home, and had almost forgotten the bottle, "perhaps it will land on
the Sea Monster, and the pirates will find it."

"Glory!" said Jerry, "perhaps it will."




CHAPTER II


Just in the middle of the rainiest week came the thing that made
Aunt Ailsa so sad. She read it in the newspaper, in the casualty
list. It was the last summer of the war, and there were great long
casualty lists every day. This said that Somebody-or-other Westland
was "wounded and missing." We didn't know why it made her so sad,
because we'd never heard of such a person, but of course it was up
to us to cheer her up as much as possible. Picnics being out of the
question, it had to be indoor cheering, which is harder. Greg
succeeded better than the rest of us, I think. He is still little
enough to sit on people's laps (though his legs spill over,
quantities). He sat on Aunt Ailsa's lap and told her long stories
which she seemed to like much better than the H.G. Wells books. He
also dragged her off to join in attic games, and she liked those,
too, and laughed sometimes quite like herself.

Attic games aren't so bad, though summer's not the proper time for
them, really. There is a long cornery sort of closet full of carpets
that runs back under the eaves in our attic, and if you strew
handfuls of beads and tin washers among the carpets and then dig for