The Happy Adventurers Part 8

"You might bring back some bread and skimmings," said Prudence.

"Working like this makes you so hungry."

The day was warm, but it was refres.h.i.+ng to get out of doors after the steamy atmosphere of the playroom. Mollie sauntered along, keeping in the shade of the trees, a little tired after her early rising. She could see Bridget and Baby at the bottom of the garden gathering gooseberries for a pudding. Baby's pink sun-bonnet bobbed about like a rose going for a walk in the berry-bed. Before she reached the kitchen door she began to smell something uncommonly like burning sugar.

"I expect it has spilt on the stove," she thought; "that pot is pretty heavy for Grizzel to lift."

The smell got stronger and stronger, and when Mollie reached the kitchen there was not only a smell but smoke. There was no sign of Grizzel, nor of anyone else; the house was silent and empty but for the sizzling and smoking of the boiled-over jam. Mollie ran to the stove--a funny flat arrangement, different from the stoves of her acquaintance. The jam had evidently been boiling over for some time, for not only the saucepan, the stove, and the fender, but even the floor was covered with a dark-brown sticky syrup. She trod carefully to the fire-place and lifted the pan to one side, the smoke and steam making her eyes water.

"Making fortunes is pretty hot work in Australia," she muttered to herself. "If I made many there wouldn't be much of me left to enjoy them with. Where on earth is Grizzel?"

She found her in their bedroom, arranging some vine leaves and green grapes in her golden bowl, quite oblivious of a world which contained jam.

"I think your jam is burning, Grizzel--I am afraid it is rather badly burnt."

"My jam!" said Grizzel, coming back to the world of every day.

"Goodness me! I forgot all about the jam." She hastily dumped her bowl down on the window-sill, and flew to the kitchen, followed by Mollie.

"Oh dear, dear, dear!" she cried, when her eyes fell upon the scene of devastation. "Oh, my jam! my jam! Oh, why am I _both_ a cook and an artist? One half of me is _always_ getting into the way of the other half! Oh, Mollie--my lovely, beautiful jam!"

"Let's taste it and see; _perhaps_ it isn't burnt," Mollie suggested. But one sip was enough. "Ab-so-lute wash-out!" was her verdict. Grizzel seized the pot by the handle and made for the door.

"What are you going to do?" asked Mollie, following her.

"Bury it," said Grizzel, laying down the pot and seizing a spade.

She rapidly dug a shallow hole, poured the sticky black mixture into it and tossed back the earth.

"And they were so pretty a few hours ago," she wailed. "Why on earth did I go and spoil them like that! Oh, Mollie, I am a cruel girl!"

"It isn't _really_ any more cruel than eating them," said Mollie consolingly. "I'd just as soon be burnt as eaten myself--only perhaps one might be cooked first and eaten afterwards. I must say it is rather hard lines on mutton when you come to think of it."

Grizzel took the blackened pot to the pump, filled it with water, and carried it back to the kitchen. The fire was nearly out, and logs had to be piled on and blown up with the bellows before the pot could be set on again. Grizzel looked round for a towel to clear up the horrible mess with, but Bridget had washed her towels that morning and they were all hanging out to dry on the line.

"Get a newspaper and crumple it up," suggested Mollie; "wet it in the pot-water."

When Bridget and Baby appeared at the door, two very hot and sticky children were surrounded by a litter of crumpled, wet, black newspapers, and the stove was as far as you can possibly imagine from being clean.

"Holy saints!" said Bridget.

Nothing could have looked less like holy saints than Mollie and Grizzel did at that moment. They stood up in the midst of the ruins, and Mollie waited for the skies to fall. But Biddy was a good- natured soul.

"An' me stove new cleaned this very mornin'--you an' yir jam! Be off wid ye!" flapping the children out of the way with her ap.r.o.n as she spoke.

"Come and wash," said Grizzel, catching up a tin basin from the porch as they went out.

When they were moderately clean again they went back to the playroom to see how the scent-makers were faring. They found Hugh and Prudence as red as lobsters; the big kettle had been moved and a tiny one put in its place.

