just 
 as if it had been bought and had to be watched 
 because there were thieves about who might 
 steal it. 
 
 Jeanne said, " Is n't it fortunate that we got 
 
ON TEE GREAT DESERT 129 
 
 through with the wedding and the feast before 
 they came ? " And John moved close up to 
 Antoinette again — and took her hand again — 
 which he had been doing pretty steadily ever 
 since the marriage ceremony had taken place. 
 
 It was a pretty anxious time, watching those 
 horses, for they were perpetually changing 
 places, and the gray ones were forever getting 
 mixed up together, so the girls were kept occu- 
 pied all the time, sorting them out, with their 
 eyes. As for the others, they were not so hard 
 to keep track of ; and the bishop's choice, the 
 bronze fellow, seemed inclined to join the party 
 for the night, for he would come up nibbling 
 the grass quite close to their feet. 
 
 At last, Mary said, " The time is passing, 
 boys — don't you think you had better see if the 
 Bedouins are asleep ? " 
 
 " Yes," said the boys ; " but first, do you all 
 remember the word ? " 
 
 " Kismunalalu," everybody said in a whisper, 
 " and the twist." 
 
 The boys asked the dragoman to go with 
 them, and be near enough to translate anything 
 a Bedouin might say, if he happened to be awake 
 and to accost these scouts. 
 
 9 
 
130 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 Then they stole away, each one singly — to 
 the east, to the west — that they might be sure 
 that on either side there was no one awake. 
 
 As Jack was passing round on the east side, 
 one man who was lying on the ground suddenly 
 sat up. He said something, looking at Jack 
 intently. Jack made signs to him that it was 
 such a fine night, he had been tempted to walk 
 about in the coolness. 
 
 The man lay down again and dropped asleep 
 instantly. 
 
 The other boys had found all the others sleep- 
 ing pretty soundly. As they walked back. Jack 
 said to the dragoman : — 
 
 " What did he say when he woke up ?" 
 
 " He said, ' Who called me ? ' and after you 
 had made signs to him he said, ' I thought my 
 mother was calling me, ' then he immediately 
 went to sleep again." 
 
 Oh, what a moment of anxiety followed when 
 every man and woman and girl and boy had to 
 take a place immediately at the shoulder of the 
 horse which each one had chosen. 
 
 The bishop said a little prayer that God 
 would give them courage, would protect them 
 and auide them. Then he said : " If we feel 
 
ON THE GREAT DESERT 131 
 
 anxious about each other, we will be sure to fail. 
 Let us each trust that the others will, at the 
 right moment, do exactly the right thing, and 
 after we have started we can count and see if we 
 are all together, — then, if any one is missing, 
 we will come back again, and think only of the 
 ransoms." 
 
 Then they went out with silent feet, and each 
 one placed himself or herself by the selected 
 horse. The horses did not seem to mind this 
 companionship at all — just went on eating as if 
 it was none of their business who should be wan- 
 dering over the grass with them. 
 
 It had been arranged that so soon as every- 
 body had taken the right place Antoinette should 
 wave her white handkerchief, and when they saw 
 the flutter of that white flag, everybody whispered 
 the word into the twisted ear of the chosen 
 horse, and in a minute the horses' feet were beat- 
 ing the ground in a wild flight, — and every 
 Bedouin had started up, but too late to do any- 
 thing, for though they had the camels, no camel 
 could ever overtake those fleet-footed and dear 
 friends of theirs, who were each moment press- 
 ing farther away from them on the desert. 
 
 When they were past all fear of pursuit, the 
 
132 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 children said they were very sorry for the Bed- 
 ouins, that they had to lose their horses, but 
 the dragoman said that was all right, — they 
 would bring the camels back and the Director of 
 Affairs would return their horses, which would 
 be, in the meantime, well taken care of, but they 
 would be obliged to pay something for having 
 molested the party of travellers. And so all 
 these tourists who had departed from the start- 
 ing place on camels dashed into it again on the 
 finest horses in the world, — but Mr. Rattles 
 said it was quite time to go home now. 
 
 So the bishop placed his hands on the chil- 
 dren's heads and blessed them, and Antoinette 
 burst into tears, but as they looked back and 
 waved their hands, they could see that John was 
 standing beside her, comforting her, and Jeanne 
 said : — • 
 
 " What a good thing it is that now they are 
 married and some day we are to see them again 
 in the United States." 
 
 So these tourists travelled overland till they 
 found their sail-boat moored at the shore where 
 they had left it, and sailed away again to The 
 Island Impossible. 
 
AT THE QUEEN'S DRAWING-ROOM 133 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 AT THE QUEEN'S DRAWING-ROOM 
 
 " /^H! Mr. Rattles, they are all coming tear- 
 
 ^^ ing down to the boat," said Rosey Pink, 
 " and the sails must be up, for we are going 
 across the sea." 
 
 " Across the sea, is it ? " said Mr. Rattles, 
 " and at what part of across the sea am I to 
 land ? " 
 
 " Somewhere near London. Any way, we are 
 going across to be present at the Queen's Drawing- 
 Room, and this is the day, and we are in a great 
 hurry." 
 
 " But where are the captains, Jack O'Nory 
 and Tom Murphy ? " 
 
 " They are hurrying down, and I ran ahead so 
 that you could know in time." 
 
 So by the time all the children had arrived at 
 the wharf, the sail-boat was ready, and they 
 started across the sea. 
 
 " What must we do first, when we get to Lon- 
 don ? " asked Jeanne. 
 
134 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 Calleen said, " We must go at once to Ambas- 
 sador Hay, and we must order our dresses to 
 be sent there, and then go with him to the 
 Queen's Drawing-Room, for you know we must 
 be introduced by him." 
 
 So they arrived, and at once went to Ambas- 
 sador Hay's house. 
 
 The Ambassador was very glad to see them 
 and so was Mrs. Hay, who immediately asked 
 after the health of everybody in the United 
 States. 
 
 Then the question arose as to the manner of 
 their introduction to the Queen. The children 
 insisted that they must be introduced in a body ; 
 that it would be much pleasanter than string- 
 ing along one by one and having their names 
 called out. Jeanne thought that a good form of 
 introduction would be for the Ambassador to 
 say: "The children, your Majesty, from the 
 United States ; " but Calleen said that would 
 sound as if there were no other children whatso- 
 ever in the United States, and IMary said they 
 ought to be presented by some name which 
 would mean something. 
 
 Rosey Pink asked why it would not be a good 
 plan to be presented as Daughters of the Revo- 
 
AT THE QUEEN'S DRAWING-ROOM 135 
 
 lution, " For you know," she said, " that every 
 one of us girls has a right to that title." 
 
 But Mary thought that might hurt the feel- 
 ings of the Queen, and suggested that " Colonial 
 Dames," would be a prettier and more high- 
 sounding name and could not hurt her feelings in 
 the least. So it was decided that the girls would 
 be Colonial Dames, and would wear the dress 
 for Colonial Dames, while the boys strongly 
 objected to being officers of Colonial Wars, 
 because it might oblige them, if they wore a 
 uniform at all (and they wished to wear uni- 
 forms), to wear those very unbecoming ones of 
 that time in American history. They said that 
 they would rather be admirals and generals of 
 the present United States Navy and Army. 
 
 Ambassador Hay and Mrs. Hay looked on 
 and listened to this friendly altercation with 
 shining eyes and smiling lips. Indeed, they 
 appeared to think that it would be a very fine 
 thing for the Ambassador to have the privilege 
 of introducing these Colonial Dames and these 
 officers of the present United States Navy and 
 Army. 
 
 Then the costumes were sent for, and Mrs. 
 Hay took the girls away with her, while the 
 
136 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 Ambassador took charge of the boys' toilet 
 arrangements. 
 
 Very soon they all met again in the parlor of 
 the Ambassador's house, and their admiration 
 for each other's appearance was very distinctly 
 expressed. As Rosey Pink and Calleen had 
 each owned a great-grandmother who had lived 
 in London and attended Queen's Drawing- 
 Rooms, with her hair dressed high on her head 
 like a step-ladder, and who had been obliged to 
 go in sedan chairs instead of carriages to the 
 Drawing-Rooms, the other children asked them 
 if they did not feel very much like those great- 
 grandmothers, although they had got the better 
 of them by the instantaneous manner in which 
 their hair had been elevated to great heights ; 
 for the tradition was well known that in those 
 days there were not enough hairdressers to go 
 round, and for that reason many heads had 
 to be dressed the day before, and the unhappy 
 ladies were obliged to sit up in easy-chairs all 
 night so as not to disturb the beautiful arrange- 
 ment. 
 
 " Those were the days of Sir Horace Wal- 
 pole," said Calleen, " and Lord Bacon, and — " 
 
 " Calleen gets mixed," interrupted Jeanne, 
 
AT THE QUEEN'S DRAWING-ROOM 137 
 
 " if we let her go on, pretty soon she will say- 
 Oliver Cromwell and Sir Walter Raleigh, and 
 those others, — perhaps William the Conqueror." 
 
 The boys were very quiet. They said nothing, 
 but the two admirals and the two generals 
 looked at each other and at the Colonial Dames 
 in a very friendly manner. 
 
 Then it was time to start for the Queen's 
 Drawing-Room. There was a little delay 
 caused by the Colonial Dames' awkwardness in 
 attending to their trains, but in a very short 
 time Mrs. Hay taught them how to throw the 
 trains over the left arm, where they were to 
 keep them until they entered the Queen's 
 presence. 
 
 The children besought the Ambassador to let 
 them be the very last guests whom he should 
 present. 
 
 " Let all the other United States people come 
 first," they said. And Mr. Hay consented to 
 let them have their own way about it. So when 
 the time for presentation came, the Ambassador 
 said : — 
 
 " Your Majesty, I present these Colonial 
 Dames and these admirals and generals of the 
 Navy and Army of the United States." 
 
138 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 Then immediately and suddenly every child 
 said : — 
 
 " God save the Queen, your Majesty." 
 
 The Queen looked a little curious, and one of 
 the ladies surrounding her said, in a low voice, 
 but audible to the children : — 
 
 " Her Majesty is certainly going to have an 
 attack of hysterics." 
 
 Mary, who was celebrated for setting every- 
 body at her ease, said to the Queen, that it was 
 a very fine day, and they had had a beautiful 
 journey, and they hoped that her Majesty would 
 some day come over to the United States. 
 
