The blond young man stood up and began stripping off his jacket heroically. "Be calm, ladies," he said in red-blooded tones. "Leave it all to me. I'll save her!" Then his expression changed as he recognized Mark and Martha. "Oh, it's you again," he said. "Am I going to have more trouble with you?"
Amazement gave way to wrath in the face of Jane. "Honestly, of all the tag-alongs!" she said. "Do you two have to follow me wherever I go?"
"Beat it, small fry!" said the dark young man rudely, strumming his ukulele.
"How perfectly mortifying!" said Katharine.
"Just a minute," said Mark. He didn't have to worry about touching the lake this time, because there was very little of him or Martha that wasn't. The next minute he had wished, and they were sitting drippingly in the bottom of the canoe, which was rocking dangerously.
The dark young man stopped playing his ukulele in midstrum. "Whew!" he said admiringly. "That was some jump, kid. How'd you do it? You ought to train for aquatic sports!"
"You're dripping on my white shoes," complained the blond young man.
Mark paid them no heed. "I'm sorry," he said, "butting in like this, but I've got to tell you something. You're making a terrible mistake. I wanted to warn you before it's too late. Those girls you've got there aren't what they seem."
"They're minors," said Martha.
"Miners?" said the dark young man.
"She means minors," said Mark. He pointed at Jane. "You may not believe it, but that is a child of twelve."
"Some child!" said the dark young man, looking at Jane's willowy frame.
"They're my sisters," said Mark. "They ran away from home. I came to fetch them back. The other one's nine. They're big for their age."
"They're overgrown," added Martha helpfully.
"Of all the ridiculous stories," said Jane in disdain.
"Never in all my life!" said Katharine.
"They're sort of out of their minds right now," went on Mark, hardly knowing what he was saying. "That's why we keep them shut up."
"You'll have to think up a better story than that," said the blond young man. "I wasn't born yesterday!"
"I don't need a brick house falling down on me!" chimed in the dark one.
"You wouldn't like them at all, really," Mark rattled on desperately. "They're not your type. She bites her nails," he said, pointing at Jane, "and she"—he pointed at Katharine—"sucks her thumb still. Well, sometimes she does," he said, being fair.
"And they both play paper dolls," said Martha.
"Shame on you!" said the blond young man to Mark. "Teaching this innocent little child to tell lies that way!"
"Only a skunk would do a thing like that!" said the dark young man.
"You're right, Topsfield!" said the blond one. "You hit the nail on the head! Only a skunk!" And he glared at Mark. "She's too young to know any better, but as for you, we've had enough of your funny jokes! I give you ten seconds to get out of this canoe!
Mark felt more desperate than ever. He didn't know what to wish, and he couldn't unwish, and at any moment the time might stop being ripe. Then he remembered what Martha had said about the magic's maybe being over when the moon set. And he touched the lake and wished quietly that it would be moonset right now.
Immediately the moon shot down the sky, fell into the lake (at least that's what it looked like), and disappeared.
"Great Scott, Topsfield!" cried the blond young man. "Did you see that comet?"
"More like a shooting star, I'd say, Wigglesworth," said the dark one. They sat blinking in the sudden darkness.
But of course you can't make a moon set just any old time. The moon was scheduled to set that morning at five-forty-one A.M., and so of course that's what it immediately was, and the dawn started coming up like gray streaks of paint above the lake, and its wan light bathed the six passengers in the canoe.
"By Jove!" said the blond young man, aghast, staring at a suddenly shrunken Katharine. "Topsfield, do you see what I see?"
"Gad, Wigglesworth!" said the dark one, looking with horror at small Jane with her nobbly knees and blue-and-white socks. "Did they look like that all along?"
"Where are we?" said Jane, like someone coming out of a trance.
"Don't you remember?" said Martha.
"I don't know," said Jane. "It's kind of mixed-up."
"It's all like a dream," said Katharine.
"You're in a canoe," said Mark, beginning to enjoy himself. "These nice big boys took you for a little trip. Say thank you to the nice big boys."
