ELIZABETH ANN’S HOUSEBOAT

“Walk right in—I’m a ghost,” he said politely.
Elizabeth Ann’s Houseboat Frontispiece

ELIZABETH ANN’S
HOUSEBOAT

BY
JOSEPHINE LAWRENCE

AUTHOR OF
“ADVENTURES OF ELIZABETH ANN,” “LINDA
LANE,” “THE TWO LITTLE FELLOWS,” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY
JOHN M. FOSTER

PUBLISHERS
BARSE & CO.
NEW YORK, N. Y. NEWARK, N. J.

Copyright, 1929
BY
BARSE & CO.

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

ELIZABETH ANN’S HOUSEBOAT

CHAPTER I
A LETTER

“I don’t see why we have to hurry,” protested Elizabeth Ann.

She wanted to get out and see what kind of a flower was growing in the middle of the large field on the right hand side of the road. Lex had declared that for once he couldn’t stop. Usually Lex did just as Elizabeth Ann asked him to—Cousin Nellie said that both Lex and Uncle Doctor always did as Elizabeth Ann asked.

“I promised your Cousin Nellie to come right back with the mail,” explained the patient Lex for the second time. “When I make a promise, I keep it.”

“Oh!” said Elizabeth Ann. “I wonder why Cousin Nellie couldn’t wait for the mail man.”

Lex said he didn’t know, but he had his suspicions.

“I don’t think the mail man knows how to hurry,” said Lex. “Maybe he gets out and picks all the flowers he sees. He’s late enough most of the time, to pick a dozen bouquets.”

Elizabeth Ann giggled.

“I don’t think he picks bouquets,” she announced, “but he does read the magazines, and his horse forgets to go. I think the mail man likes the stories in magazines.”

Lex, driving Uncle Doctor’s big car as he always drove, carefully, but fast on an open road, nodded.

“Another week and we won’t care what the mail man does,” he suggested. “Mind going back to school, Elizabeth Ann?”

It was that small girl’s turn to shake her head.

“I don’t exactly mind going to school,” she explained. “I think I’ll be glad to see my Aunt Ida, too. And I know I’ll be glad to see Doris. But there is a great deal to learn, Lex.”

Lex laughed and looked down at the little figure beside him.

“Little Miss Anxious!” he teased. “You know you don’t study all the time, Elizabeth Ann. Part of the time you play. And when you are working away at those books with the great deal to learn in them, suppose you think of me, plugging away. I’ve a great deal to learn myself.”

Elizabeth Ann smiled a little. She knew when Lex was teasing her.

“I wouldn’t mind if I was learning to be a doctor—like you,” she said. “You like to study, because you want to hurry up and be a doctor.”

The car had come in sight of the house where Elizabeth Ann, her Uncle Doctor and Cousin Nellie had been spending the summer.

“When I was your age,” said Lex, driving across the dry and burned lawn straight toward the long, low windows, “when I was your age, I suspect I was studying just about the same lessons you’ll have this winter—arithmetic, and spelling and so forth.”

The car stopped, and Cousin Nellie stepped through one of the windows—they were really more like doors than windows.

“Did you bring the mail, Lex?” she asked eagerly.

“Yes’m,” answered Lex, handing her the package of letters and papers and magazines, tied together with a string. “Everything’s there.”

Elizabeth Ann climbed out of the car and went around to the kitchen to see if Lyn didn’t know a girl who needed cookies. Lyn often knew a girl who needed cookies to keep her from starving, and strangely enough that girl was usually Elizabeth Ann.

Though it was the first week in September, it was still very warm. Elizabeth Ann found Lyn finishing the ironing on the side porch, and she sat down to talk to her. She had only known Lyn since Uncle Doctor had come to Cally for the summer, but they were great friends now. Lyn was a tall, pleasant-faced girl and her real name you’ll never guess so we’ll have to tell you—it was Patricia Gwendolyn Matilda Barr.

“I’m awfully sorry you’re going home next week,” said Lyn over her shoulder, as she disappeared into the kitchen.

Elizabeth Ann thought she went to get a hot iron and Lyn did, but she also brought back a plate of cookies and put it down on the top step beside Elizabeth Ann.

“M-m-m,” mumbled Elizabeth Ann, taking a delicious bite. “My, you make good cookies, Lyn. We have to go home, you know. Uncle Doctor has to cure sick people and I have to go to school. Couldn’t you go and live with Cousin Nellie?”

“She asked me,” Lyn admitted, beginning to iron one of Elizabeth Ann’s dresses, “but I can’t go that far away from home. Maybe next year, when some of my sisters are older and can help my mother, I’ll be able to go.”

“Don’t you have to go to school?” asked Elizabeth Ann, biting her cookie all around the edge. She thought they lasted longer that way.

“No-o, I don’t,” Lyn said, “but I suppose I ought to. Your Cousin Nellie talked to me about school this summer. She says everyone ought to learn as much as they can.”

“My, yes,” agreed Elizabeth Ann seriously. “There is a great deal to learn. Maybe you never get through. My Aunt Ida who has a school—that’s where I went last winter with my cousin Doris—goes to school herself. She takes lectures during vacation and studies all the time.”

Lyn had never heard of a school teacher who still studied school books, and before she could think of anything to say, an old white horse came rambling up to the steps. This was Elizabeth Ann’s horse, Jaspar, and she had ridden him all summer.

