"You think nobody can be clever except yourself, but you are finely mistaken," rejoined John seriously; and he could not imagine why both his sisters burst out laughing. "There isn't much joke that I can see in that," he said.
"The joke is about Birmingham, you know," explained Betty. "It isn't a port."
"Then it ought to be," said John decidedly.
"Perhaps you had better write to the Queen and suggest that it should be made into one," remarked Madge. But then, seeing that her brother looked vexed at his mistake, she continued cheerfully: "I have thought of a new and much better plan. We will not have real towns, but we will call them after our own names—Madgebury, Bettybury, and Johnbury!"
This idea gave very general satisfaction, and the game proceeded most peacefully for some time. A vessel laden with acorns started from Madgebury and went to Johnbury, crossing on the way another ship full of horse-chestnuts. From Bettybury a small wooden doll set out on a voyage of discovery into unknown regions, the owners carefully superintending the course of their vessels and guiding them by long strings. Once the strings got entangled and there was a terrific shipwreck in Johnbury harbour, most of the cargo, consisting of marbles, being lost in the mud at the bottom. After this collision it was discovered that the sails of two of the vessels were injured, so the ship-owners decided to retire for a short time to Eagle's Nest and work at some necessary repairs.
It was a warm afternoon, and the shade of the great spreading beech-tree was particularly pleasant after an hour spent in the glaring sun by the ditch. The children sat about in idle lounging attitudes, mending their boats and talking in a leisurely fashion.
"I wish I hadn't lost all those marbles," remarked John mournfully. "I only found four, and I believe there were quite eight in the ship, only the mud was so soft they sank out of sight at once. I squeezed it all over with my hands to try and find them, but I couldn't."
"I should think you will lose those four as well, if you try and carry them in your pocket," said Madge. "Don't you remember what a big hole you have in it, and how your knife dropped on the schoolroom floor this morning when you were saying your lessons?"
"But I must put them somewhere," answered John peevishly. "I can't leave them behind, and I can't carry them in my hand when I am mending my ship."
"I've got a capital idea!" broke in Betty. "We will have a treasure-house in the Eagle's Nest, and we can safely hide away the things we don't want there. And I see just the place that will do!" With an excited cry she scrambled up to a hole in the tree a few feet above the platform of sticks on which they sat. "Isn't this the very place?" she shouted.