 And her Majesty said she would like to do so 
 very much. Then she turned to some of the 
 high ladies surrounding her, and said that she 
 would be pleased to have these Colonial Dames 
 and these officers of the United States Navy and 
 Army a little longer in her presence, and for that 
 reason she wished that they should take places 
 on either side of her, and witness the presenta- 
 tions which yet remained to be accomplished. 
 And Mary, still anxious that the Queen should 
 feel at ease about these matters, said, that this 
 was a very beautiful thought of her Majesty's, 
 for naturally all these things were new to people 
 
AT THE QUEEN'S DRAWING-ROOM 139 
 
 from the United States, and she certainly knew 
 that in no other way could they possibly carry 
 away with them such a true idea of a Queen's 
 Dra wing-Room. 
 
 Jeanne whispered to Rosey Pink and Cal- 
 leen : — 
 
 "Don't you think you had better tell her 
 about the great-grandmothers ? " 
 
 But Rosey Pink shook her head and Calleen 
 said that the Queen was too busy just now to 
 be interested in great-grandmothers, for indeed 
 every one was coming forward and being pre- 
 sented and then walking backward from the 
 Queen's presence, and some of the magnificently 
 dressed ladies looked very nervous about the 
 management of their trains, which caused the 
 Colonial Dames to take a peep at theirs with 
 apprehension, and to find that they were a good 
 deal bunched up. But some of the ladies, prin- 
 cesses and such, who were standing behind, ar- 
 ranged their trains for them in proper shape 
 and relieved their minds. 
 
 As each high personage was presented, her 
 Majesty would spread out her small hands on 
 either side, and say : — 
 
 "The United States:" and the Colonial 
 
140 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 Dames and the officers of the United States 
 Navy and Army would make lo\y bovrs and 
 curtsies. 
 
 One very splendid Russian, with a name im- 
 possible to pronounce, said something to the 
 Queen, to which she answered : — 
 
 " Yes, you see I am surrounded and sup- 
 ported by the United States." 
 
 Then the Prince of Wales put his gloved 
 fingers together with a little tapping sound and 
 .immediately there was a musical fluttering noise 
 of gloved fingers tapping against each other, 
 and somebody said, " Bravo ! " and these chil- 
 dren, who were beautiful singers, lifted up their 
 fresh young voices and began to sing " God Save 
 the Queen." There was then silence except for 
 these voices, which rose clear and high in the 
 stillness, and as the children took different parts 
 in the music, there was nothing wanting which 
 could make England's national hymn inspiring 
 and beautiful. While the singing was going on, 
 the Prince of Wales gave an order to some high 
 chamberlain standing near, and as the voices 
 sank into silence, a band from somewhere struck 
 up the strains of " Yankee Doodle." 
 
 Then ensued the most wonderful silver-toned, 
 
AT THE QUEEN'S DRAWING-ROOM 141 
 
 gorgeously dressed, high and mighty aristocratic 
 hurly-burly that has ever been heard or wit- 
 nessed upon earth, and in the midst of it all 
 every child kissed the hand of her Majesty, and 
 the little United States band slipped out of the 
 audience chamber as quietly as if they had been 
 figures in a dream. 
 
 And away and away to The Island Impossible. 
 
142 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE RESCUE 
 
 /^NE Saturday they had all started out, the 
 ^^ boys in the sail-boat without Mr. Rattles, 
 the girls in the row-boat without Remus, both of 
 those captains having been found asleep in the 
 boat-house. 
 
 " That 's all right," the children said. " We 
 can do very well without you ; " but neither Mr. 
 Rattles nor Remus woke up to hear that they 
 were excused. 
 
 The children saw, looking in towards the 
 shore, that the hill where they had fixed their 
 flag-pole looked very clear and fresh in the sun 
 to-day, and they concluded that it was because 
 there had been such a terrible rain that it had 
 been washed, and then the high, blustering wind 
 had blown away the leaves which had been lying 
 about there. 
 
 "As for the wind," said Calleen, " I thought 
 it would blow the college down, and take us 
 
THE RESCUE 143 
 
 away somewhere on its wings, and once I thought 
 I heard a gun, as if there was a shipwreck." 
 
 " Calleen will have to write a book when she 
 grows up," said Jack. 
 
 But when they turned the point and were 
 really at sea, they were astonished to see a large 
 vessel lying at some distance from the rocky 
 shore, and it looked as if it would sink 
 immediately. 
 
 " A wreck ! " cried all the children, — and a 
 wreck it was. 
 
 " Certainly," said Tom Murphy. " She must 
 have been on her way to her wharf in the city, 
 and the wind has blown her on to those sunken 
 rocks, which lie out from the point, and I don't 
 see any one on her decks. They must have come 
 out from the Continent and rescued her passen- 
 gers and crew." 
 
 " Any way, she is sinking," said Ernest, "so it 
 is a good thing that all her passengers are 
 rescued." 
 
 All the children said that the best way would 
 be to go over to the other side of her and see 
 how she looked on that side, and when they 
 arrived at the other side they found two of her 
 passengers swimming about in the water. 
 
144 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 These passengers did not seem to have any 
 particular intentions, — they were just swimming 
 backwards and forwards the whole length of the 
 ship, and they did not seem as much pleased, as 
 it would have been natural for them to be, at the 
 sight of the boats and the children, who were 
 obliged to follow them about for quite a while 
 before they could attract their attention at all, 
 or get any information from them as to who 
 they were, or what they were doing in the 
 water. 
 
 One of the swimmers had very pretty yellow 
 hair, which he had managed to keep quite dry. 
 
 Jeanne confided to Mary that she thought he 
 must be a Scandinavian. 
 
 The girls were very much pleased with him, 
 and decided that they would follow him about as 
 he swam up and down, backwards and forwards, 
 and would leave the rescue of the other swimmer 
 to the boys, if indeed either one of the swimmers 
 wished to be rescued ; but of that wish they had 
 as yet given no sign. The girls thought that, 
 nevertheless, it would be pleasant to get into 
 conversation with the Scandinavian. As they 
 considered it would be impolite to at once ask 
 his name, they said instead, " Good morning;" 
 
THE RESCUE 145 
 
 and the passenger in the sea answered quite 
 politely, " Good morning." 
 
 Then the girls did not exactly know what 
 would be the next best thing to say or to do. 
 
 Mary, to whom it was natural to try to put 
 everybody at his ease, said : — 
 
 " It is a fine day." 
 
 But the passenger in the sea did not agree 
 with her at all ; he said, that if she thought it 
 was a fine day, he would not be so impolite as 
 to say it was not, but for his part he did not con- 
 sider it so : it was very cold and very wet, and 
 though he was taking exercise just as hard as he 
 possibly could, he did not seem to get warm at 
 all, though, to be sure, he had lashed the water 
 about till it was a little less freezing cold than 
 it had been in the middle of the night when the 
 ship had suffered wreck. 
 
 Jeanne, who was gazing at his beautiful hair, 
 asked where the other passengers were and the 
 ship's crew. 
 
 " They have been rescued," said the man who 
 was taking all this exercise. " There are only 
 two left beside myself, — one of those two, the 
 lieutenant, is also taking exercise in the sea, as 
 I am doing. We were both occupied examining 
 
 10 
 
146 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 the hold when the passengers were taken off, I 
 don't know where the other one, the artist, is. 
 I know that just before we struck he was paint- 
 ing an execrable picture of some waves which 
 looked as if the}' were made of lead-colored cot- 
 ton batting with bits of white cotton batting 
 stuck on the top of them, — he may be doing 
 that still for all I know. I 'm sure he was not 
 rescued, for I saw him afterwards, when they 
 were all gone away, and I advised him to come 
 down and take exercise with me. He said he 
 did n't think this a good way to get warm, and 
 he was sorry that when the rescuers came he 
 had been too busy examining his picture to show 
 himself." 
 
 The passenger went on to say that the lieu- 
 tenant and he had been taking this exercise 
 pretty nearly all night, and certainly all the 
 morning, but they did not seem, either one of 
 them, to be getting very warm. All this con- 
 versation was going on while the girls were row- 
 ing their boat up and down and the passenger 
 was swimming apparently for dear life. 
 
 Then the lieutenant joined the party, closely 
 followed by the boys, who did not seem to have 
 entered into conversation with their passenger. 
 
THE RESCUE 147 
 
 The Scandinavian stopped a moment to intro- 
 duce his companion. 
 
 " This is the lieutenant," he said, " and you 
 are?—" 
 
 " The girls," answered the children. " The 
 other boat-load is composed of the boys." 
 
 The boys took off their hats. 
 
 " But you have not yet been introduced to us," 
 said Jeanne, looking at the yellow-headed pas- 
 senger. 
 
 " This is the violinist," said the lieutenant. 
 
 " We are glad to see you, Mr. Lieutenant and 
 Mr. Violinist," said all the children at once, 
 
 " And now," said the passengers, " we must 
 resume our exercise, as we are getting colder 
 again." 
 
 " Just a moment," said the children ; "as we 
 have come over to this wreck to see if there were 
 any passengers to be rescued, we think we had 
 better set to work to rescuing you both im- 
 mediately." 
 
 The passengers in the sea seemed to think this 
 was a new and pleasant view of the case ; but 
 there was further delay, as the boys and the girls 
 began a discussion as to which passenger should 
 be rescued by the boys, and which by the girls. 
 
148 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 Jeanne thought the violinist ought to be res- 
 cued by the girls, because they had already be- 
 come very well acquainted with him, and the 
 boys were quite glad to take the lieutenant, but 
 in the meantime the swimmers were becoming 
 quite impatient. They said they could not wait 
 much longer for that matter to be decided, as 
 they were losing all the advantage which they 
 had gained by their former conscientious ex- 
 ercise, so immediately Jack O'Nory leaned out 
 and took the lieutenant by the hair. 
 
 The lieutenant remonstrated. He said that if 
 Jack would take him by the hand it would serve 
 his purpose just as well, if not better, as at any 
 rate his other hand was already on the boat, and 
 he was a little particular about being taken by the 
 hair ; so Jack and Tom accommodated him by 
 taking his hand and helping him into their 
 boat. 
 
 The violinist had, in the meantime, scrambled 
 into the boat with the girls, and did n't seem to 
 mind shaking himself a good deal, so that the 
 girls received quite a shower bath. 
 
 " I do that because I am wet," said the vio- 
 linist. 
 
 " So we supposed," said the girls. 
 
THE RESCUE 149 
 
 " In the meantime, what is to become of me ?" 
 said a voice away up in the rigging of the ship. 
 
 " That is the artist," said the lieutenant to the 
 occupants of his boat. 
 
