Mamie's Watchword

by Joanna H. Mathews

Then Lulu, roused from her sleep by the change, and frightened by the strange scene and faces about her, broke into a loud, distressed cry, in which Mamie herself could not help joining, as she stretched out her arms for her little sister, whom the man had now given into the woman's care.

The woman did not give her up, but spoke a few words to Mamie in a coaxing voice, and then set off with long, rapid strides, while the girl seized upon Mamie's hand and followed, leaving the man and boy to attend to the boats and their fish; for they were fishermen, as Mamie afterwards found out.

A few steps brought them to a small, a very small house, a mere hut; and, pushing open the door, the woman entered with Lulu in her arms, Mamie and the girl coming as closely after as the tired, cramped limbs of the poor little child could carry her.

The place was neat and clean, though poor; and to Mamie, after the dark and chill of the sea, it seemed a very haven of refuge. Summer night though it was, she was not sorry to see a fire of logs burning upon the open hearth, over which the kettle was singing, while the table was set for supper. She had not known she was hungry before; but now the brown loaf upon the table looked very inviting to her, though, at another time, she would probably have scorned it.

But just now she could attend to nothing but Lulu, who had not ceased her frantic cries for mamma and "hupper" from the moment she had been awakened in lifting her from the boat.

Whether the woman understood, or whether she only imagined that the poor children must be hungry, she sat down beside the fire with Lulu upon her knee, and, hastily pouring some milk into a cup, held it to the little one's lips.

Lulu seized upon it, and while Mamie stood close beside her, looking on with satisfaction, took a long drink, put it from her to take breath, and ejaculated, "Dood!" then drank again; looked up into the kind, good-natured face smiling above her, and said, "Mamie some too."

Meanwhile the girl had done a like good office for Mamie, bringing her also a cup of milk; but she would not touch it till she saw Lulu satisfied. Their care for one another evidently gratified the woman and the girl, who both looked on admiringly; and then, Lulu making it quite plain without the use of words that she wished her sister to share the privileges of the broad, comfortable lap where she was resting, the kindly Dutch woman lifted Mamie to her knee, and, in soothing but still unintelligible tones, tried to find out something of her story, while the girl bustled about, and soon had ready some more substantial food in the shape of great bowls of bread and milk, which she brought to the children.

But it was all in vain that Mamie, encouraged by so much kindness, endeavored to make the women understand her. She tried them with all the appropriate words she could think of, speaking to them in a very loud voice, as if they could comprehend the better for that. "Sea" and "boat" and "pier" and "lost," shrieked as loud as they might be, made no impression upon the minds of her hearers. Then she tried them with such French words as she knew, believing that one foreign language was as good as another, and Frenchifying the English words she was obliged to mix with them to make her story at all clear. "Nous came-ez over l'eau dans le boat-ez," she said with emphasis, "et pauvre mamma will être très frighten-ez."

These and many other such sentences she composed and delivered with great care, but French proved of no greater use than English; and Mamie began to feel very despairing and desperately homesick again. Lulu, too, was incessantly pleading, "Tome home, Mamie; Mamie tate Lulu to mamma;" and fretted piteously.