INTO MISCHIEF AND OUT

The cockatoo looking man, as Carolyn May often called Mr. Oly Littlefield, was for once stricken dumb, as well as helpless. His hat had flown off his head and followed his cane, the basket, the groceries, and the bouncing lemons down the hill. But he was stuck right where he had landed in the sand and the avalanche was piling up around him.

He sat in such a position, with his left leg completely buried and his right drawn up, that he could not of his own strength drag his body out of the sand. He might just as well have tried to lift himself out by his bootstraps!

The old fellow's face was really growing pale. The situation was not laughable in the least to him. And as far as the children were concerned, they were very much frightened.

The sand was still sliding down all about him, and he was slowly being buried, deeper and deeper. He could not see anybody to help him, for from this angle of the hill no dwelling was in sight.

At Dorris Cove were two fish houses, and he could see their roofs, and the dories drawn well up on the shore. The poundmen, however, had drawn the traps long since and gone home. Aside from the two little girls and the dog, Mr. Oly Littlefield was alone.

"In the name o' the Dancin' Doolittles!" he groaned. "I'm complete' swamped here and no two ways about it. How'm I ever goin' to get out?"

It did look as though his chance for escape was very slim. The sands kept running down, and the more he struggled the deeper he seemed to slide—just as though he were in a quicksand.

"What ever shall we do?" cried Edna. "Oh, Carolyn, he's going to be all buried up!"

"He mustn't! He mustn't!" shrieked Carolyn quite as loudly, and she ran toward the half-entombed man.

Her light feet did not greatly disturb the sliding sand. Besides, she addressed herself to the cockatoo man from the side of the path where the hill had not fallen. Edna followed her friend's example, and both little girls seized upon his right hand and dragged at him, while he fought with his left to loosen his body from the engulfing sand.

Even Prince helped. He seized Mr. Oly Littlefield by the tail of his short linen coat. He almost dragged the coat over the man's head; but the buttons held and the dog was of some aid in pulling the cockatoo man out of the pit.

He managed to raise himself a little and then fell sideways, prying his wooden leg from the sand. The little girls, with screams, fell over backward as the cockatoo man came free. Prince lost his hold on the coat and slithered half way down the hill.

"Oh! Oh! OH!" shrieked Edna in crescendo.

"It's all over!" Carolyn gasped.

"What the Dancin' Doolittles!" ejaculated the old fellow. "And now who's to go back and git more groceries, I want to know? I wish't I'd let Ozy do it in the first place."

Carolyn expected him to turn his wrath upon, them—especially upon Prince. She stood off a little, clutching Edna's hand, and staring at him. The cockatoo man turned his head stiffly, where he sat on the hillside with his wooden leg sticking straight out before him, and blinked at the children and the dog.

"I declare to man!" he said. "You young 'uns was good to me. Even that dog, I reckon he meant well by me, though I think he's tored the coat purt' near off my back. I thank ye! Merciful—Dancin'—Doolittles!" as he rose to an erect position. "How'll I git my basket—an' my cane?"

He really was much subdued, and Carolyn May began to feel sympathetic.

"Oh, sir! we'll help you if you'll let us," she cried.

"I ain't in a position to object, I reckon," returned Mr. Littlefield dryly.

They ran after the basket and his cane, and even picked up the lemons. But most of the dry groceries he had bought were under the loose sand that was still pouring down the hillside in various little streams. Mr. Littlefield accepted his possessions with good grace and thanked the little girls.

"I'll hobble on to the shack and wait for Ozy to come back from the fishin'. I declare! I ain't able now to make another v'y'ge to Peleg Rose's store and back again—nossir! Much obleeged to you, I'm sure, leetle gals. Good-bye."

He hobbled down the path toward the cabin on the shore. Edna grabbed Carolyn's arm and shook her.

"Oh, Carolyn May! Now is the time to ask him."

"Ask him what?"

"How he came to have that wooden leg?"

"Oh, no," Carolyn said thoughtfully. "I wouldn't ask him that now. Maybe Mr. Littlefield wouldn't like to talk about his wooden leg just when it got him into so much trouble," she added with tact. "I guess we'd better ask Mr. Cap'n Littlefield first."

They did not, however, have the opportunity to put the query to the captain at that time. He was not at the shore cabin, and his cousin was in no mood to entertain visitors.

So the little girls and Prince plodded home again. Knowing the way by the highroad, they followed that instead of the patrol path, although it was longer. The dusty road brought them around by Barzilla's sheep pasture which at one end was separated by a stone wall only from the highway.

"Oh, dear, me, Car'lyn!" exclaimed Edna. "Look at all those sheep."

A flock of a score or more was milling in the road. A black-faced old ewe was trying to lead the flock over or through the stone wall into the Ball pasture.

"My goodness, won't Miss Molly be sot all aback!" cried Carolyn, repeating an expression she had lately learned and thought well of. "Those are all Nebuchadnezzar's relations."

"How do you know?" asked her friend.

"Of course they are. Don't you see they've all got black faces? And they are trying to get into our pasture! And they can't, the poor things!"

"That big sheep is going to push that rock over. If it can do it," Edna said as "judgmatically" as Aunt Ardelia Dodge would have said it, "they can all go through the wall."

"Let's help 'em," Carolyn suggested.

"Let's," agreed Edna promptly.

So, telling Prince to stay back and behave, the children ran up along the toppling stone wall. The old ewe backed away and stamped her feet.