 All eyes immediately looked up to where 
 somebody sat perched on a cross-bar with his 
 knees up to his chin, 
 
 " Why did you get up there ? " shouted the 
 children, speaking about as loud as they would 
 speak if the artist had been seated up on a 
 horn of the moon. 
 
 " I came up here," said the artist, " to pre- 
 vent myself from being drowned, because, you 
 see, if this ship goes down in a respectable 
 manner she will go down straight, and up here 
 I shall be above water, which I should not be if 
 I had stayed on the deck ; but I think it is very 
 likely that I should be better off now by coming 
 down and getting into one of your boats." 
 
 Sam Holmes said in quite a low voice, " Girls, 
 you had better take the artist." But the girls 
 answered in the same tone, " We don't want the 
 artist. Take him yourselves." 
 
 The artist was, at this moment, coming 
 down in a very sailor-like fashion, hand over 
 hand, and he was obliged to get into somebody's 
 
150 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 boat, so the girls very quietly slipped away with 
 their rescued passenger. 
 
 " That 's cool," said Ernest. 
 
 " Yes, indeed," said Tom Murphy ; " one has to 
 be pretty wide-awake if he expects to get the 
 better of those girls ; but as the artist is very 
 near us, let 's put a good face on it so that he 
 shall feel himself welcome." 
 
 The lieutenant smiled. He had a taking 
 face. It was very earnest, very quiet, very 
 warm-hearted. 
 
 After the artist got into the boat he was 
 fussy, he said that a great many of his pictures 
 were in his stateroom. He did not believe they 
 could be spoiled yet by the sea, as they were 
 all painted in oils, and most likely they could 
 be gotten out without danger to the rescuer, or 
 to the pictures. He would like to get them, 
 but for his fear that the wreck might go down 
 while he was trying to save them. 
 
 " You boys are very quick on your feet, I 
 suppose," said he. " Would one of you like to 
 go in and save the pictures ? " 
 
 " No, I thank you," said every boy, and Sam 
 Holmes added the information that Tom 
 Murphy and Jack O'Nory painted beautiful 
 
THE RESCUE 151 
 
 pictures ; " and," said he, " I don't care for any 
 pictures as I do for theirs. Ernest, too, makes 
 beautiful drawings of things for bridges and 
 pontoon boats and all kinds of superstructures, 
 and if you are like those boys, you can very 
 soon paint a lot of things again, so I guess we 
 will let those you have already made stay on 
 the wreck." 
 
 " Oh, very well," said the artist ; " if you don't 
 care to see them I '11 have to bear the loss." 
 
 So the boat set off on its homeward way, and 
 when the boys arrived at the beach they found 
 the girls and the violinist sitting on logs in the 
 sunshine, and the violinist said he was quite 
 dry, and quite warm and comfortable. 
 
 He and the lieutenant appeared to be good 
 friends. 
 
 " I hope you feel rested," said the lieutenant, 
 " after our long exercise." 
 
 " I am more than rested, I am delighted, and 
 if you want to get warmed up and quite happy, 
 just sit down on this log and make the girls 
 talk to you ; they are very good fun." 
 
 The artist said that for his part he would 
 hurry away and get to some comfortable house, 
 for though he had not been in the water, he 
 
152 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 had sat up in the rigging for the greater part 
 of the night and all the morning, — he felt very 
 stiff in his bones, and it was quite incumbent 
 on him not to get the rheumatism, as one's 
 fingers are valuable to an artist, and he was 
 quite sure that if rheumatism did attack him 
 his fingers would be the first victims. 
 
 The children told the artist that he could 
 not find a boarding-house or a hotel nearer than 
 in the city on the Continent. 
 
 " If you go across the bridge, you will be in 
 the city, and it is just jammed and crammed 
 with boarding-houses." 
 
 "All right, I will go, then, and to-morrow I 
 will come over and look at the pictures of 
 which one of you boys was speaking." 
 
 " It will take you some time to rest, Mr. 
 Artist," said Jack O'Xory ; " and I don't think 
 it would be worth your while to look at our 
 pictures." 
 
 " Perhaps not," said the artist ; " I will bid 
 you good-bye now, and go to some place where 
 I can be comfortable." 
 
 The violinist said, after the artist had gone, 
 that he had not thanked the rescuers at all, 
 nor indeed for the matter of that had he or 
 
THE RESCUE 153 
 
 the lieutenant done so, but they must be sure 
 that they did thank them with all their hearts ; 
 — he said that he did not think the loss of the 
 artist's pictures was anything to be sorry about. 
 " You see," said he, " his doctrine is that if 
 you are going to paint a ship, you must not 
 make it look like a ship, but you must give out 
 a little suggestion that it might possibly be 
 meant for a ship, which will set the imagination 
 to working, and so be useful to the observer." 
 
 " Oh ! " said the boys. 
 
 The violinist said that he would rather not 
 go over to the Continent; that the girls had 
 told him about The Island Impossible, — and 
 it seemed so pleasant here, he would like very 
 much to be an inhabitant, and certainly in the 
 college there ought now to be courses of musi- 
 cal education, and he wished to be a professor 
 of music there, if the thing could be man- 
 aged ; and then he looked at Jeanne's smiling, 
 friendly face. 
 
 The children were silent, though the girls 
 looked with inquiring eyes at the boys. 
 
 Then the lieutenant spoke. He said he had 
 been told that there was, near this city, a fine 
 location for a naval school, and had been sent 
 
154 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 to inspect it. That he did not see where that 
 location could be if it were not on this beauti- 
 ful Island. 
 
 The children were silent, but the boys and 
 the girls looked at each other with inquiring 
 eyes ; the air was very still, and the birds were 
 singing. Mr. Rattles and Remus at a little 
 distance were taking the oars out of the boats 
 and furling the sails ; close to the children's 
 feet the waves were coming in with a little song 
 of their own. 
 
 At last Rosey Pink said, " I wish somebody 
 would say something." 
 
 " I think Tom Murphy had better say it," 
 said Mary. Then Tom looked at the other 
 boys and they nodded their heads. 
 
 Tom rose up and came over to where the 
 lieutenant was sitting. 
 
 He said, " Mr. Lieutenant, this is our Island, 
 and we cannot give it up to the government, 
 but we like you very much, and you are one of 
 the defenders of the United States. If you 
 choose to build a naval school next to the col- 
 lege you are very welcome to do so ; but the 
 Island belongs to us, and if you build your 
 naval school, you will have to abide by the 
 
TEE RESCUE 155 
 
 same rules that we insisted upon for our col- 
 lege, — that the scholars must not come inside 
 the Island, — that they must cross the bridge 
 coming and going to the naval school." 
 
 One of the children said, " They may come 
 on invitation, you had better say, Tom ; for 
 instance, like Margaret Parker." 
 
 " Margaret Parker is all right," assented 
 Tom. " Her real home is far away, and when 
 she gets homesick she asks her aunt if she may 
 come over here, and as Ernest always takes 
 care of her, she is very welcome, and I think, 
 Mr. Lieutenant, that we should be pleased often 
 to have your society as our guest (here 
 Jeanne made motions with her eyes towards 
 the violinist), and the society of the violinist, 
 who will, of course, have no difficulty in form- 
 ing his classes in the college." 
 
 The lieutenant and the violinist said they 
 would be very much pleased with the arrange- 
 ment the children were willing to make. 
 
 And they became quite loving friends to these 
 young inhabitants, and often they joined them 
 in their walks through the woods and on the 
 shores of the beautiful Island Impossible. 
 
 Tom and Jack were forever inviting the 
 
156 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 lieutenant, while the girls took possession of 
 the violinist, who soon counted Jeanne amongst 
 his pupils. 
 
 Jeanne's progress was wonderful, and pretty 
 soon she began to make such beautiful music 
 with her violin that the fathers and mothers 
 and the dear auntie on the Continent were 
 much astonished and delighted. 
 
 The lieutenant was anxious that Jack and 
 Tom should go into the naval school and be- 
 come officers in the United States Navy ; and the 
 boys were much influenced by him, for though 
 their tastes were so strong for painting pictures, 
 each felt that he must also take up some other 
 profession. 
 
 Tom's mind, however, seemed to turn more 
 to scientific subjects, and the professor used to 
 say quite often, " You, Tom Murphy, must be a 
 professor of science in the college, just so soon 
 as we widen our field." 
 
 Jack's heart was on the sea, so far as profes- 
 sions go. 
 
AMONGST THE HOP-PICKERS 157 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 AMONGST THE HOP-PI CKEKS 
 
 THE children were in the sail-boat one after- 
 noon, — a fair, sweet summer afternoon, 
 so quiet on the water, so blue in the sky. 
 
 A sloop came along with three men in it and 
 a couple of women. The sloop sailed close 
 enough to hail their boat. 
 
 " Do you want a job ? " said one of the men. 
 
 " What kind of a job ? " asked Jack O'Nory. 
 
 " Hop-picking." 
 
 " What do you suppose hop-picking means ? " 
 said Rosey Pink to Tom Murphy. 
 
 "I don't know anything more than a baby 
 does about hop-picking," answered Tom. 
 
 In the meantime Jack and the man on the 
 sloop were getting into a conversation. 
 
 " Hop-picking," said the man, " is picking 
 hops, — beautiful green, spicy, scented things, 
 which are used for making beer. When it 
 comes time for picking them, no delay can be 
 
158 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 allowed, otherwise they must become worthless. 
 We generally have an army of pickers, but this 
 year, because we did not make our arrangements 
 early enough, another hop farm has engaged all 
 our men and women and children. I am out 
 looking for new workers." 
 
 Jack said, " Are those new workers whom 
 you have in the sloop ? " 
 
 " They are," said the man. 
 
 " I don't think we will take the job," said 
 Jack. 
 
 " How many are there of you ? " asked the 
 hop man. 
 
 " Eight." 
 
 " Well, you had better let some of the others 
 speak. Maybe they won't all agree with you 
 about not taking the job." 
 
 But Rosey Pink said, " We all do always agree 
 with Jack O'Nory, and all you children who 
 have been listening to this conversation and ob- 
 serving the women in the sloop, what do you 
 say about it ? " 
 
 All the children shouted out, " We don't 
 want the job." 
 
 Another man in the sloop began to talk. 
 
 " It is a very clean business, and the pickers 
 
AMONGST THE HOP-PICKERS 159 
 
 are paid according to the number of bushels 
 they pick. You children look as if you might 
 be very handy and earn quite a little pocket- 
 money every day." 
 
 " We don't care for pocket-money. There 
 are no shops on The Island Impossible," said 
 Calleen. 
 
