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Judy, a novel by Temple Bailey |
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Chapter 23. In A Silver Boat |
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_ CHAPTER XXIII. IN A SILVER BOAT The tide coming in the next morning brought with it on the blue surface of the waves two bobbing lemons. Many times the golden globes rolled up the beach only to be carried back by the under-wash of the waters, but finally one wave rolling farther than the rest left them high and dry on the sand, and the same wave splashing over an inert and huddled up figure waked it to consciousness. Judy sat up stiffly and stared around her. "Oh," she sighed, as she remembered all that had happened in the darkness of the night. She clasped her hands around her knees and gazed out forlornly over the empty waters. Not a sail, not a trail of smoke broke the blueness of the bay. With another sigh, this time of disappointment, she turned her gaze landward, and beheld there nothing but lank marsh grass and sand and driftwood. And then at her feet she spied the lemons. She picked them up--they were the only salvage from the sunken boat. She looked around for Tommy. On the other side of a mound of sand, she could just see the top of his head, and as he did not move she decided that he was still asleep. Her eyes twinkled, as with stealthy steps she crept up the beach until she reached a low bush with scrubby sage-green foliage. On its spiky branches she stuck the lemons, and then ran swiftly back. Tommy was still sleeping, so she dipped her hands into the cold water, took off her stiffened shoes and bathed her swollen feet. Her dress had dried in the night winds, and when she had combed her hair she looked fairly presentable. Barefooted she tripped over the cool wet sands, glorying in the broad expanse of blue, with white gulls dipping to it from a bluer sky. "Tommy," she called, "Tommy." A towsled head appeared over the top of the mound. "Oh, dear," said Tommy, lugubriously, as he saw her sparkling face, "you act as if being shipwrecked was a good joke, Judy." "The sun is shining and it is perfectly fine." "It's perfectly horrid," said Tommy. Judy looked at him for a moment, and a lump came in her throat. "Well, it seems so much better to laugh over our troubles than to cry. Don't you think so, Tommy?" she said, wistfully, and tears welled up into her brave eyes. "Oh, don't cry, Judy," begged Tommy, who felt that all the world would grow dark if Judy's staunch heart should fail. "Don't cry, Judy." She brushed away her tears and smiled at him. "Well, get up, lazy boy," she said. "I'm hungry." "Well, go and hunt for something to eat." "Don't know where to look." "Neither did Robinson Crusoe." "Oh, well, what are you going to do?" "Watch for some one to come and take us off." It began to be exciting. If Tommy had not been so hungry, he really believed that he might have appreciated the adventure. But his soul yearned for hot cakes and maple syrup, or beefsteak and waffles--or at least for plain bread and butter. "Gee, but it would taste good," he said aloud. "What?" "I was thinking of breakfast," said poor Tommy, "hot rolls and things like that, Judy." "O-o-oh," said Judy, "how about some hot biscuit, with one of Perkins' omelettes--and--creamed potatoes?" "Oh, don't," groaned hungry Tommy, and fled. He came back in about two minutes, swaggering with importance. "This island isn't so barren as it looks," he said, pompously. "You don't know everything, Judy." "Don't I?" "No. Now what do you think of these," and he produced the two lemons triumphantly. "Where did you find them?" "Growing over there," and he pointed to the scrubby, sage-green spiky bush. "Who would have believed it?" Judy's eyes were round and solemn, but the expression in them should have warned Tommy. "You see there are some things you don't know. I'm going to look for oysters now." "Oysters--" "Yes. To eat with our lemons." "You might find some cracker fruit, and a coffee vine, and maybe there will be a salt and pepper tree somewhere--and Tommy, _please_ discover a Tabasco bush--I never could eat my oysters without Tabasco." Tommy looked at her wrathfully. "Aw, Judy," he said, with a red face, "you're foolin'--and I think it's mean." Then a thought struck him, and he examined the lemons carefully. "You stuck them on that bush," he accused, excitedly. "There are holes in them. You did it to fool me, didn't you, Judy?" She nodded. "An' you think it's a joke--I--I--" He could think of