"Gee. Thanks. Gosh," said Jane, in unmistakably childish and unglamorous tones. "I always wanted to ride in a canoe."
The boy called Topsfield uttered a groan. "Gad, Wigglesworth," he said. "What do you suppose came over us?"
"It must have been those lemon cokes. They must have gone to our heads," said his friend.
"Imagine!" said Topsfield. "Playing with little kids at our age! If the gang finds out about this, I'm ruined!"
"If this story gets around, my name is mud at Princeton Prep!" agreed Wigglesworth.
"We won't tell, whatever it is," Katharine assured him comfortingly. "Cross my heart and hope to die, never see the back of my neck!"
"Shall we swear it in blood?" asked Jane, producing a jackknife and holding it out in rather a grubby paw.
The boy called Topsfield winced and looked away from her.
"It's all right, old man," said Mark. "We won't any of us say a word if you just take us back to our own cottage right now."
And the big boys did, paddling fast as though they couldn't wait to see the last of them.
And though the seating accommodations were crowded and Mark and Martha were still wet to the skin, the four children enjoyed every stroke of the way, and all agreed that canoe travel was every bit as exciting as it was cracked up to be.
At last the canoe came to rest on their own familiar beach, and the four children jumped ashore.
"Mum's the word?" said the one called Topsfield anxiously.
"Silent as the tomb," Mark assured him.
"Thanks a lot, old man," said Topsfield, wringing his hand.
"That's all right, old man," said Mark, thumping him on the shoulder. And the canoe skimmed off into the morning.
As it vanished in the distance, the voice of Wigglesworth floated back over the water, still lamenting that his name would be mud at Princeton Prep.
"Aren't they silly?" said Katharine.
"Boring," Jane agreed.
"Oh, I don't know," said Mark tolerantly. "Typical sixteen-year-olds, I'd say."
"I think sixteen is a perfectly horrible age," said Jane. "Isn't it grim to think we'll be like that someday?"
"I won't," said Katharine. "I don't want to be sixteen, ever. I just want to stay the age I am."
"Well," said Mark wisely, "I guess the chances are you will, for a while."
And they went into the cottage.
4. The Storm
Of course, their mother hadn't noticed any of the magic, and never knew they hadn't come home till morning, and never said a word to Mark and Martha about their wet clothes. The clothes caused some trouble later on, though, because they shrank, and Mark and Martha had to go on wearing them for best all that year, which was sheer torture, and their mother never noticed a thing wrong.
But she noticed (and said) a good deal about the way the four children couldn't be wakened up till long past noon that day, and the way they went on being dopey and droopy and sleepy all afternoon when they did get up.
And since she had had a short night herself (and so had everybody else, for that matter, what with the sudden moon-setting, though of course no grown-ups ever knew about that), she had overslept and was tired, too, and Mr. Smith got off to work late after too little breakfast, and in general there was small time for fun and games about the cottage that day, and it wasn't till the middle of the afternoon that Mark and Jane and Katharine and Martha found themselves free and in one piece and assembled on the
beach.
Mark marched straight down to the water's edge and called, "0 turtle!"
"What are you going to do?" said Katharine in alarm.
"No magic! Please! Not today!" said Jane, collapsing wearily upon the sand.
Martha turned and started making tracks for the cottage.
" 'The time has come,' " Mark said, " 'to talk of many things.' "
"It won't answer. It didn't yesterday," said Jane.
"Today I think it will, somehow," said Mark.
And he was right. A few seconds later the turtle came swimming into sight. It didn't land itself on the beach, though, but stayed at a safe distance, treading water.
"Well?" it said. "Is this absolutely necessary?"
"Yes," said Mark. "Yes it is. We've got to talk things over."
"I suppose you're all pleased with yourselves about last night," said the turtle.
"Were you there? I didn't see you," said Katharine.
"I'm always there," said the turtle.
"No, we're not very pleased," said Mark. "I did get us home, though," he added, with a touch of justifiable pride.