 " But besides that," continued the man, " it is 
 so beautiful in the hop country ; the rivers flow 
 between flowery banks, and the woods are full 
 of singing-birds." 
 
 " We have woods full of singing-birds here," 
 said Jeanne. 
 
 " But no rivers," insisted the hop man. 
 
 " No, no rivers ; but we have the sea, and the 
 bay, and the inlet." 
 
 " Nothing compared to our rivers." 
 
 The women on the boat remained silent. 
 They looked sullen, and the man at the helm 
 did not say a word. He seemed busy listening 
 to the first speaker, who was leaning towards 
 him talking in a low tone, and the sloop was 
 coming every minute nearer to the children's 
 boat. 
 
 The children had not put their sail up, — had 
 been just rowing about in the smooth water, and 
 
160 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 were now lying quiet, having stopped rowing. 
 They thought the other boat was coming nearer 
 simply for purposes of conversation, but they 
 suddenly found her right at their bow, and by 
 that time the expert hop man had passed a rope 
 through the ring at the bow and was rowing 
 away with them in tow, while the two men at 
 the helm were busy hoisting extra sails. 
 
 " That 's pretty clever," said Tom Murphy, in 
 a low voice, " and very dishonest." 
 
 " They are bound to have us for hop-pickers/' 
 said Calleen. 
 
 " Is it a rope or a chain they have fastened 
 us with ? " asked Mary. 
 
 The boys stepped forward to examine. 
 
 " It is a chain," they said, " for about a yard 
 and a half, and the two ends of the chain are 
 fastened to a rope. At that distance from our 
 boat we might, if we should hoist our sail, out- 
 sail them, and so the chain would slack up and 
 we could reach the rope and cut it." 
 
 " Don't let 's do anything about it yet, boys," 
 said the girls. " Let 's go along as if we did n't 
 mind, and by and by we can hoist the sail and 
 put on more speed, and get at the rope. In the 
 meantime we might take a run up some of those 
 
AMONGST THE HOP-PICKERS 161 
 
 rivers they were talking about." So the children 
 kept quiet in their boat, while the sloop was a 
 pretty good distance ahead of them, the rope 
 being quite a long one, which now and then, 
 when the wind changed, dipped into the water, 
 so that it would have been easy to draw the 
 chain in and get at the rope to cut it. 
 
 " But," said the children to each other, " it is 
 very pleasant going through the water this way, 
 and no trouble in the world, and the rivers 
 might be worth looking at, and as we can at any 
 minute get free, let 's enjoy ourselves here for 
 the present." 
 
 Pretty soon they came to a river which truly 
 was beautiful, with the woods reaching down to 
 the water's edge, and pretty summer-houses and 
 open spaces between where children were play- 
 ing, who called out " Hurrah ! Hurrah ! " as the 
 boats sailed past; and there were cosy nooks 
 here and there where little row-boats were lying 
 quiet, each with two passengers, who, the chil- 
 dren all said, "were lovers." And truly the 
 river was beautiful, and the air was full of 
 lovely smells and the singing of birds. 
 
 The women in the sloop began to sing, and 
 pretty soon the men joined in. They did not 
 11 
 
162 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 speak to the tenants of the boat they had taken 
 prisoner, nor did the children try to attract 
 their attention in any way. 
 
 " But truly the singing is beautiful," said 
 Sam Holmes ; " and when they stop, let 's give 
 them a song." 
 
 *' What shall we sing ? " 
 
 " Oh, some lilting thing." 
 
 So when the singers in the other boat had 
 ended their song, the silence was broken by 
 these young voices. 
 
 Far away on breezy meadows, 
 
 Waiting for our feet, 
 To and fro the changing shadows 
 
 Dance, and part, and meet. 
 Singing low, — singing high, 
 While the dancing shadows tly 
 
 O'er the meadows wide ; 
 While the sleeping shadows lie 
 
 On the mountain side. 
 
 Far away on upland meadows 
 
 Lie the coming years. 
 What have they of lights and shadows, 
 
 What of smiles and tears ? 
 Sing-ing hiffh, — singino; low, 
 Onward, forward we must go, 
 
 Whatsoe'er betide. 
 And the angels watch, we know, 
 
 On the other side. . 
 
AMONGST THE HOP-PICKERS 163 
 
 When the children's song was ended, and the 
 air was so quiet that one could hear the little 
 slow ripples washing the shore, the people in 
 the sloop began to clap their hands and to 
 say: — 
 
 " That is beautiful singing." 
 
 " And somehow," said one of the men to the 
 others, " it makes me feel a little sorrowful, and 
 I would like to be a child again." 
 
 After awhile the sloop passed out of the river 
 into a canal, which was a strange waterway to 
 these passengers, whose home had always been 
 near the sea. 
 
 It was wonderful to see the sloop, her sails 
 having been taken down, enter into this little 
 lane of water, so close to the shores that any 
 one standing on the land could easily stretch 
 out a hand to the people in the sloop and the 
 sail-boat ; and really it seemed a sociable kind 
 of way to be travelling, for the houses were close 
 to the water, and everybody seemed to have a 
 word to say to the new boats. A rope from a 
 canal-boat, which looked to ihQ children's eyes 
 like a house, was soon attached to the sloop, 
 while the men aboard the sloop drew up the little 
 sail-boat till its bow nearly touched the stern. 
 
164 7UIE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 Then some horses which had been standing 
 under a shed started off, and one could see 
 that they were attached to long ropes ; and after 
 they had gone a little way, the canal-boat, to 
 which those long reins had been fastened, 
 started off drawn by the horses. 
 
 " Well, that is wonderful," said Tom Murphy, 
 — "drawn by horses, but travelling on the 
 water." 
 
 And after a time they entered a lock where 
 there was a fence, as if they had come into 
 somebody's yard ; and then there was a great 
 splashing and dashing, and they felt themselves 
 sinking down, and did n't know what was to 
 come next. But they passed safely through. 
 
 Pretty soon they grew tired of watching the 
 ducks and the geese coming down to swim in 
 this watery street ; tired of looking at the pretty 
 curtains in the windows of the houses, and of 
 the people taking their supper under the trees, 
 and they all wanted to go home. But in a short 
 time the sloop untied its tow-line from the 
 canal-boat and entered the river again. 
 
 " Mr. Hop Man," said Jack O'Nory, " why did 
 we go into that narrow lane ?" 
 
 " Because," answered the hop man, " the river 
 
AMONGST THE HOP-PICKERS 165 
 
 makes such a long turn there, so it was shorter 
 to come by the canal, and easier." 
 
 The children's boat was again a long way 
 behind the sloop. 
 
 Tom Murphy said, " The next time the wind 
 changes so that the rope dips we must draw it 
 in and cut it in a minute. I hope we can do it 
 when they are are not looking." 
 
 " And we will have to go back by the river," 
 said Jack O'Nory, " even if it is a long way 
 round, for I don't think we could tackle that 
 canal business very well by ourselves." 
 
 The men on the sloop seemed to be pretty 
 nearly asleep, so when the wind changed and 
 the rope dipped into the water, Tom Murphy, 
 who had a sharp knife in his hand, drew it in 
 quietly and quickly and they were free. 
 
 " Look, look ! " cried one of the women, and 
 immediately the men were all on their feet. It 
 took them hardly a minute to turn their sloop 
 and go after the children, who had had no time 
 to hoist sail, though they had turned back and 
 were rowing as if for their lives away from their 
 captors. 
 
 But in vain, for the sloop soon came up with 
 them, and the three men forced them all to get 
 
166 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 into the sloop, while they again attached a line 
 to the little forsaken sail-boat and towed it after 
 them. 
 
 One of the women, who looked cleaner and 
 kinder than the other two, said to Tom Murphy : 
 
 " What did you do that for ? They are very 
 strong and very wily." 
 
 " I think they are," said Tom. 
 
 After a very dreary time, the sloop drew up 
 at a wharf and anchored with the sail-boat close 
 at her stern. The children were obliged to fol- 
 low their captors up through a pretty lane, till 
 they came to the hop gardens, where indeed the 
 climbing hops had a friendly look, and their 
 spicy perfume seemed to pat new heart into 
 these travellers, who were none of them very 
 easily cast down. 
 
 It was supper time when they got to a house, 
 and they were taken into a long room with long 
 tables down the middle of it, and with the 
 queerest company any one could dream of 
 seated at the tables. 
 
 There were Indians and squaws and people 
 of all nationalities, and there were many young 
 men and women, who were talking of a dance 
 thev were to go to that night, and who seemed 
 
AMONGST THE HOP-PICKERS 167 
 
 to think that hop-picking was the greatest lark 
 in the world. 
 
 Bat the children felt, strangely and a little 
 sorrowfully, out of place. They longed to be 
 back at The Island Impossible, and would 
 gladly have stolen out and unhitched the tow- 
 line and started off in the moonlight for home ; 
 but how small their strength was compared to 
 that of these rough men. 
 
 Everything looked picturesque enough, if only 
 they could not have been in it, but could have 
 looked at it like a picture, from a distance. 
 
 After a while a woman with a white apron 
 and a motherly face came towards them. 
 
 " She is the house-mother," said Mary. 
 
 The woman said, " Come with me and I 
 will give you a place at the table, but you look 
 tired." 
 
 " We are tired," said Jeanne. 
 
 Rosey Pink wouldn't speak. She was alto- 
 gether too indignant to have any words, — for 
 a set of children to be stolen in this way, she 
 thought was just as bad as stealing men and 
 women from Africa to make slaves of them. 
 
 And these people intended to make slaves of 
 them and force them to do work which she, 
 
168 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 for one, would not do under the circumstances. 
 She had no doubt that hop-picking might be 
 pleasant work, but not for children who had 
 been treated as they had been. She would 
 not even answer the motherly looking woman, 
 but sat down in the place which was shown 
 to her pretty jerkily, Mary, who had the next 
 seat, put her hand under the table on Rosey's 
 knees, and gave her a little tap of fellowship ; 
 so pretty soon that cross girl had to smile a 
 little, while the boys, who were seated on the 
 men's side directly opposite the girls, tried to 
 make the best of it, and Jack O'Nory leaned 
 over to Rosey Pink and said : — 
 
 " Rosey, this is a lark." 
 
 '• Is it ? " said Rosey. 
 
 " Of course it is. What do you think about 
 it, Tom?" 
 
 " I think it is a lark, and a very large one. 
 I don't know whether it is an interesting one 
 or not, but you girls must take your supper, 
 for to-morrow will be a hard day." 
 
 " And an escaping day, I hope," said Calleen. 
 
