“We didn’t,” gulped Nita. “We just stayed perfectly still and we kept going along.”
“Well,” finished Miss Higley, “you must not again get on those wings without some one at hand to help you, or until you can manage them better. I’m thankful nothing worse happened.”
So Nita and Adele, much chagrined and more disappointed, were obliged to spend the remainder of their swimming time with Dorothy and Tavia on the beach, as wading did not suit them after their attempt at swimming, unsuccessful as it had proven.
As the afternoon waned the interest in the water exercise grew keener, and those who could trust themselves were indulging in all sorts of “stunts,” sliding down an inclined wooden chute, and diving from a spring board. Miss Higley posted herself near the danger line, realizing that she must act as guard and look out for the safety of the swimmers.
Presently some one suggested an endurance trial, and this attracted almost all the girls away from the chute over toward the stretch of deep water.
But Edna Black did not join the racers. She had never before tried “shooting the chutes” and was infatuated with the sport. Time after time she climbed the little ladder and as quickly slid down the curved, inclined plank into the water again. Dorothy and Tavia were watching her from the shore, calling to her in merry nonsense and joking about her sliding propensities.
“Going down!” called Tavia as Edna took one more slide.
They waited—but she did not come up!
Miss Higley, too, was watching for the young diver’s re-appearance.
Ten—twenty—she counted, but Edna did not come up. Then, from the very top of the slide, where she had taken her position some time before to better watch all the girls, Miss Higley dove into the water after Edna, cleaving the fifteen feet of distance from the surface like a flash.
Dorothy and Tavia stood breathless—watching for either Miss Higley or Edna to come to the top.
It seemed ages—yes, it was too long to stay under water. What had happened to Miss Higley? Where was Edna?
An instant later, Dorothy and Tavia—without exchanging a word—kicked off their slippers and were in the water! There was no time to call to the girls farther out. Not a swimmer was near enough to offer help!
Their light summer clothing seemed to make little difference to these two country girls, who had learned to swim in Dalton pond, and, in a few seconds, both had reached the spot where Edna and the teacher had disappeared.
Tavia was the first to dive, and, in a few seconds she came up with Edna, white and unconscious, in her arms.
“Hold her—while I try—for Miss Higley!” cried Dorothy, as Tavia, supporting her burden on one arm and grasped the cross bar of the chute with her other and yelled for help.
Dorothy was now under water, groping for the other lost one. But she had to come up for air without bringing Miss Higley.
Down she went again, taking a long breath and determining to remain under until she could get a grip on the clothing of the teacher. Now the others were close at hand to assist Tavia in caring for Edna. Down and down Dorothy went, the water gurgling in her ears—down and down into the depths.
It seemed as if she could not stand the strain and pressure. A trail of bubbles and a swirl of the surface of the lake marked where she had disappeared.
Rose-Mary and Dick were the first to reach Tavia, and they at once took charge of the unconscious one, floating her to shore between them. Then others came up to the chute, white, frightened and trembling at the news Tavia gasped out to them. So alarmed were they that none of them dared venture to help Dorothy down there in the blackness and silence, at her grewsome task.
Tavia, as soon as she had recovered her breath, had started off to assist Dick and Rose-Mary in bringing Edna to shore, as the task was no light one for the three swimmers. Then, as she got into shallow water Tavia turned, suddenly remembering something, and shouted to the girls about the chute:
“Go for Dorothy! She is under there, looking for Miss Higley!”
But, as one or two of the braver girls, feeling the need of action, prepared to dive, they saw the pale face of Dorothy Dale come to the surface, and they saw that, in her arms, she held clasped the form of Miss Higley. But the hand that Dorothy stretched out to grasp the bottom of the chute, that she might support herself and the inert burden, just failed to catch hold of the wooden brace, and, amid a swirl of waters Dorothy went down again, out of sight, with the unconscious teacher.
There followed an eternity of suspense for those watching for the reappearance of Dorothy. The missing of the hold she expected to get on the board and the effort to keep Miss Higley up, together with the struggle she had gone through, caused the girl to lose all control of herself. She had sunk instantly without having any opportunity of using her free arm to keep herself above water.
Seeing this Rose-Mary and Molly, who had climbed out on the base of the chute, jumped into the lake again, making for the spot where they saw Dorothy go down the second time.
