Three Little Cousins

by Amy Ella Blanchard

Of all the things which most amused the three little girls and their friend, Grace, they enjoyed dressing up at dusk, and, in their queer costumes, going around from cottage to cottage to call. Uncle Dick was very clever in painting their faces so that they appeared as birds with owl-like eyes and beaks or as cats, rabbits or some other animal. At other times they were Indians in war paint and feathers; again they were Egyptians or Chinese and dressed to suit the character.

"What shall we do this evening?" said Polly one day when the question of the evening's fun was being talked over. "We want to go to Mrs. Phillips's this time because she gives us such good cakes."

"It's pretty far," said Molly doubtfully. "It is almost to the village, and there are some rough boys down that way. I don't mind going to Mrs. Phillips's in the morning, but if we should happen to get caught there after the sun goes down I shouldn't like it."

"We needn't get caught late," Polly protested, "besides, it is so much more mysterious to go around when it is a little bit duskish. It isn't as if any one of us would be alone; there will be four and nobody around here would do anything to hurt us, anyhow."

"No, I don't suppose any one really would," Molly returned weakly, her objections over-ruled. And therefore when the cottages began to loom darkly against the evening sky, the four little girls sallied forth, draped in white sheets, and made their way over the hilltop to the road beyond. They had usually confined their visits to their acquaintances in the immediate neighborhood, so their aunt did not trouble herself to inquire where they were going that evening, otherwise she might have forbidden the walk they had in mind.

"Don't they look like four dear little Arabs?" said Miss Ada to her brother. "They make a perfect picture as they go over the hill in the evening light. How much they enjoy these little frolics." She turned from watching the white-sheeted four who soon disappeared down the road.

It was great fun, thought the girls, to call upon their various friends and pretend they were foreigners who did not understand the language of those whom they were visiting; yet they understood enough to accept refreshments offered them, and managed to say, "thank you" and "good-bye."

It was after they had been regaled upon cakes and lemonade at Mrs. Phillips's that the moment came which Molly had been dreading. The shadows had deepened and the stars were trying to come out, while a little light still lingered in the western sky. "We'd better not take the short cut," said Molly. "It is so rough that way, and it is muddy in places; we'll go around by the road." The lights were twinkling out from the fishermen's homes and from the vessels anchored in the cove. There were not many persons on the road, and the four little girls hastened their steps.

Presently a shout, then the bark of a dog arose from behind them, and in another minute they were surrounded by a crowd of jeering boys and barking dogs. "Yaw! Yaw! Yaw!" shouted the boys. "Sic 'em, Sailor! Sick 'em, Towser!" The dogs nipped at the retreating heels and the boys twitched the flowing robes of the four Arabs.

"Oh, let us alone! Let us alone!" shrieked Molly.