But to go back to my story: where was I? We were crossing over the board to the island, weren't we? Well, Fan was going ahead, wheeling Jane in her carriage, then Dora and Snip, and me on behind with Moppet in my arms. Randolph stood in the water, and watched his chance till we were all fairly on the board, and then he gave a regular Indian war-whoop, and threw himself right across the middle of the board, and shook it with all his might, so that it jiggled awfully right up and down. Before we had time to scream or to paralize our danger, over we all went, pell-mell, helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy, down, down, down into the foaming water! What do you think of that, Clytie? Every single one of us—dogs, Jane, carriage, and all! 'Twas worse, a thousand-fole, than when we lost Lucille. Fan sat right down on the pebbles at the bottom of the sea, and gave herself up for lost. I threw Moppet as far as I could on to the beach, while Dora screamed: "You hateful boy! Go at him, Snip! bite him! throw him over! eat him up!" And Snip did go at him, as if he would "tear him limb from limb," as the story-books say.
Randolph looked scared out of his wits, and without waiting to help one of us, he turned and ran as fast as he could go, and never stopped till he was safe back at the hotel, the mean coward that he is! We heard afterward how he ran into the house with such a roar as to frighten every one there, crying out at the top of his lungs, "They've set the dog on me, and he'll kill me!" Did you ever know such a horrid boy?
As for the rest of us, we scrambled out as best we could, by the help of the other boys, for, to tell the truth—and you know, my Clytie, I always do that, and never mean even to inangerrate when I am telling a story—the water was not very deep where we fell, not more than half way up to our knees, and we often go in wading there; but it seems a good deal deeper when you are dumped right down into it without any warning. Now wasn't this a teragical end of our picnic on the island?
A few days later Mrs. Peyton and her party left Old Orchard. Where they have gone I do not know, but we children believe they went away on Randolph's account. We tried to treat him politely, but how could we? I don't think any one would blame us for turning our backs on him whenever he appeared, and only saying good-morning to him in a lofty way over our shoulders. He neverdently didn't like it, and proberly coaxed his mother to go away.
Whatever other people can do, I am very sure I shall never be able to love my emernies. Love Randolph Peyton! Just think of it, Clytie, I'd be ashamed to love such a mean boy even if I could, emerny or not. I truly hope we may never see him again.
Such heaps and heaps of things as I shall have to tell you, dear Clytemnestra, when I get home! No letter would ever be long enough to get them all in. There will be enough to talk about all next winter.
You don't know anything about the clam-bake we had last week, nor how Dora and I got lost one day in a cave—a real boner fidy cave, as papa says, dark and dreadful, where smugglers used to hide their things.
I'm saving up lots of things to tell you some day, and if your eyes don't open wider than ever before, it will only be because something is the matter with your wires. Such fun as I am having this summer! And, oh, Clytie! what do you think? Mamma is busy packing the trunk, and we are going away from here to-morrow. We are going with some other people to Mount Desert, 'way round the coast of Maine, ever so much farther than this.
It is lovely everywhere here, and I don't believe Maine is half so crooked and queer along the shore as it looks in the geography, and I'm going to tell the girls so when I get back to school.
There's no sense in working so hard on our maps if 'tisn't true, and Maine was the very hardest State of all to draw, for 'twas so awful jiggly along the edge. Really, it isn't so a bit, for I have seen it, and ought to know.