THE AIR-CASTLE
"A vacation school, Katharine? And pray what may that be?"
Kyzie's cheeks were flushed, her eyes shining. She held her mother's hand and talked fast, though plainly she did not feel quite at her ease.
"Why, mamma, you've certainly heard of vacation schools—summer schools? They're very common nowadays. In the summer, you know; so that college people can go to them, and business people."
"Ah! Like the one at Coronado Beach? Now I understand. But it didn't occur to me that my little daughter would know enough to teach college people!"
"Now, mamma, don't laugh at me! Of course I mean children, the little ignorant children right around here," making a sweeping gesture toward the cottages and "bunk houses" that dotted the country lower down the mountain, "I know enough to teach little children, I should hope, mamma."
"Possibly!"
Mrs. Dunlee's tone was so doubtful that her daughter felt crushed.
"Possibly you may know enough about books; but book-knowledge is not all that is required in a teacher. Could you keep the children in order? Would they obey you?"
The little girl's head drooped a little.
"Let me see, you are only fourteen?"
"Fourteen last April, mamma. But everybody says, don't you know, that I'm very large for my age."
She tried to speak bravely, but the look of quiet amusement on her listener's face made it rather hard for her to go on.
"I suppose," said she, dropping her eyes again, "I suppose they don't know much here, mamma,—the families that live here all the time. Some of the boys actually go barefooted."
"So I have observed. A great saving of shoes."
"And they had a school last summer," went on Kyzie, resolutely. "A young girl taught it who boarded where we do. Mr. Templeton said she did it for fun."
"Indeed!"
"But they didn't like her a bit. I could teach as well as she did anyway, mamma, for she just went around the room boxing their ears."
"Is it possible, Katharine?" Mrs. Dunlee was serious enough now. "To box a child's ears is simply brutal!"
"I knew you'd say so, mamma; but that was just what Miss Severance did. Of course I wouldn't touch their ears any more than I would fly!"
Mrs. Dunlee turned now and regarded her daughter attentively.
"But how did you ever happen to take up this sudden fancy for teaching, dear? It's all new to me. What first made you think of it—at your age? Can you tell?"
"Oh, mamma, I've been thinking about it, off and on, for a year. Ever since I was at Willowbrook last summer and heard Grandma Parlin talk about her first school. Why, don't you remember, she was just fourteen, she said, nearly three months younger than I am."
Mrs. Dunlee understood it all now, and said to herself:—
"Dear old Grandma Parlin! Little did she imagine she was filling her great grand-daughter's head with mischievous notions!"
They walked on a short way in silence. "But you must remember, Katharine, that was seventy years ago. Grandma Parlin wouldn't advise a girl of fourteen to do in these days as she did then. Schools are very different now."
"Yes, indeed, mamma, very, very different. Isn't it too bad? I'd like to 'board 'round' the way grandma did, and rap on the window with a ferule, and 'choose sides' and all that! But there's one thing I could do!" exclaimed the little girl, brightening. "I could make the children 'toe the mark'; wouldn't that be fun? I mean stand in a line on a crack in the floor. How grandma would laugh! I'll write her all about it, and send her a photograph, bare feet and all."
In her eagerness Kyzie spoke as if the matter were all arranged and she could almost see the children "toeing the mark."
"Not so fast, my daughter. Remember there are three points to be settled before we can discuss the matter seriously. First, would your papa consent? Second, would your mamma consent? Third, do the people of Castle Cliff want a summer school anyway?"
"Three points? I see, oh, yes," said Kyzie, meekly.
"But now, Katharine, let us walk a little faster and join the others. And not a word more of this to-day."
"What did keep you two so long?" asked Edith, coming to meet them with a bright face. If her happy thoughts had not been dwelling on the zebra cat just presented her by the "knitting-woman," she would have observed at once that mamma and Kyzie had been "talking secrets"; though she might not have suspected that this had anything to do with the vacation school.
"Do hurry along," she added. I want to show you the funniest sight! I don't believe you've seen Barbara Hale, have you?"
Edith could hardly speak for laughing; and her mother and Kyzie did not wonder when they beheld the figure that little Bab had made of herself, by a new style of dressing her hair. The two little girls were, as I have told you, as different as possible, but had an intense desire to look "just alike"; and when they tried their best the result was very funny.
I will mention here that Lucy "despised" her own hair for not being straight like Bab's, and had often tried to braid it down her back; but as the braid always came out and the ribbon came off, the attempt had been forbidden.
Now, however, as the children had left their city home and come to a place where everybody was "on holiday," the mammas decided that they might have a little more liberty.
Their dresses were off the same piece,—good, strong brown ones; their hats were alike; and, as for their hair, they were allowed to wear it as they pleased "just for this summer."
"We'll look exactly alike up there in the mountains," the little souls had said to each other; and this was perhaps one reason why they had been so overjoyed at the prospect of going.
"'It is perfectly awful!' said Aunt Lucy"
But to-day, ah! who would have dreamed that sweet little Bab could become such a fright? She had done up her hair the night before on as many as twenty curl-papers. Before starting for the air-castle she had taken out some of the papers and found—not ringlets, but wisps of very unruly hair. It would not curl any more than water will run up hill.
She went to Aunt Lucy in her trouble to seek advice. Aunt Lucy looked her over with great care and then announced:—
"It is perfectly awful! Don't take out any more papers, Bab. Let 'em be, so you can have something to stick the curls on to."
And so it was done. The "curls," as Lucy was pleased to call them, were drawn up and looped and twisted and fastened by hair-pins to the other curls left in the papers. The effect was most surprising. It made Bab's head so much higher than usual that she was as tall now as auntie, and that in itself was a great gain. Besides, this style, as Lucy said, was the "pompy-doo," and very fashionable!
