CHAPTER IXAMANDA AGAIN
The great day came at last and found the girls in a fever of mingled excitement and fear. Excitement because of the great advent; fear, because the sky had been overcast since early morning and it looked as if the whole thing might have to be postponed on account of rain.
“And if there is anything I hate,” complained Laura, moving restlessly from her mirror over to the window and back again, “it’s to be all prepared for a thing and then have it spoiled at the last minute by rain.”
“Well, I guess you don’t hate it any more than the rest of us,” said Billie, her thoughts on the pretty pink flowered dress she had decided to wear to the parade. It was not only a pretty dress, but was very becoming. Both Teddy and Chet had told her so. “And the boys would be terribly disappointed,” she added.
“I wonder,” Vi was sitting on the bed, sewing a hook and eye on the dress she had intended to wear, “if Amanda Peabody and The Shadow will be there.”
Laura turned abruptly from the window and regarded her with a reproachful stare.
“Now I know you’re a joy killer,” she said; “for if Amanda Peabody and The Shadow (the name the girls had given Eliza Dilks because she always followed Amanda as closely as a shadow does) succeeded in getting themselves invited to any sort of affair where we girls were to be, they would be sure to do something annoying.”
“They are going to be there, just the same,” said Billie, and the two girls looked at her in surprise. “They told me so,” she said, in answer to the unspoken question. “They have some sort of relatives among the boys at the Academy, and these relatives didn’t have sense enough not to invite them.”
“Humph!” grunted Laura, “Amanda probably hinted around till the boys couldn’t help inviting her. Look—oh, look!” she cried in such a different tone that the girls stared at her. “The sun!” she said. “Oh, it’s going to clear up, it’s going to clear up!”
“Well, you needn’t step on my blue silk for all that,” complained Vi, as Laura caught an exultant heel in the latter’s dress.
“Don’t be grouchy, darling,” said Laura, all good-nature again now that the sun had appeared. “My, but we’re going to have a good time!”
“I’ll say we are,” sang out Billie, as she gaylyspread out the pink flowered dress upon the bed. “And we’re not going to let anybody spoil it either—even Eliza Dilks and Amanda Peabody.”
The girls had an hour in which to get ready, and they were ready and waiting before half that time was up. The Three Towers Hall carryall was to call for the girls who had been lucky enough to receive invitations from the cadets of Boxton Military Academy, and as the girls, looking like gay-colored butterflies in their summery dresses, gathered on the steps of the school there were so many of them that it began to look as if the carryall would have to make two trips.
“If we have to go in sections I wonder whether we’ll be in the first or second,” Vi was saying when Billie grasped her arm.
“Look,” she cried, merriment in her eyes and in her voice. “Here come Amanda and Eliza. Did you ever see anything so funny—and awful—in your life?”
For Amanda and her chum were dressed in their Sunday best—poplin dresses with a huge, gorgeous flower design that made the pretty, delicate-colored dresses of the other girls look pale and washed-out by comparison. If Amanda’s and Eliza’s desire was to be the most noticeable and talked-of girls on the parade, they were certainly going to succeed. The talk had begun already!
However, the arrival of the carryall cut short thegirls’ amusement, and there was great excitement and noise and giggling as the girls—all who could get in, that is—clambered in.
There were about a dozen left over, and these the driver promised to come back and pick up “in a jiffy.”
“I’m feeling awfully nervous,” Laura confided to Billie. “I never expected to be nervous; did you?”
“Yes, I did,” Billie answered truthfully. “I’ve been nervous ever since the boys invited us. It’s because it’s all so new, I guess. We’ve never been to anything like this before.”
“I’m frightened to death when I think of meeting Captain Shelling,” Connie leaned across Vi to say. “From what the boys say about him he must be simply wonderful.”
“Paul had better look out,” said Laura slyly, and Connie drew back sharply.
“I think you’re mean to tease Connie so,” spoke up Vi. “She doesn’t like Paul Martinson any better than the rest of us do, and you know it.”
“Oh, I do, do I——” began Laura, but Billie broke in hastily.
“Girls,” she cried, “stop your quarreling. Look! We’re at the Academy. And—look—look——” Words failed her, and she just stared wonderingly at the sight that met her eyes. It was true, none of them had ever seen anything like it before.
Booths of all sorts and colors were distributed over the parade ground, leaving free only the part where the cadets were to march. Girls in bright-colored dresses and boys in trim uniforms were already walking about making brilliant patches of color against the green of the parade ground.
There were some older people, too, fathers and mothers of the boys, but the groups were mostly made up of young people, gay and excited with the exhilaration of the moment.