“He wants sugar!” cried Elizabeth Ann. “Lex got some at the store—it’s under the car seat—please wait a minute, Jaspar, and I’ll be right back.”

She dashed away to the front of the house. The car was still standing where Lex had stopped it, though she didn’t see him there. Elizabeth Ann didn’t expect to see Lex—she knew that every spare moment he could get to himself he spent studying the books that were to help him enter college that fall.

Cousin Nellie was still there, though. She was sitting on the low front steps, reading her letters.

“Elizabeth Ann, I have a letter from your Aunt Jennie,” said Cousin Nellie (Elizabeth Ann really had a great many relatives, but she managed to keep them all straight in her mind).

“How is Antonio?” Elizabeth Ann asked, feeling under the seat of the car for the package of lump sugar. “How’s Doris?”

Cousin Nellie looked at the letter lying in her lap.

“It’s a very important letter, dearie,” she said, a little seriously. “Your Aunt Jennie doesn’t mention Antonio—but Doris has been ill for two weeks.”

“That’s why she didn’t answer my letter!” exclaimed Elizabeth Ann. “I wrote her a long, long letter and she didn’t send me even a little letter. Poor Doris! Did she have the measles, Cousin Nellie?”

Cousin Nellie was reading the letter. Her lips moved, but she didn’t speak aloud. When she reached the end of one page she looked at Elizabeth Ann.

“When is your Uncle Doctor coming home?” she asked.

Elizabeth Ann blushed suddenly.

“Oh—I forgot to tell you,” she said, looking ashamed. “Cousin Nellie he told me to be sure and tell you he would come home to lunch to-day. I forgot all about it.”

Cousin Nellie folded the letter and put it in its envelope.

“Never mind,” she said kindly. “There’s no harm done, Elizabeth Ann. I’m very glad he will be here for lunch—there is something I must tell him.”

She went into the house, so Elizabeth Ann couldn’t ask questions. But, dear me, she thought questions!

“I wonder what Aunt Jennie wrote!” thought Elizabeth Ann’s busy little brain. “I wonder if Doris is very sick. I wonder if Aunt Jennie wants Uncle Doctor to come and make Doris well. Uncle Doctor can cure anybody.”

Elizabeth Ann went around to the back porch. Jaspar was still waiting for his sugar.

“You spoil that horse,” said Lyn, watching as Elizabeth Ann stood on the top step and held out her hand, palm up, with a lump of sugar on it, as Lex had taught her.

“He likes sugar,” Elizabeth Ann declared, while Jaspar’s long nose came down to her little hand and he took the sugar daintily in his teeth.

“What will he do when you’ve gone home?” demanded Lyn. “Who will give him sugar then?”

“Mr. Hanson,” Elizabeth Ann answered promptly. “He promised me he would. He says he will take the best of care of Jaspar, because he knows I love him.”

Mr. Hanson owned the factory in Cally, and Lyn knew him, so he said he wouldn’t be surprised if Jaspar lived on sugar for the rest of his life.

Elizabeth Ann opened her mouth to say that no horse could live on sugar, but instead she cried, “Uncle Doctor!” and dived off the porch into the arms of a tall, white-haired man, as if it had been weeks since she had seen him. This was Uncle Doctor, and he and Elizabeth Ann had had breakfast together that morning; but his little niece was always perfectly delighted to see him.

“Cousin Nellie has a letter, Uncle Doctor,” said Elizabeth Ann. “Doris has been sick—maybe they want you to come and cure her. And how did you get here from town?”

“You put things backward, Elizabeth Ann,” teased Uncle Doctor. “If you must know, I got a lift from one of the salesmen who brought me as far as the cross-roads in his car; I walked the rest of the way. Where is Cousin Nellie and this letter?”

“Here, Cran,” Cousin Nellie said, looking through the kitchen screen.

CHAPTER II
ABOUT ELIZABETH ANN

Uncle Doctor’s eyes began to twinkle in a way that Elizabeth Ann understood.

“Shall Elizabeth Ann and I come and listen to the letter, Nellie?” he asked, “or shall Elizabeth Ann be a useful child and help Lyn?”

Elizabeth Ann didn’t want to help Lyn. She wanted to hear the letter. But she couldn’t help smiling at Uncle Doctor when he smiled at her.

“I’ll have to read it to you, first, Cran,” said kind Cousin Nellie. “There is something in it I must talk over with you. Come around to the front of the house and after you have heard the letter, I’ll tell Elizabeth Ann what Jennie says.”

They went away together and Lyn began to put up the ironing board.

“Time to get lunch,” she announced. “Do you want to help me, Elizabeth Ann?”

Elizabeth Ann could set the table very nicely, but this noon her mind was not on her task. She did so wonder what could be in Aunt Jennie’s letter. Aunt Jennie, when she wrote, usually wrote the kind of a letter that Cousin Nellie liked to read aloud at the lunch or dinner table. Aunt Jennie sent messages to everyone—even to Lyn, whom she had never seen, but had heard of, through Elizabeth Ann and Cousin Nellie.

“I don’t see why Cousin Nellie didn’t read the letter out loud,” Elizabeth Ann puzzled, carrying in the bread plate.

Lex came up the back steps, his arms filled with books.