"Humph," said the turtle. "Never counting the cost, of course. Just making one wish after another, hardly a minute to rest up between times, wearing a poor lake out! A lakeful of magic doesn't last forever, you know!"
"It doesn't?" said Katharine.
"Did you ever hear of anything that did?" said the turtle.
"I thought this one might," said Mark cleverly. "After all, they've never found bottom."
"Just cause they've never found it doesn't mean it isn't there," snapped the turtle. "You?re getting down toward the bottom already. Take that wish about being sixteen. That's a dry-land wish. Nothing watery about that. A dry-land wish takes a lot out of a lake. You've heard of a fish out of water; well, for a lake out of water it's the same principle. After this, wish wet wishes."
"We'll try," said Katharine.
"And then all that meddling with the moon," went on the turtle. "That never pays. I'd say a wish like that was worth about twenty ordinary ones. Difficult things, moons. What with the tides and all. Hard to manage. Can't say I ever understood the principle of the whole thing properly myself!"
"What does it matter!" said Jane. "When the magic gets really shallow we can just wish on you, and fill it up again."
"No," said the turtle, "that's just what you can't do. Not anymore. It's out of my hands now. The lake's stronger than I am."
"It is?" said Martha, who had edged back to join the group.
"It is, since you made that first wish," said the turtle. "It's hard to explain. You mere babes and sucklings wouldn't understand."
"Why, you!" said Martha, who was sensitive about being called a baby.
"I think I kind of see," said Mark. "You had the power to make the lake full of magic, but now it's bigger than you are. Like Frankenstein."
"Exactly," said the turtle, "and you know what happened to him I suggest after this you think twice before you wish anything at all."
"We're going to," said Mark. "That's why I called you. We want to be safe and sane from now on. And I think we need one more rule. No magic except every third day. Then we'll know when to expect what."
"When I gave you those three extra wishes," said the turtle, "you promised that would be absolutely all."
"We didn't know then what we know now," said Mark.
The turtle looked thoughtful. Then it shook its head. "I couldn't take the chance," it said. "With that lake in the mood it's in now, dear me knows what it might do. That's a tired lake."
"All right, then," said Mark. With a sudden pounce he splashed into the water and caught hold of the turtle with both hands.
"Bully!" said the turtle, struggling in his grasp. "Brute force never solved anything yet."
"Sure," said Mark. "Naturally. I wouldn't try a thing like that. I just want to talk a little more."
He knelt down till his face was on a level with the turtle's and looked it in the eye. "You know," he said, "Kathie was saying just the other day that we ought to have some way of knowing you when we see you, so you won't seem just like any old Tom, Dick, or Harry of a turtle. It'd be more friendly. And I was thinking. I saw a turtle once, in a shop window, that was keen. All painted white it was, with pink rosebuds."
"No!" cried the turtle in heartrending tones. "You wouldn't do that. You couldn't. I'd be branded for life as a mere household pet, a domestic slave! It would be the end of me socially! Say you won't do it, and I'll grant any wish you like!"
"Just the one I said," said Mark.
"Unloose me," said the turtle. Mark did. The turtle assumed an expression of great concentration. Then it relaxed. "That's done it," it said. "The lake put up a fight, but I pushed it through."
"Every third day?" said Mark.
"Every third day," said the turtle.
"Counting from today?"
"Counting from today."
"Thanks," said Mark.
"Don't mention it," said the turtle with dignity. "And now may I go?"
Mark's conscience smote him. "No hard feelings?" he asked.
The turtle looked at him. "Oh, no," it said. "Certainly not. I love having great two-footed creatures invading my privacy and wearing out my lake and interfering with my way of life. I adore catering to their silly wishes. It's my one hobby!" But Mark thought it winked at him as it swam away.
He stood up. "So now," he said, "we know where we stand."
"Yes," said Jane. "I guess we've got everything just about under control now."
"And we can relax and forget about the magic for two whole days!" said Martha.
"As though we could!" said Katharine.
