The Clockwork Twin Read Free

poked his head out from under Adoniram’s coat and saw the eastern sky all pink and misty, instead of pulling it back again and taking another nap, as he wanted to, he said: “Oh, my word! I must arouse these sluggards!” And he crawled hastily out and shook himself and hopped up on the summerhouse rail and took a deep breath and—
    Well, you could hardly say that he crowed. If Cock-a-doodle-doo is the way to write what a regular rooster does when he crows, what this rooster did can only be written as Beep-a-weepy-weep. It was just a thin little trembling pipe. He certainly had a terrible cold.
    But the sound was so queer that it woke Adoniram and Georgie as quickly as if it had been a good loud crow. They sat up, looked around, and then Georgie began to laugh and after a minute Adoniram joined in. They laughed for several minutes while the rooster looked cross. But Adoniram, who didn’t know how to laugh properly, got to coughing. So then the rooster began to laugh, and he went on for some time until Georgie said:
    â€œOh, keep still, rooster.”
    â€œI shall not be silent,” said the rooster huffily, “unless you compel me to by force.”
    â€œOh, I can stop you all right,” said the dog. “Where do you expect to get breakfast? There isn’t anything to eat on this boat, you know.”
    â€œWhat!” said the rooster, staring at him. “Nothing to eat? You mean to say you’ve lured me on to this—this structure only in order to starve me to death? You’ve rescued me, and now you refuse to offer me nourishment? Why, I never heard of such a thing.”
    â€œYes, you have,” said Georgie with a grin. “You just heard of it now.”
    â€œWe’re sorry,” said Adoniram. “But we haven’t got anything to eat either.”
    â€œOh, my word,” said the rooster. “Oh, upon my soul!” And he walked away from them to the other side of the summerhouse and stood gloomily peering out through the pine needles at the tossing river, which under the red sunrise looked like a river of red paint.
    â€œWell, I stopped his laughing all right,” said Georgie, “but I stopped my own, too.”
    â€œWhat are we going to do?” asked the boy. “I’m pretty hungry. I only had part of my supper last night. And I’m thirsty, too.”
    â€œMustn’t drink the river water,” said Georgie. “It’ll make us sick. Oh well, cheer up. I expect we’ll be rescued before long. We’ve come a long way in the night and I’ve heard that there are some big towns down the river. There are sure to be some boats out looking for people.”
    â€œBut they can’t hear us, and they can’t see us in all these pine needles.”
    â€œSuppose you break away some branches and try to make a couple of windows in the tree,” said Georgie, “and then you can wave your handkerchief. They’ll see that.”
    So Adoniram got to work, and pretty soon the rooster came back and apologized for being so unpleasant, and helped. Of course he couldn’t break off branches, but he climbed out on the limbs and picked off sprays that Adoniram couldn’t reach. And in a little while they had two good windows, one on each side.
    The river had grown much wider in the night. Even now that it was broad daylight, they could sometimes hardly make out the shore line. Most of the time they were held to the middle of the river by the current, but once in a while it would swing them in toward one bank or the other, and then they could see trees and telephone poles rising from the flood, and even the roofs of submerged barns and houses. Once it swung them in very close to a hill on which stood a farm. Several cows were standing on the shore, looking with mild surprise at the angry, tossing water. Adoniram waved to them, but Georgie gave a frightened whimper and crowded close to him.
    â€œWhat’s