But before they could reach it they saw Dorothy’s head above the surface. She had come up under the chute, in an open square of water, formed by the four supporting posts of the affair. Cautiously she reached out and caught hold of a beam. Then another arm was seen to grasp a projecting plank! Miss Higley was struggling!
She was not dead! Not unconscious!
“Dorothy!” screamed Tavia from shore, as she saw the form of her chum come to the surface the second time. But Tavia did not see Dorothy wave a reassuring hand at her as she climbed up on the chute, and helped Miss Higley support herself across one of the base planks. For Tavia had fallen unconscious beside Edna, who was only just beginning to show signs of life under the prompt administrations of Rose-Mary and Dick.
In all this confusion the white-aproned matron forgot to use her telephone. But, as she now assisted the other girls in working over Edna, she directed some of the swimmers, who had come to shore, to look after Tavia.
Lena Berg, the quietest girl of Glenwood, rushed into the bathing office and telephoned to Central to “send doctors.” Almost before those working over Edna and Tavia had realized it, and, almost as soon as the throng of young ladies had started to assist Miss Higley and Dorothy to shore, an automobile with two doctors in it stopped at the gate. The physicians were soon working over Tavia and Edna.
A few seconds later Rose-Mary and Molly pulled up to shore in an old boat they had found anchored near the chute, and in the craft, which they rowed with a broken canoe paddle, were Dorothy and Miss Higley!
As so often happens that one small accident is responsible for any number of mishaps, especially where girls or women become panic-stricken, it seemed now that the rescue of Miss Higley and Dorothy acted like magic to restore all four victims of the water to their senses, at least, if not to actual vigor. Tavia and Edna both jumped up as the boat grounded on the beach, and Miss Higley and Dorothy staggered ashore.
“Be careful,” cautioned one of the physicians, as the teacher was seen to totter, and almost fall. She was plainly very weak, and, while the younger doctor looked after Dorothy the other, who was his father, took Miss Higley into the bathing pavilion office to administer to her there.
Tavia had only fainted. Indeed she had been scarcely able to swim out to help Edna, not being entirely recovered from her recent nervous fever. Edna had swallowed considerable water, but it was fresh, and when she had been relieved of it, and the usual restoratives applied, she, too, was herself again.
Dorothy insisted there was absolutely nothing the matter with her, but it was plain that such physical efforts as she had been obliged to make in her rescue of Miss Higley, must at least exhaust a girl of her frail physique. So young Dr. Morton insisted on her being assisted in a “thorough rub.” Then she was given a warm, stimulating drink, and, soon after that, Dorothy was able to tell what had happened.
An hour later all the brown bathing suits had been discarded, Tavia and Dorothy had been supplied with dry clothing, and all the Glenwood girls who had come to Sunset Lake sat on the rocky shore back of the sand, waiting for the hour to arrive when they must start back to the school. There was no lack of talk to make the time pass quickly.
Miss Higley seemed the least perturbed of any—she had a way of always being beyond a mere personal feeling. She never “allowed herself” to encourage pains or aches; in fact she was one of those strong-minded women who believe that all the troubles of this life are hatched in the human brain, and, therefore the proper cure for all ills is the eradication of the germ producer—sick-thoughts. So, as soon as she felt her lungs in working order again she “took the defensive” as Tavia expressed it, and sat up as “straight as a whip,” with her glasses at exactly the proper pitch and the black cord at precisely the accustomed dangle.
“Mar-vel-ous!” gasped Dick, aside, giving the long word an inimitable roll, and, at the same time, bestowing a wondering look on the recently resuscitated teacher.
“But do tell us,” begged Rose-Mary, “what happened first—of all those exciting things?”
“I did,” answered Edna Black. “I was shooting the chute to my heart’s content, when, all of a sudden, I stuck somewhere. Then, after trying everything I knew how to do to get loose, I said my prayers.”
“Next,” called Rose-Mary, indicating Tavia.
“Well, of course,” began Tavia, “Dorothy and I were not to go near the water, but when we saw Edna turn up missing we just kicked off our slippers and, in the language of the poets, ‘got busy.’ I found Ned here, first shot, stuck in between the two corner boards of the chute posts. She didn’t need any coaxing to come up, once I untangled her skirt from a nail which held it fast, and I brought her up without any unnecessary explanations.”
