intervals she could still hear Amy crying and scolding her mother, and conjectured that they were having a dreadful time of it in the other stateroom. It was all like a bad dream. “And they call this travelling for pleasure!” thought poor Katy.
One droll thing happened in the course of the second night—at least it seemed droll afterward; at the time Katy was too uncomfortable to enjoy it. Amid the rush of the wind, the creaking of the ship’s timbers, and the shrill buzz of the screw, she heard a sound of queer little footsteps in the entry outside of her open door, hopping and leaping together in an odd irregular way, like a regiment of mice or toy soldiers. Nearer and nearer they came; and Katy opening her eyes saw a procession of boots and shoes of all sizes and shapes, which had evidently been left on the floors or at the doors of various staterooms, and which in obedience to the lurchings of the vessel had collected in the cabin. They now seemed to be acting in concert with one another, and really looked alive as they bumped and trotted side by side, and two by two, in at the door and up close to her bedside. There they remained for several moments executing what looked like a dance; then the leading shoe turned on its heel as if giving a signal to the others, and they all hopped slowly again into the passage way and disappeared. It was exactly like one of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy-tales, Katy wrote to Clover afterward. She heard them going down the cabin; but how it ended, or whether the owners of the boots and shoes ever got their own particular pairs again, she never knew.
Toward morning the gale abated, the sea became smoother, and she dropped asleep. When she woke the sun was struggling through the clouds, and she felt better.
The stewardess opened the port-hole to freshen the air, and helped her to wash her face and smooth her tangled hair; then she produced a little basin of gruel and a triangular bit of toast, and Katy found that her appetite was come again and she could eat.
“And ’ere’s a letter, ma’am, which has come for you by post this morning,” said the nice old stewardess, producing an envelope from her pocket, and eying her patient with great satisfaction.
“By post!” cried Katy, in amazement; “why, how can that be?” Then catching sight of Rose’s handwriting on the envelope, she understood, and smiled at her own simplicity.
The stewardess beamed at her as she opened it, then saying again, “Yes, ’m, by post, m’m,” withdrew, and left Katy to enjoy the little surprise.
The letter was not long, but it was very like its writer. Rose drew a picture of what Katy would probably be doing at the time it reached her—a picture so near the truth that Katy felt as if Rose must have the spirit of prophecy, especially as she kindly illustrated the situation with a series of pen-and-ink drawings, in which Katy was depicted as prone in her berth, refusing with horror to go to dinner, looking longingly backward toward the quarter where the United States was supposed to be, and fishing out of her port-hole with a crooked pin in hopes of grappling the submarine cable and sending a message to her family to come out at once and take her home. It ended with this short “poem”, over which Katy laughed till Mrs. Ashe called feebly across the entry to ask what was the matter?
“Break, break, break
And mis-behave, O sea,
And I wish that my tongue could utter
The hatred I feel for thee!
“Oh, well for the fisherman’s child
On the sandy beach at his play;
Oh, well for all sensible folk
Who are safe at home today!
“But this horrible ship keeps on,
And is never a moment still,
And I yearn for the touch of the nice dry land,
Where I needn’t feel so ill!
“Break! break! break!
There is no good left in me;
For the dinner I ate on the shore so late
Has vanished into the sea!”
Laughter is very restorative after the forlornity of sea-sickness; and Katy was so stimulated by her letter that she managed to struggle into her dressing-gown and slippers and across the entry to Mrs. Ashe’s stateroom. Amy had fallen asleep at last and must not be waked up, so their interview was conducted in whispers. Mrs. Ashe had by no means got to the tea-and-toast stage yet, and was feeling miserable enough.
“I have had the most dreadful time with Amy,” she said. “All day yesterday, when she wasn’t sick she was raging at me from the upper berth, and I too ill to say a word in reply. I never knew her so naughty! And it seemed very neglectful not to come to see after you, poor dear child! but really I couldn’t raise my head.”
“Neither could I, and I felt just as guilty not to be taking care of you,” said Katy. “Well, the worst is over with all of us, I hope. The vessel doesn’t pitch half so much now, and the stewardess says we shall feel a great deal better as soon as we get on deck. She is coming presently to help me up; and when Amy wakes, won’t you let her be dressed, and I will take care of her while Mrs. Barrett attends to you.”
“I don’t think I can be dressed,” sighed poor Mrs. Ashe. “I feel as if I should just lie here till we get to Liverpool.”
“Oh no, h’indeed, mum—no, you won’t,” put in Mrs. Barrett, who at that moment appeared, gruel-cup in hand. “I don’t never let my ladies lie in their berths a moment longer than there is need of. I h’always gets them on deck as soon as possible to get the h’air. It’s the best medicine you can ’ave, ma’am, the fresh h’air; h’indeed it h’is.”
Stewardesses are all-powerful on board ship, and Mrs. Barrett was so persuasive as well as positive that it was not possible to resist her. She got Katy into her dress and wraps, and seated her on deck in a chair with a great rug wrapped about her feet, with very little effort on Katy’s part. Then she dived down the companion way again, and in the course of an hour appeared escorting a big burly steward, who carried poor little pale Amy in his arms as easily as though she had been a kitten. Amy gave a scream of joy at the sight of Katy, and cuddled down in her lap under the warm rug with a sigh of relief and satisfaction.
“I thought I was never going to see you again,” she said, with a little squeeze. “Oh, Miss Katy, it has been so horrid! I never thought that going to Europe meant such dreadful things as this!”
“This is only the beginning; we shall get across the sea in a few days, and then we shall find out what going to Europe really means. But what made you behave so, Amy, and cry and scold poor Mamma when she was sick? I could hear you all the way across the entry.”
“Could you? Then why didn’t you come to me?”
“I wanted to; but I was sick too, so sick that I couldn’t move. But why were you so naughty?—you didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t mean to be naughty, but I couldn’t help crying. You would have cried too, and so would Johnnie, if you had been cooped up in a dreadful old berth at the top of the wall that you couldn’t get out of, and hadn’t had anything to eat, and nobody to bring you any water when you wanted some. And Mamma wouldn’t answer when I called to her.”
“She couldn’t answer; she was too ill,” explained Katy. “Well, my pet, it was pretty hard for you.
