ST. VALENTINE
After that day when, on the lee side of the sand-dune the Evringham family read together the story of Johnnie and Chips, it was some time before the last tale in the story book was called for.
The farmhouse where they boarded stood near a pond formed by the rushing in of the sea during some change in the sands of the beach, so here was still another water playmate for Jewel.
"I do hope," said Mr. Evringham meditatively, on the first morning that he and Jewel stood together on its green bank, "I do hope that very particular housekeeper, Nature, will let this pond alone until we go!"
Jewel looked up at his serious face with the lines between the eyes. "She wouldn't touch this great big pond, would she?" she asked.
"Ho! Wouldn't she? Well, I guess so."
"But," suggested Jewel, lifting her shoulders, "she's too busy in summer in the ravines and everywhere."
"Oh," Mr. Evringham nodded his head knowingly. "Nature looks out for everything."
"Grandpa!" Jewel's eyes were intent. "Would she ask Summer to touch this great big pond? What would she want to do it for?"
"Oh, more house-cleaning, I suppose."
The child chuckled as she looked out across the blue waves, rippling in the wind and white-capped here and there, "When you know it's washed all the time, grandpa," she responded. "The waves are just scrubbing it now. Can't you see?"
"Yes," the broker nodded gravely. "No doubt that is why she has to empty it so seldom. Sometimes she lets it go a very long time; but then the day comes when she begins to think it over, and to calculate how much sediment and one thing and another there is in the bottom of that pond; and at last she says, 'Come now, out it must go!'"
"But how can she get it out, how?" asked Jewel keenly interested. "The brooks are all running somewhere, but the pond doesn't. How can she dip it out? It would take Summer's hottest sun a year!"
"Yes, indeed, Nature is too clever to try that. The winds are her servants, you know, and they understand their business perfectly; so when she says 'That pond needs to be cleaned out,' they merely get up a storm some night after everybody's gone to bed. The people have seen the pond fine and full when the sun went down. All that night the wind howls and the windows rattle and the trees bend and switch around; and if those in the farmhouse, instead of being in bed, were over there on the beach," the speaker waved his hand toward the shining white sand, distant, but in plain sight, "they might see countless billows working for dear life to dig a trench through the hard sand. The wind sends one tremendous wave after another to help them, and as a great roller breaks and recedes, all the little crested waves scrabble with might and main, pulling at the softened sand, until, after hours of this labor, the cut is made completely through from sea to pond."
Mr. Evringham looked down and met the unwinking gaze fixed upon him. "Then why—why," asked Jewel, "when the big rollers keep coming, doesn't the pond get filled fuller than ever?"
The broker lifted his forefinger toward his face with a long drawn "Ah-h! Nature is much too clever for that. She may not have gone to college, but she understands engineering, all the same. All this is accomplished just at the right moment for the outgoing tide to pull at the pond with a mighty hand. Well,"—pausing dramatically,—"you can imagine what happens when the deep cut is finished."
"Does the pond have to go, grandpa?"
"It just does, and in a hurry!"
"Is it sorry, do you think?" asked Jewel doubtfully.
"We-ell, I don't know that I ever thought of that side of it; but you can imagine the feelings of the people in the farmhouse, who went to bed beside the ripples of a smiling little lake, and woke to find themselves near a great empty bog."
Jewel thought and sighed deeply. "Well," she said, at last, "I hope Nature will wait till we're gone. I love this pond."
"Indeed I hope so, too. There wouldn't be any pleasant side to it."
Jewel's thoughtful face brightened. "Except for the little fishes and water-creatures that would rush out to sea. It's fun for them. Mustn't they be surprised when that happens, grandpa?"
"I should think so! Do you suppose the wind gives them any warning, or any time to pack?"
Jewel laughed. "I don't know; but just think of rushing out into those great breakers, when you don't expect it, right from living so quietly in the pond!"
"H'm. A good deal like going straight from Bel-Air Park to Wall Street, I should think."
Jewel grew serious. "I think fish have the most fun," she said. "Do you know, grandpa, I've decided that if I couldn't be your little grandchild, I'd rather be a lobster than anything."