“And, in the meantime Miss Higley had gone down,” interjected Dorothy. “That is she went down after Edna first.”
“And came up last,” added the teacher, with a significant nod to Dorothy.
“How did you find Miss Higley, Parson?” Rose-Mary continued to question, with a view to getting the entire story.
“I found her in a mud hole, held fast, but able to help herself somewhat. Then I—I got her up—somehow—.”
“Indeed I was almost unconscious until you dragged my head up to the air,” Miss Higley hastened to say, anxious to give Dorothy her due, for certainly the rescue was a matter of heroic effort, and Miss Higley, being heavy, and, at the same time, unable to help herself, gave Dorothy the most difficult of all the surprising tasks of that eventful afternoon.
“But when she sank that time—like a stone,” suggested Dick to Dorothy.
“Oh, I merely missed catching hold of a plank and I had to go down—I couldn’t keep up.”
“Certainly; why not?” put in Nita Brandt, glad to be able to say something “safe.”
“And you, Lispy,” said Lena to Nita. “You and Adele started the epidemic with your water wings. Next time make it life preservers.”
The girlish spirits, “bottled up” during the period of worry came out with a resounding “pop” now, and the walk home proved even pleasanter than the one to the beach.
“For now,” declared Ned, between her jokes, “we are like the man who laughed at the ugly cow from inside the fence—he found it much funnier to laugh at the cow from outside the fence.”
For more than a week after the happenings at Sunset Lake the pupils of Glenwood School had little time for anything outside of the regular program of the institution. It was a matter of sleep, eat, exercise, then study and recite, and then the same schedule was begun all over again the following day. But this was the end of the term and so much remained to be done that it was necessary to “keep going” as the girls expressed it, so that the “last day” would find the records of the year’s work up to the usual high standard.
“This mental house-cleaning is perfectly terriblocious!” declared Tavia one morning, showing her aptitude at coining alleged new words, this one being a “contraction” of terrible and ferocious.
“But how nice it will be when we are all done,” Dorothy reminded her, taking up her books and papers, to attend the last exercise in mathematics.
“Perhaps,” sighed Tavia.
The conversation was ended abruptly by the sound of the bell summoning the girls to class, and they went back to the “house-cleaning,” each doing her best to finish honorably, in spite of the difference of their respective motives.
That evening Dorothy and Tavia went to their room early. Tavia seemed tired, and Dorothy did not wish to disturb her by coming in later.
Neither appeared inclined to talk, and, as Tavia went through her elaborate toilet preparations (the facial massage and all the accompaniments) Dorothy watched her in silence.
Strange as it was to believe Tavia so vain, Dorothy had become accustomed to this nightly process, and now accepted it without comment. Neither had she ever told Tavia of that night when, in her sleep, she had gone through the making-up process.
But school would soon be over—and then—
For some time Dorothy had been putting off a talk she desired to have with Tavia—a talk about their vacation plans. Somehow she dreaded to undertake the topic that Tavia had been so obviously avoiding. But to-night Dorothy felt that she must have an understanding—she must know where her room-mate intended to spend her vacation.
Dorothy was just about to broach the subject when Tavia suddenly turned to her with this surprising question:
“Dorothy, do you think I’m pretty?”
“Why, of course you are,” stammered Dorothy. “You know I have always thought you—pretty.”
“But I do not mean what you always thought, Doro. I am awfully serious now. Am I really pretty?”
“I don’t know,” replied her chum. “I could not tell what others might think—but I have always thought you the prettiest kind of a girl—you know that.”
“But do you think that in—in a crowd I might be considered—attractive? Are my features good? Do I look—look interesting?”
This was said with such apparent simplicity that Dorothy almost laughed. There stood a pretty girl—without question a remarkably pretty girl—of a most unusual type—and she was begging for a compliment—no, for an opinion of her personality!
Dorothy did not answer. She could not possibly say that at that moment Tavia was a perfect vision, as she stood in her white robe, with her freshly-brushed hair framing the outline of her sweet, young face. But the girl before the mirror wanted to know.
“Dorothy, do tell me,” she begged. “What do you think? Am I pretty, or not?”