 " Pretty soon, when night comes," said Jeanne, 
 "we will be separated. You boys will be put 
 with the men, and we girls — four miserable 
 
AMONGST THE HOP-PICKERS 169 
 
 girls — will have to go into rooms with all 
 these miserable women, and I wish we were 
 at home." 
 
 " So do I," said every child. 
 
 After the supper was over, people were al- 
 lowed to go wherever they chose, but the chil- 
 dren knew that if they all absented themselves 
 at the same time, there would soon be search 
 made for them. So they contented themselves 
 walking about amongst the hop vines. 
 
 The house was a long, low one with a roofed 
 piazza extending the whole length of it, with 
 pine sofas, which the motherly woman called 
 settles. There were many of these settles, and 
 Calleen said they would make very good beds. 
 The mooonlight made the whole place look very 
 sweet and like a picture, and the hop vines 
 shone like silver. After a while the young 
 men and women started off for the dance, and 
 it didn't seem to the children that there was 
 any account taken of the possibility of miT/ 
 one going to bed. 
 
 At last, the house-mother came out and said 
 that the beds were ready. The women's beds 
 were put on the floor in the dining-room, 
 stretched along on each side of the tables. 
 
170 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " We have always had good bedrooms before 
 this summer," said the house-mother, " but in 
 the spring the farm-house was burned down 
 and nobody has time to build in the busy 
 season, so we must be content with this for 
 this year, and all the women have to sleep 
 together. The men's room is upstairs, and 
 that is where you boys must sleep." 
 
 The boys said, "Thank you," but all the 
 children said they were not yet ready for 
 bed. 
 
 After awhile it grew so late that the house- 
 mother came after them again. She said they 
 would have no strength for to-morrow's work, 
 and they had better get all the sleep they could, 
 so that they would be able to earn " a pretty 
 penny." And the children followed her quite 
 disconsolately to the sleeping places, — the girls 
 had to step across many of the beds before 
 they came to those set apart for them ; and 
 they all decided that they would lie down 
 dressed as they were. They could not, one 
 of them, drop asleep, so they lay there with 
 their eyes open and holding each other's hands 
 till the people came home from the dance at 
 midniglit. And these young women made so 
 
AMONGST THE HOP-PICKERS 171 
 
 much noise that the other women all woke up, 
 and began to grumble. Then after a while all 
 was quiet, except for the heavy breathing of 
 the sleepers, and the air became very close. 
 
 " I am going to suffocate with this air right 
 away," said Rosey Pink. 
 
 " I guess you mean without this air," said 
 Calleen, " for there is n't a single whiff of air 
 in the room." 
 
 " Couldn't we get out and lie down on the 
 settles ? " asked Jeanne. 
 
 " Oh ! if we could," Mary said, " but how 
 could each one of us pass over all those 
 sleepers without disturbing them." 
 
 " We could if they were railroad sleepers," 
 said Calleen. 
 
 Mary said very quietly, " Calleen must have 
 her little joke." 
 
 " Pretty good thing that she can in this place," 
 said Jeanne. 
 
 However, tliey decided that they would try 
 for the door, and one by one they stepped across 
 the sleepers. 
 
 One young woman was awake. She said 
 quite low : — 
 
 " What are you young ones going to do ? 
 
172 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 Three of you have stepped over me, and now 
 here is the fourth, and you disturb my medi- 
 tations." 
 
 " We are going outside for a little air," said 
 Mary. " It is very close in here." 
 
 " I don't blame you," said the woman, who 
 was young and pretty. " It is close, and I 
 would go out with you, but I am trying with 
 all my might to go to sleep, so as to feel well 
 to-morrow. I had such a good time at the 
 dance that the thought of it is keeping me 
 awake. When you come back, don't wake me 
 up if I am asleep by that time. Good night." 
 
 The girls did not lie down on the settees, as 
 they had expected to do. They sat crowded 
 together. The air was warm and fresh, and 
 they were so homesick that the tears were 
 lying on their cheeks. 
 
 Pretty soon they heard a noise overhead, but 
 it did not frighten them as it would have done 
 if they had not already felt so miserable. After 
 a while they heard the noise again, as if some 
 one was creeping on the roof of the piazza, and 
 then something showed itself just at the edge 
 of the roof. Was it a head ? Was it a thief ? 
 And they stood up together. 
 
AMONGST THE HOP-PICKERS 173 
 
 " Huh," said the head. " Are you the girls ?'* 
 
 " Yes, we are the girls," they answered in a 
 whisper. " Are you Tom Murphy ? " 
 
 " I believe I am," said the head. " Were you 
 very uncomfortable ? " 
 
 " We were smothered. Were you smothered ? " 
 
 " We were, but that was not the worst part of 
 it." 
 
 " What did you have worse ? " 
 
 " They snored." 
 
 " Oh ! " said the girls. 
 
 " I think we will come down and sleep on 
 those settees." 
 
 " You would make too much noise getting 
 down." 
 
 " Not a bit of it. It is n't far to the ground, 
 and we would n't make any more noise than 
 four cats jumping down." 
 
 " Then do for mercy's sake come, for we are 
 very lonely and we are all crying." 
 
 " That 's because you are girls. We have n't 
 been crying a bit, but we have been learning 
 to understand how it is that men take to 
 swearing." 
 
 " You should n't say anything so dreadful as 
 that." 
 
174 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " Well, girls, there is no use in trying to argue 
 with you in a whisper, and Jack has hold of me 
 by the heel, so I must draw back and explain as 
 to Avho is on the piazza, and pretty soon you will 
 see us dropping down on the north end, where 
 the grass is very thick and where the sleepers 
 are not so thick." 
 
 The girls held their breaths, and at every 
 little noise overhead they were filled with alarm, 
 lest somebody should wake and inquire into 
 what was going on. 
 
 Pretty soon one after another of the boys 
 crept up to the settee where the girls were 
 sitting. 
 
 " This is a curious kind of a lark," said Sam 
 Holmes ; " but Mary, oh ! Mary, your face is wet 
 with tears." 
 
 " All our faces are wet with tears," said 
 the other girls, " but you don't notice it, 
 Sam." 
 
 " Well, just wait a minute. Mary, give me 
 your pocket handkerchief, and after I have 
 dried yours, I will attend to the other girls." 
 
 Jack O'Nory said : " We have to whisper here, 
 and we cannot make any arrangement, and you 
 know we have to get away." 
 
AMONGST THE HOP-PICKERS 175 
 
 All the girls took heart at this speech, and 
 proposed that they should quietly steal away in 
 the grass to an arbor where they would be con- 
 cealed from all wakeful eyes, and where their 
 voices could not be heard from the house. 
 
 So they stole away, and Jack O'Nory 
 said : — 
 
 " Of course, we are lonely and some of us have 
 been crying, and I am thinking of the dear 
 Island Impossible. And of the lieutenant." 
 
 " And," said Rosey Pink, " we are thinking of 
 The Island Impossible, and the violinist, espe- 
 cially Jeanne." 
 
 " And we have to get away," said Tom 
 Murphy. 
 
 " What is to prevent our going down to 
 the boat and getting away now ? " asked 
 Mary. 
 
 The boys said there was really nothing to 
 prevent, so the children immediately rose and 
 walked through the pretty lane and down to 
 the water's edge, where they found the sloop 
 anchored and their own sail-boat lying at its 
 stern. 
 
 But there was a boy asleep on the sloop. He 
 woke up and asked them what they wanted. 
 
176 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " We want to get into our own boat," said 
 Tom Murphy, quite brave when he found that 
 they had only a boy of about their own age to 
 deal with. 
 
 " But I have been ordered to take good care 
 of that boat." 
 
 "For the owners," said Jack O'Nory, "and 
 we are the owners." 
 
 The boy seemed to be a little disturbed in his 
 mind. He scratched his head and said : — 
 
 " Are you the owners ? " 
 
 "Yes, we are the owners," spoke up Rosey 
 Pink, " and we are very much obliged to you for 
 taking good care of our boat so far. Now we 
 will take it away, and you can go to sleep in 
 peace." 
 
 The boy still looked disturbed. He said 
 nothing but watched the passengers attentively, 
 and saw that they were quite familiar with the 
 belongings of the sail-boat, and the manner of 
 unloosing her sails. 
 
 So the little company of mariners started off 
 on their homeward journey, and didn't in the 
 least mind taking the longer way round by the 
 river, though, as they passed the entrance to 
 the canal, they looked with interest at the canal- 
 
AMONGST THE HOP-PICKERS 177 
 
 boat which was making its way slowly along, 
 while the man who was riding on one of the 
 horses was singing a low, monotonous song, 
 which floated into the air like a song that is 
 heard in a dream. 
 
 12 
 
178 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 COMMISSIONERS 
 
 " \X 7E are commissioners," said Tom Murphy. 
 ^ ^ " Commissioners to where ? " asked the 
 others. 
 
 " To some island in the Pacific Ocean. Just 
 as Jack and I were coming round the point, we 
 were hailed by another boat, and an officer in a 
 naval uniform called out : — 
 
 " Will you do something for the Government ? " 
 
 Jack said, " Of course we will." 
 
 Then the officer gave us a long string of talk 
 and ended by saying : — 
 
 " The United States is very desirous that this 
 island in the Pacific Ocean shall receive immedi- 
 ate information in a matter of importance, and 
 the ships are very slow. But we have heard that 
 you can make long journeys in an hour or two, 
 so we thought if you would be the commis- 
 sioners to carry and present this important 
 document, it would give the Government great 
 satisfaction." 
 
COMMISSIONERS 179 
 
 Jack said : " How many commissioners do 
 you want ? There are eight of us." 
 
 " Eight is a very good number," said the officer. 
 " Then he handed out these pins and stars and 
 things with which to adorn the eight commis- 
 sioners—and Jack has the document." 
 Mary immediately rose to her feet. 
 " If we are to wear these pins and stars and 
 things," she said, " we must all go and make 
 ourselves otherwise beautiful before we start. " 
 
 Jack O'Nory had joined them now, and the 
 boys agreed that it would be right for all the 
 commissioners to look as handsome as possible. 
 So at last they came down to the pier, gor- 
 geous, and Mr. Rattles said they certainly looked 
 as if they mic/ht be going to the Pacific Ocean, — 
 or, indeed, to the palace of the Czar, for they 
 were so dressed up that he hardly knew them. 
 
 "What do you suppose is the document that 
 is in Jack O'Nory's charge ?" asked Calleen. 
 Nobody could answer, for nobody knew. 
 " And how shall we know the place when we 
 get to it ? " said Mary. 
 
