Susan Coolidge - What Katy Did Next

Toward morning the gale abated, the sea became smoother, and she dropped asleep. When she woke the sun was struggling through the clouds, and she felt better.

The stewardess opened the port-hole to freshen the air, and helped her to wash her face and smooth her tangled hair; then she produced a little basin of gruel and a triangular bit of toast, and Katy found that her appetite was come again and she could eat.

“And ’ere’s a letter, ma’am, which has come for you by post this morning,” said the nice old stewardess, producing an envelope from her pocket, and eying her patient with great satisfaction.

“By post!” cried Katy, in amazement; “why, how can that be?” Then catching sight of Rose’s handwriting on the envelope, she understood, and smiled at her own simplicity.

The stewardess beamed at her as she opened it, then saying again, “Yes, ’m, by post, m’m,” withdrew, and left Katy to enjoy the little surprise.

The letter was not long, but it was very like its writer. Rose drew a picture of what Katy would probably be doing at the time it reached her—a picture so near the truth that Katy felt as if Rose must have the spirit of prophecy, especially as she kindly illustrated the situation with a series of pen-and-ink drawings, in which Katy was depicted as prone in her berth, refusing with horror to go to dinner, looking longingly backward toward the quarter where the United States was supposed to be, and fishing out of her port-hole with a crooked pin in hopes of grappling the submarine cable and sending a message to her family to come out at once and take her home. It ended with this short “poem”, over which Katy laughed till Mrs. Ashe called feebly across the entry to ask what was the matter?

“Break, break, break

And mis-behave, O sea,

And I wish that my tongue could utter

The hatred I feel for thee!

“Oh, well for the fisherman’s child

On the sandy beach at his play;

Oh, well for all sensible folk

Who are safe at home today!

“But this horrible ship keeps on,

And is never a moment still,

And I yearn for the touch of the nice dry land,

Where I needn’t feel so ill!

“Break! break! break!

There is no good left in me;

For the dinner I ate on the shore so late

Has vanished into the sea!”

Laughter is very restorative after the forlornity of sea-sickness; and Katy was so stimulated by her letter that she managed to struggle into her dressing-gown and slippers and across the entry to Mrs. Ashe’s stateroom. Amy had fallen asleep at last and must not be waked up, so their interview was conducted in whispers. Mrs. Ashe had by no means got to the tea-and-toast stage yet, and was feeling miserable enough.

“I have had the most dreadful time with Amy,” she said. “All day yesterday, when she wasn’t sick she was raging at me from the upper berth, and I too ill to say a word in reply. I never knew her so naughty! And it seemed very neglectful not to come to see after you, poor dear child! but really I couldn’t raise my head.”

“Neither could I, and I felt just as guilty not to be taking care of you,” said Katy. “Well, the worst is over with all of us, I hope. The vessel doesn’t pitch half so much now, and the stewardess says we shall feel a great deal better as soon as we get on deck. She is coming presently to help me up; and when Amy wakes, won’t you let her be dressed, and I will take care of her while Mrs. Barrett attends to you.”

“I don’t think I can be dressed,” sighed poor Mrs. Ashe. “I feel as if I should just lie here till we get to Liverpool.”

“Oh no, h’indeed, mum—no, you won’t,” put in Mrs. Barrett, who at that moment appeared, gruel-cup in hand. “I don’t never let my ladies lie in their berths a moment longer than there is need of. I h’always gets them on deck as soon as possible to get the h’air. It’s the best medicine you can ’ave, ma’am, the fresh h’air; h’indeed it h’is.”

Stewardesses are all-powerful on board ship, and Mrs. Barrett was so persuasive as well as positive that it was not possible to resist her. She got Katy into her dress and wraps, and seated her on deck in a chair with a great rug wrapped about her feet, with very little effort on Katy’s part. Then she dived down the companion way again, and in the course of an hour appeared escorting a big burly steward, who carried poor little pale Amy in his arms as easily as though she had been a kitten. Amy gave a scream of joy at the sight of Katy, and cuddled down in her lap under the warm rug with a sigh of relief and satisfaction.

“I thought I was never going to see you again,” she said, with a little squeeze. “Oh, Miss Katy, it has been so horrid! I never thought that going to Europe meant such dreadful things as this!”

“This is only the beginning; we shall get across the sea in a few days, and then we shall find out what going to Europe really means. But what made you behave so, Amy, and cry and scold poor Mamma when she was sick? I could hear you all the way across the entry.”

“Could you? Then why didn’t you come to me?”

“I wanted to; but I was sick too, so sick that I couldn’t move. But why were you so naughty?—you didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t mean to be naughty, but I couldn’t help crying. You would have cried too, and so would Johnnie, if you had been cooped up in a dreadful old berth at the top of the wall that you couldn’t get out of, and hadn’t had anything to eat, and nobody to bring you any water when you wanted some. And Mamma wouldn’t answer when I called to her.”

“She couldn’t answer; she was too ill,” explained Katy. “Well, my pet, it was pretty hard for you. I hope we shan’t have any more such days. The sea is a great deal smoother now.”

“Mabel looks quite pale; she was sick, too,” said Amy, regarding the doll in her arms with an anxious air. “I hope the fresh h’air will do her good.”

“Is she going to have any fresh hair?” asked Katy, wilfully misunderstanding.

“That was what that woman called it,—the fat one who made me come up here. But I’m glad she did, for I feel heaps better already; only I keep thinking of poor little Maria Matilda shut up in the trunk in that dark place, and wondering if she’s sick. There’s nobody to explain to her down there.”

“They say that you don’t feel the motion half so much in the bottom of the ship,” said Katy. “Perhaps she hasn’t noticed it at all. Dear me, how good something smells! I wish they would bring us something to eat.”

A good many passengers had come up by this time; and Robert, the deck steward, was going about, tray in hand, taking orders for lunch. Amy and Katy both felt suddenly ravenous; and when Mrs. Ashe awhile later was helped up the stairs, she was amazed to find them eating cold beef and roasted potatoes, with the finest appetites in the world. “They had served out their apprenticeships,” the kindly old captain told them, “and were made free of the nautical guild from that time on.” So it proved; for after these two bad days none of the party were sick again during the voyage.

Amy had a clamorous appetite for stories as well as for cold beef; and to appease this craving, Katy started a sort of ocean serial, called “The History of Violet and Emma”, which she meant to make last till they got to Liverpool, but which in reality lasted much longer. It might with equal propriety have been called “The Adventures of two little Girls who didn’t have any Adventures”, for nothing in particular happened to either Violet or Emma during the whole course of their long-drawn-out history. Amy, however, found them perfectly enchanting, and was never weary of hearing how they went to school and came home again, how they got into scrapes and got out of them, how they made good resolutions and broke them, about their Christmas presents and birthday treats, and what they said and how they felt. The first instalment of this unexciting romance was given that first afternoon on deck; and after that, Amy claimed a new chapter daily, and it was a chief ingredient of her pleasure during the voyage.