“Tavia,” exclaimed Dorothy suddenly, “tellme, why do you want to know?”
“Why,” and Tavia laughed a little to gain time, “I think any girl ought to know just—what she is like.”
“But all this—this fussing. Why do you do it?”
“To experiment,” and Tavia laughed lightly. “They say one can do wonders with a little care. I am tired of reading that in the magazines so I thought I would just try it.” She had finished with the glycerine and rose water now, so the “stuffs” were put away and Tavia sank down with a “glad-of-it” sigh.
“Of course,” began Dorothy, breaking into the topic of summer vacation, “you will go home first, before you come to North Birchland. You will want to see everybody in Dalton—I wish I could go along with you. But I have no home in Dalton now.”
“Come with me,” suggested Tavia. “We have plenty of room.”
“Oh, I was only romancing. Of course I should like to see everybody in dear old Dalton, but I have to go to daddy and the boys. Isn’t it splendid to have a vacation? It makes school worth while.”
“Yes,” replied Tavia, vaguely, preparing to turn out the light.
“When do you think you will come to North Birchland?” asked Dorothy directly.
“I can’t tell. I expect to visit Grace Barnum in Buffalo. Her folks are old friends of mother’s. I had a letter from her yesterday, especially inviting me.”
“Oh, did you?” and Dorothy looked surprised. “I did not hear you speak of going to Buffalo. I thought you intended to come to Birchland as soon as you had seen your folks. You know Aunt Winnie expects you. And so do the boys.”
“Oh, I’ll get to the Birches some time during the summer I guess,” Tavia hurried to say, as she noted Dorothy’s disappointment. “You can depend upon it I expect to have some of the fine times—you are not to have a monopoly of the good things.”
“Then you are going to Dalton first, then to Buffalo, and what time do you count on getting to Birchland?” persisted Dorothy, determined to know, if possible, just what Tavia’s plans really were.
“Oh, my dear,” and Tavia indulged in a discordant yawn, “do let’s go to sleep. I’m almost dead.”
“But, Tavia, you always make some excuse when I ask you about vacation,” and Dorothy’s tone was in no way drowsy—she certainly was not sleepy.
“And you always ask such unreasonable questions,” retorted Tavia. “Just as if I can tell what may happen between now and—midsummer.”
“Tavia!” exclaimed Dorothy with a sob. “I feel just as if something dreadful was going to happen. I don’t know why but you—you have—changed so,” and the girl buried her head in her pillow and cried as if something “dreadful” had really happened.
“Doro, dear,” and Tavia clasped the weeping girl in her arms, “what can be the matter? What have I done? You know I love you better than anyone in the whole world, and now you accuse me of changing!”
“But you have changed,” insisted Dorothy, sobbing bitterly. “Everybody is talking about it. And if you knew what a time I have had trying—trying to stand up for you!”
“To stand up for me!” repeated Tavia. “What have I done that need provoke comment? Surely it is my own business if I do not choose to be the school monkey any longer. Let some of the others turn in and serve on the giggling committee. I think I have done my share!”
“Oh, it isn’t that,” and Dorothy jabbed her handkerchief into her eyes, “but you are so—so different. You always seem to be thinking of something else.”
“Something else!” and Tavia tried to laugh. “Surely it is no crime to be—thoughtful?”
“Well, I think it is perfectly dreadful for a girl to go and grow straight up—without any warning.”
“What an old lady I must be,” and Tavia looked very severe and dignified. “But, Doro dear, you need not worry. You surely believe I would never do anything I really thought wrong.”
“That’s just it. You would not think it wrong, but suppose you did something that turned out to be wrong?”
Tavia made no answer but the “old lady” look came back into her face—that serious expression so new to her. She seemed to be looking far ahead—far away—at some uncertain, remote possibility.
For several minutes neither girl spoke. They could hear the “miscreants” who had been out after hours creeping past their door. Every one in Glenwood should be asleep. The last hall light had just been turned out—but the girls from Dalton were still thinking.
Dorothy, usually the one to mend matters, to-night seemed sullen and resolute. Plainly Tavia was hiding something from her, and while Dorothy could bear with any amount of mistakes or impulsive little wrongdoings, she could not put up with a deliberate slight—a premeditated act of deception.
