Ultima Thule Read Free

-- But how they've grown, Mary! Why, I hardly know them."
    The Dumplings, pink and drooping with shyness but docile as ever, dutifully held up their bud mouths to be kissed; then, smiling adorably, wriggled back to Mamma's side, crook'd finger to lip. But Cuffy did not smile as his father swung him aloft, and went pale instead of pink. For, at sight of the person who came jumping over, he had been seized by one of his panicky fears. The Dumplings, of course, didn't remember Papa, they couldn't, they were only four; but he did . . . and somehow he remembered him diffrunt. Could it be a mistake? Not that it wasn't him . . . he didn't mean that. . . he only meant . . . well, he wasn't sure what he did mean. But when this new-old Papa asked: "And how's my big boy?" a fresh spasm of distrust shot through him. Didn't he know that everybody always said "small for his age"?
    But, dumped down on the deck again, he was forgotten, while over his head the quick, clipped voice went on: "Perfectly well! . . . and with nothing in the world to complain of, now I've got you again. I thought you'd never come. Yes, I've been through an infernally anxious time, but that's over now, and things aren't as bad as they might be. You've no need to worry. But let's go below where we can talk in peace." And with his arm round her shoulders he made to draw Mary with him . . . followed by the extreme silent wonder of three pairs of eyes, whose owners were not used any more to seeing Mamma taken away like this without asking. Or anybody's arm put round her either. When she belonged to them.
    But at the head of the companion-way Mahony paused and slapped his brow.
    "Ha! . . . but wait a minute . . . . Papa was forgetting. See here!" and from a side pocket of the capacious oilskins he drew forth the basket of strawberries. These had suffered in transit, were bruised and crushed.
    "What, strawberries? -- already?" exclaimed Mary, and eyed the berries dubiously. They were but faintly tinged.
    "The very first to be had, my dear! I spied them on my way to the train. -- Come, children!"
    But Mary barred the way . . . stretched out a preventing hand. "Not just now, Richard. Later on, perhaps. . . when they've had their dinners. Give them to me, dear."
    Jocularly he eluded her, holding the basket high, out of her reach. "No, this is my treat! -- Now who remembers the old game? 'Open your mouths and shut your eyes and see what Jacko will send you!'"
    The children closed in, the twins displaying rosy throats, their eyes faithfully glued to.
    But Mary peremptorily interposed. "No, no, they mustn't! I should have them ill. The things are not half ripe."
    "What? Not let them eat them? . . after the trouble I've been to, to buy them and lug them here? Not to speak of what I paid for them."
    "I'm sorry, Richard, but -- ssh, dear! surely you must see . . . . " Mary spoke in a low, persuasive voice, at the same time frowning and making other wifely signals to him to lower his. (And thus engrossed did not feel a pull at her sleeve, or hear Cuffy's thin pipe: "I'll eat them, Mamma. I'd like to!" Now he knew it was Papa all right.) For several of their fellow passengers were watching and listening, and there stood Richard looking supremely foolish, holding aloft a single strawberry.
    But he was too put out to care who saw or heard. "Well and good then, if they're not fit to eat -- not even after dinner! -- there's only one thing to be done with them. Overboard they go!" And picking up the basket he tossed it and its contents into the sea. Before the children . . . Eliza . . . everybody.
    With her arm through his, Mary got him below, to the privacy and seclusion of the cabin. The same old Richard! touchy and irascible . . . wounded by any trifle. But she knew how to manage him; and, by appealing to his common sense and good feelings, soon talked him round. Besides, on this particular day he was much too happy to see them all again, long to remain in dudgeon. Still, his first