Chapter III: Little Sea Nymphs

Polly and Rose were walking along the beach on the way to call for Sprite. They had not decided how to spend the morning, but whatever they chose to do, they surely would enjoy themselves, for never were three playmates happier in each other's company.

"A long time ago when you first came to Avondale to live at Sherwood Hall, we named you Princess Polly. We never seemed to think of you as Polly Sherwood, your truly name," Rose said.

"And I liked you the first day I met you by the brook," Polly said, "and I thought Rose Atherton was such a pretty name."

"Sprite's name just fits her," said Rose, a moment later, "for she looks like a sprite, or a sea nymph, and so Sprite Seaford seems just the name for her.

"There she is now, coming toward us. Let's run to meet her."

"I took the telescope, and looked up the beach," Sprite said, when they met, "and kept looking until I saw you. Then I put it back on the mantel, and ran to meet you. Now come over to the place I call the bay."

She led the way, and they followed. The bay, as Sprite called it was a place where a ledge projected into the water in such a way that the incoming waves rushed past it, sweeping up onto the sand in a curving line.

It was not much of a bay, but it served as a name, and they always knew what she meant when she spoke of it.

Its shallow water was fine to play in, and when the tide went out, there always remained a little pool that reflected floating clouds.

On its clear surface they skipped flat stones, and they marvelled to see how skillful was little Sprite.

"Nine skips, and then a hop! That makes ten," said Polly, "and I can only make mine skip seven times."

"Oh, but you can do as well as I if you practice enough. I've always lived here at the shore," Sprite said, "and the flat stones have been my toys."

It was fine to compete with her, and Rose and Polly worked very hard in their effort to make a better fling.

"Eight!" declared Polly, and for a number of times, she sent the stones skipping eight times across the glassy little pool.

"Seven!" cried Rose, "and it almost went eight, and then didn't. Wasn't that provoking?"

"Eight!" she shouted a moment later.

"Nine!" squealed Polly. "Nine! Who'd have believed I could?"

"I would," replied Sprite, "because you're trying so hard, and because you can do anything."

"Oh, I can't!" Polly said.

"Well, you sing, and play, and you dance beautifully; after all that, just skipping stones doesn't seem so very much," Sprite answered quickly.

"It does to me because I've never done it before. It's great fun."

The sun was higher, and warm from exercise, they sat down in the shadow of the cliff to rest, and cool off.

They talked of the ships that appeared on the horizon, wondering what their cargoes might be. They talked of all sorts of things, but it was Sprite who gave a surprise.

"Guess who has gone way, way over in that big yellow house on the cliff to live. Guess!" she said, and her eyes were twinkling.

"Oh, tell us," said Polly.

"Yes, you'd better tell us," said Rose. "We couldn't ever guess."

"Won't you guess?" Sprite asked.

"What's the use," said Polly. "We couldn't guess who it is in a month!"

"Well, it's Gwen Harcourt," Sprite said.

"Gwen Harcourt!" cried Polly and Rose in the same breath. "Why, how funny. Her mamma said she was tired of Cliffmore."

"Yes, and she said she didn't like any of the people that were here for the Summer," said Rose.

"Gwen said her mamma said that, but she said the reason was because she was provoked, and Gwen said she teased and teased her to stay, so she did, and they truly are in that big yellow house on the cliff. There's only about a dozen people boarding there, and Gwen said it seemed more select than the place where she'd been staying."

"I said: 'You like Polly Sherwood and Rose Atherton,' and she said, 'Yes, I like them, but it's the grown people that we don't care for,'" concluded Sprite.

"It was the grown people that didn't like Gwen, and no wonder," said Rose. "Who would like to have her trunks and boxes emptied on the floor, and all the hats and dresses pulled over? I don't believe anyone in that yellow house, or any other house will like to have her do that."

A cool breeze blew in from the ocean, and the three sprang to their feet.

"Let's pull off our shoes and stockings and dance on the thin edge of the water," cried Sprite.

"I'll sing a song mamma taught me."