nothing sufficiently crushing to say. "Well, I don't," he finished sulkily, and plumped himself down on the sand, with his face away from her. "Tommy," she said, after a long silence, "Tommy." "Huh?" "Please be good-natured." "Be good-natured yourself," said Tommy, with a half-sob. "I'm--I'm--perfectly mis'able, Judy Jameson--" It was then that Judy showed that she could be womanly and sympathetic. "I'm sorry I teased you, Tommy," she said, softly. "Let's make ourselves comfortable here on the sand, and I'll tell you about when I used to live in Europe." Tommy liked that, and all the morning Judy talked, although she was so tired, that her head felt light, and her eyes blurred, but Tommy was happy and she tried to forget about herself. She made him suck both of the lemons. "I don't want any," she said, although her throat was so dry that she could hardly speak. "I don't want any." "Whew, but they are sour," said Tommy, and made a wry face, but he did not insist upon her having one. That was the worst of it, the thirst, for there was no fresh water. "Let's explore," said Tommy, as the afternoon waned and no relief came. "Maybe we will find a house back there somewhere." But Judy shook her head. "No," she said, "we are on the end of the peninsula, between the bay and the ocean. It is just salt marshes from one end to the other, and no one lives on them. The best thing we can do is to hail a boat." "But there ain't any boats." "There will be," said Judy, stoutly. "There are lots of little schooners that take fruit and vegetables to the markets. Not many of them come this way, but some of them do, and if we wait they will rescue us." After that they saw several sails, and waved Tommy's coat frantically, but no one responded. As the twilight darkened into the night, a steamer went by, her lights shining like jewels against the purple background--red and green and yellow. "If we only had a lantern," groaned Judy, as Tommy shouted himself hoarse, and the steamer kept on her majestic way, leaving them hopelessly behind. "Maybe some one will see us in the morning." Judy was trying to encourage Tommy, who had dropped down on the sand with his back to her, but not before she had seen his working face, and his knuckles rubbing his red eyes. "I'm going to sleep," he muttered, still with his face away from her, and with that he curled himself up against the big mound, as he had done the night before, and forgot his troubles. Judy lay on the sand watching the waves roll in, and thinking long thoughts. She thought of her father, living, perhaps, on some such lonely beach as this, but farther away from the haunts of men--alone, looking at the same stars, searching a vaster expanse for the ship that never came. She thought, too, of her mother, the gentle mother, whose guarding presence she seemed to feel in the wonderful stillness. She thought of their plans for her; that she might grow to gracious womanhood, following in the footsteps of the women of her race, and here she was--a runaway, reckless little girl, away from home at midnight, chaperoned only by the wind and the waves, and with no roof above her but the sky! Under the solemn canopy of the night she made many resolves, cried a little, and lay there with her eyes shut, but not asleep, feeling very wicked, and very forlorn, and very, very hopeless. When she opened her eyes again, the night was glorious. The moon had risen, and its light made a silver pathway across the darkness of the waters, and sailing straight towards her, its sails set to the fair winds of heaven, came a little boat, dark against the shining background. Some one stood in the bow, straight and strong and young, and as Judy watched in a half-dream, she remembered an opera she had seen once upon a time; where a knight in silver armor had come on the back of a silver swan to the lady he loved. She had hoped, mistily, that when she was old enough for such things, that Love might come to her like that--over the sea in silver armor, and sail away with her in a silver boat to the end of the world! The boat came nearer, the boat with the silver sails! She stood up to watch, and as her slim figure was etched sharply against the background of white sand, there came to her upon the wings of the night the cry-- "Judy!" Her hand went to her heart. Was it real? Where did he come from, that youth in the silver boat. But even as she wondered, the cry went back to him, an answering cry, joyous, welcoming-- "Launcelot, oh, Launcelot." _ |
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