The broker threw up his head, laughing. "Some children could combine the two," he replied, "but you can't."
"What?" asked Jewel.
"Nothing. Why not be a fish, Jewel? They're much more graceful."
"But they can't creep around among the coral and peek into oyster shells at the pearls."
"Imagine a lobster peeking!" Mr. Evringham strained his eyes to their widest and stared at Jewel, who shouted.
"That's just the way the sand-fleas look," she exclaimed.
"Well," remarked the broker, recovering his ordinary expression, "you may as well remain a little girl, so far as that goes. You can creep around among the coral and peek at pearls at Tiffany's."
"What's Tiffany's?"
"Something you will take more interest in when you're older." The broker shook his head. "The difference is that the lobster wouldn't care to wear the coral and pearls. An awful thought comes over me once in a while, Jewel," he added, after a pause.
The child looked up at him seriously. "It can be met," she answered quickly.
He smiled. He understood her peculiar expressions in these days. "Hardly, I think," he answered. "It is this: that you are going to grow up."
Jewel looked off at the blue water. "Well," she replied at last hopefully, "you're grown up, you know, and perhaps you'll like me then just as much as I do you."
He squeezed the little hand he held. "We'll hope so," he said.
"And besides, grandpa," she went on, for she had heard him express the same dread before, "we'll be together every day, so perhaps you won't notice it. Sometimes I've tried to see a flower open. I've known it was going to do it, and I've been just bound I'd see it; and I've watched and watched, but I never could see when the leaves spread, no matter how much I tried, and yet it would get to be a rose, somehow. Perhaps some day somebody'll say to you, 'Why, Jewel's a grown up lady, isn't she?' and you'll say, 'Is she, really? Why, I hadn't noticed it.'"
"That's a comforting idea," returned Mr. Evringham briefly, his eyes resting on the upturned face.
"So now, if the pond won't run away, we'll have the most fun," went on Jewel, relieved. "They said we could take this boat, grandpa, and have a row." She lifted her shoulders and smiled.
"H'm. A row and a swim combined," returned the broker. "I'm surprised they've nothing better this year than that ramshackle boat. You'll have to bail if we go."
"What's bail?" eagerly.
"Dipping out the water with a tin cup."
"Oh, that'll be fun. It'll be an adventure, grandpa, won't it?"
"I hope not," earnestly, was the reply; but Jewel was already sitting on the grass pulling off her shoes and stockings. She leaped nimbly into the wet boat, and Mr. Evringham stepped gingerly after her, seeking for dry spots for his canvas shoes.
"I think," said the child joyfully, as they pushed off, "when the winds and waves notice us having so much fun, they'll let the pond alone, don't you?"
"If they have any hearts at all," responded Mr. Evringham, bending to the oars.
"Oh, grandpa, you can tell stories like any thing!" exclaimed Jewel admiringly.
"It has been said before," rejoined the broker modestly.
When outdoor gayeties had to be dispensed with one day, on account of a thorough downpour of rain, the last story in Jewel's book was called for.
The little circle gathered in the big living-room; there was no question now as to whether Mr. Evringham should be present.
"It is Hobson's choice this time," said Mrs. Evringham, "so we'll all choose the story, won't we?"
"Let Anna Belle have the turn, though," replied Jewel. "She chose the first one and she must have the last, because she doesn't have so much fun as the rest of us." She hugged the doll and kissed her cheeks comfortingly. It was too true that often of late Anna Belle did not accompany all the excursions, but she went to bed with Jewel every night, and it was seldom that the child was too sleepy to take her into full confidence concerning the events of the day; and Anna Belle, being of a sedentary turn and given to day dreams, was apparently quite as well pleased.
Now Mr. Evringham settled in a big easy-chair; the reader took a small one by the window, and Jewel sat on the rug before the fire, holding Anna Belle.
"Now we're off," said Mr. Evringham.
"Go to sleep if you like, father," remarked the author, smiling, and then she began to read the story entitled