 Then it was ascertained that nobody knew 
 that either. Tom thought that perhaps the 
 naval officer might have told them about that 
 
180 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 in his long string of talk, but he did n't think 
 that either Jack or he had been listening very 
 attentively, and so perhaps they had lost some 
 information which they ought to have received. 
 
 " Look at the document. Jack," said Tom. 
 
 But the document was simply addressed to 
 " His Excellency the President." 
 
 Jeanne suggested that there was a Dutch 
 president somewhere down in Africa. 
 
 "One thing the naval officer said very dis- 
 tinctly," answered Jack, " and that was, ' An 
 island in the Pacific Ocean.' " 
 
 So after consultation with Mr. Rattles it was 
 decided that they should sail away to the 
 Pacific Ocean and land at the first island they 
 should see which might look as if it had any pre- 
 tensions to a president, or to being the recipient 
 of an important document from the United States. 
 
 Calleen, who was very daring in the expres- 
 sion of her sentiments, said she would like to 
 see the inside of that paper, but the others 
 rather frowned upon her, and for a little while 
 she remained quite silent. 
 
 When they reached the Pacific Ocean they 
 passed numerous small islands, but all agreed 
 
COMBIISSIONERS 181 
 
 that they were too trifling in appearance for 
 presidents, or important documents. 
 
 After a while they saw, in the distance, land. 
 It appeared to be a small continent, with a 
 volcano and other beautiful mountains, with 
 valleys between, and as they came nearer, they 
 could distinguish rivers and dark woods and 
 fertile plains and cities and other islands. 
 
 "This is the island," said Jack O'Nory. 
 
 " This is the island, sure," said Mr. Rattles, 
 " and we will very soon sail into its harbor." 
 
 And when they did sail into its harbor, they 
 found that it was full of ships with the United 
 States flag flying at their mastheads, and there 
 was a great commotion, for officers and soldiers 
 of the United States Navy and Army crowded 
 its wharves and walked up and down its beau- 
 tiful shaded streets, and many lovely young 
 ladies and dancing happy children walked with 
 them or came out of the houses to greet them. 
 
 Mr. Rattles kept his boat tacking slowly in 
 the breeze, till the commissioners should have 
 made up their minds what to do next. 
 
 " I don't really know what we ought to do," 
 said Jack O'Nory. " This is addressed to 'His 
 Excellency the President,' and we must not 
 
182 TEE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 show it to any one else, and we certainly cannot 
 put it in the care of anybody else, so we must 
 find ' IJis Excellency the President,' and I 
 suppose for that reason we muat land even if 
 there does not appear to be any landing-place 
 free at any wharf." 
 
 Mary remarked that there were so many flags 
 about with stars and stripes that she certainly 
 felt as if she were in the United States. 
 
 " Yes," said Calleen, " and so many soldiers 
 with U, S. on their caps, and all the ships are 
 U. S. ships. Do you suppose that the Pacific 
 Ocean is part of the United States ? " 
 
 After a while, Mr. Rattles discovered a small 
 pier where they could land. 
 
 " I think this pier belongs to private grounds," 
 he said, " but any one who might once see you 
 commissioners would allow that you might land 
 'most anywhere." 
 
 They stepped ashore. Jeanne said : — 
 
 " Certainly these are private grounds, and did 
 you ever see such beautiful trees ? They don't 
 look like our trees, and the soft grass is like 
 velvet. It would be just lovely if the violinist 
 were here, and we could lie down on the grass 
 and listen to his music." 
 
COMMISSIONERS 183 
 
 Rosey Pink said : — 
 
 " If the violinist were here, you would have 
 to accompany him, and all the rest of us would 
 lie down and perhaps go to sleep." 
 
 " And the lieutenant would be happy here 
 to-day," said Jack. " But you see we have not 
 time to listen to music, or to long for the lieu- 
 tenant, for it may take us hours and hours to 
 find ' His Excellency the President.' " 
 
 " And besides, with all these rigs on," sug- 
 gested Tom Murphy, " we had better not think 
 of lying on the grass." 
 
 So they followed a path through these beau- 
 tiful shaded grounds, till they came to a splendid 
 mansion. 
 
 " I think it is a castle," Mary said, but Jeanne 
 told her that people did not build castles on 
 islands in the Pacific Ocean. They had no 
 time for argument, for almost immediately they 
 found themselves part of a crowd of happy 
 people who were assisting at a feast, where 
 long tables were set out on a lawn, and every 
 one who saw them ran up to greet them, and 
 when they saw the pins and the stars and other 
 decorations, their reception of these commis- 
 sioners became still more cordial and impressive ; 
 
184 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 and then they were taken into a banqueting 
 hall, where a major-general sat at the head of 
 a table, and where thej were immediately given 
 places of honor, — but not together. 
 
 " A funny business to be separated," said 
 Jack. And Tom agreed that it was a kind of 
 dislocating business. 
 
 The lady who sat next to Mary, and who was 
 splendidly dressed and wore round her neck 
 garlands of the gayest flowers, took off one of 
 these garlands and put it on Mary's neck, and 
 very soon all the other girls were ornamented 
 in the same charming manner. 
 
 " There is to be a ball at the Executive Man- 
 sion to-night," said Mary's neighbor, "and you 
 will surely be there, will you ? " 
 
 " Yes, we are going to the ball," said Mary. 
 
 " It will be in honor of the officers of the 
 army and navy who arrived in the ships yes- 
 terday, and who are to sail away again at mid- 
 night, but — you are young for balls." 
 
 " We are all young," assented Mary. 
 
 " But you wear stars and other decorations 
 such as older persons might wear." 
 
 " We are commissioners," said Mary. 
 
 Then the handsome lady was even more at- 
 
COMMISSIONERS 185 
 
 tentive than she had been, and Mary noticed 
 that the other girls were getting on very well, 
 Calleen was deep in conversation with an officer 
 who wore a colonel's straps on his shoulders. 
 
 " Of course, he must be a doctor," said Mary 
 to herself, " for Calleen would certainly not so 
 soon become intimate with any one who was 
 not a doctor." 
 
 Jeanne appeared to be making very wise re- 
 marks to an officer with a gray moustache who 
 was sitting beside her, while Rosey Pink was not 
 taking notice of any stranger whatever, — was 
 just sitting with wide eyes, listening to Tom and 
 Jack as they answered innumerable questions 
 as to what people, especially the Government, 
 were doing in the United States now. It was 
 amazing to Rosey, but certainly both those boys 
 were talking as if they were in the habit of 
 living ivith the Government and understanding 
 about every fussy and uncertain and worrying 
 thing, — when, indeed, actually they lived only on 
 the beautiful Island Impossible, where fussy and 
 uncertain and worrying things were unknown. 
 
 Sam and Ernest were also talking with great 
 bravery about things of which Rosey was sure 
 they knew absolutely nothing. 
 
186 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " Perhaps it is the pins and stars and things," 
 she said to herself ; " but I also am wearing 
 those decorations, and I don't seem to be any- 
 body else but plain Rosey Pink, while all the 
 others look very wise and very important." 
 
 There were a great many pretty girls decked 
 with flowers flitting about waiting on the people 
 who were sitting at the tables, both here and on 
 the lawn, and Rosey thought that as no one in 
 particular was watching her at that moment, 
 she would just slip out of her place and help 
 these busy maidens, who received her with a 
 " Welcome ! Welcome I " and she soon became 
 as alert as any one of them, and took especial 
 delight in waiting on the gray-bearded officer 
 with whom Jeanne was talking in a little mousey 
 way, and in distracting the attention of the 
 evident doctor in constantly offering things to 
 him, while Calleen was busy explaining some 
 of her theories ; and when she came forward 
 with smiles to offer fruits and ices to the boys, 
 they became greatly disconcerted, and lost the 
 self-possession they had so suddenly acquired. 
 
 After it was all over, and the commissioners 
 had gathered in a little group on the green lawn, 
 Jack O'Nory said : — 
 
COMMISSIONERS 187 
 
 " It will never do to get separated again. 
 We are all to go to the ball at the Executive 
 Mansion, and we must keep together and travel 
 about this charming city together, and look at 
 everything." 
 
 " Have we been properly invited to the ball ? " 
 said Calleen. 
 
 Mary thought " Yes," the beautiful lady who 
 sat next to her had asked if she was going to 
 the ball, — so she supposed she had been invited ; 
 and Jeanne said the general with the gray 
 moustache had invited her ; while Calleen told 
 the others that the doctor, who had been sitting 
 beside her and who was quite high up in the 
 service and very heroic, had insisted upon her 
 going. 
 
 " All those beautiful girls invited me," said 
 Rosey Pink, 
 
 The boys knew that they had all been invited, 
 but by whom it would be hard to say. 
 
 " And, invited or not," said Jack O'Nory, 
 " we are obliged to see ' His Excellency the 
 President,' but where the Executive Mansion is, 
 we do not know." 
 
 They agreed that the best thing to do would 
 be to walk about the city, whose windows were 
 
188 TUE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 shining in the sunset light, and see everything, 
 and then afterwards come back and rest in the 
 sail-boat at the foot of this lovely garden. After 
 that they could follow some of the ofhcers, for 
 they knew that everybody was going to the 
 ball, and just go in, and as soon after going 
 in as possible it would be better to present " the 
 important document," and then turn away and 
 go home ; for though this was a lovely place, and 
 there was a great deal going on, they all thought 
 they would be glad to be sailing into their own 
 harbor again. 
 
 " Yes," said Calleen ; " and the doctor, and 
 Jeanne's friend, the general, and indeed almost 
 everybody, is going away to-night just as we 
 are." 
 
 So when it was evening and all the lamps in 
 the streets were lighted, the commissioners fol- 
 lowed a gayly dressed crowd till they came to a 
 beautiful spacious house with broad verandas 
 and lighted windows. It stood in a wide street 
 with open grounds in front. It seemed as if 
 the whole world was going in tlirough its great 
 doorways, and pretty soon the commissioners 
 found themselves shaking hands with " His Ex- 
 cellency the President ; " and the President's 
 
COMMISSIONERS 189 
 
 wife, who seemed charmed with these new 
 guests, asked the commissioners if they would 
 stand beside her and help her in receiving, 
 "For," she said, " there are so many strangers 
 of distinction here to-night." 
 
 After helping to receive for about one hour 
 and a half, Tom Murphy said to the others : — 
 
 " It is a pretty hard thing to shake hands 
 with the whole world. How about you others, 
 don't your arms feel broken ? " 
 
 " Mine feels as if I had paralysis," said 
 Calleen ; " and I wish that doctor would come 
 along and tell me what to do for it." 
 
