Princess Polly At Play Part 22

"I promised him I wouldn't tell," said Gwen, "and I won't!"

She wriggled from her mother's grasp, and racing across the piazza, fled up the stairway to her room.

"Gwen is too honorable to break a promise," sighed Mrs. Harcourt, as she left the group of disgusted ladies, to follow her small girl to her apartment.

"Too stubborn would be nearer the truth," muttered the stout lady.

"That child should be made to tell," said another.

"She shall be made to tell," Mrs. Deland said as she turned toward the small room that served as an office.

Gwen, as stubborn as a little mule, refused to tell the proprietor of the house, when he called her into his office, and after talking for a half hour on the naughtiness of being stubborn, and the especial naughtiness of not telling where Max went, and thus helping the searchers to find him, she again flatly refused.

If it had been true honor in being determined to keep her promise that made Gwen refuse, one could not but praise her courage, but her impulse was wholly selfish.

Max had said that if he ever returned and found that she had told, he would never speak to her again.

She valued Max's friends.h.i.+p above that of any of her playmates, and she refused to tell where he went, because he had insisted.

There was great rejoicing at "The Syren's Cave."

The "coming in" of the s.h.i.+p that Captain Seaford had long been looking for proved to be even more fortunate than he had dreamed.

Its cargo was indeed valuable, and as he obtained a much higher price for it than he had expected, his kindly heart was filled with gratefulness, and his eyes grew brighter, and he walked with a lighter step.

Mrs. Seaford went about the little house, singing at her work, and Sprite, happy, laughing Sprite, danced upon the beach, played in the surf, or rocked in her boat, singing, always singing of the water sprites, the mermen and mermaids of whom she never tired of hearing.

Princess Polly and Rose were both delighted when they heard of the Seafords' good fortune, but of the disappearance of Max they had not heard, because they had been away on a little ocean trip.

It happened, on the day that Max decided to run away, that no steamer lay at the wharf, nor was there so much as a s.h.i.+p in sight.

There was, however, a coal barge, and Max, determined to go on that very day, watched his chance, and at the first opportunity slipped aboard, where in frantic haste he looked for a hiding place.

Steps approaching set him into panic, and an empty barrel standing in a shadowy corner of the little cabin seemed his only refuge.

"There's only a few er these ol' pertaters, so I'll chuck 'em inter this barrel in the cabin," shouted a gruff voice, and in they went onto Max's head and shoulders. Not a sound did he make, although the potatoes felt decidedly hard, and evidently had been thrown in with none too gentle a hand.

It seemed to the boy in his cramped position as if the coal barge would never start.

At twilight, however, he felt the motion, and knew that he was sailing away from Cliffmore, the empty barge to return with another load of coal, but he, Max Deland, to keep straight on in search of a land where a fellow didn't have to mind his mother, but could seek and easily find a fortune, and then return sufficiently independent to have his own way.

It happened that Max had been seen sneaking aboard the vessel, and a bit later jumping into the empty barrel to hide, and the sailors had first thought of putting him ash.o.r.e with a sharp warning to keep away from the barge in the future.

Then it occurred to them that a better lesson could be given him by letting him remain on board for a few days, and then placing him aboard of the first fis.h.i.+ng smack that they met, bound for Cliffmore.

The potatoes had not been carelessly thrown in upon him. It had been done intentionally, to act as a part of his punishment.

Long before anyone on board was asleep, Max was wis.h.i.+ng that he had never thought of running away.

He thought of the fine dinner that had been served at Cliffmore hours before, and here was he, Max Deland, in an old and dirty barrel that vegetables had been stored in, very hungry, and with no way of obtaining anything to eat.

After a time, his cramped position became unbearable, and slowly but surely he crept out of the barrel, and upon the cabin floor, where, because he was so weary, he fell into sound sleep.

At daylight a group of sailors were looking down at the sleeping boy.

The captain of the barge spoke.

"Good-looking little chap, but he must learn not to try this trick again. Let him lie there until he wakes. Then give him some breakfast, hard tack and water, remember, and then give him the task I set for him. When the first fis.h.i.+ng smack, bound for Eastville appears, start him for home."

"Aye, aye, sir!" was the prompt reply, and the boy stirred as if he had heard it.

"Come now! Step lively!" cried the mate. "No loitering on s.h.i.+pboard."

Max, hardly awake, barely grasped the meaning of the words, and scrambled to his feet.

"Now, then, forward march if you want something to eat."

Max marched. He dared not refuse, but he did rebel when he saw what was offered for his breakfast.

"I can't eat that!" he said angrily.

"All right! Forward, march! We'll let ye work on an empty stomach if ye really hanker to."

All sorts of tasks were set for him, and for the next few days he was kept exceedingly busy.

He learned to do as he was told, and to do it promptly; to eat what was given him without grumbling, and there was something else that he learned by his hard experience. He learned what a fortunate boy he had always been; to appreciate all the good things that had always been so freely given him, and above all these, he longed for his mother's love.

He thought what a good boy he'd be if ever he reached the sh.o.r.e, and he resolved never to run away, whatever happened that displeased him.

A happy boy was Max when a pa.s.sing smack stopped long enough so that he could be taken on board, and then headed straight for Cliffmore.

Max thought nothing had ever looked so beautiful as the cliffs from which Cliffmore took its name, when in the early morning they sailed into the bay, and saw the warm sunlight kissing land and sea.

Ah, he would never run away again, for now he knew the value of home and love.

He ran all the way from the wharf, and up the beach and climbed the great ledge on which sat the house where with his mother he had been staying. He rushed up the steps to the piazza, wildly crying:

"Where are you? Where is everybody? I've come home! I've come home!"

They came at once, and from every direction, like ants from an ant hill, and swarmed around him, asking more questions than he could answer.

A tall, handsome woman rushed across the piazza, her eyes bright with hope.

"Stand aside!" she cried. "It is Max! My little Max! I know his voice!

Oh, let me reach him!"

The crowd parted, and the boy was instantly clasped in his mother's arms.