A REMOVAL

The fire was finally put out without even the loss of Captain Ozias Littlefield's spare artificial limb; but the kitchen ell was entirely gutted.

Little but smoke-damage was done to the main part of the hotel; but the whole house must be redecorated before it could be made really habitable. And with the kitchen unusable the season was ruined for Mrs. Truefelt and her son. They could not care properly for their guests.

They did not hurry away those who could not at once obtain new lodgings; but most of the guests were able to get accommodations at other hotels and boarding houses.

The new clerk was not in the hotel when the fire occurred. He had been across the island with his family at Barzilla Ball's place; and he came to Mrs. Cameron at once, when he arrived and heard what had happened, to remind her of the fact that the Balls had room for other boarders if she and Carolyn could get along without hotel accommodations.

"I had thought of Molly Ball," Carolyn's mother said. "After all, I believe I should be just as contented there; and I am sure Mr. Cameron would not mind."

"The Balls are very kind people," remarked the clerk.

"I agree with you. Do you suppose Molly would take us?"

"Why don't you go over at once and ask her? Somebody may get ahead of you. My wife would be delighted to have you and your little girl for company. I am very sorry this has happened. It is going to bother Mrs. Bassett greatly, I fear, when she learns of it. She—she does not get along as well as I hoped, Mrs. Cameron."

"I am sorry for that," Carolyn's mother returned. "Let us hope for improvement."

Bassett was greatly disturbed, Mrs. Cameron could see, by the catastrophe. As he had said, it seemed that he was playing in very hard luck. Scarcely was he settled in his position as clerk of the hotel when he was again out of work.

"Old Mr. Trouble seems camping close on my trail, Ben," he said to his friend whimsically. "I am a Jonah."

Carolyn's mother prepared their possessions for removal and then engaged Tommy Trivett (Captain Littlefield being busy) to drive her and Carolyn and Prince over to the West Side. They reached the Ball place before noon, bringing the first news of the hotel fire.

"And can you take us poor, burned-out people in, Molly Ball?" asked Carolyn's mother. "Carolyn and me—to say nothing of the dog?"

"My soul and body!" ejaculated the capable island girl, "I'll take you in, Miz Cameron, and do for you as best I can. But this ain't no St. Regicide like you New York people are used to."

"But, Molly," laughed Carolyn's mother, "do you know, I never was in the St. Regis? I promise not to compare your accommodations to their disparagement even with those of the Truefelt House."

So an agreement was made, and the Camerons were established in two of those very delightful old-fashioned rooms overlooking the sea at the back of the cottage, out of the windows of which Carolyn had suggested they might jump for a bath.

But the Ball cottage was not quite so near the edge of the bank as that implied. The unfenced brink of the fifty foot precipice, however, was only a few yards away. Along its ragged verge ran a hard path, deeply worn by many feet. To the south was the West Side life saving station. The surfmen followed this beaten path to the breach of the Great Salt Pond where there was a key-box on a post. They could shout across the strait there to the patrol from the new life saving station near Sands Point. In the other direction they met the Old Harbour patrol at a point on the South Side.

But Carolyn thought little of these coast guards just now. She was running about getting more thoroughly acquainted than heretofore with the immediate vicinity of the Ball cottage.

"Come on, Princey," she said to her dog blithely. "We've got to look down and see where's the best path to the shore. Miss Molly says sometimes the edge of this hill falls down on to the shore. We'll have to be careful 'bout that."

However, it did not appear that the sea had bitten a mouthful out of the bluff of late, although the edge was very ragged and broken. The patrol path was not broken, and at present the sea at the foot of the cliff seemed comparatively quiet.

They sat down on the edge of the cliff, the little girl and the dog, and watched the sea hissing among the fallen boulders below. These great and small stones—bushels of them the size of one's fist, but many as large as a wagon, and several as big as moving vans or small houses—littered the shore as far as Carolyn could see in either direction.

The sands below high water mark were packed as hard and as smooth as a road by the action of the tide. Above this mark the loose sand was filled with all manner of rubbish—driftwood, much of which was the remains of wrecked boats; big shells torn from the bottom of the sea in storms and tossed here by the breakers; all manner of dried seaweeds and other sea cultch.

Carolyn's eyes sparkled, while Prince sniffed the airs off the ocean and found no scent of "good hunting" in them. But as they went back around the house the two friends found something that promised real sport to Prince.

Up out of a grass bed at the side of the house sprang a little creature that amazed Carolyn quite as much as it did Prince—all bandy legs, jerking head, and bleating voice. It started at a stumbling run away from the newcomers, and naturally Prince wanted to investigate.