There were girls and matrons in the costume of French peasants wandering in and out among the visitors, carrying little baskets filled with ribbon-tied packages. Some of these packages contained candy, some just little foolish things to make the young folks laugh, favors to take away with them and remember the day by.
As the carryall stopped and one after another the girls jumped to the ground they were surprised to find that their nervousness, instead of growing less, was getting worse and worse all the time.
They were standing on the edge of things, wondering just what to do next and wishing some one would meet them when some one did just that very thing.
Paul Martinson spied the carryall from Three Towers Hall, called to a couple of his friends, and came running down toward the girls, his handsome face alight with pleasure.
“Hello!” he said. “We thought you were never coming. Say, you make all the other girls look like nothing at all.” He was supposed to be talking to them all, but he was looking straight at Billie.
But although the other girls noticed it, Billie did not. She was looking beyond Paul to where three boys, Teddy in the lead, were bearing down upon them.
After that the boys soon made their guests feel as if they had never been nervous in their lives, and they entered into the fun with all their hearts.
The parade of cadets was the most wonderful part of it all, of course, and the girls stood through it, their hearts beating wildly, a delicious wave of patriotism thrilling to their finger tips. And when it was over the girls looked at Teddy and Chet and Ferd and Paul with a new respect that the boys liked but did not understand at all.
Several times during the afternoon they came across Eliza and Amanda and their escorts—who did not look like bad boys at all. But only once did the girls try to shove to the front.
It was when Teddy and Paul had taken Billie and Connie over to the ice cream booth for refreshments, the other boys and girls having wandered off somewhere by themselves.
Billie was standing up near the counter when Eliza Dilks deliberately elbowed her way in ahead of her.
Billie began to feel herself getting angry, but before she could say anything, Teddy spoke over her shoulder.
“Please serve us next,” he said to the pleasant-faced matron who had charge of this part of the refreshments. “Some of these others just came in and belong at the end of the line.”
“Yes, I noticed you were here first,” the woman answered, and handed Billie her ice cream over Eliza’s head while Eliza, with a glance at Billie that should have killed her on the spot, turned sullenly and walked away.
“Teddy, you’re a wonder,” murmured Billie under her breath. “I couldn’t have done it like that myself.”
After this encounter Billie and her party wandered over to the dancing pavilion on the outside of which they met Laura and Vi and their escorts for the afternoon.
“Isn’t this the dandiest band in the world?” sighed Billie in supreme content. “Such music would make—would make even Amanda Peabody dance well.”
“Oh, come, Billie, that’s too much!” laughed Teddy, swinging her on to the floor and giving her what she called a heavenly dance.
And indeed what could have been better fun than this dance on a smooth floor so large that it did not seem crowded, to the best of music, with a partnerwho was a perfect dancer, and—though Billie did not say this to herself—by a girl who was herself as light and graceful a dancer as was on the floor?
All things must end, even the most perfect day in a lifetime, as Vi called it, and finally the girls had been tucked into the carryall and were once more back at Three Towers Hall, ready, with a new day, to take up the routine of school life once more.
CHAPTER XTWO OF A KIND
Several days had passed, and the girls were at last actually looking forward to the end of the school term and to the Danvers bungalow on Lighthouse Island!
The graduates were running around excitedly in the last preparations for graduation with the strange look on their young faces that most graduates have, half exultation at the thought of their success, half grief at being forced to leave the school, the friends they had made, the scenes they had loved.
Just the day before the one set for graduation Teddy ran over to tell the girls some wonderful news. He was able to see only Billie, for the other girls had been busy with their lessons. But that was very satisfactory to Teddy.
As soon as the lunch gong rang Billie had called the girls together and eagerly she told them what Teddy had told her.
“Paul Martinson’s father gave him a beautiful big motor boat—a cruising motor boat,” she toldthe girls. “Paul got the highest average in his class this term, you know, and his father has given him the motor boat as a sort of prize.”
“A motor boat!” cried Vi, breathlessly. “That’s some prize.”
“But, Billie, what’s that got to do with us?” asked Laura practically.
“It hasn’t much to do with us,” said Billie, her face pink with excitement. “But it has a great deal to do with the boys. Paul Martinson has asked Chet and Ferd and Teddy to go with him and his father on a cruise this summer.”
She paused from lack of breath, and the girls looked at her in amazement.
“My, that’s wonderful for them,” said Laura after a minute, adding a little regretfully: “But I suppose it means that we won’t see very much of the boys this summer.”
“Oh, but that’s just what it doesn’t mean!” Billie interrupted eagerly. “Don’t you see? Why, Teddy said that it would be the easiest thing in the world to stop off at Lighthouse Island some time and see us girls.”
