But, of all the wildly-exciting and happy days, none had seemed quite so exciting and happy as the day to which we have now come in this story. Perhaps the fact that there could not by any chance be many more of these times, lent its own specially brightening charm to the blessings that must soon take their flight; for it was the 27th of August by the calendar, and by the middle of September Little Homespun would be closed, and Courage and the Bennetts have taken their departure. Joe had been with the children all day, and he was the one to be thanked for most of its wildly exciting features. Single-handed, but supposed to represent a whole regiment, he had tried in a score of ways to effect a landing on the island; but by dint of unceasing vigi{ 083}lance the children had succeeded in keeping him at bay, until at last, despairing and exhausted, he had beaten a retreat to the main land. Indeed, so hard and unremitting had been the labours of the children, that about the middle of the afternoon Courage, who had been having an all-day chat with Grandma Ellis and was afraid the children would quite wear themselves out, succeeded in coaxing them to the shore, under promise of a story, and it was not to be any ordinary, made-up story either. Naturally in her daily contact with the children, Courage had alluded now and then to her own childhood, and with the result that they had extracted from her the pledge that she would tell them all about it some day. But as yet Courage’s “some day” never had dawned, although they had repeatedly begged for the story--now they concluded the time had come to take a stand.
“Will you tell us the story about yourself if we come over?” Teddy called from the island. “We are all agreed we cannot think of laying down our arms unless you will.”
“Agreed,” Courage called back, glad to commit them to an hour of quiet at any cost; and so the children embarked and rowed over, and Grandma entreated so hard that she might be allowed to listen too, that Courage { 084}yielded, and the little group gathered itself about her big rocking-chair on the gallery. Joe was also permitted to form one of the party; but there was another listener, who would not have been tolerated for a moment if his whereabouts had been known. He was stretched full length on the hair-cloth sofa just between the windows in the living-room, and, knowing it would be quite impossible for him to gain permission to be a hearer, he was just sufficiently unprincipled to listen without so much as saying “by your leave.”