Nightbirds on Nantucket by Aiken Joan

Author:Aiken, Joan [Aiken, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Humorous Stories, Animals, Aunts, Action & Adventure, Whales, Juvenile Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Nantucket (Mass.), General, Birds, Whaling
ISBN: 9780395971857
Publisher: Sandpiper
Published: 1982-01-02T07:00:00+00:00

7

Aunt Tribulation gets up. Second trip to the attic. Dido's in the well. Return of Captain Casket. Trip to the forest.

The conspirators. The gun.

Aunt Tribulation had evidently decided that it was easier to keep an eye on the girls if she got up, for the next day they were disconcerted to find her established in the kitchen when they came in from the morning's milking.

"This room is disgracefully dirty and untidy," she said grimly. "After breakfast you, miss," she said to Penitence, "may bestir yourself to give it a good scrub and cleanout. You," this to Dido, "take Mungo and the cart down to the peat swamp to fetch a load of peat."

"I'll help Penny first, and then she can come with me," promptly replied Dido, who had no intention of leaving Pen to fend for herself for so long with Aunt Tribulation.

"You'll do as I say, and don't argue about it!"

Dido did not argue about it, but when Aunt Tribulation retired after breakfast, leaving the girls to wash up, she fetched a bucket of water and began to scrub the floor.

"I'll do that Dido—you'd better go!" whispered Penitence, alarmed.

"And leave you on your own? Not likely! Hurry, and we'll be done afore she comes down."

Aunt Tribulation, when she did come down, was very angry. "How dare you disobey me, insolent girl!" she thundered, looking about for her stick. But Dido, accustomed to self-preservation in the hubbub of the London alleys, had prudently removed the stick, chopped it up, and burned it in the stove. Aunt Tribulation boxed her ears instead, and told her to go and sit on the whale's jawbone for two hours, reciting, "I must not be a naughty, insubordinate girl."

This Dido did not at all mind doing. True, the jawbone was not very comfortable to sit on, but it was close at hand, so that she would wave cheerfully and shout encouragement whenever Pen's duties took her across the barnyard, and it made a change from work.

After an hour or so, Dido had an idea. "Psst! Penny!" she called, as Pen came out with a basin of wrung-out cheesecloths. "Come this way a minute?"

"What is it?" Pen hung her cloths on the clothesline, starting at the end nearest Dido, but keeping an anxious eye on the kitchen door.

"That span'l dog of your auntie's—the one that bit you—"

"It didn't bite me," the truthful Penitence interjected. "I was afraid that it might."

"What was it called?"

"Toto." Pen recalled the horrid creature with a shudder. "I am so glad she didn't bring it with her this time."

"Probably died years ago. But never mind that," Dido said. "Don't you think as how it would be polite and sociable to ask arter Toto's health? Might put the old gal in a better humor."

"Do you think so?" Pen said doubtfully.

"Well—try, Penny, and see! Just say, 'Aunt Tribulation, how's Toto?' and see what she says."

Slightly puzzled, Pen obeyed. Dido was unable to hear the conversation, which took place in the kitchen, but the result was most satisfactory.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.