the green grass of june had turned to russet; the bay berry bushes began to look dingy, and the waxy cranberries in the bog were turning to a delicate pink. it had been a dry season and the children could safely traverse the bog from end to end without danger of getting their feet wet. ellis was their pilot to this fascinating spot, and the day of their introduction to it was one long to be remembered.

it was one morning when ellis came around to the back door to deliver clams that they first heard of the bog. he added to the weekly order a little bag of pinky-white cranberries. "i thought maybe you'd like 'em," he said. "miss alice harvey says they're much better when they're not quite ripe. ora tried some and they were fine, but they took a lot of sugar."

"thank you for remembering us," said miss ada as she received the offering. "how much, ellis?"

"nawthin'. they're easy to pick and there's plenty of 'em," he made reply.

miss ada accepted the gift in the spirit in which it was intended. "i'm sure we shall enjoy them," she declared. "where is the bog, ellis? is it very wet there?"

"'tain't wet at all this year. this has been such a dry season. it's down back of cap'n orrin's barn."

"oh, is that the place?" molly was peeping over her aunt's shoulder. "i've always longed to go there but i was afraid it was all sloppy and marshy; some one said it was."

"would you like me to go there with you?" said ellis bashfully. "i know where the cranberries grow, and there's lots of other things down there, the kind you city people like to get, weeds, we call 'em."

"oh, may we go?" molly appealed to her aunt.

"why yes, i have no objection. it is perfectly safe if it's not wet. i suppose you may encounter a garter snake or two, but you don't mind them, molly."

"wait for us, ellis," said the little girl speeding away for her cousins with whom she returned in a moment. all three were breathlessly eager to start on the voyage of discovery, for with ellis as leader, into what regions of the unknown might they not penetrate.

over the hill they went, leaving cap'n orrin's mild-eyed cows gazing after them ruminatively as they crept under the fence which separated the pasture from the wild bottom land at the foot of the hill. on the other side arose the ridge along which were ranged cottages looking both coveward and seaward. a winding path led past runty little apple trees and huge boulders, and finally was lost in the tangle of growth overspreading the marsh.

"it is dry enough now," said mary exultantly, setting her foot on a tuft of dry grass. "where are the cranberries, ellis? i want to see those first."

"you are standing right over some," he said smiling.

mary looked down, but only a mass of weeds and grass greeted her eyes. "i don't see them," she declared.

ellis laughed, bent over and parted the grass to disclose the delicate wreaths of green, and the pretty smooth cranberries, tucked away in the dry grass.

"as if they were afraid of being picked," remarked mary. "you will not escape me that way." and down on her knees she went in search of the pink fruit.

molly meanwhile had gone further afield, and was gathering flowers strange to her, and grasses as lovely as the blossoms. earlier in the season, she had delighted in the rosy plumes of the hard-hack, the sweet pinky-white clover, the wild partridge peas, but here were new acquaintances which were not to be found outside the marsh, and upon them she pounced eagerly.

it was polly, however, who discovered the roseberry family, for polly, who had spent her life far from cities, had developed her imagination, and could fashion from unpromising material the most fascinating things, and though she, too, picked her share of cranberries, she also gathered a lot of roseberries which she declared were the biggest she had ever seen. these she bore away in triumph, while molly carried her bouquet with a satisfied air and mary was quite content with having the largest showing of cranberries. so they returned, well pleased, to the cottage.

"we had the splendidest morning," said molly, setting her flowers in a large vase. "i never knew that bogs could be so perfectly fine. what are you doing, polly?"

polly was seated on the floor industriously picking off her roseberries from the twigs. "wait and you will see," was her answer. "do get me some pins, molly, a whole lot. aunt ada will give you some."

molly's curiosity being aroused, she rushed off to her aunt, returning with a paper of pins. she squatted down on the floor by polly's side. mary, meanwhile, had gone to the kitchen to superintend luella's cooking of the cranberries. polly stuck a pin in one side of the biggest, fattest roseberry, then another in the other side. "this is mr. roseberry," she said, "and these are his two arms. now his head goes on, and then his legs. i use the pins, you see, because you can bend them so as to make the people sit down." she held up the completed mannikin. "now i must pick out some berries for mrs. roseberry, and then i'll make the children."

"polly, you are so ridiculous," said molly in a tone of admiration, "but do you know, they are awfully funny with their little round heads and bodies." polly worked away industriously till she had completed her entire family. "now what?" said molly. "what in the world is that?"

"it is a lamp," returned polly, deftly fitting a base to her red globe. "now, if i had some pasteboard i could make some furniture, and we'd play with the roseberry family this afternoon."