The girls agreed that it was all perfectly wonderful, that everything was working just for them, and that this couldn’t possibly help being the most wonderful summer they had ever spent.
They did not have as much time to think about it as they would have liked, however, in the busyexcited hours that followed. Right after the graduating exercises all the girls were to start for their homes, except the few who expected to spend the summer at Three Towers Hall.
Many of the relatives and friends of the graduates were expected, so that preparations had to be made for them also. The graduating exercises were to be held earlier at Boxton Military Academy than at Three Towers Hall, so that the three North Bend boys hoped to get away in time to attend—not the exercises themselves—but the singing on the steps of Three Towers Hall by all the students of the school, which was one of the most important parts of the ceremony.
Then, of course, the boys would be able to go with the girls all the way to North Bend.
The exercises that had been looked forward to for so long and that had taken weeks of preparation to perfect, were over at last. The graduates realized with a sinking of the heart that they were no longer students of Three Towers Hall.
There was still the mass singing on the steps, to be sure, but that was simply the last barrier to be crossed before they stepped out on the open road, leaving Three Towers Hall with its pleasing associations behind them forever.
As the girls, in their simple white dresses, gathered on the steps of the school with the visitors, fathers and mothers and boys in uniform, scatteredabout on the campus below them, and began to sing in their clear, girlish voices, there was hardly a dry eye anywhere.
At last it was over, and the girls rushed upstairs again to change their dresses for traveling clothes and say a last good-bye to their teachers and to Miss Walters.
As Billie was hurrying down the corridor, bag in hand, toward the front door a hand was laid gently on her arm, and, turning, she found herself face to face with Miss Arbuckle.
“Billie,” said the teacher hurriedly, “I have never thanked you rightly for the great favor you did in returning my album to me. But I love you for it, dear. God bless you,” and before Billie could think of a word to say in reply, the teacher had turned, slipped through one of the doors and disappeared.
Billie stood staring after Miss Arbuckle, lost in thought about her, until Laura and Vi, hurrying up, caught her by the arm and hustled her through the front door, down the steps and into the waiting carryall. The carryall, by the way, was to make many trips that day, even though a great many of the girls had automobiles belonging to their relatives or friends which would take them straight to their destination.
When the girls had climbed inside, the boys jumped in after them, and the carryall, having bythis time all that it could hold, started down the long, winding driveway to the road.
“Good-bye, Three Towers, for a little time, at least,” cried Billie, while she felt a curious lump in her throat. She was terribly afraid she was going to cry, so she stopped talking and turned to stare out of the window.
“We’ve had a wonderful time there,” said Laura in, for her, a very sober tone. “Better than we expected.”
“Which is goingsome,” finished Vi slangily, and as slang from Vi somehow always made them laugh, they laughed now and felt better for it.
“Well, we didn’t have such a very slow time ourselves,” said Billie’s brother Chet, his good looking face lighting up with eagerness.
“And it’s something to have made a friend like Paul Martinson,” spoke up Ferd Stowing from where he was squeezed in between Laura and Vi.
“You bet—he’s some boy,” added Teddy heartily, forgetting for the moment that there had been times when he had longed to throw Paul Martinson into the lake—or some deeper place—because he had talked too much to Billie.
But here was a beautiful long train ride before him when he could talk to Billie—or any one else—all he liked without having any Paul Martinson trying to “butt in” all the time. No wonder he was friends with all the world.
“Where is Paul? Why didn’t he come with us?” asked Billie.
“He went home with his dad,” Chet explained. “Of course he was crazy to see his motor boat, and then he had to make arrangements for our cruise. Oh boy, think of cruising around the coast in a motor boat!”
“We wanted Connie to come along with us,” said Billie. “But she said she would have to go home first.”
“When are you girls going to start for Lighthouse Island?” Ferd asked with interest. “Have you set any time yet?”
“Not a regular date,” answered Laura. “But it will be in a week or two I think. We’ll have to have time to get acquainted with the folks again and have our clothes fixed up——”
“And then Connie’s coming on to North Bend,” Vi added eagerly. “And we’ll all go together from there to the coast. Oh dear, I can’t wait to start.”
“Well, I guess you’ll have to,” said Billie, with a sigh, “since we haven’t even reached home yet.”
“That reminds me,” said Laura, turning upon Billie accusingly. “What were you doing standing in the hall just now and looking as though you had lost your last friend when Vi and I came along and woke you up? Come on, 'fess up.”
Billie could not think for a moment what she had been doing, then she remembered Miss Arbuckleand the rather peculiar way the teacher had thanked her for the return of the album.
She told the girls about it, and they listened with interest while the boys looked as if they would like to have known what it was all about.