Tavia saw that she was bound to hold out—to insist upon a “clearing up,” and, as this did not suit her, for reasons best known to herself, she attempted to pet Dorothy back to her usual forgiving mood.
But the storm that had been so long brewing was in no hurry to blow over, and Dorothy went to bed with swollen eyes and an aching head, while Tavia only pretended to sleep—she had an important letter to write—an answer to the one that had come in on the evening mail, and required to be replied to by return of post. This meant that the missive must be penned that night and dropped in the post-office the very first thing in the morning.
“Dear little Dorothy,” Tavia murmured as she looked down on the fair face, to make sure that the eyes were resting in sleep, “I will never do anything to disgraceyou. Only have a little patience and you will understand it all. But I must—must—” and then she broke off with a long, long sigh.
But one more day remained of the school term at Glenwood. All the tests had been concluded, and, as there were to be no formal exercises the “last day” was given over entirely to packing up, and making ready for the departure from the institution.
Dorothy and Tavia were busy with the others. To Dorothy the prospect of seeing her dear ones so soon, filled every thought of this day’s work. Tavia, too, seemed more like her old self and “jollied the girls” as she flung things into her trunk with her usual disregard for order.
“They’ll all have to come out again,” she replied to Dorothy’s remonstrance, “so what’s the use of being particular how they go in?”
“But your pretty Christmas bag,” begged Dorothy. “Do be careful not to crush that.”
“Oh, indeed there’s nothing to crush. I took the ribbons out of it for the neck and sleeves of my white lawn, and when I extracted them from the flowered stuff there was nothing left but a perfectly flat piece of cretonne, with a row of little brass rings on one side. I just ran a bit of faded ribbon through the rings—and just wait until I show you.”
At this Tavia plunged her hands down into the depths of her trunk and presently brought up the article in question.
“There!” she exclaimed, clapping the bag on her head. “Isn’t that a pretty sunbonnet?”
Dorothy beheld it in amazement.
“It certainly does look sweet on you,” she said, “but what in the world will you want a fancy sunbonnet for? Surely you will not use it in Dalton—and in Buffalo—”
“I think it would make a tremendous hit in Buffalo,” declared Tavia, wheeling around to show off the effect of her thick brown hair beneath the little row of brass rings that held the ribbon which bound the bit of flowered stuff to her neck. At the front her face seemed to fit exactly, and surely nothing could be more becoming than that Christmas bag.
“Oh, I think it’s a shame,” faltered Dorothy, “to spoil that beautiful bag to make a plaything.”
“But we all have to have ‘playthings,’” said Tavia, with a strong accent on the word “play.” Then, with one more swing around, like a figure in a show case, Tavia took off the sunbonnet and went on with her packing.
“It seems so queer,” Dorothy remarked, sliding her tennis racquet down the side of her trunk, “that we should be going in different directions. We have always been able to help each other in the packing before.”
“Well, I’d just like to leave half my old truck behind,” replied Tavia, “and I don’t know but what I will have to if this trunk won’t stretch a little. It’s chock full now, and just look at the commotion on the floor.”
“I told you,” insisted Dorothy, “that you would have to put the things in differently. Now you will have to take them all out again and roll them up tight. You can get twice as much in that way.”
“Take them all out!” Tavia almost shrieked. “Never!” And, following this exclamation the girl jumped into the trunk and proceeded to dance the “trunk traveler’s jig” on the unfortunate collection of baggage.
“Tavia! Don’t!” begged Dorothy. “I’m sure I heard something break.”
“Oh, that was my last summer’s hat breaking up its plans for this year. I put it in the bottom in hopes that it would meet an untimely end, but I really did not intend to murder it,” she joked, stepping out of the trunk.
“But at any rate,” she went on, as she flung part of the “commotion” off the floor into the hollow she had succeeded in making for the various articles, “the poor old thing will take up less room dead than alive, and there will be no possible danger of my having to wear it for a turn or two when I get home. Nothing like getting in one’s supplies while you’re fresh—before the folks have a chance to get too friendly with you. I’ve found that out.”
“But it was a real pretty hat.”
“Well, even pretty hats are not immune from accidents, and you saw yourself that it was an accident—pure and simple.”