"dinner is nearly ready now," said molly, "but it will be fun to play with them this afternoon. we could have two or three families. what can i name mine?" she watched polly interestedly as she put the last touch to a vase in which she stuck a bit of green.

"you might call them pod," said polly. "these are really the seed pods of the wild roses, you know. they are like little apples, aren't they?"

"oh, i'll call them appleby," said molly.

"we know some people named that. save that tiny one for the baby, polly."

"the cranberries are perfectly delicious," said mary, coming in from the kitchen, "but they have to cool before we can eat them. luella says they take so much sugar that they will keep perfectly for me to take some home. oh, what curious little figures."

"this is the roseberry family," polly told her, indicating the dolls on the right, "and these," she pointed to those on her left, "these are the applebys."

"you must have some, too, mary," said molly. "what shall you call yours?"

mary had picked up one of the little figures. "why, they are made of hips, aren't they?"

"what are hips?" asked molly.

"that is what we call the berries of the briar-rose, and in england the hawthorn berries are haws."

"hips and haws," sang molly. "don't they go nicely together? shall you call your people mr. and mrs. hips?"

"why, yes, i can. i think that would be a very good name. are we going to play with them?"

"after dinner we are, if polly can find anything to make furniture of."

polly's ingenuity did not fail her here, for, by the use of some match ends, birch bark and a needle and thread she contrived all sorts of things and then each girl hunted up a box for a house, so that these new playthings proved to be very fascinating.

but at last the every-day commonplaces grew too dull for polly, and she suddenly exclaimed: "i'm tired of just visiting and talking about measles and nurses and mustard plasters! i'm going to take the roseberry family down to the shore. they're going to have an adventure."

"oh, polly, what? can ours go, too?" cried molly. "i would like to have the applebys meet an adventure, too."

"and i'd like mr. and mrs. hips to have one," echoed mary.

"are they very wicked, black-hearted people?" asked polly, darkly.

"why—why——" mary hesitated and looked to molly for her cue.

"do they have to be wicked to have an adventure?" asked molly.

"if they join the roseberries, they'll have to be, for the roseberries are wreckers and smugglers." polly spoke impressively, and at this flight of fancy molly and mary gazed at her admiringly. yet they were not quite willing that their families should give up their morals to too great an extent.

"what do they have to do?" asked mary, determined to find out the worst.

"mine have a cave," said polly, mysteriously. "it is on an island—i know what island i am going to have—and there they hide their treasures. they are counterfeiters, too," she added to their list of crimes, "and they have chests of counterfeit money—sand dollars."

molly laughed and polly looked at her reproachfully. "it is as good as any other counterfeit money," she remarked.

"never mind the money. go on, polly." molly was enjoying her cousin's inventions.

"well, they go out in a boat on stormy nights and when a vessel is in distress, instead of helping, they don't do anything but just wait till the vessel is wrecked and then they help themselves, to what they can get. they have, oh, such a store of diamonds and rubies and precious stones in their cave, and they have their own vessel that flies a black flag."

"then they're pirates," said mary recoiling. "i don't want the hips to be pirates."

"they don't have to be," polly calmly assured her. "they can be as good as they want to, and can be on one of the vessels that gets wrecked."

"then they'll all get drowned."

"no, they needn't; they can cling to a raft and go ashore on some desert island."

having saved the lives as well as the reputations of the hips family, although they would probably lose everything else, mary was satisfied, but molly was ready to compromise. a little spice of wickedness seemed necessary to make her applebys interesting. "my family can be smugglers," she announced, "but i don't want them to be pirates and i don't want them wrecked either. smugglers aren't so wicked as pirates; they only bring in things that you ought to pay duty on, uncle dick told me, and mary's father told her that in england almost everything comes in free, and that the united states is as mean as can be about making people pay for what is brought into the country. a lady, molly saw on the steamer when they came over, had an awful time about a shabby old sealskin coat she'd had for years, and just because she wore it ashore from the steamer, they made an awful fuss about it."

"well, i don't understand about it, but if the united states said it was wrong, of course it must have been; they are always right," said polly loyally. "i don't exactly know about smuggling," she confessed, "however, the roseberries are going to be smugglers."

"uncle dick was telling us about smugglers the other night."

"yes, i know, that is what made me think of it. he showed me the island where there used to be a smuggler's cave."

"i remember it; we saw it when we were out sailing one day."

"we must build a birch bark ship for the hips family," said polly, changing the subject. "your applebys can live on my island and if they don't want to associate with the roseberries they can have a cave to themselves."

"roseberry is such a nice pleasant name for wicked people," remarked mary. "why don't you call them something else?"