But it was surprising how nearly they did. That first day was just about over already, and they were only too willing to drag their exhausted selves to bed right after supper. That night of the early moonset had taken a lot out of them, as well as the lake.
The next day, when Mr. Smith had left for work, their mother asked them if they thought it would be fun to take a picnic lunch and go for a trip in the excursion launch called the Willa Mae. So they did, and soon all was whitecaps and brass railings and blue distances and people waving from the shore.
As they were eating their lunch (hard-boiled eggs and spring-onion-and-radish sandwiches), Jane turned to Mark.
"If this were one of the magic days," she said, "we could be rounding the Horn."
"The mighty schooner strained at its seams, and the sails sang in the hurricane," agreed Katharine.
"Or we could be explorers charting unknown seas," said Mark.
"There's a good unknown sea now," said Martha, as thé Willa Mae passed an inlet all choked with waterweeds, and a broken-down cottage beside it that looked haunted, at least.
But pretty soon they stopped at an amusement park on the far side of the lake and stayed there for two whole hours, and the thought of magic was thrown to the winds as all donned bathing suits and slid down shoot-the-chutes that came to a watery end amid splashes and the ear-splitting screams of utter enjoyment.
That night just before bedtime the four children met in solemn council.
"Don't anyone dare think a wish between now and after breakfast," said Jane.
"That's going to be hard," said Mark. "Like remembering to say 'Rabbit, rabbit,' when you wake up on the first of the month."
"Everybody think wet thoughts all night, just in case somebody forgets," said Katharine. "We want to pamper that lake."
"I bet I wake up first," said Martha.
"If you do, let's not have any going down to the lake ahead of the rest of us," said Mark. "The first one up wakes the others, and we plan." And all agreed.
As it turned out, it was Katharine who opened her eyes first the next morning.
It was a flash of lightning that made her open them.
And then came a gigantic crash of thunder that woke the others, and after that the rain came pelting and blowing all over the screened por
ch, and the four children made a mad dash for indoors.
Too late they remembered about the magic and started to dash out again, but their mother was up by now and barred the way.
"Nobody goes near that lake this morning," she said. "Water's dangerous in a thunderstorm."
"But we have to!" said Jane. "Just for a minute!"
"It won't hurt us. It knows us," said Martha. "It's expecting us!"
"Stop talking nonsense and help get breakfast," said their mother.
"It's probably only a shower, anyway," said Mark. "We can wait."
But it wasn't. It kept on raining and raining for what seemed like hours. And even though the thunder and lightning were fewer and farther between now, their mother was still firm.
"Wouldn't you know?" said Jane. "Now everything's just utterly and completely ruined!"
"I think it's trying to clear up," said Katharine, at a window.
For answer there came a really blinding flash that drove her back into the middle of the room, and the rain redoubled its force on the roof.
"Hark!" said their mother, coming into the room from saying good-bye to Mr. Smith. "What's that?"
That was a dripping sound and proved to come from a leak in the roof, in a corner just over one of the indoor cots. While their mother ran to get something to put under it, Mark discovered another leak in the kitchen ceiling, and Jane found one merrily plip-plopping right in the middle of the upstairs bedroom.
Five minutes later the fourth leak was discovered, and they were beginning to run out of dishpans and double-boiler-bottoms. The sound of water dripping tinnily into pots made an interesting obbligato to the music of the storm.
The four children sat around the dishpan on the living-room floor (the cot had been moved out of the way for the sake of the sheets) and watched the water gradually filling it. Carrie the cat, who didn't like thunderstorms, came and sat next to them, and Martha absent-mindedly took her in her lap.
"How many drops make a gallon?" said Katharine, not because she really wanted to know, but because there was nothing better to say. Nobody knew the answer.
"Where does it all come from?" said Martha, a prey to exasperation.
It was then that the sudden brilliant thought struck the mind of Jane. "Why, it comes from the lake!" she cried. "Doesn't it? Sure it does! It's scientific! The sun draws the water up, and then it condenses and comes down again, and that's rain! This is lake water we've got right here in this pan!"