Читать книгу The Mislaid Uncle онлайн

8 страница из 28

Toward nightfall it was all over: the parting that had been so bitter to the mother and so little understood by the child. Mamma was standing on the deck of the outward moving steamer, straining her eyes backward over the blue Pacific toward the pretty harbor of San Diego, almost believing she could still see a little scarlet-clad figure waving a cheerful farewell from the vanishing wharf. But Josephine, duly ticketed and labelled, was already curled up on the cushions of her section in the sleeper, and staring out of window at the sights which sped by.

“The same old ocean, but so big, so big! Mamma says it is peacock-blue, like the wadded kimono she bought at the Japanese store. Isn’t it queer that the world should fly past us like this! That’s what it means in the jogaphy about the earth turning round, I suppose. If it doesn’t stop pretty soon I shall get dreadful dizzy and, maybe, go to sleep. But how could I? I’m an express parcel now. Cousin-Doctor Mack said so, and dear mamma. Parcels don’t go to sleep ever, do they, Rudanthy?”