"Do you s'pose it'll bite, Carolyn?" murmured Edna, stopping and preparing to withdraw at any further sign of antagonism on the part of the black-faced ewe.

"Certainly not," declared Carolyn. "It's got only one set of teeth, anyway."

"The poor thing! Is it as old as all that?" queried Edna, who was not as familiar with the split-hoof herbivorous animals as Carolyn claimed to be. "It must be as old as old Mrs. Junkins at home, for she hasn't got but a few teeth left, and she says they don't hit!"

"This sheep'll never hurt you," Carolyn bravely declared, and she approached the stone on the wall. Seeing that it was already wabbling, she managed to push it over into the pasture without any great difficulty. It rolled down a little gully, and several other stones followed it, for the wall was built in a very haphazard fashion.

She stepped back, and at once the old ewe dashed for the opening. She plunged through, and the other sheep, old and young, crowding and bleating, followed after.

"I s'pose," said Carolyn, seriously, "we ought to stop up that place again so that they can't get out."

"But we can't lift those stones," objected Edna. "We've done enough," the little visitor added, taking credit for what Carolyn had really accomplished alone.

"I guess that's so. Well, let's hurry and tell Miss Molly. She can lift them. Miss Molly's awful strong."

The sheep were now feeding composedly, and were heading down the hollow, the other end of which could not be seen from the roadside. The little girls quickened their steps and turned up the Ball lane. As they approached the cottage Molly I. came out to ask:

"Did you children see Abel Mott's sheep along the road anywhere? They've broke out again."

"Oh, no," Carolyn assured her. "We only saw your sheep. They had got out of the pasture."

"Nonsense, child!" said Molly I. "I saw our sheep grazin' up in this end of our pasture not ha'f an hour ago."

"Oh, no, Miss Molly, you couldn't," Carolyn said earnestly. "They were all out in the road and trying their hardest to get into your pasture-lot. So I helped 'em."

"You helped 'em?"

"Yes. I threw down a stone so that they could get through the wall, and they all went through—just as slick! But Edna and I couldn't put up the stone again. It was too big."

"For the land's sake!" exclaimed Molly I., and she started across the fields toward the pasture, dishcloth in hand. The little girls trotted with her, realizing that something was wrong but not understanding what.

They came in sight of the upper end of the pasture. There were the two flocks of sheep feeding together, and hopelessly mixed!

"Now you have done it, children," said Molly Ball, in despair. "It'll take Barzilla a full day to separate them an' git Abel Mott's out into the road again. Abel will never lift his hand to sort 'em out. His pasture is poor anyway, and he don't mind how long his sheep stay away from home, if they come back with their fleece on. He's mighty careful 'bout foldin' them when it comes shearin' time."

"Oh!" gasped Carolyn, at last. "Did—did I let in the wrong sheeps?"

"I cal'late you did. But they likely would ha' broke in somewhere," said the island girl more mildly. "Don't fret about it, child."

But Carolyn May was a good deal chagrined that she should have made such a mistake.

"Sheeps are so much alike," she complained to Edna. "Even Nebuchadnezzar is getting to look like all his relations. And those sheeps of Mr. Abel Mott acted just like they belonged in that pasture."

"Next time," Edna said, solemnly, "I wouldn't turn a herd of giraffes into one of these lots."

"But goodness!" cried Carolyn, "you wouldn't find giraffes on Block Island."

Nobody scolded them much for the mistake, and everybody was vastly amused by the little girls' account of Mr. Oly Littlefield's mishap.

Baby Laird's papa was no longer going to the Old Harbour daily, for there was nothing more he could do for Mr. Ben Truefelt about the hotel. He began to go out with Barzilla in the Snatch It, and they were sometimes gone the better part of two days.

The pale lady, as Carolyn always thought of her friend, continued to look worried and Carolyn heard now and then hints of the departure of the trio for some distant place. The thought of losing the pale lady and Baby Laird made the little girl feel very sad. To stop to think of unpleasant possibilities, however, was not Carolyn May's way. She had a firm belief in the silver lining to every cloud. She hoped her pale lady and Baby Laird and his father would not be obliged to go so far away that she could not see them some times.

"Don't you s'pose I could come in the cars to see you at Arizona?" she asked the baby's mother wistfully. "You know, I went all the way to Sunrise Cove alone once; and I came back home from there by myself—me and Princey. I'm sure I wouldn't lose my way."

"Ah, but Arizona is much, much farther away than your uncle's house," sighed the pale lady.

"Oh! Farther away than Block Island is from New York?"

"Yes, my dear."

"Then Arizona must be almost as far as Heaven!" gasped Carolyn. "And Aunty Rose Kennedy says that's a 'fur ways.' Won't I see you and Baby Laird, ever, again?"

"I cannot say, my dear—I cannot say," said her friend faintly. "I feel that if we go we shall leave what few friends we have—and all hope, even—behind."

The little girl was moved by the pale lady's sorrow; but she did not understand just what this speech meant. And there really was so much to enjoy that she could not always give her thought to her friends' troubles.

Here was the picnic, for instance, which had been set for the next morning. How could Carolyn remember much else when she and Edna went to bed that night in Carolyn's little room at the back of the Ball cottage?

The surf grumbled on the shore below the window. She only had to sit up in bed beside the sleeping Edna to see the blinking lamps of the lighthouses on the Long Island shore. The stars spattered the firmament thickly.

"Oh, it's going to be a clear day tomorrow," whispered Carolyn May with a happy little bounce. "We'll have a nawful nice time at the picnic."