“Is it time to eat?” he asked in surprise. “I just brought these books in to pack them away. I won’t need them again and I hate to leave everything till the last minute.”

“Tell Miss Nellie lunch is ready,” Lyn called after him as he walked through the kitchen and on into the rest of the house.

Uncle Doctor and Cousin Nellie came to the dining room at once. Elizabeth Ann looked at Uncle Doctor closely, for sometimes she could guess what he was thinking. But not to-day. He pulled back Cousin Nellie’s chair for her and helped Elizabeth Ann into hers, without saying a single word. Lex came back and they began to eat, and still no one mentioned Aunt Jennie’s letter.

Now Elizabeth Ann was a courteous little girl and she knew far more than some little girls do. Not for worlds would she say “letter,” if she thought that Cousin Nellie did not wish to talk about it. And Elizabeth Ann knew that if Cousin Nellie did want to talk of the letter, she would say something about it—so Miss Elizabeth Ann ate her luncheon quietly and did not ask questions.

While she is eating her lunch may be a good time to tell you a bit about her. That is, if you’re not already acquainted. Perhaps you have read the first book in this series, called “Adventures of Elizabeth Ann.” Then you know she was a little girl whose parents were traveling in Japan, and who had been sent to make friends with her relatives who loved her as soon as they knew her. Elizabeth Ann visited ever so many aunts in the city, in the country and at the seashore, and she was lucky enough to find a girl cousin, Doris, almost her own age. Elizabeth Ann and Doris went to school together and it was during a vacation from school that Elizabeth Ann went to visit Uncle Doctor who was her mother’s uncle and her own great-uncle. Cousin Nellie kept house for Uncle Doctor, whose real name was Doctor Crandall Lewis. And Elizabeth Ann had such a lovely vacation with Uncle Doctor and helped him so much that the next summer, when he went South to do some special work, Uncle Doctor took Elizabeth Ann with him. He took Lex, too, who was studying to be a doctor, and who ran Uncle Doctor’s car for him, and of course Cousin Nellie went. And their summer in the country near the little town of Cally has been told you in the book just before this one, called “Elizabeth Ann and Uncle Doctor.”

That is why you find them down South now—the summer was over and in a few days they were going home, Elizabeth Ann to Seabridge, where Doris Mason and Aunt Jennie and the other Mason cousins lived; Uncle Doctor and Cousin Nellie and Lyn to the town of Chester where they lived.

But Elizabeth Ann has kept still long enough and it’s time to see what happens next.

As soon as lunch was finished, Lyn came in to clear the table and Lex went out to study for another hour. He did most of his studying under an old apple tree, and sometimes Jaspar came and cropped the grass around him, just to be sociable, Lex said.

“Come out where it is shady, Elizabeth Ann,” said Uncle Doctor. “I want to talk to you.”

He and Cousin Nellie and Elizabeth Ann went out doors where there were some comfortable chairs on the grass near the house. It was shady here part of the day and Cousin Nellie liked to sit in her easy-chair and sew.

“Is it about the letter?” asked Elizabeth Ann, perching herself on the arm of Uncle Doctor’s chair.

“You’ve guessed it exactly,” he answered her. “Your Aunt Jennie has written a letter to Cousin Nellie—to both of us, rather, because she wants our advice. And your daddy and mother are so far away she can not write to them and get an answer in time.”

“Then,” said Elizabeth Ann, beginning to feel excited, “the letter is about me.”

“Right again,” Uncle Doctor declared. “The letter is about you—about you and Doris. Poor Doris has been very ill indeed, but she is better now.”

“But she can’t go back to school,” said Cousin Nellie quietly.

Elizabeth Ann stared, too surprised to speak. Why, she and Doris had been sent to Aunt Ida’s school because Doris’s mother thought she ought to go away to school. Doris had an older sister and four brothers and she was apt to be spoiled with too much attention at home.

“Do I have to go to school all by myself?” gasped Elizabeth Ann.

Uncle Doctor gently pulled her down into his lap.

“Dear me, Doris isn’t the only other girl in school, is she?” he asked in mock astonishment. “I thought there were dozens of girls there.”

Elizabeth Ann chuckled at that idea.

“Of course there are lots of girls,” she explained. “Only Doris is much the nicest. We like each other.”

“Cran, I want to tell Elizabeth Ann what is in this letter,” said Cousin Nellie gently. “How can I tell her if you tease her all the time? Elizabeth Ann, listen, dear—your Aunt Jennie wants to send Doris to the country to spend the winter and she wants you to go with her.”

Elizabeth Ann sat up with a jerk, beaming.

“I’ll go,” she announced joyfully. “Where are we going, Cousin Nellie?”

Uncle Doctor and Cousin Nellie looked at each other and laughed.

“My dear child,” said Cousin Nellie, “I haven’t the slightest idea whether it will be best for you to go. Your Aunt Jennie thinks it would be fine for Doris to be with you, but she says herself she doesn’t know whether you ought to leave Aunt Ida’s school.”

“Oh, yes, Cousin Nellie!” Elizabeth Ann pleaded, “It will do me good not to go to school. I’ve been to school very regularly for years and years.”

Uncle Doctor’s eyes twinkled at that.

