Читать книгу The Adventures of Peterkin - Gilbert W. Gabriel - Страница 5

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WHEN last we heard of Peterkin—do you remember?—he was afloat on the waves in his pumpkin house. And sailing swiftly out to sea!

Peterkin, as soon as he had gained his breath, climbed out of the tangle of bed-clothes and furniture which his sudden fall had thrown over and all about him. Then he pinched himself in every limb, and was glad to find everything whole and sound.

“Whew!” he gasped. “That was an escape! To think of landing in the sea!”

He pulled his little ladder out from under a tumble of pots and pans and bric-a-brac and blankets, and set it up against the wall. Then up he clambered, step by step, until he had poked his head through the hole, in the Pumperkin’s top, which served for a door and a window and ceiling, all at the same time. It gave him just a glimpse of the open air and the wide stretch of sea on every hand. Waves—blue, choppy, hopping waves, as far as Peterkin could see ... nothing but waves!

Well, there was nothing for it but to go back into his house and sit by the stove and begin to cry. Not that crying could help matters any—but Peterkin was sad at all these sudden happenings, and somehow his tears did make him feel a little better.

“Boohoo!” wept he. “It’s all the fault of the wicked wind! One moment I was safe and dozing at home in my old pumpkin patch; the next, here I am bobbing and lost on the face of the ocean. The only thing I have to be thankful for is that there’s still a warm fire in my stove. Boohoo!”

And oh, the saddest part of it all is that he wept so hard, and so many of his tears spilled down into the stove that—what did he do but put the fire out! And soon enough his pumpkin house grew cold and cheerless and wet with the briny waves which came dashing in through the door-window-ceiling.

It was a dreary party now. Peterkin felt his yellow ball of a boat leap and fall with every wave. Everything rattled and jingled to the see-saw motion. He grew dizzy. He could scarcely steady himself to climb up the ladder a second time. He could hardly see the white froth at the crests of the waves and the deep green of their troughs. He made out a ship passing by, miles and miles away. He screamed and waved his coat and whistled between two fingers—did everything he could think of to make the sailors see and save him. But the ship sailed on and away, until the white specks of its sails had faded from view.

Night came on, gray and then blue, and the waves never tired of their ceaseless jigging. Peterkin crouched on the floor of his Pumperkin and thought of the fate which awaited him, and worried himself into a troubled sleep. Many times during the long, dark hours he woke up with a start, and, through the hole in the house-top, caught a glimpse of the stars and a smack of the salt spray. The last time he awoke, the stars had been swallowed up in the graying sky by a streak of glowing red, and Peterkin knew it was the dawn.

Later, when the sunshine came straggling into his shell on the drops of glistening spray, he climbed his ladder for an early morning peek. White mists were rolling back across the waves, and ... oh! what was that?

Not a hundred yards away, a thin fountain, shimmering like silver, rose up out of the green of the sea and curved down again upon it. Again it came—and again! Up, up—fifty feet into the air, a gleaming fountain! And then, as it came nearer and nearer, Peterkin caught the glimpse of a black fin ... and a huge jaw!

Ugh! What could it be?

“An early morning peek”