Tabitha's Vacation, page 49 by Ruth Alberta Brown
<< Return to Title Details & Download50
eridan into the fight, From Winchester, twenty miles away!'"
she finished; and before the enthusiastic audience realized that the recitation was ended, she began Horatius at the Bridge. Then followed in quick succession all the thrilling wartime pieces at her tongue's command, while the delighted children held their breath in wondering admiration.
Breathless at length, she paused, and surveying the circle of faces about her, said whimsically, "That's a plenty, I reckon. My throat is as dry as the desert!"
"Just one more!" they pleaded eagerly.
"But I have spoken all I can think of now with guns and cannons in them."
"Then give us a different kind," wheedled Irene, in her most persuasive tones.
"That one you spoke May Day at Ivy Hall," suggested Mercedes, "when you tumbled off the platform."
"Tumbled off the platform?" echoed the boys in great surprise. This was an adventure which had never been recounted to them. "How did she tumble off the platform? Tell us about it."
Tabitha merely laughed and shook her head, but Mercedes, elated at the opportunity of singing the praises of her idol, regaled them with a laughable description of Tabitha's mishap. This led to other boarding school reminiscences,--the christening of the vessel, when Cassandra took her memorable plunge into the ocean; the night of the opera and their experiences with the runaway ostriches; the voice of the mysterious singer in the bell-tower, which some of the more timid students had mistaken for a ghost; and finally, the appearance of the Ivy Hall ghost itself. The McKittrick girls had heard all these events recounted so often that they knew them almost by heart; but, nevertheless, they were never tired of listening, and drank in the stories of all those delightful mishaps with almost as much eagerness as was displayed by Billiard and Toady, hearing them for the first time.
But all frolics come to an end, and Tabitha at length roused with a start to announce, "That clock struc