Cricket at the Seashore Part 40

"Oh, yes, indeed. I saw them often when he was a baby--bare, I mean. The shoulder ended smoothly where the arms should be. He grew up a very bright little fellow. Running barefoot all the time, as he did, I suppose he learned to pick up things with his toes very naturally. At any rate, when he was eight years old he could even handle his knife and fork with his toes."

"Ugh!" shuddered Eunice, "Did he sit on the table?"

"No, not quite so bad as that. He sat on a little low stool, and his plate was put on the floor in front of him. He would pick up his knife and fork, cut up his meat, and feed himself as deftly as possible. It was very funny."

"Think of was.h.i.+ng his feet before dinner, instead of his hands!" giggled Cricket.

"Could he get his feet right up to his mouth?" asked Eunice.

"Yes, easily. He was very limber."

Zaidee instantly sat down on the piazza floor and attempted the performance.

"It most cracks my back," she said, getting up and trying to reach around behind herself to rub it.

"_I_ could do it," said supple Cricket, who could sit on the floor and put her legs around her neck.

"He went to the district school," went on grandma, "and learned to read very quickly, and his mental arithmetic was really wonderful. Long examples that the others did on their slates, he did almost as quickly in his head. One year, they had a very good, patient teacher, who, noticing how deftly he picked up all sorts of things with his toes, had the bright idea of teaching him to write by holding his pen between his toes. Now his toes, by constant using, had grown longer and slenderer than most people's, and in a very short time he could guide a pencil sufficiently to make very legible letters. Quite as much so as your first attempts with your left hand, just now, Jean."

"Think of it!" exclaimed Cricket. "I'm going to try it to-night when we go to bed, Eunice."

"It was a funny sight to see him get ready for his school work. When he arrived at school his brother washed and dried his feet carefully, and put on him an old pair of loose slippers to keep them clean. His slate or paper would be put on the floor before him, and he would slip his foot out of his slipper, grasp his pencil, and begin. By the end of a year, he really wrote wonderfully well."

"Oh-h!" sighed Zaidee. "Helen and I practised lots, last winter, with mamma, and we can't write much now. We writed every day, too."

"Where is the man now?" asked Eunice. "What became of him?"

"When he was a boy of fourteen or so, a travelling circus manager heard of him, and offered him a large salary to go with him to be exhibited,"

answered grandma. "He got a large salary, and after that helped support his family. He learned to do many other things with his toes, later, people said. For instance, he drew beautifully, and could even hold a knife and whittle a stick. The family soon left here, and I never knew anything more about him. So, my little Jean, aren't you encouraged to practise writing with your left hand, with good hope of success?"

"Yes, indeed, grandma," answered Cricket, taking her pencil, and going to work again, awkwardly but energetically. And I may just say, in pa.s.sing, that she worked to such good effect, that in ten days' time her left-handed writing, though it slanted backward, was firm and legible.

"There!" exclaimed Cricket, with a long sigh, after her first half-hour was over, as she rose to stretch her arm above her head, "I've written so long that I'm so tired that I can hardly put one foot before the other."

"That would be a more appropriate sentiment if you were my no-armed man," said grandma, smiling.

"I'm just _wild_ with keeping still, grandma! Resting makes me _so_ tired. I want to go rowing or riding or walking. I'd like to jump over the moon, as far as my feelings go, but it makes my arm ache if I move round much."

"Read aloud to us," suggested grandma, "and perhaps Eunice will hold the wool for me while you do."

Cricket liked to read aloud, and she got a book very willingly.

"Here's a lovely story," she said, "all about battles and fighting, and exciting things. 'How Captain Jack Won His Epauplets.'"

"Won his--_what_?" asked grandma, holding her ball suspended.

"His epauplets. He was just a plain, every-day soldier, you know, to start with."

"Oh! won his epaulets, you mean," said grandma, gravely.