A half hour later all the trunks had been packed, and the two Dalton girls sat in their little room exchanging confidences and making all sorts of school-girl promises of writing often, and sending pretty cards, besides having photographs taken of which to make especially affectionate remembrances.
“I’ll send you one just as soon as I get to Buffalo,” Tavia declared, holding Dorothy very close, for the latter seemed much inclined to cry as the hour of parting drew near.
“But it will be so lonely in North Birchland without you,” persisted Dorothy, with a sob. “I do wish you would give up that trip to Buffalo.”
Tavia assured her chum that it would be impossible as she had promised Grace Barnum to go to her home to visit her.
Dorothy finally jumped up and made an effort to pull herself together. She went over to the dresser and picked up a book.
“Is this yours?” she began, and then stopped suddenly. It was a gust of wind that had blown up the thin strip of muslin covering the top of the dresser and revealed the little red book. It had been concealed there and, as Dorothy took it up she saw on the cover:
HOW TO ACTThe Beginner’s Guide.
Tavia was at the other end of the room and did not at once see the book in Dorothy’s hand.
“Did you—do you—want—this?” Dorothy stammered, again holding the volume out toward Tavia.
A deep flush instantly came over Tavia’s face. Dorothy was watching her with a look—a look at once pleading and full of sadness.
Tavia put out her hand for the book.
“Oh, that funny little leaflet,” she tried to say as if it were a joke. “I suppose I might just as well take it, but it’s full of the worst sort of nonsense. Let me show you—”
“Oh, no; don’t bother,” replied Dorothy, rather stiffly. “But that seems a queer sort of a book to take home from boarding school. Hadn’t you better destroy it, as you say it is all nonsense?”
The red covers of the pamphlet fluttered in Tavia’s hand. The flush on her cheeks threatened to match the hue of the book and told its own guilty story.
“Oh, I might as well take it with me,” and Tavia’s words sounded rather a lame excuse. “It will be amusing to read on the train.”
“Oh, Tavia!” Dorothy burst into tears. “Won’t you give up—those stage notions? Do, please!” and she clasped her arms about her chum, weeping bitterly.
“Oh, don’t! Dorothy don’t cry so!” begged Tavia, stroking the yellow head. “I will give it up—all up! Yes, Dorothy, dear, listen! Look here!” and at that Dorothy raised her head.
With her hands free Tavia tore the little red book into shreds and tossed them into the waste basket.
“There!” she exclaimed. “I’m through with—through with all of it! I don’t want to know how to act! I’ll never try! Dorothy! Dorothy!” and the miserable girl threw herself upon the bed in a frenzy of grief and excitement. “Just forgive me for it all—for trying to deceive you. I have been wretched all through it—and I only want you—and all the others—just as you used to be. I don’t believe in ambition!” She stood upright. “I’ll go home to dear, old Dalton, and stay there until—until I come to you at North Birchland.”
When the other girls tapped on the door of room nineteen late that afternoon, to say good-bye, they found two very happy young maidens waiting for the particular carriage that was to take them to the depot. Dorothy and Tavia could not be separated. They clung to each other in spite of all the invitations to “do the rounds” and join in the last and noisiest fun of the season. Together, very demurely, they called at the office to say good-bye to the teachers.
When, at last, the carriage did come for them, Dorothy and Tavia rode off together—one bound for the train to North Birchland, and the other going home—home to Dalton, to try to be happy in the little country town where she and Dorothy Dale had spent such a happy childhood, and where Tavia would find plenty of time to dream of things scattered far out in another world, that seemed like the golden fingers of ambition beckoning her on. To leave Dalton and the common school life—to enter the walks of city uncertainties—to become part of the great, grinding machine of human hardships—that machine which is always willing to stop its terrific speed long enough to gather into its cogs and meshes the life of an innocent young girl.
“My! What great big boys! You can’t possibly be my little baby brother Roger. And Joe! Why he is like a real young gentleman in his tennis suit!” And Dorothy kissed her brothers over and over again, as they rode from the depot in the pony cart to the home of Aunt Winnie, “The Cedars,” at North Birchland.
“Oh, I don’t know,” drawled Joe, in his good-natured way. “You can’t complain. You’ve been doing some growing on your own account.”
“And you have got awfully pretty,” lisped Roger, as he “snuggled” up closer to his sister.