"nobody ever does call them that," returned polly readily. "the father is the leader of the gang, and he is bold ben. his three sons are one-eyed peter, crooked tom, and sly sam. they call his wife old mag, and then there are two cousins, twins; they are smiling steve and grinning jim."

"oh, polly, how do you think of such names?" said molly delightedly. "what does old mag do?"

"she pulls in things from the wreck and she cooks the meals. then, when the men are all away smuggling, she sits in the cave and spends her time looking at the jewels and letting them drip through her fingers."

"jewels can't drip," observed mary in a matter-of-fact way.

"well, they look as if they could," returned polly. "the diamonds are like drops of water, the pearls like milk and the rubies like blood."

"i know where you found that," said molly; "in the fairy tale we were reading the other day."

polly admitted the fact and the ship being now ready to launch, they proceeded to the shore where polly pointed out the island. this was a large rock, nearly covered at high tide, but now showing quite a surface above the water. its rugged sides held caves quite large enough for persons of such size as the roseberry family, and they were presently hidden behind their barnacled barriers. in a little pool the hips family were set afloat while the applebys contented themselves with gathering stores of supposed precious stones from the little beach.

the hips family had hardly set sail before polly invoked a storm and stirred to monster waves the waters in their pool, so they were in great danger. "oh, dear, the youngest hips is floating away and i can't save him," cried mary.

"never mind, let him go; there are plenty more of them," returned polly heartlessly banging her stick up and down in the water so the ship would rock more violently. "they've got to be wrecked, you know," she added. "i'll drive them on that rock, then you can grab them before they sink and get them on the raft."

mary managed to rescue all but one more of the family, and these were set adrift on a piece of birch bark to which polly tied a string that they might not go beyond return. she also allowed the storm to cease, but this was because the gang of wreckers had to haul up the ship and gather in their plunder. she kept up so lively an account of their doings that molly left the applebys to their own devices and mary drew the hipses to shore that she might listen to polly's blood-curdling account of bold ben and the rest. polly did not have to draw altogether from her imagination, for her brothers had been too often her playmates for her not to be ready with tales of plunder and adventure.

time passed very quickly and the children became so absorbed in the manoeuvres of the gang that they did not notice the stealthy rise of the tide till mary exclaimed, "oh, the hipses have floated off and they were quite high on the beach!"

polly looked around her. "no wonder," she said; "the tide is rising. we'd better start back." leaving bold ben and his comrades to their fate, she ran to the further side of the rock, but here she hesitated. the sea was steadily making in, sending little cascades over the weed-covered ledges each time it retreated.

"can't you get across?" asked molly, as she came up with her applebys, and saw polly standing still.

"i'm almost afraid to jump," said polly, "for if a big wave should come in suddenly it might wash in over my feet and the sea-weed is so slippery i'm afraid to trust to it, where it is shallower." molly looked up at the rocky shelf jutting out above her. "if we could only get up there," she said.

"but we can't; it is too far to climb to that first jutty-out place, and we can't crawl under and then up, like flies."

mary bearing the sole survivor of the unfortunate hips family now came up. "i had to let the rest go," she said. "they were beyond reach. i fished this one out of the water just in time. what is the matter? why don't you go on, polly?"

for answer polly pointed silently to the creeping waves at her feet.

"what are we going to do?" asked mary in alarm.

"stay here till the tide goes down, i suppose. this rock is never covered," said molly.

"but we may get dreadfully splashed," returned mary.

"i hadn't thought of that," said polly dubiously. she looked at the rock above her, and then at her two cousins. "which of you two could stand on my shoulders and get hold of that rock so as to draw herself up and go for help?"

"oh, i never could do it in the world," said mary, shrinking back.

polly turned to molly. "could you?"

"i'm afraid i couldn't pull myself up so far, but i could stand and let you get on my shoulders, if you could do the pulling up part."

"i could do that easily enough," polly told her. "i've often practiced it with the boys, and we have swung ourselves up the rocks in the mountains out home. are you sure you can bear my weight, molly?"

"i can try."

"we'll both do it," mary offered. "you can put one foot on my shoulder and one on molly's, then you won't be so heavy for either one."

"all right. steady yourselves. here goes." and in a moment polly had clambered to the supporting shoulders, had caught hold of the jutting rock and had drawn herself up. as she gained her feet and sped away crying: "i'll be right back," molly breathed a sigh of relief. "i was so afraid a piece of the rock would split off and she'd fall," she confessed to mary.

it took but a little time to bring uncle dick and one of his friends who swung themselves down easily and set the two stranded children upon a safe spot, none too soon, for a big wave almost immediately sent a shower of salt spray over the rock where they had been standing.

"you would have been drenched to the skin," said uncle dick as he led the way to the house, while, left to their fate, the wicked roseberries perished miserably.