Three Little Cousins

by Amy Ella Blanchard

Molly was silent for a few minutes and then she began. "My most exciting time was last fall when we were going home from here. We took the early boat, you remember, Aunt Ada, and the sea was very rough. We were about half way to the city when a tremendous wave rushed toward us and we were all thrown down on deck. I went banging against the rail, but Uncle Dick caught me, though he said if the rail hadn't been strong we all might have been washed off into the sea. It was two or three minutes before we could get to our feet and I was awfully scared; so was everybody."

"It was not rough at all when we came down here from the city," remarked Mary.

"It is usually very smooth," said Miss Ada, "but the time of which Molly speaks it was unusually rough and we all had reason to be terrified. Now your tale, Polly."

Polly sat looking into the fire for a moment before she said, "I think the time I was most scared was once when Uncle Dick and I were riding home on our ponies. It was most dark and the sun was dropping behind the mountains; it always seems lonely and solemn then anyhow. I wasn't riding my own pony that day for he had hurt his foot, so I had Buster, Ted's broncho: I'd often been on him before and I wasn't a bit afraid to ride him. Well, we were coming along pretty fast because it was getting so late and we were a good distance from home. Of course there were no houses nearer than ours, and that was three miles away. I was a little ahead when a jack-rabbit jumped up right before Buster's nose and he lit out and ran for all he was worth. I held on tight, but he kept running and pretty soon I saw we were making toward a bunch of cattle. Buster used to be a cattle pony and I thought: suppose that bunch should stampede and I should get into the thick of them. I was always more scared of a stampede than anything else. Well, the cattle did begin to run but I jerked at Buster's bridle and managed to work him little by little away from the cattle, but he never stopped running till we got home and then I just tumbled off on the ground, somehow, and sat there crying till Uncle Dick came up. He had no idea that Buster was doing anything I didn't want him to, but just thought I was going fast for a joke and because I wanted to get home."

"I think that was tremendously exciting," commented Molly, "and I think you were very brave, for it lasted so long. It is easy to be brave for a minute, but not for so long."

"Fancy living in such a wild country," remarked Mary.

"Oh, but it is beautiful," said Polly enthusiastically. "The mountains are bigger than anything you can imagine, and it is so fine and free. Oh, you don't know till you see it."

"I am quite sure I should like England better," declared Mary positively. "London is much finer than New York, which is very ugly, I think, and our dear little villages are so pretty. I never saw such queer tumble-down places as you have here in the country. I think our hedge-rows and lanes are much prettier."

"Never mind, now," said Miss Ada gently. "Tell us about your most exciting time."

"Really, I never did anything very exciting, you know," returned Mary. "Once I was in Kensington Gardens and got lost from nurse. I was frightfully scared for a little while. However, I sat quite still and she came up after a bit."