“I think you are just as perfectly handsome as any big lady.”
“My, you little flatterbox!” and Dorothy gave him an oldtime squeeze. “You have learned more than your A, B, Cs. at kindergarten. I received all your letters but could not answer the last two as we had such an awful lot of writing to do at the close when examinations came.”
“Did you pass?” asked the younger brother, by way of showing his understanding of the scholastic season.
“Oh, yes. I guess Tavia and I did about as well as the others.”
“Why didn’t Tavia come?” went on Roger.
“She is coming, later. You know she had to go home to Dalton first. Oh, how lovely The Cedars look! And there is daddy on the porch!”
Dorothy could scarcely remain in the cart as it rumbled along the shady drive that led to the broad veranda of Mrs. White’s handsome summer residence. Major Dale was waiting to greet his daughter, and Aunt Winnie came down the steps as the cart drove up.
“Isn’t she big!” exclaimed Roger, as the major folded Dorothy close in his arms in a most affectionate manner.
“My dear,” whispered Mrs. White, pressing upon Dorothy’s cheek a kiss of welcome. “Youhavegrown!” and the glance that accompanied this simple remark spoke in more than words Mrs. White’s admiration for her pretty niece, and told Dorothy at once, that her Aunt Winnie was entirely satisfied with the particular lines that “her growth” had taken on.
“You all look so well, and I am so glad to be home again at last,” said Dorothy as soon as she had a chance to express her opinion. “It is perfectly fine here.”
“Here come the boys!” called Joe, who was just turning around on the long drive, preparatory to taking the cart to the stables, and presently Nat and Ned came bouncing up the steps.
Before Dorothy had a chance to protest both cousins were kissing her at once—Nat declaring he hadn’t kissed a girl since he left Dorothy after the automobile ride at Glenwood, and the while Ned was insisting that his “little brother” should await his turn and allow the head of the house the rights of his lawful inheritance.
Such jolly big boys as were Ned and Nat always have a way of making things both lively and interesting, especially when a pretty girl cousin is “up for entertaining” and, for the remainder of the afternoon, they entirely monopolized Dorothy, while Joe and Roger looked on, satisfied to hear their sister’s voice again. As for the major, he sat there perfectly content to see all his children about him once more, although it was a trifle odd to find Dorothy so grown up—almost a young lady. And it was so short a time ago that she would “climb all over him” when a little homecoming occurred. How she would fuss with his hair, and complain that no one had attended to his brushes or kept his neck-ties pressed during her absence.
“But children must grow up,” said the major with a sigh, “and Dorothy is a fine girl—a Dale—every inch of her!”
That Dorothy was indeed growing to be very handsome was a matter that Mrs. White contemplated with pardonable pride. Dorothy was now her especial charge; she would enter society under her safe chaperonage. Of course she would first finish her education; and the aunt hoped that her niece would not decide to take the higher branches, inasmuch as this would keep her longer separated from her relatives. There is plenty of time Mrs. White decided to learn in our own little world without spending precious time buried in colleges, forming ideas that are sure to conflict with the regular home life, and perhaps, depriving one’s family of the most precious years of a girl’s career—the time between morning and noon in the life of mortals.
That evening, while Dorothy was dressing for dinner, her aunt mentioned the matter to her.
“Of course, Dorothy dear,” she said as she watched the girl arrange her beautiful hair, “it is all very well to take a college course if you think you would not be satisfied to live in the home-world always. But your brothers are growing up, and a sister’s influence is of so much account to growing lads. I hope you will be satisfied to stay home with us, after you have finished at Glenwood.”
“I’m sure I’m very lonely away from you all,” answered Dorothy, “and, as you say, it is not likely I will ever want to take up a profession. Therefore I can best finish my education along the lines I will be required to be most proficient in.”
“That’s my own Dorothy,” said her aunt.
It was a merry party that sat down to the bountifully supplied table. Major Dale was, of course, at the head, and Mrs. White occupied the seat of honor at the other end, while Dorothy and Ned, then Nat and Joe, with Roger next his father, made up the family party.
Roger insisted on knowing just what Dorothy usually had for dinner at Glenwood, and upon learning how extremely simple the school menu was he decided at once he would never go to boarding school.
