Cricket at the Seashore

by Elizabeth Weston Timlow

"Naughty little things! I had to."

"Oh, do tell me about that. I just love hearing about mamma when she was naughty!" begged Cricket, turning over the soft gold curls. "It's just exactly like Kenneth's and Helen's, isn't it? And mamma's hair isn't very much darker, now, is it? What a shame you had to cut it!"

"Indeed it was. I was so proud of their lovely hair, and they were such lovely children, everybody said. They were little things. Auntie Jean was nearly five, and your mamma was three. I was visiting my sister in Philadelphia with them both. It was in May, but it was very warm. The children were still in the habit of taking an afternoon nap. One day they were put to bed, as usual, about two o'clock, and my sister and myself went down-town for some shopping. I had a new nursemaid, whom I left in charge, of course. But she was careless, I suppose, and probably went down-stairs to gossip with the other servants.

"Presently the children woke up, and as they found there was no one with them, they slipped off the bed by themselves. They were entirely undressed and in their little night-clothes, with bare feet. They ran around up-stairs for a while, and then, finding nobody about, they ran down-stairs. The front door stood ajar, so out they slipped, and pattered away down the street. They were always independent children, and not a bit afraid of anything, so when they found they were out all alone by themselves, they decided to go and 'see uncle.' They had been taken to his office down-town several times. My sister lived in what was then a very quiet part of Philadelphia, and near their home were several vacant lots. The children strayed in here to pick some grasses and weeds, which they thought were flowers.

"Unfortunately, a lot of burdocks grew there, and, of course, the children picked them, and stuck them together, with great delight. Probably some of them got caught accidentally in the hair of one of them, for, as far as we could make out from their story afterwards, they twisted them in each other's curls, till there was just a mat of burs, all over their heads. Then, of course, when they tried to take them out, they only made matters worse, so they gave it up and trotted on. Presently they came to a grocery store, where all sorts of things stood outside of the door.

"Strawberries were in the market, so these little wretches instantly plunged both hands into a box of them, and stuffed them into their mouths. Next they sat themselves down in a corner made by some big boxes, and quietly helped themselves to a box of strawberries apiece. You can imagine the state of their little night-dresses, when they were through with this feast, just a mass of strawberry stain. They were so small and so quiet, that no one in the store noticed them for some time, and no one chanced to pass. At last a lady came by, and spied them. Of course she instantly saw they were runaways, and spoke to them.

"'We isn't yunning away,' Jean insisted, 'we is only going to see uncle.'

"'But where is your mamma?' persisted the lady.

"'Her's gone to see uncle, too,' said Jean. The lady knew they had probably run away from some neighbouring house, so she went into the store to ask a clerk to come and see if he knew them. But while she was gone, the children slipped away down the side street. The clerk told us all about this afterwards, for it was a store where my sister often went.

"Then the little ones probably wandered around a good deal, though we never knew where, except that they came to some water in a gutter, somewhere, and took to it like ducks. They must have paddled in it for some time—'washing their feets,' Jean told us afterwards, as an excuse.