“You’re seasick,” announced Gretel, who knew the signs; “I guess we’ll have to call somebody. We can’t open the window, and you won’t feel any better till you get some fresh air.”
It was at that moment that there came a tap at the stateroom door, and Jerry, no longer refusing to produce the key, promptly unlocked it, and admitted a colored stewardess who at sight of the three children, and the feast, threw up her hands, with an exclamation of dismay. But when she learned that the children were traveling alone, and had come on board without any luggage, her astonishment and horror were almost beyond the power of words to express. She kept repeating “fo’ de land’s sake!” over and over again, and finally departed to tell the news to the head steward, and as many of the passengers as cared to listen. By the time she returned, accompanied by the purser and two stewards, poor little Geraldine was really in a very bad way indeed.
“And no wonder,” remarked the purser, with a grin; “we haven’t had a night like this in months. I’m afraid you’re in for it, little miss. And how are you feeling?” he added, turning to the other two.
“I’m—I’m all right I guess,” said Jerry, trying to smile, though the effort was rather a failure; “we won’t really be sick, you see, because we’re Mind Cures. Mind Cures never have anything the matter with them. We’ve only got to—” But at that moment the steamer gave a tremendous roll, and Jerry never finished his sentence.
Half an hour later, two very limp little figures, with very white faces, were stretched on the berths in number fifty-two, from which the stewardess had charitably removed the “feast.” Both twins were very sick—much too sick to care about feasts, adventures, or anything else.
“I want Mother, oh, I want Mother!” wailed Geraldine, between paroxysms of seasickness; “she always takes care of us when we are ill. Oh, I wish we hadn’t come; I do, I do!”
“I think I’m going to die,” announced Jerry, and his gruff little voice was very shaky.
“Oh, no, you’re not,” Gretel reassured him. She was not at all sick herself, but was helping the stewardess minister to her friends. “You are only seasick, and people never die from seasickness.”
“I think I’d just as soon die as feel this way,” groaned Jerry, at which the stewardess laughed in a way which seemed to the children quite brutal.
But she was not by any means a brutal or heartless person, and was really as kind as possible to the two little sufferers. She tried to persuade Gretel to go down to the dining-saloon to have something to eat, but although not sick, Gretel had no desire for food just then, and much preferred remaining where she was.