“When’s Tavia coming?” asked Nat, endeavoring to hide his particular interest in that question by trying, prematurely to swallow an unusually large mouthful of food.
“She promised to come in a few weeks,” answered Dorothy. “She expects to visit Buffalo first.”
“Buffalo?” repeated Nat, vaguely.
“Any objections?” asked Ned pointedly, to tease his younger brother.
“Well,” replied Nat, lamely, “Buffalo is a big city and Tavia is—is—merely a little girl.”
This remark only made matters worse for Nat, as the others joined in the “jollying” and he was obliged to admit that he did miss Tavia, and was very sorry she had decided not to visit Birchland first.
“I don’t blame you, little brother,” declared Ned. “Tavia certainly is a winner, and when it comes to an all-round jolly, good-natured—er—ah—um—help me out, Dorothy! Any new adjectives at Glenwood?”
“Try ‘dandy,’” suggested Joe.
“Oh, great!” put in little Roger, to whom ‘dandy’ always meant something great.
“Thanks! Thanks!” acknowledged Ned. “I think if Lady Tavia stands for all of that she surely will be well done.”
“Oh, she can stand for more than that,” insisted her champion. “She once confided to me that she ‘stood’ for a colored baby. It was christened in the Dalton canal I believe, and no one, in the crowd of spectators, had the nerve to stand for the little one but Tavia.”
“And did she give him his name?” asked Roger, all at once interested in the black baby in the canal.
“She did for a fact,” Nat replied. “Yes, Tavia called that coon Moses, and, if you don’t believe it she still has an active interest in the modern human frog; let me tell you she sent him a goat cart on his last birthday.”
“Oh, ho!” exclaimed Ned significantly. “So that was the goat cart you bought down at Tim’s, eh? Now, I call that real romantic! Mother, you must include Mosey when next you invite folks from Dalton.”
“Oh, yes, Aunty, please do,” begged Roger, clapping his hands. “I just love little colored boys. They talk so funny and warble their eyes so.”
“‘Warble,’” repeated Nat. “Why not ‘scramble’? Scrambled eyes would look real pretty, I think.”
“Well,” retorted Roger, “I watched a coon boy look that way one day and the—yolk of his eye stuck away up behind the—the cover. Yes it did—really,” for the others were laughing at him. “And I told him it was a good thing that the looker didn’t rub off.”
Everyone agreed with Roger that it was a very good thing that “lookers” didn’t rub off, and so the small talk drifted from “Mose” to more substantial topics.
Directly after dinner Dorothy went to the library to sing and play for the major. She had, of course, improved considerably in her music, and when the usual favorites were given, including some war songs, besides “Two Little Boys in Blue” for Roger’s special benefit, the boys kept her busy the remainder of the evening playing college songs, one after the other, for, as fast as they discovered they did not know one they would “make a try” at the next.
“Now they miss Tavia,” whispered Mrs. White in an aside to the major. “She is a genius at funny songs. What she doesn’t know she has a faculty for guessing at with splendid results.”
“Yes indeed. It’s a pity she didn’t come along with Dorothy. They have always been inseparable, and I rather miss the little imp myself tonight,” admitted the major.
But when the singers came to the old classics, “Seeing Nellie Home” Ned cut “Nellie” out and substituted Tavia’s name whereat Nat insisted that he could not stand any more of the “obsequies,” and so broke up the performance with a heart-rending and ear-splitting discordant yell.
“Well, you’ll feel better after that, old boy,” remarked Ned. “It must be something awful to have a thing like that in your system.”
But Nat was not altogether joking. In fact he had more reason than was apparent for wishing Tavia was with the little party. Tavia had written one or two letters to Nat—just friendly notes of course—but the tone of them caused the youth to think that Tavia Travers when with Dorothy Dale was one girl, and Tavia Travers with others—the Buffalo people for example—might be quite a different person.
“She’s like an hour glass,” thought Nat, as he stood on the side porch and tried to laugh at himself for being “spoony.” Then he went on: “She’s full of ‘sand’ all right, but too easily influenced. Now with Dorothy—”
But at that Nat turned suddenly and went to join the others in the library. It was nonsense for him to worry about a girl—probably she would not thank him for his trouble, could she know that he had the audacity to question her conduct.