“They have school in the country, you monkey,” he informed Elizabeth Ann. “Doris’s mother doesn’t expect her to stay out of school; she is to go to a little country school and so will you, if you are sent to the country with her. So, Elizabeth Ann, it looks as though you’d be educated, come what may.”

Elizabeth Ann was silent for a moment.

“Well,” she said presently, “I don’t mind a new school. I like a change. So does Doris. Perhaps it made her sick to go to the same school too long.”

“I wish I knew what to do,” Cousin Nellie worried. “I can’t seem to decide. How do we know what kind of a place the school will be; and suppose there are heavy snow storms this winter?”

“Elizabeth Ann won’t melt,” said Uncle Doctor cheerfully. “Though she is sweet enough to be sugar she isn’t—and a snow storm won’t hurt her. Anyway, you can’t decide, Nellie, till we get to Seabridge and see what Jennie has to say. I want to look Doris over, too—she may be well enough to go on as usual to what Elizabeth Ann ungratefully calls ‘the same school.’”

So that was the way it was left—Cousin Nellie and Uncle Doctor would decide when they reached Seabridge and talked to Doris’s mother. Elizabeth Ann, though, kept hoping that she and Doris might go to a new school. As she told Lyn, it would be more exciting, and perhaps she could take Antonio, her beautiful white cat with her.

It seemed only a day or two later that the packing was done and all the good-bys said—Mr. Hawkins and Mr. and Mrs. Hanson and the factory nurse and Mr. Fitcher, the farmer Elizabeth Ann had made friends with, and his wife and all the Fitcher children, came to say good-by and tell how much they would miss Elizabeth Ann. Lyn cried, too, until Cousin Nellie reminded her that next year she was coming North to pay her a visit. That made Lyn feel much better.

The trip to Seabridge was long and rather tiresome, for the roads were dusty in some places and oily in others. Uncle Doctor and Lex took turns driving and Elizabeth Ann and Muffins rode with Cousin Nellie on the back seat. They stopped at hotels for two nights and they were all glad when they came in sight of the beautiful rolling ocean. Elizabeth Ann spoke for them all when she said, “Going to Cally was fun, because it was a new road; but coming home was just work because there wasn’t anything to surprise us.”

The Masons lived in a little brown house close to the beach, and they were everyone of them at the front door to welcome the travelers. Elizabeth Ann had to look twice at a little girl with a white face and two great dark eyes, before she saw that it was Doris.

“Oh my,” thought Elizabeth Ann to herself, kissing her favorite cousin, “Poor Doris must have been so sick!”

CHAPTER III
ALL DECIDED

Muffins barked wildly at the lovely white cat that came trotting up to Elizabeth Ann. This was Antonio—better known as Tony—and he was plainly glad to see his little mistress again. Elizabeth Ann gathered him in her arms as they went into the house.

It wasn’t a large house and the four guests added to the Mason family, completely filled the little dining room. There was dear Aunt Jennie—who had the sweetest smile of any of her aunties, Elizabeth Ann often thought; and pretty Emmy, the older daughter, and Jerry and Rodney, the two big cousins; and Ted and Lansing, the two younger boy cousins. And Doris, of course. But Doris was so strangely quiet that Elizabeth Ann hardly knew her. Usually Doris made as much noise as her brothers did.

“Ted about Cally,” commanded Ted, as soon as they were all seated at the table. “Did you like it? Wasn’t it hot down there? Mother told me you learned how to ride a horse, Elizabeth Ann.”

Doris didn’t say a word. She sat beside her mother and drank her milk when she saw Uncle Doctor looking at her, but she didn’t touch her plate and Elizabeth Ann was surprised to see that she didn’t eat her dessert either when Emmy brought that in. Elizabeth Ann was never allowed to have dessert if she didn’t eat her dinner; but here was Doris, who could have apparently what she wanted, refusing to eat a chocolate éclair.

“I suppose it’s because she has been sick,” thought Elizabeth Ann.

After dinner, they took a little walk on the beach, but Uncle Doctor said Elizabeth Ann must go to bed early because she had had a long journey. Doris had not come with them for the walk and she was already in bed, Aunt Jennie said, when the others returned from the beach.

“Perhaps she’ll be up early in the morning,” said Elizabeth Ann sleepily to Cousin Nellie.

But Doris didn’t get up early the next morning. Elizabeth Ann, who wanted to play in the sand before breakfast, was disappointed when she ran downstairs to find only Ted and Lansing on the front porch.

“Where’s Doris?” she asked eagerly.

“In bed,” Ted replied. “She stays in bed till after breakfast, since she’s been sick. Your Uncle Doctor’s gone down to the beach to throw sticks in the water for Muffins—want to go see him?”

Elizabeth Ann went with the boys and they found Uncle Doctor and Muffins having a grand time. Jerry and Rodney had already gone into the city, to their offices, and as soon as Elizabeth Ann and Ted and Lansing brought Uncle Doctor back to the house, they had breakfast.

“Now I’ll go up and see Doris,” announced Uncle Doctor, when breakfast was over. “You run out and play, Elizabeth Ann; I want to start for home before lunch time, if possible.”

Ted and Lansing and Elizabeth Ann went out and sat on the steps.

“Are you going to the country with Doris?” asked Ted.

“Are you going to Chester with Doctor Lewis?” Lansing asked.

“I don’t know,” said Elizabeth Ann frankly. “I don’t know where I’m going. What is the matter with Doris?”

