Sure enough, while Sally and Andy and Alice waited, scarcely winking an eyelash nor drawing a long breath, the procession moved slowly off, each periwinkle carrying his little gray house that did not look unlike the gray houses of Seabury Town itself.
‘If they were walking in the sand, each one would leave a little track, wouldn’t he, Father?’ said Sally, blowing upon the slowly moving houses as if to make their tenants hurry along.
‘I shouldn’t like to live all alone in a house,’ said Andy. ‘I shouldn’t like it at night.’
And Andy shook his head as he thought of his own little crib standing close beside his mother’s big bed.
‘Poor little periwinkle,’ said tender-hearted Alice. ‘Do you think he is ever lonely?’
‘No, indeed,’ answered Father. ‘See him walking off with his family now. He will tell every one he meets what an exciting morning he has had, how one little girl rapped on the roof of his house with a stick and another one blew on him until it almost gave him a cold in his head. Perhaps the periwinkles will give a party to-night and invite the crabs to come and hear all about it.’
This made every one laugh, and Sally asked, ‘What will they eat at the party?’
‘Jelly,’ answered Father promptly, ‘made by the jellyfish, of course.’
‘Oh, show us the jellyfish,’ cried Sally, jumping about on the rocks until it seemed as if she must tumble down. ‘Show us the jellyfish, Father.’
So Father led the way in the search for jellyfish, and when they were found, lying in pools of water here and there, it was seen at once that they had been well named.