Five Little Peppers Abroad Part 12

"Was anything ever more beautiful?" exclaimed Mother Fisher, drawing in long breaths of delight. The little doctor leaned back in his seat, and beamed at her over his big gla.s.ses. She began to look rested and young already. "This journey is the very thing," he declared to himself, and his hard-worked hand slipped itself over her toil-worn one as it lay on her lap. She turned to him with a smile.

"Adoniram, I never imagined anything like this," she said simply.

"No more did I," he answered. "That's the good of our coming, wife."

"Just see those beautiful green trees, so soft and trembling," she exclaimed, as enthusiastically as Polly herself. "And what a perfect arch!" And she bent forward to glance down the shaded avenue. "Oh, Adoniram!"

"What makes the trunks look so green?" Polly was crying as they rumbled along. "See, Jasper, there isn't a brown branch, even. Everything is green."

"That's what makes it so pretty," said Jasper. "I don't wonder these oaks in the _Scheveningsche Boschjes_--O dear me, I don't know how to p.r.o.nounce it in the least--are so celebrated."

"Don't try," said Polly, "to p.r.o.nounce it, Jasper. I just mark things in my Baedeker and let it go."

"Our Baedekers will be a sight when we get home, won't they, Polly?"

remarked Jasper, in a pause, when eyes had been busy to their utmost capacity.

"I rather think they will," laughed Polly. "Mine is a sight now, Jasper, for I mark all round the edges--and just everywhere."

"But you are always copying off the things into your journal," said Jasper, "afterward. So do I mark my Baedeker; it's the only way to jot things down in any sort of order. One can't be whipping out a note-book every minute. Halloo, here we are at the chateau of the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar. Look, Polly! look!"

As they looked back in the distance to the receding ducal estate, Polly said: "It isn't one-half as beautiful as this delicious old wood is, Jasper. Just see that perfectly beautiful walk down there and that cunning little trail. Oh, I do so wish we could stay here."

"Some day, let us ask Dr. Fisher to come out with us, and we will tramp it. Oh, I forgot; he won't leave the hospitals."

"Mr. Henderson might like to," said Polly, in a glow, "let's ask him sometime, anyway, Jasper. And then, just think, we can go all in and out this lovely wood. How fine!"

"Father will come over to Scheveningen again and stay a few days, maybe," said Jasper, "if he takes a fancy to the idea. How would you like that, Polly?"

"I don't know," said Polly, "because I haven't seen it yet, Jasper."

"I know--I forgot--'twas silly in me to ask such a question," said Jasper, with a laugh. "Well, anyway, I think it more than likely that he will."

"I just love The Hague," declared Polly, with a backward glance down the green avenue. "I hope we are going to stay there ever so long, Jasper."

"Then we sha'n't get on to all the other places," said Jasper. "We shall feel just as badly to leave every other one, I suppose, Polly."

"I suppose so," said Polly, with a sigh.

When they left the tram-car at the beginning of the village of Scheveningen they set off on a walk down to the _Curhaus_ and the beach. Old Mr. King, as young as any one, started out on the promenade on the undulating terrace at the top of the Dunes, followed by the rest of his party.

Down below ran a level road. "There is the Boulevard," said Grandpapa.

"See, child," pointing to it; but Phronsie had no eyes for anything but the hundreds and hundreds of Bath chairs dotting the sands.

"Oh, Grandpapa, what are they?" she cried, pulling his hand and pointing to them.

"Those are chairs," answered Mr. King, "and by and by we will go down and get into some of them."

"They look just like the big sunbonnets that Grandma Bascom always wore when she went out to feed her hens, don't they, Jasper?"

"Precisely," he said, bursting into a laugh. "How you always do see funny things, Polly."

"And see what queer patches there are all up and down the sides of some of them," cried Polly. "Whatever can they be, Jasper?"

"Oh, those are the advertis.e.m.e.nts," said Jasper. "You'll find that everything is plastered up in that way abroad."

"Just as the omnibuses in London are all covered over with posters,"

said Polly; "weren't they funny, Jasper?"

"Yes, indeed,--'Lipton Teas,'--I got so tired of that. And these,--cocoa or chocolate. You know Holland is full of manufactories of it."

"And isn't it good?" cried Polly, smacking her lips, as she had feasted on it since their arrival in Holland, Grandpapa considering it especially good and pure.

"I should say so," echoed Jasper, smacking his lips, too.

"Dr. Fisher--" The parson turned to address his neighbour, but there was no little doctor.

"Oh, he is off long ago," said his wife, "to his beloved hospital. What is it, Samuel?"

"I was only going to remark that I don't believe I ever saw so many people together before. Just look!" he pointed down to the Boulevard and off to the sands along the beach.

"It is a swarm, isn't it?" said his wife. "Well, we must go, for Mr.

King is going down to the Boulevard."

Polly and Jasper, running in and out of the fascinating shops by the Concert terrace, had minds divided by the desire to stay on the sands, and to explore further the tempting interiors. "We must get something for the boys," she declared, jingling her little silver purse; "just let us go in this one now, then we'll run after Grandpapa; he's going down on the sands."

"He's going to sit with Phronsie in some of those big sunbonnets of yours, Polly," said Jasper. "There they are," pointing to them. "Well, we'll go in this shop. I want to get a pair of those wooden shoes for Joel." And they hurried in.

"Oh, how fine!" exclaimed Polly. "Well, I saw a carved bear I think Davie would like, and--" the rest was lost in the confusing array of tempting things spread out for their choice by deft shopkeepers.

When they emerged, Polly had a china windmill, and an inkstand of Delft ware, and several other things, and Jasper carried all the big bundles.

"O dear me," said Polly, "now we must run, or we sha'n't have much time to stay on the beach; and besides, Grandpapa will worry over us if we're not there."

"We can't run much, loaded down with this," said Jasper, looking at his armful and laughing, "or we'd likely drop half of them, and smash them to pieces. Wait a bit, Polly, I'm going to buy you some fruit." They stopped at the top of the stone stairway leading down to the sands, where some comely peasant women, fishermen's wives, held great baskets of fruit, and in one hand was a pair of scales. "Now, then, what will you have, Polly?"

"Oh, some grapes, please, Jasper," said Polly. "Aren't they most beautiful?"

"I should say they were; they are black Hamburgs," declared Jasper.

"Now, then, my good woman, give us a couple of pounds." He put down the coin she asked for, and she weighed them out in her scales, and did them up in a piece of a Dutch newspaper.

"We are much worse off now, Jasper," laughed Polly, as they got over the stairs somehow with their burdens, "since we've all these grapes to carry. O dear me, there goes one!"

"Never mind," said Jasper, looking over his armful of presents, to investigate his paper of grapes; "if we don't lose but one, we're lucky."

"And there goes another," announced Polly, as they picked their way over and through the thick sand.

"Well, I declare," exclaimed old Mr. King, peering out of his Bath chair, "if you children aren't loaded down!" He was eating black Hamburg grapes. Phronsie sat opposite him almost lost in the depth of another Bath chair, similarly occupied. And at a little remove was the remainder of the party, and they all were in Bath chairs, and eating black Hamburg grapes.

"We've had such fun," sighed Polly, and she and Jasper cast their bundles on the soft sand; then she threw herself down next to them, and pushed up the little brown rings from her damp brow.