“We deserved it,” Kate answered, calmly, as she stuffed a couple of sofa cushions back of her head, and clasped her hands on them. “Here we’ve stopped a steamer, excited all her passengers and crew, made the life-savers hustle out in fair weather, and generally let everybody around Eagle Bay know what a lot of lubbers we are at handling yachts, all because Crullers’ pintle bolt got twisted and she took a jump overboard. It’s lucky, Polly, the Admiral isn’t here. He’d send us all back to Queen’s Landing in a jiffy.”
“We didn’t mean to make so much trouble,” Polly answered cheerily, as she shook up Crullers’ pillow, and got her a glass of fresh water for the night. “I’m only thankful it was no worse. Let’s make the best of it. Let’s make an interesting invalid out of Crullers. Aunty Welcome says she must stay in bed to-morrow till all danger is over of chills or fever or stomach upsetness. I’m going to loan her my pink kimono to wear over her nightgown, and we’ll bring in some wild roses from the shore road, and entertain her with a—oh, girls, I know what.” Polly stopped short, her eyes sparkling as they always did when she had a sudden idea. “Let’s give her a ‘Sea Social.’ We were going to have one some evening, but now we’ll do it to-morrow afternoon. We can get the Vaughan girls over. Have Tom leave word at the hotel for them, and Nancy will come, and we’ll all sing sea songs and recite sea poetry, and we’ll have a lunch right out of the sea, fried flounder.”
“I wish we could have crab a la Newburg,” Isabel remarked musingly. Polly went to the open window, and stretched out her arms seaward, as she sang:
“Flounder, flounder in the sea,
Come, I pray, and talk to me.
For my wife, Dame Isabel,
Wishes what I fear to tell.”
She turned just in time to catch the pillow that Isabel sent flying across the room, and they all sat down to make up a program for Crullers’ “Sea Social.”
It was a great success. Even Mrs. Carey came over, with a fresh gingerbread and a pail of rich cream.
“They go mighty nice together,” she said, smilingly, and the girls agreed with her before the feast was over.