“Oh, you’ll be ready enough to eat after you shake down a bit,” said Mr. Duffy. “We’ll see the alligators first.”
“But, my dear,” objected Mrs. Duffy, “alligators are such unappetizing creatures. Perhaps Miss Campbell would prefer to lie down and rest while you take the children to see the animals.”
“I feel as if I had been dipped in a shower bath of orange juice,” cried Elinor, joining the others who had gradually assembled under one of the trees.
“Now you see why I keep these pinafores for my guests,” answered Mrs. Duffy. “I wouldn’t have you ruin your pretty frocks for the sake of a few oranges.”
“It was worth it,” ejaculated Billie. “I haven’t a dress I wouldn’t have sacrificed for the opportunity of eating all the oranges I wanted to, right off the trees.”
“I should have hated to give up my pale pink mulle,” observed Nancy regretfully, as if she had already laid that cherished costume on the altar of the goddess of fruits.
After removing their juice-stained pinafores and washing their streaming faces and hands, they repaired to the alligator farm which was another fad of good Mr. Duffy’s. Mrs. Duffy loathed the creatures, however, and she and Miss Campbell took their siesta at the bungalow in the absence of the others.
Billie herself harbored a secret distaste for the animals ever after that, on account of what happened while she was feasting her eyes on their hideous bodies.
The alligator farm in another part of Mr. Duffy’s plantation appeared to have been arranged and devised solely for the comfort and happiness of these creatures, who disported themselves on the banks of a small lake or wallowed about in the shallow water like the great lazy reptiles they were. Immense logs and great boulders had been placed in the lake for their amusement.
“I could easily imagine they would eat Hindoo babies,” said Mary, watching them fearfully through the wire netting which served to screen her from their enormous jaws.