"I thought I'd better try how the experiment was getting on," Hugh explained to Mollie and Grizzel. "There's no use doing all the roses till we see if it's all right; so I'm boiling up the distilled water now."

He peered into a doll's milk-jug, which was fastened on to the end of the little spout. "There is a little. We'll just try for oil," he said, lifting the jug off and carrying it to the window. There was about half a teaspoonful of water in the bottom.

"It looks oily; I guess there will be one drop." He sniffed anxiously as he spoke. "And it does smell of roses too, by jiminy!"

They all sniffed in turn, and agreed that there really was an undeniable smell of roses. "And it _might_ have only smelt of wet tin," Hugh said. "Look here, Prue, don't empty that little kettle.

We'll boil it up again and collect another drop. Put some more logs on the fire."

Prudence looked at Hugh with a slightly exasperated expression; she was very hot and rather tired: "Hugh Campbell, you know as well as I do that there is nothing but tinny water left in that kettle. If you think anyone is going to pay a guinea a drop for scent called Wet Tin you are a goose. I wouldn't buy it if it was the only scent in the world."

Hugh was not discouraged. "My _idea_ is right," he said. "I shall make a larger distiller and try again. There's plenty more roses.

Next time we are by the sea I shall look for ambergris. It is found floating on the sh.o.r.es of warm countries, and all scent should have ambergris in it, properly speaking."

"I shall try again too," said Grizzel. "There's plenty more cherries, and a new barrel of sugar came yesterday. After all, everybody has ups and downs when they are making fortunes. I'll take good care never to burn my jam again."

"I'm not really sure if attar of roses is worth while," Hugh said thoughtfully, his eyes on the tiny milk-jug in his hand; "only rich people could afford to buy it. If you want to make a fortune it is better to make something that everyone wants, rich and poor. Soap might do."

"Jam," said Grizzel.

"_I'm_ not sure if it is right to make fortunes at all," said Mollie slowly.

"Why not?" asked the other three all at once.

"Because it doesn't seem fair, somehow. Some people are so frightfully rich, and some people haven't even enough to eat. My mother goes to the children's hospital every week, and sometimes she takes me. You can't _think_ what some of the poor babies are like-- and then you go outside and see rich, _rich_ women in splendid motor-cars--I mean carriages," she corrected herself, "and it does make you feel things aren't fair, and I do like fairness."

The Australian children were silent for a minute or two.

"But if no one was rich no one could give," Grizzel said at last.

"We know very rich people here, and they do lovely kind things. Mrs.

Basil Hill sends us a packing-case of _exquisite_ oranges every summer, and when she comes to see Mamma she almost always brings us a surprise packet--last time it was five pounds of the most beautiful sweets in Rundle Street, and the time before it was all Miss Alcott's books."

"But if everybody was the same, people wouldn't have to give you things," said Mollie. "You'd have them yourself."

"Then we would never get a surprise," said Grizzel, "and that would be horribly dull. Don't you think it would be dull if everybody was exactly the same?"

"I suppose it would," Mollie admitted, with a sigh, feeling that she had not presented her case attractively; "but I think they might be samer than they are."

"There's no use talking," Hugh said decisively. "Australia is full of fortunes waiting to be made. I heard Papa say so. And the early bird gets the worm, and the better the bird the better it is for everyone all round."

"Except the worm," said Grizzel.

They all laughed. "I wish I had a brother instead of three sisters,"

Hugh remarked, emptying the contents of the tiny milk-jug over a handkerchief which had once been clean. "A brother would be some use. Where's yours?" he asked Mollie. "Did he get our message?"

This reminded Mollie of d.i.c.k's letter, which impressed the Australians as much as it had impressed Mollie.

"So the next thing--the next thing----" she repeated, looking round at the other three children. "What _is_ the next thing to do?"

"We can't tell you," Prudence said, with a funny little smile, "you'll have to fix it yourself in the end."

"Cooo-eeeee!" sounded from the cottage.