The little boys were, however, perfectly satisfied from the moment of their arrival, and one of them had stayed at the farm, declining to go to the beach, as he wished to admire the pigs, cows, and horses; and all the way over to the beach the other little boys were hopping in and out of the wagon, which never went too fast, to pick long mullein-stalks, for whips to urge on the reluctant horse with, or to gather huckleberries, with which they were rejoiced to find the fields were filled, although, as yet, the berries were very green.
They wanted to stay longer on the beach, when they finally reached it; but Mrs.
Peterkin and Elizabeth Eliza insisted upon turning directly back, as it was not fair to be late to dinner the very first night.
On the whole the party came back cheerful, yet hungry. They found the same old men, in the same costume, standing against the porch.
“A little seedy, I should say,” said Solomon John.
“Smoking pipes,” said Agamemnon; “I believe that is the latest style.”
“The smell of their tobacco is not very agreeable,” Mrs. Peterkin was forced to say.
There seemed the same uncertainty on their arrival as to where they were to be put, and as to their meals.
Elizabeth Eliza tried to get into conversation with the old ladies, who were wandering in and out of a small sitting-room. But one of them was very deaf, and the other seemed to be a foreigner. She discovered from a moderately tidy maid, by the name of Martha, who seemed a sort of factotum, that there were other ladies in their rooms, too much of invalids to appear.
“Regular bed-ridden,” Martha had described them, which Elizabeth Eliza did not consider respectful.