“Now I wonder——” Laura was beginning when Billie suddenly caught her hand and pointed to the road.
“Look!” she cried. “It’s Hugo Billings, our sad, faced man again. Oh, girls, I wish we could do something for him.”
She leaned far out the window, smiled and waved her hand to the man, who was standing moodily by the roadside. At sight of her he straightened up and an answering smile flashed across his thin face, making him look so different that the girls were amazed.
But when they looked back at him again a few seconds later his smile had gone and he was staring after them gloomily.
“Goodness, I never saw a person look so sad in all my life,” murmured Vi, as a turn in the road hid the man from view.
“Well, I have,” said Billie. “And that’s Miss Arbuckle!”
“There must be some sort of mystery about them both,” remarked Laura. “Maybe that man has a whole lot on his mind.”
“And maybe Miss Arbuckle isn’t miss at all,”added Vi. “Perhaps she’s Mrs. Arbuckle and those children were her own.”
Billie did not reply to this. She heaved something of a sigh. She was unable to explain it, but she felt very sorry for both the teacher and the queer man. Would the queer mystery ever be explained?
CHAPTER XIAT HOME
A few hours later a train puffed noisily into the familiar station at North Bend, and as it came to a stop three boys and three girls tumbled down the steps of a car and literally ran into the arms of their waiting families.
At least, the girls did; the boys considered themselves far too dignified. However, they soon forgot dignity and everything else in a noisy and joyful recital of all the good times they had had during their year of absence.
Of course there had been others from the Military Academy and Three Towers Hall on the train whose friends and relatives had also come to meet them so that it was a very much excited crowd that wound its way up the ordinarily quiet main street of North Bend.
Gradually the crowd separated into little groups, each going its separate way to its separate home, and so at last, after many promises between the boys and girls to “call each other up right after dinner,” the Bradley family found itself alone.
“Well,” said Mr. Bradley, beaming proudly upon his children, who seemed to him to have grown at least twice as large during their absence, and three times as handsome, “you thought youwouldcome back to your poor old country relations, did you? Your mother and I,” he glanced fondly at his wife, “thought perhaps you had forgotten us by this time.”
“We weren’t very much worried, though,” said Mrs. Bradley, looking so lovely in her happiness that Billie had to snuggle close to her to make sure she was real. For Mrs. Bradley was really a very beautiful woman, as well as a very sweet one, and Billie was growing more like her every day.
“And there’s the darling old house,” breathed Billie happily, “looking just the same as it did when I left it. Mother dear, and, Dad——” here she reached a hand out to her father——“I think I’m the very happiest girl in all the world.”
For a day or two after that it seemed the best thing in the world just to be at home again. But the third day the girls began to feel a little bit restless. They were longing to be off to Lighthouse Island with Connie Danvers. But they had not heard from Connie yet, and until they did there was nothing to be done but get things in shape and wait.
“Suppose she should change her mind,” remarked Laura dolefully on the noon of the third day.
“Change her mind!” burst out Vi. She turnedenquiringly to Billie. “Do you think Connie would do anything like that?” she demanded.
“Certainly not,” was Billie’s quick reply. “Connie isn’t that kind of a girl. Besides all the arrangements have been made. It is more than likely she has been so busy with a number of details that she has simply forgotten to write or telegraph.”
“Well, anyway, this waiting is getting on my nerves,” declared Laura.
“Let’s do something to make the time pass more quickly,” suggested Billie. “What do you say to going down town for a bit of shopping?”
“That suits me,” answered Vi. “And we might have some ice-cream sodas while we are down there.”
This suited all of them, and soon they were on the way to the shops where they spent the best part of the afternoon.
Then one day, over a week later, when they had begun to think that Connie had forgotten about them, a telegram came from her, saying that she was starting for North Bend the day after the next and she would be in on the six o’clock train. Would somebody please be there to meet her? Her mother and father had gone on ahead to Lighthouse Island to get everything ready for the girls when they arrived.
Would they be there to meet her! Billie was so excited that she couldn’t eat her supper, and assoon as she could get away from the table she rushed over to Laura’s home to tell her the joyful news. From there the pair called up Vi and invited her to come and celebrate.
And celebrate they did until it got so late that Mrs. Jordon had gently but firmly to put them out, appointing Teddy to escort the girls home.
“I don’t want your mothers to think I’ve kidnapped you,” she called after them as she and Laura, the latter pouting a little, stood in the doorway to wave good-bye to them.
“Just the same, I think you might have let them stay a little longer,” protested Laura as they turned to go inside. “It’s only ten o’clock, and we had so much to talk about.”
