LETTER No. 2 FROM BESSIE MAYNARD TO HER DOLL.
Old Orchard Beach, July, 1880.
The days must seem very long and lonely to you, my sweet Clytemnestra, and I will send you another letter, to "cheer you up a bit," as nursie used to say when she gave me a lump of sugar, after pulling my curls 'most out of my head, trying to get out the tangles.
How are you getting along all this time? and what do you find to amuse yourself with? Do you sit still in your own corner of the baby-house day after day, or does some kind fairy come in once in a while and wind you up, so that you can run round the room and get a little exercise? We will have lots of walks and talks when I get home, my Clytie. I heard mamma telling Cousin Frank last night that we should proberly go next month. If I did not know that you were at home expecting and wanting me, it would be awfully hard to think of leaving this place; for life by the sad sea waves is truly (as I heard a lady say yesterday) "fassernating and terancing."
There are so many people here it seems like a party all the time. There are not many children, though—at least not at our hotel; only Fanny, Dora, and me for girls; Randolph Peyton, Jack Hunter, Charley Phillips, and Hal Davis for boys; Snip and Moppet for dogs; and the cunningest wee little mite of a pussykin, named Whitetoes, for cats. Not that cats and dogs are exactly children, either, but they are just as good, and sometimes better. I'm sure I would rather play any time with Snip and Whitetoes than with that horrid Randolph. He is the very unpolitest boy I ever knew. Let me tell you something he did yesterday, and then I guess you will agree with me. We seven children and the dogs had planned a beautiful picnic down on "the island," as we call it.
You know the geography says (or you would know if you had ever been to school, poor child!) that "an island is a portion of land entirely surrounded by water." Well, this "portion of land" runs out ever so far into the sea, and has a pretty grove on it; and at high tide the water covers the little strip of land where it really joins the beach, so that for a little while it is an island, but the rest of the time it is a peninsula. That is a big word, and you don't know a bit what it means, and I can't tell you now; you shall learn about it when we begin our lessons.
But, oh dear, I was going to tell you about the picnic, and Randolph Peyton, the great disagreeable boy. Somehow or other, when I begin to write to you, there are so many things to essplain that I never seem to "come to the point," as papa says.
HOW WE LOOKED JUST BEFORE IT HAPPENED.
We had planned to start at eight o'clock, but what with Moppet's running away, and Snip's taking a nap behind a hay-cock down in the orchard, where we only found him by accident at the very last minute, we were not fairly on our way till almost nine. The boys carried the lunch baskets, Fan wheeled her baby carriage, with poor invalid Jane lying back on the pillows, looking too forlorn for anything, but really Fan seems to love her even more than she loved Lucille; and I do think, considering what Jane has been through, that she is the very best child in the world.
Sometimes when I look at her woe-begone face, and her poor little head without a single hair on it (she wears a lace cap, but we can see the bald right through), and remember her cheeks as they used to be, and her lovely golden curls, and then think how gentle and kind she is, never complaining, nor speaking a single cross word, I can't help saying' right out to her, "You poor little dear thing. Solomon was right when he said 'Handsome is, that handsome does.'" Well, Fan wheeled her along, and I carried Moppet curled up in my arms like a white puff-ball, while Dora ran races all along the beach with Snip.
I forgot to tell you that Randolph had been behaving badly all the way, teasing us girls, pinching the dogs, and making fun of Jane; but the terrible thing of all did not happen till we were crossing over to the island. We always lay a board across from a rock on the beach side to a rock on the island side, and over that we girls walk, though the boys generally wade right through the water.
Fan and Jane went first on the board, then Dora and Snip, and last Moppet and me.
Now listen, my Clytie, though, without having seen it, you never can quite know how perfectly terrible it was. Just as Dora and Snip were in the very middle of the board, and all of us were on it, Randolph, who was standing in the water, gave a most unearthly screech, and at that very minute— But, mercy me! there's the tea-bell, and you must excuse me, my lamb, for leaving you right here, for how can I help it when I smell waffles?—waffles, and muffins too, I think.
In greatest haste,
Your own mamma,
Bessie.
P.S.—It was waffles I smelled, and I thought of you, dear Clytie, as I ate them. Now I shall have to leave my story of Randolph at its very smilax (or climax, which is it?), and finish it in my next letter, for I have written so much my fingers are all cramped up; so good-night.