ONE day Captain Prout said to Kenneth, “How’d ye like to go out with me to-morrow morning to catch bait for my lobster¹ traps? We’ll have to start early,—right early for a little city feller like you. What do you say to four o’clock?”

 

“Oh, I can get up at four o’clock just as easily as at seven,” said Kenneth proudly; “of course I will go with you, Captain Prout.”

 

The Captain chuckled². “’Tain’t so easy as you think, to git up at sunrise, when you ain’t used to it,” he said; “but you kin³ set an alarm, I guess. You ask your father, an’ if he says you can go, I’ll take you off from the beach in my boat to-morrow morning at four-fifteen; that is, pervided you’re there, Sonny.”

 

Of course he would be there! Kenneth asked his father if he might go, and Mr.[121] Thornton was quite willing, for he knew that Captain Prout would be careful of the little boy. Kenneth did not tell his father how early he must start. But without troubling any one he set the alarm clock at four, and put it under the bed, so that it would be sure to waken him in due season.

 

Now, very early the next morning, when every one in the Thornton cottage was sleeping soundly, two little figures came walking up through the woods towards the back door. The little boy carried a pail of milk, and the little girl walked beside him, and they looked something like the children whom you see in the full moon,—Jack⁴ and Jill. But these were not Jack and Jill. They were Tommy and Mary Prout, Captain Prout’s twins, and it happened to be their turn to bring the milk that morning to the Thornton cottage for Kenneth’s and Rose’s breakfast. I don’t know what Kenneth and Rose would have done if the little Prouts had forgotten to come with the milk. But they never forgot, not once,[122] all summer. There were six of them—three boys and three girls—and every morning in July and August, whether it rained or shone, two of them came two miles from Lobster Cove⁵ with the milk. And they came very early,—so early that no one in the cottage ever saw them do it. They were glad of this, for they were very bashful. Whenever they were out in the woods or along the shore and heard any one coming, they always

分享到：