“I know,” said Mrs. Jordon, putting an arm lightly about her young daughter’s shoulders. “I was the same way at your age, dear. Mother had to send away my friends and put me to bed regularly every week or so. Now it’s my turn, that’s all.”
Meanwhile Teddy and Billie had dropped Vi at her house and had turned down the broad, elm-shaded street on which stood the Bradley home.
For some reason or other they did not talk very much. They did not seem to find anything to say. Billie had never been alone like this with Teddy before, and she was wondering why it made her tongue-tied.
“I say, Billie,” began Teddy, clearing his throat and looking down at her sideways—for all the world, as Billie thought, as if she were a mouse trap and might go off any minute—“is it really settled that you are going to start day after to-morrow?”
“Yes. And isn’t it wonderful?” cried Billie, finding her voice as the blissful prospect opened up before her again. “I’ve never stayed at the seashore more than a day or two, Teddy, in my life, and now just think of spending the whole summer there. I can’t believe yet that it isn’t a dream.”
“You want to be careful,” said Teddy, staring straight before him, “if you go in bathing at all. There are awfully strong currents around there, you know.”
“Oh, of course I know all about that,” returned Billie, with the air of one who could not possibly be taught anything. “Connie says her Uncle Tom knows of a darling little inlet where the water’s so calm it’s almost like a swimming pool. Of course we’ll do most of our swimming there. Oh, Teddy, you ought to see my new bathing suit!” She was rattling on rapturously when Teddy interrupted with a queer sort of question.
“Who is this Uncle Tom?” he asked, still staring straight ahead.
“Why, he’s Connie’s uncle, of course! The keeper of the light on Lighthouse Island,” answeredBillie, as surprised as if he had asked her who Abraham Lincoln was. “Connie says he’s a darling——”
“Is he married?”
“Why no. That is, I don’t think so,” answered Billie, knitting her brows in an effort to think whether Connie had ever said anything on this point. She had never even thought to ask if “Uncle Tom” was married. “Why, no, of course he can’t be,” she answered herself and Teddy at the same time. “If he was married he wouldn’t be living in that old lighthouse all alone. And Connie said he did live there all alone. I remember that.”
She nodded her head with satisfaction, but, strangely enough, Teddy did not seem to be satisfied at all. He just stalked along beside her in a sort of gloomy silence while she glanced up at him now and then with a mischievous hint of a laugh dancing about her pretty mouth.
“Teddy, where are you going?” she asked a minute later, as they reached the sidewalk that led to her house and instead of stopping Teddy stalked straight on. “I don’t live down at the corner you know.”
Teddy turned about with a sort of sheepish grin and rejoined her.
“I was just thinking,” he said as they turned up the walk together.
“No wonder you went past,” said Billie mischievously.Then as they paused at the foot of the steps she looked up at him with an imp of laughter showing all the dimples about her mouth. “What were you thinking so hard about, Teddy?” she dared him.
“I was thinking,” said Teddy, clearing his throat and looking anywhere but at Billie, “that I wouldn’t mind going down to Lighthouse Island myself!”
Then he fled, leaving Billie to get into the house as best she could. But Billie did not mind. She was chuckling to herself and thinking how funny and foolish and—yes—awfully nice Teddy could be—sometimes.
CHAPTER XIIPREPARING FOR THE TRIP
Chet and Billie were at the train to meet Connie when she arrived, for it had been decided almost without argument that Connie would spend her one night in North Bend with the Bradleys.
Billie was in a fever of excitement even before the stream of people began to pour from the train, and when she saw Connie she made a wild dash for her that very nearly bowled over a couple of unfortunate men who were in the path.
“You darling!” cried Billie, hugging her friend rapturously. “Now I know it’s all true. I was just scared to death for fear something would happen and you couldn’t get here.”
Poor Chet tried his best to edge his way in and speak a word to Connie on his own account—for Chet liked Connie Danvers very much—but he could not do any more than shake hands with her over Billie’s shoulder and mumble one or two words which neither of the girls understood.
“They won’t speak to you,” he grumbled to himself as he brought up the rear with Connie’s suitcaseand a hat box, “and the only time they know you’re alive is when they want a baggage truck or something. Catch me ever coming to meet one of Billie’s friends again.”
He was relieved when Vi and Laura came running up all flushed with their hurry to “spill over Connie” some more, as Chet disgustedly put it and he had a chance to slip down a side street and “beat it” for home.
None of the girls even noticed that Chet had gone; a fact which, had he known it, would have made the boy still more disgusted with girls and everything about them.
“Connie, you do look sweet,” Vi cried, as they all four tried to walk abreast along a sidewalk that was not very wide—the result being that Laura, who was on the end, walked half the time on the curb and the rest of the time in the gutter. “Is that a new hat? And, oh, I know you’ve got a new dress!”