 " And my hand," said Rosey Pink, " has gone 
 to sleep." 
 
 Mary admitted that she had been careful not 
 to shake hands very hard, and Jeanne, who 
 never was disturbed by anything, said that she 
 felt all right. 
 
 The other boys agreed with Tom that it was 
 very hard work, especially Jack O'Nory, who 
 had been holding the document so resolutely 
 with the hand which had not been occupied with 
 receiving, that both his arms were now almost 
 useless. 
 
 " Just so soon," he said, " as the people have 
 
190 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 stopped coming in such a crowd, and the Presi- 
 dent has a hand to spare, I am going to put ' the 
 important document' into it." 
 
 " Yes, do, Jack," said Rosey Pink and Mary ; 
 " for we are all so tired, and we are getting 
 homesick." 
 
 " Why, Mary," interrupted Sam Holmes, " you 
 talk as if you were almost crying." 
 
 Mary told him that she was almost crying, 
 and besides, that she was sleepy. 
 
 Ernest confessed to being sleepy also. 
 
 Pretty soon the people began to come in more 
 infrequently, and Jack got ready to hand in 
 " the important document." 
 
 " I suppose you know that you will have to 
 make a speech, Jack," said Tom. 
 
 " No," Jack said ; he did n't know that he was 
 obliged to make a speech at all, and if anybody 
 had to make a speech, he, Tom, must do it. 
 For his part, he had become so tired holding 
 that precious document, that not only had his 
 arms given out, but also his brain, and if Tom's 
 brain had not given out, he had better begin 
 now to arrange what kind of a speech he was 
 going to make. Tom said : — 
 
 " That 's all right ; but. Jack, we have for- 
 
COMMISSIONERS 191 
 
 gotten one thing. If we are commissioners, 
 don't you believe something more will be ex- 
 pected of us than just to hand in the docu- 
 ment ? " 
 
 Jack confessed that that thought had been 
 bothering him all the evening, but thej had 
 both been so busy shaking hands as to leave no 
 chance for consulting each other. 
 
 " But," added Jack, " we are all tired, and 
 we don't want to stay, so I think the best 
 thmg for us to do will be to slip away 
 just as soon as possible after getting rid of 
 the document. They can pick up commission- 
 ers anywhere; the world is just jammed full 
 of commissioners." 
 
 ^^ Tom agreed to this, and when Jack asked, 
 " Ready ? " he assented, and the two boys ad- 
 vanced till they were close to the President. 
 
 ^ "Don't present it, Jack," said Tom, " until I 
 give you a little tap on the shoulder." 
 
 "All right; but for any sake don't make a 
 long speech." 
 
 "Your Excellency the President," said Tom, 
 " we are commissioners from the United States' 
 of America." 
 
 " I am glad to see you," said His Excellency. 
 
192 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 "And our commission is to hand to you a 
 certain paper." 
 
 It seemed then as if the President imme- 
 diately stood up on the tips of his toes, and his 
 eyes grew very large, while the President's wife 
 did not, for a moment, remove her glance from 
 the faces of the two commissioners. Then 
 instead of Tom's giving Jack O'Nory a little 
 tap on the shoulder, as had been agreed upon, 
 he said : — 
 
 " I don't know anything more to say. Jack. 
 Hand the document to His Excellency the 
 President." 
 
 Jack put the paper into the President's hand. 
 
 By this time quite a little crowd of people 
 who had heard Tom's speech were standing 
 with expectant eyes around the presidential 
 group. 
 
 The President, with a trembling hand, opened 
 the document. He turned first very pale, then 
 his eyes filled with tears. The Secretary of 
 War, who was at his side, leaned over and read 
 the paper, whose words were very few. Then 
 the President, whose eyes were shining now, 
 and whose face was bright as if somewhere the 
 sun had risen, took his wife's hand and turned 
 
COMMISSIONERS 193 
 
 to the people, who had become silent, waiting 
 for something they knew not what. He waved 
 the paper in his hand, and said : — 
 
 " Citizens of the United States of America, I 
 give you joy." 
 
 Instantly it seemed as if the whole world had 
 broken out in cheering. Then everybody was 
 shaking hands with everybody else, and the 
 great guns were saluting, and bands of music 
 playing " The Star Spangled Banner " were 
 gathering from every quarter ; and as for the 
 commissioners, they were almost lifted up and 
 placed in seats of honor, and everybody was 
 cheering for them. 
 
 "Oh, those great guns," said Mary. 
 
 " Yes, is n't it beautiful," answered a lady at 
 her side. " They are in the Executive grounds, 
 and they have begun to fire the salute of one 
 hundred guns, and there will be fireworks." 
 
 " Oh, oh ! " said Mary. 
 
 It was all very beautiful and very inspiring, 
 but Sam was afraid that with the salute of one 
 hundred guns and with the fireworks Mary 
 might certainly die ; and the boys had their 
 fears that, after all, the whole party might be 
 detained as commissioners, and every one felt 
 
 13 
 
194 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 that the happiest moment would come when 
 they were all down at the pier again with Mr. 
 Rattles. 
 
 And so in an interval when they were not 
 under close observation the commissioners 
 slipped away, and no one on that beautiful 
 United States island knows, to this day, what 
 became of the messengers who brought the good 
 news to Honolulu. 
 
AUF WIEDERSEHEN 195 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 AUF WIEDERSEHEN 
 
 /^NE day the children were all sitting on the 
 ^^ shore in the sunshine, when Calleen said, 
 quite suddenly : — 
 
 " We are growing up." 
 
 " Oh, no ; oh, no," said the others. 
 
 Then there was an ominous silence. 
 
 " It is abominable," continued Calleen, " but 
 it is true ; last Sunday when we went over to 
 the Continent to church, the dear auntie said, 
 ' Calleen, you are growing so tall that your 
 dresses are up to your knees,' — so next Sunday 
 I am to be put into long dresses." 
 
 " Did she say anything else ? " asked Rosey 
 Pink. 
 
 " Well, not much else. When she looked at 
 me there was a kind of little pucker between 
 her eyebrows, and — I think — she said — that 
 I looked gawky." 
 
 " Oh, you poor Calleen," exclaimed all the 
 others. 
 
196 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " And the fact of the matter is," said Calleen, 
 " that if I am growing up, all the rest of you are 
 doing the same thing ; and it is abominable." 
 
 Jeanne suggested to Mary and Rosey Pink 
 that perhaps they all three looked gawky also ; 
 and Calleen seemed to find pleasure in believing 
 that as Rosey Pink and Mary were quite as tall 
 as she, they probably had the right to have the 
 same adjective applied to them, while Jeanne, 
 who was not so tall, and who was as graceful as 
 a kitten, would certainly not deserve to be called 
 gawky. 
 
 " What about the boys ? " asked Jack O'Nory. 
 Calleen answered that " Nobody had said any- 
 thing about the boys ; " but Rosey Pink inter- 
 rupted to say that in the cars last Sunday, when 
 they were coming to the bridge, she heard some- 
 body say, "All arms and legs." She didn't 
 know of whom that person was talking, but it 
 probably was about the boys. 
 
 The boys looked at each other, and they be- 
 gan to whistle softly to themselves, and then 
 remarked that growing up was very inconven- 
 ient. Nobody seemed at all anxious to grow 
 up, but they looked at each other now atten- 
 tively. 
 
AUF WIEDERSEHEN 197 
 
 They were obliged to notice that the girls 
 were slimmer than they used to be, that their 
 bright faces were more thoughtful, that the 
 boys' eyes were serious, and their lips were more 
 firmly set than in days gone by. So after re- 
 garding each other attentively for a few min- 
 utes, they agreed again that it was " very 
 inconvenient ; " and Mary said the whole trouble 
 about the matter was, that they could not stop 
 growing up now that they had begun that busi- 
 ness ; that every day they would be getting more 
 and more grown up, and they would be learn- 
 ing every kind of new thing, and that pretty 
 soon separations would come, which would be 
 more than inconvenient — would be simply 
 unbearable. 
 
 Then all the children declared that would be 
 too sorrowful, while Sam Holmes said, very 
 softly : — 
 
 " I am never going to be separated from you, 
 Mary." And Mary's face looked like a red rose. 
 
 And as day followed day after this, they be- 
 gan to watch each other suspiciously, looking 
 for those dreaded growing-up signs ; and when 
 the lieutenant had, at last, convinced Jack that 
 he ought to enter the naval school, and the 
 
198 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 professor had told Tom that arrangements had 
 been made through which the college courses 
 had been increased and widened, so as to em- 
 brace all knowledge under the sun ; and Mar- 
 garet Parker had appeared at lessons with her 
 dress down to the ground, — indeed, trailing a 
 little, — the opinion about the growing up be- 
 came quite fixed. 
 
 Jeanne had, once or twice, gone over to the 
 Continent to accompany the violinist at what 
 were called parlor concerts ; and as the parlor 
 concerts were attended by all the friends of the 
 children, of course these same children were there 
 too, and they could not resist the impression 
 that Jeanne had grown taller, and that she 
 handled her violin in such manner that all shy- 
 ness and too great youthfulness had departed 
 from her. 
 
 Calleen had hurt her foot quite a good deal 
 one day, which injury called for the help of a 
 doctor, — a young and very pleasant doctor ; and 
 after that she seemed to require occasional help 
 frequently, and had a great deal to say about 
 the fibula and the adjacent muscles and other 
 bones and tendons, and it was thought she took 
 more interest in the healing of her foot than the 
 
AUF WIEDERSEHEN 199 
 
 doctor did, naturally, one might say ; but the 
 conclusion was that they took more time about 
 it than the hurt called for, and at last Calleen's 
 firm decision was arrived at, that her vocation 
 was to take a course in medicine. The pleasant 
 doctor looked dubious, but Calleen had made up 
 her mind, 
 
 Ernest was sorry that they had not built a 
 polytechnic school on the Island, as he cer- 
 tainly intended to be an electrical engineer, but 
 there did not seem to be opportunities for any 
 more colleges of any kind on The Island Im- 
 possible ; and when Margaret Parker said that 
 in the city where she lived — farther west — 
 there was a splendid polytechnic institute, and 
 that after she had finished her education here 
 she was going back to her home, Ernest seemed 
 to be quite satisfied to go through the classes 
 in their own college that would fit him, later, to 
 enter the electrical course in that city in the 
 West. 
 
 Sam's aspirations were for a business life, and 
 the college here would furnish him with all the 
 education he desired, and Mary rather encour- 
 aged him in these conclusions. 
 