If Bab could have kept her hat on! But she couldn't, and the moment it came off they all cried out:—
"Why-ee, Barbara!" and turned away to laugh.
If Mrs. McQuilken had been there she would have said the child looked "as if she was possessed of the fox."
"The little goosies! Let them enjoy it!" whispered Mrs. Hale to Mrs. Dunlee. " But those topknots will have to come down before the child can go to the dinner-table."
And then both the ladies laughed privately behind a large tree. The mountain air was doing them good, and they often had as merry times together as the young people.
"Hear the boyoes," cried Edith, meaning Jimmy and Nate, who had now reached the air-castle and were shouting with all their might. The children ran, and so indeed did the older ones, for there was an excellent path all the way.
"So that is the air-castle," exclaimed Kyzie, when they were all within sight of it. "It's a real house, built right in the mountain."
She was right. There happened to be a great crack right here in the rocky side of the mountain, and a cunning little house had been tucked into the crack. It was built of small stones. It had two real windows with glass panes, and a real door with a brass knocker, which the children declared was "too cute for anything."
"The house is as strong as a fort," said Uncle James. "Do you observe it is walled all around with stones?"
"Do you know who built it?" asked Aunt Vi; "and why he built it?"
"A rich Mexican named Bandini. He admired the view from the mountain, and I don't blame him, do you? He wanted a nice, quiet place where he could read and write; that was why he came here. He has been here every summer for years."
"Well," said Mr. Dunlee, "if you call this an air-castle I must say it is the most solid one I ever heard of! It doesn't look dreamy at all. Why, an earthquake could hardly shake it."
"The steps that lead up to it are not dreamy either," said Mrs. Dunlee. "Real granite; and there's a large flag up there floating from the evergreen tree."
The "boyoes" had already climbed the steps, and Nate called down to Mrs. Dunlee, "It's the Mexican flag!" But she had known that at a glance. The colors were red, white, and green, and the device was an eagle on a prickly pear with a snake in his mouth.
"I wonder if there's anybody at home," said Nate, and would have lifted the knocker if Jimmy had not said, "Wait for Uncle James."
Jimmy thought as Uncle James was the leader of the expedition he should be the one to do the knocking, or at any rate to tell them when to knock. Nate himself had not thought of this. He was not so refined as Jimmy, either by nature or by training.
Everybody had climbed the steps now. The older people were enjoying the magnificent view; but Bab and Lucy were looking for the two toads who had been seen going up to the castle together, the well toad taking the lame toad's foot in his mouth.
"I wish they were both here," said Uncle James, "for you would like to see them take that little journey."
"And the Mexican who built this air-castle," said Aunt Vi, "is he here this summer?"
"No, he died last spring."
"Died?" echoed little Eddo, who had heard that dying means "going up in the sky." "What made him die, mamma? Didn't he like it down here?"
Then without waiting for a reply he added most tenderly and unexpectedly, "Isn't it nice that you're not dead, mamma?"
"Why do you think that, my son?" she asked, wondering what he would say.
"Oh, be-cause I am so glad about it." And at this sweet little speech his mother caught him up in her arms and kissed him. How could she help it?
"Now," said Uncle James, "let us see if we can enter the castle. 'Open locks whoever knocks.' Try it, boys."
Nate lifted the knocker and pounded with a will. There was no answer or sign of life.
"Let's see if this will help us," said Uncle James, taking a key from his vest pocket:—
"For I'm the keeper of the keys,
And I do whatever I please."
The key actually fitted the lock, the door opened at once, and they all entered the castle.
"Mr. Templeton lent me the key," explained Mr. Sanford. "He said the castle was as empty as a last year's bird's nest, but I thought we might like to take a look at it."
"We do, oh, we do," said Lucy. "Isn't it queer? Just two rooms and nothing in 'em at all! Oh, Bab, let's you and I bring some dishes up here and keep house! Here's a cupboard right in the wall."
"I guess it's Mother Hubbard's cupboard, it looks bare enough. Just a table in the room and one old chair," exclaimed Edith.
"I'm glad we came in, though," said Kyzie. "Isn't it beautiful to stand in the door and look down, down, and see Castle Cliff right at your feet? And off there a city—Why, what's that noise?"
No one answered. The older people knew the sound: it was that of an angry rattlesnake out of doors shaking his rattle.
Mr. Dunlee said:—
"Stay in the house, please, you ladies, and keep the children here. James and I will go out and attend to this."
He had an alpenstock, Uncle James a cane. The ladies and Mr, Hale and the children watched the two gentlemen from the window,—all but little Eddo, whose mother was playing bo-peep with him to prevent him from looking out. A handsome rattlesnake was winding his way up the mountain in pursuit of a tiny baby rabbit. The little "cotton-tail" was running for the castle as fast as he could, intending to hide in a hole under the door-stone. But he never would have reached the door-stone alive, poor little trembling creature, if Mr. Dunlee and Uncle James had not come up just in time to finish the cruel snake with cane and alpenstock. Bunny got away safe, without even stopping to say, "Thank you." The snake wore seven rattles, of which he was very proud; but Eddo had them next day for a plaything, and made as much noise with them as ever the snake had done; though Eddo never knew where they came from.
It had been a delightful day, and when the friends all met again at table they kept saying, "Didn't we have a good time?"
It was to be noticed that Barbara's "topknots" had disappeared; and I am glad to say that she never wore her lovely hair "pompy-doo" again.
Kyzie's face was alight. In passing the door of her mother's room she had heard her father say, laughing:—
"What, our Katharine? Why, how that would amuse Mr. Templeton!"
Kyzie had hurried away for fear of listening; but now she kept thinking:—
"Papa laughed. He always laughs when he is going to say 'yes.' He'll talk to Mr. Templeton, and I just know I shall have the school Isn't it splendid?"