“Well I’m not the only one who looks nice,” said Connie, who, in spite of her prettiness, was very modest.
“Oh, we are a mess,” said Laura, balancing nicely between the curb and the gutter. “We’ve got on our oldest dresses because everything we own is packed except the things we’re going to wear to-morrow.”
“To-morrow!” That was the magic word thatunlocked the gates and let through a flood of conversation consisting of excited questions and answers and joyful exclamations that lasted until they reached Billie’s house.
Billie asked Laura and Vi in, but they reluctantly refused, saying that their mothers had expressly ordered them to be home that day in time for dinner.
“We can’t come over to-night,” Vi called back to them, as she and Laura started on arm in arm. “Mother says I have to get to bed early.”
“But we’ll see you the first thing in the morning,” added Laura. “The very first thing, remember that!”
“I’ll say so,” Billie sang back gayly, and then led her guest up the porch steps and into the house, where her mother was waiting to receive them. Mrs. Bradley and Connie fell in love with each other at first sight—which was the last thing needed to make Billie absolutely happy.
They went to bed early that night, the two girls snuggled in Billie’s pretty bird’s-eye maple bed in Billie’s pretty bird’s-eye maple room.
They went to bed, but neither of the girls had either the desire or the intention of going to sleep. They felt as if they never wanted to go to sleep again.
And so they talked. They talked of the next dayand the vacation before them until they could not think of another thing to say about it.
Then they talked of the things that had happened at Three Towers Hall—of the “Dill Pickles” and of Amanda Peabody and Eliza Dilks. And last, but not least, they talked in hushed tones of the mysterious little hut in the woods and the strange man who lived there and wove fern baskets and other things for a living.
By the time they had reached Miss Arbuckle and the finding of her album in the woods they were feeling delightfully thrilly and farther away from sleep than ever.
“It really must be a mystery,” Connie was saying, snuggling deeper into the covers and staring at Billie’s pretty face and tousled hair weirdly illumined by the pale moonlight that sifted through the window, when there came a tap on the door. And right upon the tap came Mrs. Bradley, wearing a loose robe that made her look mysteriously lovely in the dim light. She sat down on the edge of the bed and regarded the girls smilingly.
“It’s twelve o’clock,” she said, and they stared at her unbelievingly. “Twelve o’clock,” she repeated relentlessly, “and time for girls who have to be up early in the morning to be asleep.”
“But we’re not sleepy,” protested Billie.
“Not a bit,” added Connie.
Mrs. Bradley rose decidedly.
“Then it’s time you were,” she said, adding, with a little laugh: “If I hear a sound in here ten minutes from now, I’m coming after you with a broomstick. Remember,” she added, laughing back at them from the doorway, “I give you just ten minutes.”
“I think you’ve got just the loveliest mother,” sighed Connie, as she turned over obediently with her back to Billie; “but I’m sure I never can go to sleep.”
Five minutes passed, and the girls who could “never go to sleep,” felt their eyelids grow heavy and a delicious drowsiness steal over them. Once Connie roused herself enough to say sleepily: “We’ll just have to form that Detective Club, Billie, you know.”
“Yes,” said Billie, already half in the land of dreams. “When we—have—the time—good night, Connie——”
“Good night, Bil-lie——.”
And the next they knew it was morning! And such a glorious morning had never dawned before—of that they were sure.
Fat Deborah, nicknamed “Debbie,” who had been the cook in the Bradley family for years, and who thought that gave her the right to tell the whole family what was expected of them, from Billie up to Mr. Bradley himself, cooked them a breakfastof ham and eggs and cereal and toast and corn bread, grumbling to herself all the time.
For Debbie did not approve at all of “the young folks scamperin’ off jes’ so soon as dey gets back home agin.”
“Scand'lous, I calls it,” Debbie confided to the pan of corn bread she was busily cutting into golden brown pieces. “Don' know what Miz Bradley 'lows she’s thinkin’ on, nohow. But these am scand'lous days—they sho is.” Whereupon she put on a white apron and her dignity and marched into the dining room.
Yet in spite of her disapproval, Debbie gave the young “scalawags” the best breakfast she could make, and from the way the young “scalawags” did justice to it, one might have thought they did not expect to get any more to eat for a week at least.
Then they went upstairs to pack bags with the last minute things. Billie and Connie went over the whole list backward to be sure they had not forgotten a toothbrush “or something.” To them it was a very important list.
And when everything was done and their hats and coats on, they found to their dismay that they still had three-quarters of an hour to wait for the train.
“Goodness, why did Mother call us so early!” wailed Billie, sitting down on her suitcase and staringat Connie. “I can do anything but wait. But that I just can’t do!”