"Won his--oh, of course! how stupid of me!" looking more closely at the word. "Now I've always thought that word was epauplets, grandma, truly I did."

"Go on and begin," said Eunice; "how did he win them?"

The reading proceeded quietly for a time. Eunice held the wool, grandma wound it off, and Zaidee and Helen played tonka on the piazza steps.

Tonka was a little j.a.panese game on the order of jackstones, only, instead of hard, n.o.bby stones, that spoil the dimpled knuckles, tiny bags of soft, gay silk, half full of rice, are used. Six little bags are made with the ends gathered, and one more, the tonka, is made flat and square of some different coloured silk, to distinguish it, as the gay little bags fly up and down. It was a very favourite amus.e.m.e.nt with all the children. Eliza was with Kenneth, and auntie was lying down, for the poor baby had been wakeful and in much pain the night before, and auntie had had little sleep.

Nearly an hour slipped by, when suddenly grandma stopped Cricket.

"How quiet the children are. Are they there still?" turning to see.

Eunice looked up also.

"Dear me, I haven't thought of them for a long time. They've slipped off. I suppose I ought to go and see what Zaidee's doing, and tell her she mustn't," and Eunice lay down her work. She had had to have much care of the younger ones these last few days.

"I'll go, too," said Cricket, getting up gladly. "'Scuse us, please, grandma, for leaving you all alone."

Cricket had scarcely ever been ill a day in her life, not even with children's diseases, which she had always escaped, and, in all her adventures, she was very rarely hurt. Therefore, pain was a very dreadful thing to her. She bore it bravely, but it was strange to see her looking so pale and heavy-eyed. But these few days of suffering were teaching her many things.

Eunice and Cricket heard the sound of the children's voices as they turned the corner of the house.

"Oh, they're all right," said Eunice, relieved.

Just back of the house, in a tiny little shed, built especially for it, stood a big barrel of kerosene. It was kept outside, because grandma was very much afraid of the possibility of fire. Once, in an unlucky moment, the waitress, Delia, in drawing the oil into a small can to be carried into the house, had yielded to Zaidee's entreaty, and had let her turn that fascinating little spigot. After that the twins made several private expeditions to the barrel, but as the spigot was kept locked, of course they could not turn it. It chanced that this morning Delia had drawn the oil in a hurry, and had forgotten to turn the catch in the spigot that locked it.

Zaidee and Helen, prowling around for something to do, chanced to come past the barrel, and Zaidee tried the faucet. To their rapture a spurting stream of oil instantly poured out. An old dipper, lying near by, was immediately seized upon, as something to fill, and all the flower beds that were near by were well watered with kerosene. Next, they spied a small churn, which Bridget, the cook, had just put out in the sun to dry. This was an opportunity not to be neglected, and the next dipperful of kerosene went splash into Bridget's clean, white churn. Up and down went the dasher, worked by these eager hands, while, behind them, the kerosene still poured from the barrel.

"Yes, they're all right," repeated Eunice. "They're only working the churn-dasher up and down. Probably Bridget left some water in it to soak."

"Come over here," called Zaidee, hospitably.

"We're making b.u.t.ter, Eunice."

Eunice drew a little nearer, then, suddenly, she stopped, sniffed, and darted forward.

"Children, what _have_ you there?"

"Caroseme," responded Zaidee, promptly. "We drawed it from the pretty little fountain in the barrel."

Eunice turned hastily towards the "caroseme" barrel, then flew towards it. As the barrel had been lately filled there was plenty in it, still, and it was flowing merrily, while a pool of kerosene lay over the board floor.

"Goodness gracious me! How shall I ever get in there to turn it off?"

cried Eunice. "I _can't_ step in it?"

"Let Zaidee do it. She's soaking already with it. Zaidee, come here, directly, and turn this kerosene off."

Zaidee came up cheerfully, and waded in, regardless of her shoes.

"It's too bad to turn it off, when it looks so pretty," she said, regretfully.