“She was sick almost two weeks,” Ted declared. “She was sick in bed. And now the doctor says she ought to go to the country, because when people live at the seashore all the year round, the country is a change. I never get any change,” sighed Ted.

Elizabeth Ann looked at him critically.

“You look all right,” she observed. “I don’t believe you need any.”

And Elizabeth Ann was right. If ever a boy looked sturdy and well and happy, that boy was Ted Mason. He couldn’t even feel sorry for himself because there was really nothing to feel sorry about.

Elizabeth Ann heard a purring sound behind her back and there was Tony, her white cat. He climbed into her lap and she stroked him gently.

“If I go to the country, could I take Tony, do you suppose?” she asked. “I couldn’t take him to Aunt Ida’s school, but perhaps in the country it will be different.”

Lansing didn’t know. Neither did Ted.

“You’ll have to ask Mother,” they both said.

Cousin Nellie and Aunt Jennie came out on the porch just then and Aunt Jennie sat down beside Elizabeth Ann, while Cousin Nellie took the rocking chair.

“How would you like to go and visit Doris’s great uncle, dear?” asked Aunt Jennie.

Elizabeth Ann blinked. She often got herself tangled up thinking about her relatives, and here she was being asked to think about Doris’s relatives.

“Has Doris a great uncle?” she asked cautiously.

“Yes,” nodded Aunt Jennie, “she has. He’s my uncle, just as Doctor Lewis is your mother’s uncle. His name is Hiram—Uncle Hiram, and he lives on a lovely farm.”

“Could Tony live on the farm, too?” inquired Elizabeth Ann.

“I think he could,” Aunt Jennie answered. “I don’t see any reason why Tony couldn’t go with you.”

And then Uncle Doctor came out and joined them and began to talk. In a very few minutes everything was quite clear to Elizabeth Ann. That was always the way when Uncle Doctor talked to her—he could explain things so plainly, and he didn’t mind dozens of questions, and he always seemed to take it for granted that Elizabeth Ann would be willing and anxious to do as he wanted her to do.

“Doris must have a quiet, unexciting winter, in the open air,” said Uncle Doctor, sitting on the porch railing. “From what you tell me, Jennie, I think Bonnie Susie will be exactly the place for her.”

Elizabeth Ann listened, but did not say anything. “Bonnie Susie” didn’t sound like a farm, did it?

“It won’t hurt Elizabeth Ann, either,” said Uncle Doctor, smiling at that small girl, “to have a winter in the country. Tramping through the snow drifts will give her roses in her cheeks. How are we going to send them?”

“Uncle Hiram has promised to come after them,” explained Aunt Jennie. “He’s delighted at the idea of having company this winter. And I’m so glad you are willing to have Elizabeth Ann go with Doris—she would be so lonely in a strange house, and at a strange school, without her best cousin, as she calls Elizabeth Ann.”

So that was settled. Uncle Doctor and Cousin Nellie and Muffins and Lex drove away an hour later, leaving Elizabeth Ann feeling a little forlorn, for all she had an aunt and half a dozen cousins left. And a cat, too, as Doris, who had dressed and came down to sit in the sunshine, reminded her.

“I think it will be heaps of fun to go to the country,” said Doris with something of her old enthusiasm. “Wait till you see my Uncle Hiram’s house, Elizabeth Ann. You never saw a house like it anywhere.”

“Why didn’t I?” Elizabeth Ann demanded. “I’ve seen lots of houses—I saw queer houses down South.”

“I don’t believe you ever saw a house like my Uncle Hiram’s house,” persisted Doris. “I never saw it, either, but Mother told me about it.”

Elizabeth Ann was puzzled.

“Is it a queer house, Doris?” she asked wonderingly.

“No-o, I don’t know that it is queer,” said Doris. “It’s—it’s different—that’s all. You see, it’s built exactly like a boat!”

“But I thought your uncle lived on a farm,” Elizabeth Ann reminded her.

“He does, but he lives in a boat,” replied Doris.

CHAPTER IV
SAILOR TALK

Aunt Jennie sent a telegram to Uncle Hiram that night and two days later he came. He looked, Elizabeth Ann decided as soon as she saw him, exactly like the kind of a man who would live in a boat. For one thing, he was dressed in dark blue clothes with brass buttons and he wore a cap instead of a hat. Uncle Hiram looked like a sailor.

“He was captain of a ship before he married Aunt Grace,” Doris explained to Elizabeth Ann.

Uncle Hiram talked like a sailor, too. He came to lunch and said he had no idea it was “mess time.” And he talked about the wind, and kept looking at the sky as though it was most important to keep an eye on the weather.

Everyone liked him. He had curly white hair and a curly white beard and a deep voice and the nicest smile. He called his car “a clipper” and said he had had no trouble at all navigating the waters on the way down to Seabridge. Elizabeth Ann made up her mind that it was going to be fun to visit someone who talked about ships and the ocean all the time, even when he was living on the dry land.

Aunt Jennie had packed a trunk for Elizabeth Ann and Doris and this had been sent on ahead by train to Gardner, which was the town nearest to Uncle Hiram’s farm. And, since Gardner was some distance from Seabridge, it was necessary for the two little girls to rise very early the morning after Uncle Hiram came, so that he could make the trip in one day.