“Couldn’t we go over and call for Laura and Vi?” Connie suggested.
“My, they won’t be up yet,” said Billie hysterically, then chuckled at Connie’s look of dismay. “I didn’t mean quite that,” she said. “But Vi is always late.”
“Then I know we’d better go over!” said Connie, going over and giving her hat one last little pat before the mirror.
But Billie had walked over to the window, and now she called out excitedly.
“Here they come now,” she reported, adding with a chuckle: “And there’s poor Teddy in the rear carrying two suitcases and something that looks like a lunch box. Come on, let’s go down.”
And down they went, taking two steps at a time. Billie opened the door just as the two girls and Teddy came up the steps. Chet, who had run out, attracted by the noise, and was looking over Billie’s shoulder, caught sight of Teddy and the load he carried and emitted a whoop of joy.
“Hello, old moving van!” he called. “So they’ve got you doing it too, have they?”
Teddie set his load down on the steps and mopped his perspiring brow.
“Yes. And you’d better get busy yourself,” he retorted, adding as Chet seemed about to protest:“I’ve got some good news. Get your duds and I’ll tell it to you on the way to the station.”
That got Chet started in a hurry, and a few minutes later the young folks had said a loving good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Bradley, and were off, bag and baggage, for the station.
The girls’ trunks had been sent down the day before, so that all they had to do was to check them at the station. Connie, of course, had had her trunk checked right through to the station nearest their destination.
Chet clamored for Teddy’s news, and excitedly Teddy showed him the letter from Paul Martinson saying that the “old boat” would be ready to sail in a few days.
“Whoop!” cried Chet joyfully, trying to wave a suitcase in the air and nearly dropping it on his toe instead. “Say, girls, you may see us even before you hoped to.”
“Hoped to!” sniffed Laura. “Don’t you hate yourself?”
“Oh, I’m so glad!” cried Billie, her eyes shining. “It will be a lark to have you boys drop in on us some morning when we don’t expect you. Oh, it’s just grand! We’ll be sure to be watching for all of you.”
The rejoicing was cut short by the arrival of the train a few minutes later. The girls scurried excitedlyon board, the boys handing in their suitcases after them.
As the train started to move Teddy ran along the platform with it and suddenly thrust something into Billie’s hand.
“Look out for those currents,” he said. “They’re awfully dangerous.”
As he dropped back to join Chet, Billie looked down at the thing in her hand. It was a package of chocolate.
CHAPTER XIIIPLEASURE DRAWS NEAR
As she looked, a flush stole over Billie’s face and she tried hastily to hide the chocolate in the pocket of her suit before the girls could see it.
She would have succeeded if Vi had not accidentally touched her elbow at that moment, knocking the package of chocolate from her hand and into the aisle of the car where it lay, face up, accusingly.
Billie stretched out an eager hand for it, but Laura was just before her.
“Aha!” she cried triumphantly, waving the little brown rectangle aloft. “Candy! Where’d you get it, Billie Bradley?” She turned swiftly upon Billie, whose face was the color of a particularly gorgeous beet. Vi and Connie looked on delightedly.
“Goodness! anybody would think it was a crime to have candy,” cried Billie indignantly. “You give it to me, Laura, or——” She made a grab for her property, but Laura snatched it back out of her reach.
“No, you don’t,” she said, putting her handsbehind her determinedly. “Not till you tell us where you got it.”
“Well I’m not going to,” said Billie crossly. “It’s none of your business.” And she turned away and looked steadily out of the window.
“Give it back to her, Laura,” begged Vi. “It isn’t fair to tease her so.”
“Well then, she shouldn’t tease so beautifully,” Laura retorted, as, relenting, she slipped Teddy’s gift back into Billie’s pocket.
At that moment they were startled by a fearful racket—a sound as if all the South Sea pirates that had ever been born had gathered together and were all quarreling at once.
There was a great craning of necks as startled passengers tried to see what it was all about and the girls fairly jumped from their seats—for the racket sounded in their very ears.
Across the aisle from them there was a parrot—a great green and red parrot that at that moment was hanging by its claws to the roof of its cage and was still emitting the raucous squawks that sounded like the talking of a hundred pirates all rolled into one.
An elderly woman who looked as if she might be a spinster of the type generally known as “old maid” was doing her best to silence the bird while she fished wildly in her bag for something.
She found what she was looking for—a heavy black cloth, and, with a sigh of relief, flung it acrossthe cage. Immediately the parrot’s uproar subsided to a muttering and a moment later stopped altogether.
Passengers who had craned their necks dropped back in their seats chuckling, picked up magazines or papers or whatever they had been reading where they had left off, and peace settled over the car again. For all save the girls, that is.