They clasped hands, and gracefully they skipped in time with the pretty song.

"We are water nymphs so free,
We are merry sisters three.
When the sunbeams kiss the foam
From our coral cave we roam,
And we float up to the strand
Where we dance upon the sand.

"When the moon with silvery ray
Glistens on the tossing spray,
Then upon the beach we dance,
Fleet of foot we whirl and prance.
Whirling, swaying, gay and free,
Merry water nymphs are we."

It was a pretty sight.

The three lovely faces, bright eyed, and rose tinted cheeks, their graceful forms swaying, swinging, whirling, their white feet nimbly keeping time to the song that Sprite sang.

The guests at the big yellow house on the ledge had already found that Mrs. Harcourt was a pleasant woman to talk with, but they also had learned that she permitted her small daughter to be as rude and unpleasant as she chose. It never required a great length of time for anyone to learn that.

At the breakfast table, the first morning after they had left the hotel and had engaged rooms at the big house on the ledge, Gwen showed her rudeness by declaring that she could not eat any of the food that was served.

Mrs. Harcourt looked around at the other guests, remarking:

"Gwen has such refined taste that quite often really good food fails to tempt her."

Thus encouraged, Gwen spoke for herself:

"But there's nothing on this table that is good. I wonder any of you can eat it."

The guests were disgusted with the silly child, and sillier mother. She had acted in about the same manner at every meal.

It happened that she had been up in her room over the piazza on the morning that her three little friends were dancing upon the beach.

They were too far distant for her to guess who they might be.

The field glasses lay on the dresser, and Gwen snatched them, ran to the window, and peeped at the dancing figures.

"Oo--oo! It's Princess Polly, and Rose and Sprite. I'm going right over to see them, and dance with them, too!"

She flung the glasses down into the nearest chair, and ran down the stairs, across the lawn, and then commenced to make her way carefully down the rough steps that had been cut in the ledge.

Even Gwen could not descend those steps at high speed.

Once on the sand she believed she could hasten, but the tide never reached the ledge upon which the house stood, so the sand at its base was dry, and anything but easy to hurry over.

At last she reached the damp part, and then how her feet flew over the firm, level surface.

She seemed tireless as she sped along, and she ran without stopping until she stood before them. They had not seen her approaching, because a high cliff had hidden her until she sprang out from behind it.

"Hello!" she cried.

"Hello!" they replied. "Going to dance with us?"

"Of course," Gwen said shortly. "That's why I came here."

She was a fine little dancer, and soon the four were tripping lightly over the sand, the three bare footed, but Gwen with shoes and stockings on, splashing as gaily through the shallow water as if she did not know that she was ruining a fine pair of new shoes.

Her pale blue stockings would hardly be improved by a drenching in salt-water.

The others had urged her to take them off, but for that very reason, she stubbornly refused, and laughed as the water rushed about her ankles at the first step.

She knew that no reproof awaited her. Mrs. Harcourt hailed each new prank as a sure sign of her small daughter's originality.

Tormenting the pets that other guests had brought to the shore, hiding the embroidery frames that any lady might chance to leave lying on a chair, throwing hats or wraps over the piazza railing to drop at the foot of the cliff, all these things Mrs. Harcourt thought extremely amusing.

A pair of wet shoes would, of course, be very funny. Gwen was sure of that.

"Where's that new girl?" she asked when they paused to rest.

"She's gone out fishing with her brother," Rose replied, "and they intend to be out all day."

"Oh, well, I only asked for fun," Gwen said quickly. "She's pleasant, and I like her, but she can't keep still a minute, and that makes me tired."

"Why, Gwen Harcourt, neither do you," said Rose, laughing.

"Me?" said Gwen. "Well, who wants to keep still? I didn't say I wanted to. I said it made me tired to watch her, because she,--because _she_ doesn't keep still. That's different!"

A shout made them turn to look down the beach.

A boy, using his hands as a speaking tube, stood looking toward them, and calling loudly, "Gwen! Gwen!"

