Read Ebook: Our Little Porto Rican Cousin by Wade Mary Hazelton Blanchard Bridgman L J Lewis Jesse Illustrator

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Ebook has 370 lines and 19734 words, and 8 pages

"Now, children, see what you have done!" exclaimed the Widow Pickle. "The Banjo is broken again."

"Never mind," said the Private Secretary, "it will always play when the two hold it together. Besides, it can not resist the Royal Hereditary Colors, madam, for these are very powerful in our Island."

"In truth," said the Widow Pickle, "I am of a mind myself to go to this wonderful place of which you talk. I would like to seek my fortune and that of my Twins. Have you credibly informed me that Twins with malazite-and corazine-colored hair would have a good chance in that country?"

"I have told you the truth," said the little dark man; "but I must say it is very far from here to the Island of Gee-Whiz, some hundreds of thousands of miles across the seas."

"Then, sir, how did you come here yourself?"

"I came by the Gee-Whiz Submarine Express," replied the Private Secretary. "How else should I come?"

"Alas! I don't know what you mean," said the Widow Pickle at this.

"Not know, madam? Why, you have all the means for summoning the Submarine Express directly at your command."

"Where? where?" asked the Widow excitedly.

The little man pointed at the cupboard where the late Aurelius Pickle had been accustomed to keep his Chemical Substances.

"Why, to be sure," said the Widow Pickle, "it must be in the cupboard, for it was there I found the two strange powders which went off with a flash."

"Are you ready for your journey, madam?" asked the Private Secretary.

"I declare, I've more than half a mind to learn what all this means," said the Widow Pickle.

"Get us ready for the journey, mamma," cried the Twins, as though it were all settled.

"Very well," said the Widow, "we may as well be prepared for anything that may happen. First let me comb your Royal Hereditary Hair. Lulu, go fetch me the blue comb, and you, Zuzu, get the pale-green one, on top of the dresser, at the right hand as you go in. I can not help feeling," said the Widow Pickle, as she combed the long, wavy hair of her two children, "as though something was going to happen."

At that moment the Enchanted Banjo, held once more by the joyful Twins, began this remarkable song:

SOMETHING'S GOING TO HAPPEN

Such a squidgy feeling in my bones! Such a tingling tangling of my hair! Something whispers now in warning tones That it will be best if I take care. I keep looking out on either side, Watching for just what I do not know-- Will it sit, or stand, or walk, or ride? Wonder will it come, or will it go?

Something's sure to happen-- Oh, what can it be? Something, something, something Keeps on warning me. I shiver and I quiver, I tremble and I bow-- Something's sure to happen! When? And where? And how?

Something's sure to happen-- Oh, what will it be? Something, something, something Keeps on warning me. I quiver and I shiver, I shake and shake again-- Something's sure to happen! What? And how? And when?

THE GEE-WHIZ SUBMARINE EXPRESS

The Widow Pickle kept studying over matters and things as she combed the Twins' hair with the blue and green combs. She began to think, as a great many widows do, that after all her husband had perhaps been a very wonderful man, and better than she had thought at the time. She wished very much, as many widows do, that her husband were alive again for a few moments. She wished to ask him just one more question. We need not explain what that question would have been, for any one could guess that it would have been in regard to Chemical Substances.

At last, she arose and went to the glass door of the cupboard and began looking carefully behind the dishes on the shelves. At length she saw a little box, which she had not noticed before.

"Aha!" cried the Widow Pickle, "I am sure this is the powder which you mean. Is it not so, little man?"

The latter refused either to speak or to make any sign.

"I will try it, anyhow," said the Widow Pickle. So she poured some of the powder from this box upon a plate and began touching a lighted match to it. To her great surprise, the powder burst out into a cloud of smoke, and when the smoke had cleared away, she saw, lying upon the plate, a small but perfect little ship, the like of which she had never seen before in all her life. It was something like a steamboat, except that it was covered over entirely with glass. At the stern it had a large wheel, evidently to make it go, and it had other wheels along the bottom, like feet upon a sofa. Its bow was curved up and backward sharply, something like the front of a sled, and its sides were gently rounded so that it could slip along easily. The deck was quite roofed over by this curved-glass shield, for what reason the Widow could not tell. Indeed, although she guessed at once that this was a boat of some sort, she could not tell what sort it was.