“School opens day after to-morrow,” said Uncle Hiram in his deep voice. “Can’t have you absent on the first day, you know. Can’t have the teacher say those girls who come from the Bonnie Susie, are slow about learning their lessons.”

“What is the Bonnie Susie?” Elizabeth Ann whispered to Doris. But Uncle Hiram heard her.

“It’s our house,” he explained. “I named it after my first ship. I wanted to call it the Bonnie Grace, but my wife wouldn’t hear of it; said she didn’t want the whole countryside to know there was a house named after her.”

“I think it is nice to have a house named after you,” said Elizabeth Ann, wondering how it would sound to have a house, or a boat, named “The Elizabeth Ann.”

Uncle Hiram was anxious to be off, and Aunt Jennie hurried everyone through breakfast. Then they all came out to the car to help tuck Elizabeth Ann and Doris in, and to see that Tony was as comfortable as possible in his wicker basket. It can not be said that Tony liked to travel, but Elizabeth Ann hoped he would like his new home when he eventually reached there.

“Take in the gang plank,” said Uncle Hiram, when his passengers were finally settled.

That, Elizabeth Ann discovered, meant to close the car door.

“Full steam ahead,” said Uncle Hiram and started the car.

“Good-by, good-by!” cried all the Masons; and Elizabeth Ann and Doris waved and waved till they could see the little brown house no longer.

Now if Elizabeth Ann had been all alone, or if Doris had been alone, each little girl might have felt a bit homesick at that moment—riding away in a strange car with a strange uncle. But two little girls can’t feel forlorn when they have each other; and besides, as Elizabeth Ann wrote to Uncle Doctor later, it took a great deal of time to understand what Uncle Hiram was saying. Because he talked like a sailor, and neither Elizabeth Ann nor Doris understood sailor talk.

It was a most beautiful September day and the roads were lined with goldenrod. Elizabeth Ann would have liked Tony to enjoy the scenery but she didn’t feel that it would be safe to take him from his basket, and Uncle Hiram said that he agreed with her.

“Cats have to get used to strange ships,” he rumbled in his deep voice. “Wait till we get Tony to the Bonnie Susie and he’ll feel at home in a couple of days.”

Elizabeth Ann, watching the gray road roll out like a piece of ribbon in front of the car, thought often of Uncle Hiram’s house. Doris had said it was like a boat.

“But of course,” said Elizabeth Ann to herself, “it can’t be a real boat. I never saw a real boat on the land. And Uncle Hiram lives on a farm, and you have to live in a house when you live on a farm.”

She was wondering about Uncle Hiram’s house, when his deep voice spoke to her and she jumped a little.

“Well, mess-mate,” said Uncle Hiram pleasantly, “what do you say to stopping at the next place where there is something to eat?”

“I think it would be nice to stop,” Elizabeth Ann declared promptly.

“I’m hungry, too,” announced Doris, and it was a pity her mother couldn’t hear her, for Doris had not been hungry lately.

“Guess we’ll have to coal ship, too,” said Uncle Hiram and Elizabeth Ann looked at Doris helplessly.

“I mean, we need some gas for the car,” Uncle Hiram added. “I forget you haven’t signed up with a ship before. But you’ll learn in time—you’ll learn in time.”

They came to a filling station with a nice, clean-looking restaurant attached and Uncle Hiram drove in. He helped Elizabeth Ann and Doris out and then looked at the basket in which Tony was fastened.

“How do we feed the cat?” he asked.

Elizabeth Ann had traveled with Tony before. She knew how to take care of him.

“If there is a quiet place, I can take him out of the basket,” she explained. “He likes liver and milk, but he won’t eat if there is much noise, or many people looking at him.”

“He’s a cat after my own heart,” declared Uncle Hiram. “I can’t enjoy my food if a crowd has to sit and stare at every mouthful I take. We’ll see what we can do.”

Well, what Uncle Hiram could do was to take one of the tables in a row of little alcoves. The table had seats built on two sides of it, and there were pink and blue curtains that could be drawn across the doorway, so that the alcove was almost like a separate room. Elizabeth Ann and Doris sat on one side of the table, and Uncle Hiram sat on the other, while a little waitress in a pink and white frock and a green apron brought them hot rolls filled with creamed chicken, and glasses of milk and, for Tony, a green and white enameled dish with tiny pieces of liver all cut up ready for him to eat.

“Here’s your lunch, Tony,” Elizabeth Ann whispered, opening the basket carefully.

Out popped the white head and green eyes of Tony. He looked around the alcove and apparently approved of it. The dish of liver was on the floor and Elizabeth Ann put him down beside it and he went to eating not greedily, but daintily and slowly, as Tony always ate.

“You’ll be eating supper in the Bonnie Susie to-night,” said Uncle Hiram, looking hard at Doris’s glass of milk.

Doris thought he meant her to drink it (which he did) and she took a long swallow.

“Is—is the Bonnie Susie a house or a boat?” asked Elizabeth Ann, her curiosity getting the better of her.

“Wait and see,” Uncle Hiram said with a smile.

“It’s a boat!” declared Doris. “I told you it was a boat, Elizabeth Ann.”

“Well, you——” began Elizabeth Ann.

She had intended to say, “You never saw it,” and suggest that Doris might be mistaken.