For the elderly woman—who most certainlywasan old maid—had been terribly embarrassed over the bird’s outbreak and began explaining to the girls how she happened to have it in her possession, what troubles she had already had with it, how glad she would be when she delivered the bird to her brother, who was its rightful owner, and so on until the girls became desperate enough to throw things at her.
“Isn’t there some way we can stop her!” whispered Vi in Connie’s ear, while Billie and Laura were listening to the woman’s chatter with forced smiles and polite “yeses and nos.” “If I have to listen to that voice another minute I’ll scream—I know I shall.”
“The only way to stop her that I can think of,” Connie whispered back, “would be to take the cover off the parrot’s cage. He would drown out most anybody.”
This kept up practically all morning with the owner of the parrot talking on tirelessly and thegirls trying to listen politely until lunch time came.
Thankfully they made their way through the swaying train to the dining car and sat themselves gratefully down at a little table set for four.
“Thank goodness we’ve escaped,” sighed Billie, as her eyes wandered eagerly down the bill of fare, for Billie was very hungry. “What will you have, girls? I could eat everything on the card without stopping to breathe.”
When they returned to their car after lunch they found to their relief that the talkative old woman was gathering up her things as if about to change cars at the junction—which was the next stop.
She did get out at the junction, parrot and all, and the girls fairly hugged each other in their delight.
“Poor old thing,” said Billie as the train swung out from the station and the parrot cage disappeared. “I wonder,” she added after a moment, “if I’ll ever get like that.”
“You!” scoffed Vi, with a fond glance at Billie’s lovely face. “Yes, you look a lot like an old maid.”
“And didn’t Teddy give her candy this morning?” added Laura, with a wicked glance at Billie, who said not a word, but stared steadily out of the window.
They bought magazines and tried to read them, but finally gave up the attempt. What was the use of reading about other people’s adventures when afar more thrilling one was in store for them at Lighthouse Island?
Billie said something like this, but Connie shook her head doubtfully.
“I don’t know how we’re going to have any adventures,” she said. “There isn’t so very much to do besides swimming and rowing in Uncle Tom’s rowboat——”
“Goodness, isn’t that enough?” said Billie, turning on her. “Why, just being at the seashore is an adventure. Just think, I’ve never in my life been inside a really truly lighthouse. It’s going to be just wonderful, Connie.”
“And aren’t the boys coming in their motor boat, too?” added Vi eagerly. “Why, they will probably take us for a sail around the point and everything. Connie, how can you say we’re not going to have any adventures?”
Connie laughed.
“All right,” she said. “Don’t shoot. I’ll take it all back. And there’s Uncle Tom’s clam chowder,” she added. “People come from all over just to taste it.”
“What time is it, Laura?” asked Billie, turning from the window suddenly and tapping nervously on the window sill. “It won’t take us very much longer to get there, will it?”
“Only three hours,” answered Laura, consulting her wrist watch.
“Only three hours!” groaned Billie. “And I thought we were nearly there.”
There was silence for a little while after that while the girls took up their magazines again and turned the pages listlessly. At the end of another half hour they gave up the attempt entirely and leaned their heads wearily against the backs of the seats, fixing their eyes upon the ever-changing scenery that fled past them.
“Are we going to form our Detective Club?” asked Connie suddenly out of the silence.
The girls stared at her a minute as if she had roused them out of sleep.
“For goodness sake, what made you think of that now?” asked Laura a little peevishly. “I’m so tired I don’t want to form clubs or anything else. All I want is to get out somewhere where I can stretch my legs, get some supper, and go to bed. I’m dead.”
“You’re making lots of noise for a dead one,” chuckled Billie, and Laura made a face at her.
“But no one’s answered my question,” broke in Connie plaintively. “I thought you girls loved mysteries and things.”
“Well, who says we don’t?” cried Laura. “Just show me a good live mystery and I’ll forget I’m all tied up in knots and everything.”
“Just listen to her!” exclaimed Connie indignantly. “Do you mean to say you’ve forgotten that we have a mystery already?”
“Oh—that,” said Laura slowly, while a light began to dawn. “Yes, I did forget about it; we’ve been so busy getting ready and everything.”
“Well, I haven’t forgotten about it,” said Billie, sitting up suddenly, while her cheeks began to glow pink. “And the more I think about it, the funnier it seems to me.”
“What?” asked Vi.
“Oh, everything,” answered Billie, getting more excited as she spoke. “Hugo Billings in the first place. And then finding Miss Arbuckle’s album in the woods. And the children. Girls, I’m just sure they are mysteries—and real ones, too.”