Children's Book Classics - Kate Douglas Wiggin Edition: 11 Novels & 120+ Short Stories for Children. Kate Douglas Wiggin

the other pieces of furniture. I shall make it so deliciously easy that you will make me ‘Knight of the Chair,’ and perhaps permit me to play a sort of devoted John Brown to your Victoria. You will need one dull and prosy squire to arrange your pillows, so that you can laugh at Jack’s jokes without weariness, and doze quietly while Geoff and Uncle Doc are talking medicine.

      Of course the most exciting event of the week was the mysterious disappearance and subsequent restoration of the Heir-Apparent; but I feel sure somebody else will describe the event, because it is uppermost in all our minds.

      Bell, for instance, would dress it up in fine style. She is no historian, but in poetry and fiction none of us can touch her; though, by the way, Polly’s abilities in that direction are a good deal underrated. It’s as good as a play to get her after Jack when he is in one of his teasing moods. They are like flint and steel, and if Aunt Truth didn’t separate them the sparks would fly. With a girl like Polly, you have either to lie awake nights, thinking how you’ll get the better of her, or else put on a demeanour of gentleness and patience, which serves as a sort of lightning-rod round which the fire of her fun will play all day and never strike. Polly is a good deal of a girl. She seems at first to have a pretty sharp tongue, but I tell you she has a heart in which there is swimming-room for everybody. This may not be ‘information’ to you, whom we look upon as our clairvoyant, but it would be news to most people.

      Uncle Doc, Bell, Geoff, Polly, Meg, and I started for the top of Pico Negro the other morning. Bell rode Villikins, and Polly took a mule, because she thought the animal would be especially sure-footed. He was; in fact, he was so sure-footed that he didn’t care to move at all, and we had to take turns in beating him up to the top. We boys walked for exercise, which we got to our hearts’ content.

      It is only five or six miles from the old Mountain Mill (a picture of which Jack will send you), and the ascent is pretty stiff climbing, though nothing terrific. We lost the trail once, and floundered about in the chaparral for half an hour, till Bell began to make a poem on the occasion, when we became desperate, and dashed through a thicket of brush, tearing ourselves to bits, but stumbling on the trail at last. The view from the top is simply superb. The valleys below are all yellow with grain-fields and green with vineyards, with here and there the roofs of a straggling little settlement. The depression in the side of the mountain (you will observe it in the picture) Polly says has evidently been ‘bitten out’ by a prehistoric animal, and it turns out to be the loveliest little cañon imaginable.

      We have had one novel experience—that of seeing a tarantula fight; and not between two, but five, tarantulas. We were about twenty miles from camp, loping along a stretch of hot, dusty road. Jack got off to cinch his saddle, and so we all stopped a moment to let our horses breathe. As I was looking about, at nothing in particular, I noticed a black ball in the deep dust at the side of the road. It suddenly rolled over on itself and I called to the boys to watch the fun. We got off, hitched our horses, and approached cautiously, for I had seen a battle of the same kind before. There they were—five huge, hairy, dirty, black creatures, as large as the palm of Dicky’s hand, all locked in deadly combat. They writhed and struggled and embraced, their long, curling legs fastening on each other with a sound that was actually like the cracking of bones. It takes a little courage to stand and watch such a proceeding, for you feel as if the hideous fellows might turn and jump for you; but they were doubtless absorbed in their own battle, and we wanted to see the affair to the end, so we took the risk, if there was any. At last they showed signs of weariness, but we prodded them up with our riding-whips, preferring that they should kill each other, rather than do the thing ourselves. Finally, four of them lay in the dust, doubled up and harmless, slain, I suppose, by their own poison. One, the conquering hero, remained, and we dexterously scooped him into a tomato-can that Jack had tied to his saddle for a drinking-cup, covered him up with a handkerchief, and drew lots as to who should carry him home to Dr. Paul.

      Knowing that the little beasts were gregarious, we hunted about for a nest, which we might send to you after ousting its disagreeable occupant. After much searching, we found a group of them—quite a tarantula village, in fact. Their wonderful little houses are closed on the outside by a circular, many-webbed mesh, two or three inches across, and this web betrays the spider’s den to the person who knows the tricks of the trade. Directly underneath it you come upon the tiny circular trap-door, which you will notice in the nest we send with these letters. You will see how wonderfully it is made, with its silken weaving inside, and its bits of bark and leaves outside; and I know you will admire the hinge, which the tarantula must have invented, and which is as pretty a bit of workmanship as the most accomplished mechanic could turn out. We tore away the web and the door from one of the nests, and then poured water down the hole. The spider was at home, came out as fact as his clumsy legs would carry him, and clutched the end of the stick Jack held out to him. Then we tumbled him into the tomato-can just as he appeared to be making for us. The two didn’t agree at all. One of them despatched the other on the way home—the same hero who had killed the other four; but, on hearing his bloody record, Aunt Truth refused to have him about the camp; so we gave him an alcohol bath, and you shall see his lordship when you come. As Dr. Paul says, they have been known to clear fourteen feet at a jump, perhaps you will feel happier to know that he is in alcohol, though their bite is not necessarily fatal if it is rightly cared for.

      The girls have been patronising the landscape by naming every peak, valley, grove, and stream in the vicinity; and as there is nobody to object, the names may hold.

      We carry about with us a collection of strong, flat stakes, which have various names painted on them in neat black letters. Jack likes that kind of work, and spends most of his time at it; for now that Dr. Paul has bought a hundred acres up here, we are all greatly interested in its improvement.

      Geoff has named the mountain Pico Negro, as I told you, and the little cañon on its side is called the Giant’s Yawn. Then we have—

      Mirror Pool,

      The Lone Stump,

      Field of the Cloth-of-Gold,

      Cosy Nook,

      The Imp’s Wash-Bowl,

      Dunce-Cap Hill,

      The Saint’s Rest, and

      Il Penseroso Fall (in honour of Dicky, who was nearly drowned there).

       If anybody fails to call these localities by their proper names he has to pay a fine of five cents, which goes towards beautifying the place. Dr. Paul has had to pay two fines for Bell, three for Aunt Truth, and seven for Dicky; so he considers it an ill-judged arrangement.

      Our encampment is supposed to be in the Forest of Arden, and Jack has begun nailing verses of poetry on the trees, like a second Orlando, save that they are not love-poems at all, but appropriate quotations from Wordsworth or Bryant. And this brings me to our thrilling rendition of the play ‘As You Like It,’ last evening; but it is deserving of more than the passing notice which I can give it here.

      One thing, however, I must tell you, as the girls will not write it of themselves—that, although Bell carried off first honours and fairly captivated the actors as well as the audience, all three of them looked bewitching and acted with the greatest spirit, much better than we fellows did.

      Of course we didn’t give the entire play, and we had to ‘double up’ on some of the characters in the most ridiculous fashion; but the Burtons helped out wonderfully, Scott playing Oliver, and Laura doing Audrey. They were so delighted with the camp that Aunt Truth has invited them to come again on Saturday and stay a week.

      At the risk of being called conceited I will also state that we boys consider that the stage management was a triumph of inventive art; we worked like beavers for two days, and the results were marvellous, ‘if I do say so as shouldn’t.’

      Just consider we were ‘six miles from a lemon,’ as Sydney Smith would say, and yet we transformed all out of doors, first into an elegant interior, and then into a conventional stage forest.

      A great deal of work is available for other performances, and so we do not regret it a bit; we propose doing ‘As You Like It’ again when you are down