 As for Rosey Pink, when she was not career- 
 
200 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 ing about with Tom and Jack, or advising them, 
 or sympathizing with them about something or 
 other, she was a hard student, and the professor 
 said he knew that when she should have passed 
 through the examinations next year she would 
 be a Ph. D. 
 
 All these children who were growing up so 
 fast had a great admiration for each other, and 
 were so close in love and sympathy, as well as 
 in every kind of mischief, that any one looking 
 at them might indeed feel sorry if separations 
 must come ; but they made up their minds that 
 even if they were ceasing to be children, they 
 would take no notice of that fact : they would 
 still be children to each other. 
 
 And Anno and Roscoe went on waiting on 
 them and interfering with them just as if the 
 girls had not begun to turn up their back hair, 
 and the boys had not begun to have little dark, 
 downy marks about their lips. 
 
 But time is a cruel old bird ; he flies very fast, 
 and as he flies he picks up one and another and 
 sets them down sometimes very far apart, — 
 drops the children in different fields and cities 
 and shores, and the worst of it is, there is not a 
 bit of use in trying to argue with him : he flies 
 
AUF WIEDERSEHEN 201 
 
 away while one is getting ready to explain that 
 these doings are very unwelcome. 
 
 Jack and Tom were walking one day with the 
 lieutenant, who was talking in his low, musical 
 hut earnest voice, and telling of other countries 
 and of the wonderful great deeds that were per- 
 formed on the ships of war when there was 
 trouble because great wrongs had to be made 
 right, and as he spoke his voice became enthu- 
 siastic and his eyes were very bright, and Tom, 
 looking at Jack, noticed that his eyes shone just 
 as the lieutenant's did. When the lieutenant 
 had gone away, Jack and Tom walked along 
 together quite silent. At last Tom said : — 
 
 " What is it to be, Jack ? " 
 
 " I think, the navy." 
 
 Again there was silence for awhile, then Jack 
 asked : — 
 
 " And you, Tom ? " 
 
 " I think, the scientific course." 
 
 After awhile Tom said, speaking very slowly, 
 " To be separated even in our studies is a bad 
 business, and what will it be by and by. Now 
 we liave the studio, and onr painting together, 
 and the daily life ; but oh, Jack ! oh, Jack ! " 
 
202 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 " Oh, Tom ! Oh, my Tom ! " 
 
 When they came down to the harbor Rosey 
 Pink was sitting on the beach waiting for them. 
 There was a question in her eyes, and Tom 
 answered it. 
 
 " It is to be the navy, Rosey." 
 
 She did not speak, but stood up beside the 
 boys. She laid her head on Jack's shoulder, 
 and after awhile he turned and clasped her 
 hand and Tom's. " This must be our motto," 
 he said : " Hand in hand ; shoulder to shoulder ; 
 heart to heart, though the seas separate us." 
 
 And the others said : " Hand in hand ; shoulder 
 to shoulder ; heart to heart, though the seas sep- 
 arate us." 
 
 So the matter was decided, and Jack O'Nory's 
 name was entered on the books of the naval 
 school, while Tom's scientific course began, and 
 Rosey Pink had commenced her last studies 
 before she should take the examinations, after 
 which she was certain to become a Ph. D. 
 
 And there came an evening which was to be 
 their last of full companionship. 
 
 To-morrow, wagon loads of stone and mortar 
 and lumber would come across the bridge right 
 
AUF WIEDERSEHEN 203 
 
 into the heart of The Island Impossible, in prep- 
 aration for the new navy yard. 
 
 To-morrow the dear old college would be 
 emptied of its belongings, and the new college 
 on the Continent would be opened, — the college 
 in which Tom Murphy was a professor and 
 Rosey Pink had become a Ph. D,, and where, 
 also, a studio had been granted to Jack and 
 Tom, on whose walls all the pictures they had 
 painted were hanging side by side. 
 
 To-morrow Anno, who had married Roscoe, 
 was to become possessor of the children's house- 
 keeping belongings, and move them over to the 
 new college, in which Roscoe was to be janitor. 
 
 To-morrow there were to be two brides, — 
 Mary and Jeanne ; and two bridegrooms, — 
 Sam and the violinist. And this little colony 
 of grown-up children, including even the brides, 
 was very sorrowful. 
 
 They had walked together in the clear moon- 
 light to the hill where they had christened 
 The Island Impossible, " For," said Tom Mur- 
 phy, " we must now give it another name, ' The 
 New United States Navy Yard.' " 
 
 So they stood close together while Jack 
 O'Nory broke the crystal vase of pure water 
 
204 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 upon the ground, and they all cried out at the 
 same moment : — 
 
 " New United States Navj Yard, we christen 
 you, and say, ' Good luck ! Good luck ! ' and may 
 the shijjs that sail out of your harbor be the best 
 on all the seas, and may their officers and their 
 sailors take for their motto, ' To do our best in 
 the sight of God.' " 
 
 " Somebody always has to make a speech," 
 said Calleen. 
 
 Rosey Pink said, " Wait a moment, for I see 
 the lieutenant and the violinist coming this way ; 
 one of them must make the speech." 
 
 " Oh, yes ; oh, yes." 
 
 So when the lieutenant and the violinist joined 
 the children, Tom Murphy said : — 
 
 " Lieutenant, you know how sorry we are to- 
 night, for the parting time has come. Will you 
 say a few words of good cheer to us, for it is with 
 you that Jack O'Nory is to sail away across the 
 sea, so it is you who must try to comfort us." 
 
 The lieutenant said : " Be of good cheer, you 
 dear children, who brought us to this happy 
 shore. You are, every one, under the strong 
 and tender care of the King of kings, and He 
 will keep you together in love and sympathy. 
 
AUF WIEDERSEHEN 205 
 
 Resign each other into that high guardianship, 
 sure that you shall be still comrades, doing the 
 work He gives you to do, and loving each other 
 always as you love each other to-day." 
 
 The violinist cried out : " Oh, dear heart, my 
 sweet Jeanne. I am like you, sorrowful for the 
 parting ; though ' I am looking forward to the 
 happy days together,' — and you ' dear others,' 
 what can we do without you all ? Let us say to 
 each other the sweet, old German words for fare- 
 well, which my mother used to say, ' Auf wie- 
 dersehen.' They mean, ' may all that is best be 
 yours till we see each other again ; ' but, Jeanne, 
 how glad I am that I must not say to you, dear 
 heart, ' Auf wiedersehen.' " 
 
 Then the lieutenant and the violinist went 
 away together down the hill. Some one said : — 
 
 " Let each one of us pray every day the prayer 
 that shall keep us together ; the prayer that the 
 bishop said last Sunday, when he laid his hands 
 upon our heads in the confirmation service." 
 
 " And for the first time, together," said Jack 
 O'Nory. 
 
 Rosey Pink slipped in between Jack and Tom, 
 she laid their two hands in each other and 
 clasped hers around them. So all the children 
 
206 THE ISLAND IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 stood with clasping hands and uplifted eyes and 
 said : — 
 
 " Defend, Lord, us. Thy children, with Thy 
 heavenly grace, that we may continue Thine 
 forever, and daily increase in Thy Holy Spirit 
 more and more, until we come unto Thy ever- 
 lasting kingdom." 
 
 Then they came slowly down the hill and 
 stood on the shore of their harbor, with the 
 memories of those other cheery, dancing days 
 filling their hearts. 
 
 " Many a night," said Jack O'Nory, " we have 
 fallen asleep here on the sands." 
 
 " Yes," said Tom Murphy, " and have said to 
 each other. Good niglit, and Good night, and 
 Good night." 
 
L'ENVOI. 
 
 Farewell to the wond'rous fleets 
 That sail to Impossible Lands, 
 Farewell to their cities' happy streets, 
 And their oceans' shining sands. 
 Fair lands, 
 Good night. 
 
 They lie on the other side 
 Of the fields where the poppies grow, 
 And in their harbors wide 
 The singing waters ebb and flow, 
 Low, low. 
 Good night. 
 
MRS. WESSELHOEFTS STORIES. 
 
 WANDERER. 
 
 A Fable for Children. T?v Lily F. Wesselhoeft, author of 
 ■^Sparrow, the Tramp," and '-Flipwing, the Spy." With illustrations. 
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 With al! the original illustrations. In one square i6mo vol' 
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 MY BOYS. Illustrated. i6mo. Ji.oo. 
 
 SHAWL-STRAPS. Illustrated. i6mo. 
 
 Jl.OO. 
 
 CUPID AND CHOW-CHOW. Illus- 
 trated. i6mo. $1.00. 
 
 MY GIRLS. Illustrated. i6mo. $1.00. 
 
 JIMMY'S CRUISE IN THE PINA- 
 
 FORE, ETC. Illustrated. i6mo. $1.00. 
 
 AN OLD-FASHIONED THANKS- 
 
 GIVING. Illustrated. i6mo. gi.oo. 
 
 The above six volumes, uniformly bound in cloth, gilt, in bo.x, J6.00. 
 
 LULU'S LIBRARY. 
 
 Three volumes. Each, ^i.oo. The set uniformly bound in cloth, gilt, in box, $5.00. 
 NOVELS, ETC. Uniform with " Little IVomen Series." 
 
 HOSPITAL SKETCHES, and Camp 
 and Fireside Stories. With Illustra- 
 tions. i6mo. 5i-5'3- 
 WORK : A Story of Experience. Illus- 
 trated by Sol Eytinge. i6mo. $1.50. 
 
 The above four volumes, uniformly bound in cloth, gilt, in box 
 
 MOODS. A Novel. i6mo. $1.50. 
 
 A MODERN MEPHISTOPHELES, 
 AND A WHISPER IN THE DARK. 
 
 i6mo. $1.50. 
 
 COMIC TRAGEDIES. Written by " Jo" 
 and "Meg," and acted by the " Little 
 Women," with a Foreword by " Meg." 
 Portraits, etc. i6mo. 5i-5o. 
 
 LIFE OF MISS ALCOTT. Louisa 
 May Alcott: Her Life, Letters, and 
 Journals. Edited by Ednah D. Cheney. 
 Photogravure Portraits, etc. i6mo. 
 $1.50. 
 
 LITTLE WOMEN. Illustrated edition. 
 
 Embellished with nearly two hundred Characteristic Illustrations from Original De- 
 signs drawn expressly for this edition of this noted American Classic. Small quarto, 
 cloth, gilt, 1^2.50. 
 
 iLittle, iJtoton, antr (Kompans, ^nWuf^tvn, 
 
 254 Washington Street, Boston. 
 
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