"Oh, that's Max Deland," said Gwen. "I'll go and see why he's calling me."

Without saying "Good-bye," she turned, and raced down the beach, and Polly and Rose and Sprite stood watching her flying figure.

On, on she ran until at last, they saw that she had reached the boy who had shouted to her.

Then Princess Polly spoke:

"I wonder why he didn't run to meet her," she said, "instead of standing stock still and waiting 'till she'd run every step of the way?"

"I don't wonder," Sprite said, "because I've seen him do that so many times, and he tells her to 'do this,' and 'do that,' and 'come here,' and 'go there,' and she does just as he says every time."

"That's queer," Rose said, "because she never lets us tell her even how to play a new game. The minute we start to tell her how it is played, she says: 'Oh, I know all about it,' so of course we stop, and it is Gwen who is always saying, 'Come and do this,' and 'You must do it,' till we get tired of being 'bossed,' and never doing as we wish. She didn't do that way to-day. She danced with us, and never once told us how to do it."

"Why, Polly!" cried Sprite, "she has always known that you were trained for dancing, and that you know the prettiest dances."

The three little friends still stood watching Gwen and Max.

They seemed to be discussing something upon which they could not agree, for as they watched, Max violently pointed toward some distant point on the shore, and stamped his foot, and each time Gwen would shake her curly head.

The boy seemed determined, and the girl obstinate.

"I wonder what he is telling her to do?" said Sprite, to which Polly replied:

"I don't. I wonder why she doesn't do it?"

"Yesterday he dared her to go out on an old plank, and she did it and got a ducking," said Sprite. "P'r'aps it's something like that."

The two figures still stood out clearly, the boy evidently insisting, and the girl still shaking her head as if unwilling to do as he wished.

Some bathers came running down to the water, their gay colored caps covering their hair, their sandals tied with ribbons.

Polly, Rose, and Sprite turned to see them take the first dip, and for a few moments watched them romping in the surf.

When they turned Max and Gwen had disappeared.

"I do wonder what they were planning to do?" said Polly, "and why Gwen seemed unwilling to do it, whatever it was."

"So do I," said Rose, "because Max always wants to do the wildest things," to which Sprite added; "And you can't often find anything wilder than Gwen would enjoy."

It happened that Max and Gwen had disappeared behind a rough shanty that laborers were using for a toolhouse.

"Now don't be a fraidie-cat!" Max was saying. "What makes you act so? I called you a 'brick' the other day because I said you dared to do things that any girl but you wouldn't dare to do. Now here you are, acting just the way other girls act. 'Fore I'd be 'fraid to sail in a tub!" He hoped to make her do it.

"Well, if you're not afraid to, why don't you do it, instead of asking me to do it?" snapped Gwen.

"Oh, so I can tell the other boys how brave you are," replied Max.

"They wouldn't think anything of me a doing it," he continued, quite regardless of his grammar, "because I'm a boy, and I'm s'posed to be brave, anyway, but you're a girl, and that's different.

"Come! Get in! I'll shove it!"

Gwen paused for a moment, then:

"Give me your hand!" she said.

She was afraid, but her silly vanity prompted her to do it. She knew that neither of her playmates would dare, and Max had promised to tell the other boys of the brave feat.

Max took her hand, and she sprang into the tub, crouching on the bottom, as he shoved it off into water a bit deeper than that in which they had been standing.

The tub was roughly made and anything but clean. The workmen had used it for holding cement, but had emptied it, and left it on the beach where Max had found it.

He was very fond of coaxing others to do things that he himself would never have done. Now, safe on dry land, he stood cheering Gwen for her bravery.

"Well, come and wade out here and get me back," she cried. "I've proved that I dared to do it, and that's enough!"

"Wait till I get the fellows to come and see you out there in the tub. They might not believe me if I just told them!" shouted Max, and he raced off at top speed, paying no heed to Gwen's shrieks. No one could have guessed if Max heard her and yet kept on running, or whether the sound of his own footfalls drowned her cries.