But instead she glanced down under the table and cried in alarm, “Where’s Tony? Tony isn’t here!”

Tony wasn’t there—he had disappeared. He had licked his dish as clean as clean could be and then had vanished.

“I’ll find him—likely as not he is prowling around the restaurant, in the main room,” said Uncle Hiram. “You two children stay here and I’ll round up the culprit. We can’t allow mutiny on board this craft.”

Uncle Hiram went out through the curtains and Elizabeth Ann and Doris waited. He didn’t come back and he didn’t come back.

“I can’t go away and leave him here,” whispered Elizabeth Ann, feeling as though she would like to cry. “He would be so unhappy if he found out I’d gone off with Uncle Hiram and left him.”

“Serve him right,” Doris said rather crossly. “Anyway, Uncle Hiram won’t let you stay here to wait for Tony; if that cat doesn’t come back, you’ll just have to go and leave him.”

Doris, you see, was a little tired and as people often are, who have been ill, inclined to be cross. She didn’t want Elizabeth Ann to be unhappy, but neither did she want to have their journey interrupted by a search for Elizabeth Ann’s cat.

“I just have to find him,” said Elizabeth Ann. “I’m going to open that door and see where it goes.”

She pointed to a door in the wall behind them—a closed door. But it wasn’t a locked door for it opened when Elizabeth Ann turned the knob, and there was a flight of steps leading down to the cellar.

“You’d better stay right here,” Doris told her, and that was certainly good advice.

Elizabeth Ann, unfortunately, didn’t always take good advice.

“I’m going down to look for Tony,” she said firmly. “You stay there so you can tell Uncle Hiram where I’ve gone.”

And down the steps went Miss Elizabeth Ann, into a perfectly strange cellar.

It wasn’t dark—that is, it wasn’t so very dark. She began to call softly for Tony as she went down the steps and when she found herself on the cement floor she thought she saw him moving among the shadows. But when she walked toward what she thought was the cat, Elizabeth Ann discovered that it was only a piece of wood someone had dropped as they carried an armful up for the fire.

“Here, Tony, Tony!” called Elizabeth Ann.

The cellar seemed to have little rooms arranged around it—Elizabeth Ann wrinkled her nose at the spaces where coal and wood were piled, and the potatoes and onions and other vegetables heaped in neat piles in some of the other rooms. But when she came to a place just lined with shelves, Elizabeth Ann paused. She forgot Tony for a moment, too.

“It looks like the pantry Aunt Hester had in her house,” thought Elizabeth Ann.

These shelves were filled with glass jars, just as Aunt Hester’s shelves had been filled. Elizabeth Ann knew what was in the jars—fruit and jam and jellies—perhaps vegetables, too. She opened the gate made of slats and went in to have a better look.

“I thought so!” said a sharp voice behind her. “I’m not a bit surprised. Put out your hand!”

Too surprised to disobey, Elizabeth Ann held out her little right hand.

At once she felt three hard stinging blows across it—blows from a ruler the owner of the sharp voice held in her hand.

“Now you march right upstairs,” commanded the sharp voice.

CHAPTER V
TAKEN BOYS

Poor Elizabeth Ann, her hand stinging, her eyes filled with tears, stepped out of the room where the rows of glass jars were stored. As she walked past the woman who held the ruler, that sharp-voiced person gasped.

“For mercy’s sake, who are you? I thought you were Esther,” she said.

“I’m Elizabeth Ann Loring,” said Elizabeth Ann. “I came down here to look for Tony, my cat.”

“Good gracious!” the woman cried—Elizabeth Ann could see her better now, in the light that came from one of the cellar windows. “I never saw you before in my life!”

Elizabeth Ann rubbed her smarting hand and winked back the tears.

“For mercy’s sake, who are you?” she said.

“I was just looking at your pantry,” she said with dignity. “My aunt has a pantry like that. She puts up jelly every year.”

“I’m sorry,” said the woman, who was tall and thin and wore her hair twisted back from her eyes in a small, hard knot. “I’m sorry I struck you with the ruler. I thought you were my niece, Esther, who is always stealing jam. I told her the next time I found her in the cellar I’d give her something to remember.”

“I’ll remember it!” Elizabeth Ann declared. “It hurt.”

“I’m sorry,” said the woman again. “And the worst of it is, it won’t do Esther any good; she’ll be down here the minute my back is turned.”

“I think,” Elizabeth Ann announced in a rather small voice, “I think I’d better go back. Uncle Hiram will be wondering where I am.”

At this late date Elizabeth Ann had suddenly remembered that Uncle Hiram had directed her and Doris to stay in the alcove room till he came back. Perhaps he might not be pleased to find she was wandering around in the cellar.

“If you have any folks,” said the woman, switching the ruler against her skirts and peering around the cellar as though she still hoped to find the jam-stealing Esther, “I should think they’d be looking for you. Where did you come from?”

Elizabeth Ann explained about Doris and Uncle Hiram and the woman showed her where the stairs were for Elizabeth Ann was so turned about that she couldn’t find her way.

“I work in the kitchen,” said the woman. “I’ll go up the other stairs. I hope you understand it was all a mistake, my slapping you with the ruler.”

Elizabeth Ann said of course she knew it was a mistake; so she went up the stairs and found herself in the alcove room. No one was there except Doris and she was frowning. Oh yes, the wicker basket was on the seat beside her and it was closed and fastened. That meant, very likely, that Tony was inside.