"Stop, Princey!" commanded his mistress. "Don't you chase that poor little—little—well, whatever it is! It's got such a curly coat. And hasn't it a funny, ugly black nose? I—never—did—see!"

"Baa-a-a!" bleated the hobbling creature, turning to stare at the little girl and her dog with quite as much curiosity as they stared at it.

Molly I. Ball suddenly appeared at the corner of the house.

"Don't let your dog chase Nebuchadnezzar," she cried.

"Goodness gracious me!" gasped Carolyn May, "is that what he is? It sounds too big for him, Miss Molly."

"What sounds too big?"

"That you called him," declared the little girl. "Is he one?"

"Is he one what?" demanded the puzzled Molly.

"Why, a 'nebuchad—chad'—Well, whatever it was you called him?"

"Nebuchadnezzar?" repeated Molly Ball, laughing. "That's his name. But he's a lamb. Didn't you ever see a lamb before?"

"A lamb? My!" cried the little city girl. "I never saw one before 'cept in the butcher shop with all his—his clothes off. And then it don't look like that."

"No. I imagine not," said Molly Ball. "Come here, Nebby! Coo! Coo! Coo!"

She approached the funny little creature that stood with all four long legs braced apart, head down, and looking as though undecided whether to run or to butt.

"I've seen goats up in the Bronx," murmured Carolyn May. "I've seen the—the herd of sheep in Central Park. But I guess there weren't any lambs with 'em. Oh, isn't he funny?"

"He gits around almost as graceful as Ozy Littlefield, don't he?" laughed Molly Ball. "Here, Nebby!"

"Why did you call him that awful name? Nebuchad—What is it?"

"Nebuchadnezzar."

"That's it," smiled the little girl, who loved the sound of long words even if she could not pronounce them. "Why did you?"

"Because he eats grass," declared Molly I., enigmatically.

"Oh!"

Carolyn May gave her close attention to the lamb. She made Prince "lie down and be good" while she gathered a handful of juicy grass and approached Nebuchadnezzar, who was now nuzzling in Molly Ball's apron as she squatted down, and was letting her scratch his ears and "buttons."

"See," said his mistress. "Those buttons will be horns some day. He's going to have funny little curly horns, and if he gets old enough he'll stamp his little hoofs when he is mad and will butt right into a stone wall."

"Oh! He must have a temper almost as bad as Mr. Oly Littlefield's," murmured the astonished Carolyn.

"Shouldn't wonder," agreed Molly. "Now, you pat him, Carolyn."

"Won't he bite?"

"No. Nor butt. Not yet," laughed the island girl. "And by and by when I salt 'em, you shall go with me and see our whole flock. Nebuchadnezzar was a late spring lamb and his mother died. He's a cosset."

Carolyn's eyes grew big and she exclaimed emphatically: "Oh, Miss Molly! Why, that can't be so!"

"What ain't so?"

"What you just said. This Nebu—Nebu—Well, what-you-call-him, can't be a corset, for that's what ladies wear."

"Oh, bless you!" laughed Molly I. "Nebby ain't that kind of a corset. He's a cosset lamb—brought up by hand. He was tagging me about the kitchen and milk-room for two months. It's only lately he's lived out of doors and I named him Nebuchadnezzar. I sartain sure was glad to see him take to eatin' grass the way he done. He's a right smart lamb."

"Have you any more like him, Miss Molly?" asked the little girl.

"Not just like him. All this year's lambs are pretty well grown but him. But they were like him when they were little. He looks all laigs an' wool now; but he'll be a goodly sized critter next winter."

As she had been promised, Carolyn went late in the afternoon with Miss Molly Ball to salt the sheep in a rocky hollow which was out of sight of the house on the bluff. There were more than a score of the grey-brown creatures cropping the short grass and the tall weeds that grew between the rocks.

"If our sheep pasture had many more rocks in it," complained Molly I., "we'd have to file the sheep's noses so't they could feed between the rocks."

"Amos Bartlett tried that," cried Carolyn. "He's got such a big nose, you know. But it only made his nose sore and bigger than ever."

Miss Ball chuckled. "Maybe it wouldn't do much good, child. And the sheep clean up the pastures pretty good. That's what we keep 'em for on the island—to have 'em eat up the wild carrot. They like it; but I don't believe nothing else in the world does. It's all over the farm."

She showed the little girl the stalky plant, with its flat flowers. Carolyn thought it very pretty.

"Pretty is, as pretty does," quoted Miss Molly. "That tarnal weed don't look pretty to me. Comin' from church t'other Sunday I picked more'n twenty dif'rent kinds of wild carrot. If it keeps on there won't be nothin' else growin' on the island but it."

