He took his way slowly down, hiding behind trees, looking out and then sneaking forward again, until he reached the open beach. The picnic party was still feasting merrily, making speeches and drinking one another’s health. Johnny stole along, dodging from rock to rock. Suddenly one of the ladies called out: “Mercy! there he is!” Then they all clapped their hands and shouted to him and clapped their hands again.
“Come here, boy,” called a very stout gentleman, the cross merchant who owned the “Sea Mew.”
Oh, dear! How embarrassing it was—perfectly horrid! And how they roared again as he came on to the wharf!
“What kind of a specimen are you?” asked the stout gentleman.
“I am not a specimen. I am Johnny Blossom.”
Johnny did not see anything to laugh at, yet they laughed harder than ever.
“May I ask whether it was you that took the boat-hook out of my sail-boat?”
The stout gentleman had a tight grip on Johnny’s little red ear.
“Please excuse me about the boat-hook,” and a small brown hand was stretched out and laid in the merchant’s hand.
“Come now. He shall have a cake,” said one of the ladies. “Here, take more; take these, and these.”
“Why don’t you eat them?” asked another lady.
“Oh, I’m going to give them to Nils the fisherman.”
“Because he lent me his blouse.” Johnny Blossom was exceedingly serious throughout the whole conversation.
“Good-by.” He bowed, his little naked heels put together in most formal manner.
“Good-by, little Johnny Blossom, and thanks for the pleasure you have given us.”
Just what the pleasure was Johnny Blossom could not exactly understand.
“You mustn’t put those wet clothes on,” said one lady.
“Oh, they’re dry,” said Johnny, feeling of the clothes. “They’re as dry as tinder.”
At this they all laughed again. There was a very wet place on the wharf where the clothes had lain.
Fortunately Mother was out when he first got home, and Lisa the maid was very kind in helping him get dry clothes. It was queer, but perhaps his others had not been as dry as tinder, after all.
Johnny deliberated all the afternoon as to whether he should tell his mother what had happened or not. She was so everlastingly anxious about such things. But when she came to his room to say good night, he burst out with it.