"Well, I'd like to know--" began the Widow Pickle.

"What was it you were about to inquire, my good woman?" asked the Private Secretary.

"Why, what should I inquire, my good man," replied the Widow, "if not to ask what is this thing here on the plate?"

"That, madam," said the Private Secretary, "is a boat."

"A boat? A boat?"

The Private Secretary nodded.

"Can't you read the name?" he asked.

So the Widow Pickle peered closely through her glasses and saw that there was a name printed in small shining letters on one end of the boat. "The Gee-Whiz Submarine Express!" cried the Widow. "But, alack! how small it is. Why, it is not as long as my foot, and I was always thought in my time to have a very small foot, too!"

The Private Secretary smiled in a knowing manner.

"Perhaps, mamma," said Zuzu, "you have overlooked something in some other box."

"Zuzu, you have a good mind for one so young," said his mother. "I will look in the cupboard again." So again she began rummaging around, and at length she found another box, a square one, covered over with dust, showing that it had not been opened for a long time. The first box had held a pale-blue powder, but this one was filled nearly to the lid with a light-green powder. On the top of this box, written in the hand of Aurelius Pickle, was the inscription, "Magic Powder of Gee-Whiz." When the Widow Pickle saw this, she gave an exclamation of joy.

THE JOURNEY THROUGH THE AIR

"Hurry, hurry, mamma!" cried the Twins. "Let us go."

"But how can we go?" asked the Widow Pickle of the Private Secretary, as she stood holding the second box of powder in her hand.

"I suggest, madam," said the Private Secretary, "that you might put a little of the first powder, the blue one, in the engine."

The Widow Pickle placed a pinch of the pale-blue powder upon a certain portion of the little boat, and, to her great surprise, it began to grow before her eyes.

It grew and it grew, slowly but steadily, until it was large enough for either of the Twins to get into. In a moment more it would have been too large to pass out of the window; and as the Widow Pickle saw this, she was about to brush off the rest of the powder.

"Stop!" cried the Private Secretary. "The window will not make the slightest difference in the world. Quick, madam! Get in with the second box, or it will be too late."

Indeed, the engine inside the boat now began to churn, and a strange, brilliant sort of blue smoke began to hiss at the spouts near the wheel. The boat, for such it can be called, began to crawl on its feet across the floor toward the window. The Private Secretary grasped the Enchanted Banjo and with a bound sprang into the boat. The Widow, holding on to the remaining box of powder, and grasping the Twins also with the other hand, sprang aboard quickly. The Private Secretary then snapped down the glass all around.

To her great surprise, the Widow Pickle found the boat quite large enough for all four of them, and even as she settled down comfortably in her seat the boat rose slowly and, with a slight hissing of the strange blue steam at the wheel, it passed directly out and through the window, just as though it were not there, and sailed off across the tops of the tall buildings toward the sea.

"Oh, Mr. Secretary," cried the Widow Pickle, "how very much startled I am!"

"Madam," replied the Private Secretary, "there is no need to be startled. It is very well, however, that you got the second box from among the Chemical Substances of the late Aurelius Pickle."

"Why should that be so?" asked the Widow. "You must remember that I am in the dark about many of these things. It seems very strange to me to be thus flying off across the city. For all we know, we may drop directly into the sea before long."

"That is true," said the Private Secretary, chuckling. "In fact, that is precisely what we shall do within two minutes. And that is the reason I am glad you have the green powder with you. That, you must understand, is our fuel for water travel; for without that we could not possibly get up any green steam, and surely you must know that with a boat of this particular kind, blue steam may be all very well for the air, but it is of no service whatever under the water."

"That," said the Widow Pickle, "seems a most singular thing."

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