Us and the Bottleman

own better. To begin with, Father had to go to New York to give a talk at the American Architects' League, or something, and Mother decided to go with him.

when they were Infant Babes, so that Mother never imagined, of course,

own boats and pieces of canvas and rope-ends, and curly shavings that skitter across the floor when the wind blows in from the harbor. There is a window at one end of his shop-place that goes all the way to the floor, like a doorway, and it is always open. His shop is half on the ferry-wharf so that the window hangs

n of one of his boats, and when we asked him wha

t this time he was busy and the rudder-gudgeons didn't behave right, I think, so he let us do all the talking. We told him a good deal about the bottle, and also something about the city under the sea. He said he shouldn't wonder at it, for

y herring things and carried them home in a pasteboard box that said "1/2 doz. galvanized line cleats. Extra quality" on th

your fortune or dance on top of a high hill or do anything rather than stay at home

o to Wec

the ferry, always watches over every one on board with a fatherly sort of eye, and Wecanicut itself is

a real adventure and take some costumes alon

eakfast we went up to select things that wouldn't b

what?" Greg asked, poking in the corn

w," Jerry said, "explorin

, evidently cha

own to ask Katy to

hing careful,"

in' to do with

"Eat it, of course," but I s

e day. We thought we'd take our l

ff too far," Katy said

hole truth, because of course it was not our shore, but th

-bag Greg came staggering downstairs, trailing

at?" Jerry asked him. "D

out of breath from having dragged

re going to lug all that rubbish on to the f

half of it, Gregs," I said.

erry said, jingling the mone

her once had for a masque ball ages ago. We hadn't time to tell him that it was no sort of outfit for an e

ch way we went; anyhow, I think they were both in the back kitchen, which looks out on the cloth

babies. I suppose you'd like Kat

m, but he made up for

Captain Lewis does. Jerry and I sat on campstools on the windy side, and Greg went to watch the walking-beam, which he thinks will some day knock the top off its house. It always stops and plunges down just when

ool up to its neck and mark the place with two white stones. This is something we have learned by experience, for nothing is nastier than warm root-beer. Then we put on the costumes and capered about a little. I had a tight, striped football jersey, and my gym bloomers, and a black, villainous-looking felt hat; and Jerry had a ruffle pinned on the front of his s

ps, and we decided to tell them that as we'd proved we could do i

t of all the costumes being on top of it in the kit-bag. While we ate we organized the Submerged-City-Seeking-Expedition. Jerry was "Terry Loganshaw," in charge of the

led us through the scratchy, overgrown part of Wecanicut, and we pretended that it was a long, weary trek through the most poisonous jungles to the coast of Peru; and when Greg walked right into a spider's web with a huge yellow spider gloating in the middle of it, he said he'd been bitten by a tarantula. We told him that we should have to leave him

ange form appear to you like the top

ike a rough sort of dome than a monster's head. There was a lot of haz

said. "Could it be th

which might have been quite proper if h

gain for quite a while, when Jerr

s!" not at all lik

and butting along beside the rocks a little way down the shore. We all ran helter-skel

ry-landing," he said. "It must have got adrift

ng the boat, and we were all thinking the same th

out to the

e end of the point to see how high the waves were before I could say it. It was too late to say it afterwards, because when

d, "and then we'll have seen it at last. It couldn't be a better

iny, with just a long, heaving roll now and then, as

wart. The boat didn't leak badly enough to worry about, but I thought it might be just as well to keep it bailed. We talked in a very nautical way, though Jerry kept forgetting

ng water between us and Wecanicut, the Monster's head still seemed almost as far away as before. Somehow