“Where have you been?” demanded Doris.

“Did Uncle Hiram find Tony?” Elizabeth Ann asked, instead of answering the question.

“Of course he did—and he’s in his basket,” said Doris, mixing her pronouns in a way that would have scandalized Aunt Ida. “He doesn’t like it a bit, either, because you weren’t here. He’s gone to ask the man who owns the restaurant if he can go down in the cellar and hunt for you.”

And just then Uncle Hiram parted the curtains and looked in at the two girls. He saw Elizabeth Ann and he said to her, exactly as Doris had, “Where have you been?” Only he added, “I thought I asked you to wait till I came back.”

“I went to look for Tony,” said Elizabeth Ann. “I thought he might have gone down cellar to hunt for mice. And a lady thought I was Esther stealing jam and she told me to put out my hand and she hit me three times with her ruler.”

Elizabeth Ann held out her hand. Across the pink palm were angry-looking, red marks.

“Orders are orders on board ship,” said Uncle Hiram. “However, you seem to have battled a gale and we’ll let it go this once. I found your cat snooping around the main dining room—guess he wanted more to eat.”

On the way out to the car—Uncle Hiram said they must hurry for they still had many miles to cover—Elizabeth Ann looked around her carefully. She thought she might see Esther, and she was rather interested in Esther. But she didn’t see any other little girl.

“Do you think,” whispered Doris, after they were in their places on the back seat, and Uncle Hiram was so busy watching the road that he couldn’t listen to them chattering, “do you think that Uncle Hiram is cross?”

“Well, I’m not sure,” Elizabeth Ann said. “Of course I ought not to have gone down in the cellar. Perhaps he isn’t cross when you do as he asks you to.”

Doris agreed that under those circumstances Uncle Hiram might not be cross. Then she put her head down on Elizabeth Ann’s shoulder and went to sleep. And Elizabeth Ann found that her own eyes insisted on closing, and she went to sleep too.

She woke up a little later to find that the car had stopped. Uncle Hiram was talking to a man who sat in another car, headed in the opposite direction.

“You sure you haven’t seen him?” the man was saying as Elizabeth Ann opened her eyes.

“I told you I hadn’t,” answered Uncle Hiram, and his voice was a deep growl. “I might have picked him up and given him a lift, if he asked me, but I wouldn’t lie about it. I haven’t seen any boy on the road since I started this trip.”

“The varmint is probably hiding around somewhere,” the man said crossly.

Elizabeth Ann leaned as far forward as she could, without waking the still sleeping Doris.

The man who sat in the other car did not have a pleasant face. He was thin, and his nose was red, while his eyes were small and looked angry. He had thrust his head out of the side of his car and was positively glaring at Uncle Hiram.

“Well, if you do see him, mind you pick him up and telephone me,” said the man, speaking more crossly still. “I’ll pay for the telephone call. He’s a bound boy, remember, and I have the right to him.”

Uncle Hiram merely nodded and started his car. Elizabeth Ann waited till he had passed the other car and then she touched him on the shoulder.

“Uncle Hiram,” she said in a low voice, as though she was afraid the other man might overhear, “Uncle Hiram, what is a varmint?”

“Eh, you’re awake then,” Uncle Hiram commented. “I thought you were having a fine nap. A varmint, my dear, is a low kind of animal—like a skunk or a weasel. Weasels, you know, steal chickens.”

“Why did the man want one then?” asked Elizabeth Ann.

“One what?” Uncle Hiram said, surprised.

“A varmint,” explained Elizabeth Ann. “He was looking for a varmint. I woke up when he was saying so.”

“I don’t wonder you woke up,” Uncle Hiram declared. “He had a voice like a buzz saw, and anyone who heard it would either wake up or have bad dreams. That man wasn’t looking for a varmint, my dear; that was just his way of describing a poor taken boy.”

Elizabeth Ann stood up. She always said she could think better standing up.

“Please, what is a taken boy?” she asked.

Uncle Hiram glanced over his shoulder.

“My, my, what a lot of things you want to know,” said he. “Well, Elizabeth Ann, a taken boy is usually an orphan. Someone takes him from the poorhouse and agrees to be responsible for his food and shelter and clothes. And in return the boy does as much work as he can.”

“Oh!” Elizabeth Ann exclaimed. “Did that man with the red nose take a boy?”

“I’m afraid he did,” said Uncle Hiram. “I’m sorry for any lad who has to live with a man like that. It seems this poor boy couldn’t stand it any longer. He ran away, and the man was searching for him.”

“I hope he doesn’t find him!” Elizabeth Ann declared.

Uncle Hiram didn’t say anything, but Elizabeth Ann was sure he hoped that the boy would not be found.

“Are we there?” asked a sleepy little voice, and Doris sat up, rubbing her eyes.

“Almost there!” Uncle Hiram said cheerfully. “Have to go around one more curve and take the first turn to the right, and then you’ll see the Bonnie Susie.”

Tony meowed mournfully in his basket. Perhaps he was tired of automobiling.

“I’ve learned a lot while you were asleep,” Elizabeth Ann informed Doris, gently rocking the basket to let Tony know she heard him. “I learned about varmints, and taken boys.”

And she explained about them to Doris, who was interested too.