If Carolyn had been busy while she stayed at the hotel, now her time was even more fully occupied. It was quite surprising how much there was to do and to see and to talk about around the little house on the bluff.

The Balls had a horse and a cow and chickens and turkeys, as well as Nebuchadnezzar and all his relations. There were a surprising number of things Carolyn and Prince could "help" about.

The little girl soon learned how to feed the flock of poultry which Molly I. kept fenced in for the good of their souls and the garden. The turkeys ran at large, of course. But turkeys do not scratch and they can be trusted to chase bugs through the garden rows without destroying the crops.

She watched Barzilla curry Beppo, the old horse, named for a Portuguese fisherman who had once lived near Dorris Cove. When Molly I. milked the cow, Carolyn stood by and watched the milk stream into the pail as she had watched Aunty Rose Kennedy milk the cow at the Corners.

On the mornings that Barzilla Ball went out in the Snatch It to the fishing grounds, he and his sister got up while it was still pitch dark and Molly made him coffee and put up a big lunch of cooked food, for neither Barzilla nor the man who went with him as "crew" on the double-ender, would have time to cook much after they got outside.

Carolyn May awoke and pattered out into the kitchen in her bedroom slippers and bathrobe to watch sleepily these preparations, to drink a sip of Barzilla's coffee, and be kissed by him when he went away with his oilskins, the basket, and other "gear" over his arm, while the stars were burning still brightly in the velvet sky.

Then she would cuddle into Molly I.'s bed with the island girl and go to sleep again until it was time for "all hands and the cook" to be called, as Molly expressed it.

All these joys were in addition to being with the pale lady and Mamma Cameron for part of every day, and wheeling Baby Laird out in the carriage that had been purchased for that little man.

The pale lady did not go far with the baby, and she rested much of the day. It did seem (and even Carolyn May remarked it) that the good Island air, and Molly Ball's cooking, and the quiet existence they all enjoyed, did not do the baby's mother very much good. The baby himself, however, grew rosy and hearty as the days passed.

Carolyn had become so fond of her little cousin at the Corners, Carolyn Amanda, that she missed her sorely. Now she revelled in the delights of Baby Laird's bath, of his being dressed fresh and sweet afterward, in the getting of him to sleep after his bottle, and finally in pushing him about in his carriage.

It was while she was engaged in this last occupation one day, soon after she had taken up her abode in the cottage on the bluff, that she met again the man and his wife who had already so puzzled and interested her.

She had wheeled Baby Laird down the long lane to the public road, and with Prince was about to turn around and retrace her steps, when a two-seated carriage drawn by a pair of sleek horses and driven by the liveried negro whom Carolyn had previously seen pushing the wheelchair on the sands, came suddenly into view around a spur of Beacon Hill. She knew the carriage came from one of the larger hotels.

On the back seat were the man with whom she considered herself quite well acquainted, and his very unhappy looking wife. It seemed to the sunny-hearted Carolyn as though the poor lady needed cheering up, and she smiled up at her as the carriage came near with her very bravest smile.

The woman in the carriage, who had been so languid and so distrait the moment before, became suddenly interested in Carolyn and the baby, and even the man sat up with quick attention and signalled the driver to stop.

"Hullo!" the man said. "So I find you again, do I? Let me see: Your name is Carrie, isn't it?"

"Carolyn May, if you please, sir," the little girl said.

"To be sure! Carolyn May. And do you live away over here with your mamma?"

"We do now, sir. Since the hotel got burned," explained the child.

"Why! the little girl must have been turned out of the Truefelt House," said the woman, showing some interest. "And the baby!"

"Oh, no, ma'am," said Carolyn May, politely but firmly. "Baby Laird wasn't in our hotel when it got burned. He was right up there, where mamma and I are staying now," and she pointed to the Ball cottage.

"What a quaint old place," said the woman. But her gaze came back to the baby, who was awake and playing in his carriage. "Whose child is that, little girl? Is it your brother?"

"Oh, no, ma'am. He's just a friend of mine," explained Carolyn May.

The baby laughed up into the woman's face. He even dropped his rubber dog and put out his hands as though to be taken up. The woman in the carriage leaned forward, and for the moment the mask of discontent seemed to drop from her countenance. Even Carolyn saw the change and wondered.

"The dear!" murmured the woman. "What an attractive child!" she added to her husband. "Do you know, he reminds me—Ah, see him laugh! Just as friendly as—as my baby used to be. Not afraid of strangers at all, is he?"

The stern man looked straight ahead, over the horse's ears, and across the fourteen-mile stretch of blue water to where the sun shone on the white staff of the old Montauk Light.