CHAPTER IX.A LESSON BY THE WAYSIDE.
Promptly at nine o’clock Saturday morning the “Comet” might have been seen crawling down the side of the mountain with Billie at the wheel. Dr. Hume sat beside her and Elinor and Ben were in the back seat. It was with something of a holiday feeling that they went forth to meet Alberdina, the new maid, whose presence was becoming a pressing necessity.
“I don’t mind the cooking a bit, Doctor,” Billie was saying. “Especially with Nancy, although I suppose I am really her assistant. She makes things exciting enough. I think she’s a kind of culinary speculator and takes a lot of chances, but she’s awfully lucky. She takes all sorts of rag-tag ends of things, chops them into bits and turns out what she callsragouts.”
“They’re mighty good,” said the doctor. “Experimenting cooks generally have a sub-conscious instinct that carries them along when they seem to be going blindly. But it’s difficult to work with them. They are always dictatorial and inclined to treat the assistant as a scullery maid.”
Billie groaned.
“I hope Alberdina, strong and fearless, will relieve us of that awful scullery work. I have a feeling it would be a reflection on my character and on the Campbell family if I didn’t leave every pan bright and shining, but oh, dear, it’s work! I think if I had to keep it up I should cook everything together, vegetables and meat, in one big kettle full of boiling water.”
“That wouldn’t be such a bad mess,” laughed the doctor. “The vegetable and meat juices would make a rich broth and you could serve soup, meat and vegetables all in one plate. Think of the saving of that.”
“As Cousin Helen said, it wouldn’t take camperslong to revert to savagery,” ejaculated Billie. “We are already as brown as Indians. We keep our sleeves rolled up and our collars turned in and wear creepers instead of shoes, and always khaki skirts, and never dress for supper. Even Cousin Helen has slipped back a peg—”
“It’s the only possible way to enjoy camping,” broke in the doctor. “But you would never get to be an all the way savage. Look at that remarkable young woman, Miss Phoebe, who has never had anything else in all her life,—she is far from being a savage.”
“Indeed she is,” said Billie. “She has never been to school in her life, but she knows a great deal more about some things than I do—astronomy, for instance, and English history.”
“There is more than that,” put in Elinor, leaning over to join in the conversation. “Phoebe has learned something else that keeps her from ever being ill or tired or unhappy. I asked her what it was and she said it was a secret.”
“Speaking of angels,” remarked Ben, “there is Phoebe in front of us now, carrying a basket. I suppose she is going to the Antler’s Inn to sell some of her father’s work.”
Far ahead of them, swinging along the dusty road, was Phoebe. Her tall, slender figure swayed gracefully with the movement of the walk, but her shoulders did not bend under the burden of the large basket. A hot, dry wind blew her skirts about her and flapped the brim of her jimmie hat. Since the night at Sunrise Camp, Phoebe had never gone barefooted again, and she now wore a pair of canvas creepers that gave a spring to her step as she hurried along.
Keeping time to the rhythm of her steps, Phoebe chanted softly in a rich, clear voice:
“‘The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want.“‘He maketh me to lie down in the green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.’”
The whir of the motor car interrupted the chanting, and, with an absent-minded glance overher shoulder, she stepped to the side of the road to wait for it to pass.
But the “Comet” stopped short and all the occupants called out, “Good morning,” with an especial cordiality.
Phoebe bowed her head gravely. Her eyes had a remote expression as if she had been awakened from a dream. Ben opened the door of the car and jumped out, while Billie exclaimed:
“I am so glad we met you, Phoebe, because now you will let us give you a lift.”
Phoebe looked into Billie’s kind gray eyes for a moment and then smiled as if she had found something there that pleased her.
“I will come,” she said, as Ben took the basket from her arm and helped her into the car.
“Have you walked across the mountain this morning?” he asked, when they had started on their way again.
“I started early,” she said, “when it was cool.”
“And you are not tired?” asked the doctor.
Her eyes had a remote expression as if she had been awakened from a dream.Her eyes had a remote expression as if she hadbeen awakened from a dream.—Page136.
“No, no, I am not tired. Why should I be? This was my work for to-day. If I had been tired, I could not have done it.”
The doctor looked at her curiously.
“You believe, then, you are given strength for each day’s task?”
Phoebe did not reply. She was not accustomed to conversation and it was impossible to find words in which to express herself.
She turned her dark beautiful eyes on him with a gaze that was almost disconcerting while searching her mind for an answer.
The doctor put his question in a different way.
“When it’s your day’s work to take a long walk across the mountain in the hot sun, what keeps you from getting tired?”
“I sing,” answered Phoebe, and settled back in the seat between Elinor and Ben, her brown hands folded loosely in her lap.
The ride over to meet the new maid was intended to be something in the nature of a picnic, andthey had made an early start in order to eat lunch in the woods after the first stage of the journey. And now, as the sun crept up toward the meridian, their appetites began to clamor for food. About that time, too, they came near to the road which led to the Antlers, where Phoebe hoped to sell some of her baskets. She lifted the big basket into her lap and touched Billie on the shoulder as a dumb signal to stop.
“But we are not going to let you go, Phoebe,” exclaimed Billie. “You must lunch with us in the woods. Then we’ll have time I think to drop you at the Antlers and stop for you again on the way back.”
“I do not see why Miss Phoebe needs to visit the inn at all,” put in Dr. Hume. “I wanted to get presents for my nieces and nephews. I will buy the basketful and that will save me no end of trouble searching for things in the village.”
Phoebe thoughtfully considered these generous and hospitable propositions before she replied with great seriousness of tone and manner:
“Thank you, but it is too much; I cannot accept. It is too much.”
“But it is not, Phoebe,” protested Billie. “We want you. We like to have you with us.”
“And I want the baskets, too,” went on the doctor. “It will save me a hot, stupid journey to the village.”
Phoebe looked from one to the other. Her pride was struggling with her yearning to be with these new and wonderful friends.
“We won’t take ‘No’,” cried Billie. “We are depending on you to show us a good place for our picnic and you can guide us over the last of the road to the station. You see, we have a reason for asking you. We want your help.”
The mountain-girl was therefore persuaded to remain with them for the rest of the trip, and presently they drew up near a pine forest where there was a little stream. Ben lifted out the luncheon hamper and the tea basket, and while the girls unpacked the food, Phoebe stood shyly by and watched the proceedings. With a heightenedcolor she glanced from Billie’s and Elinor’s neat skirts and pongee blouses to her own faded calico dress. She spread out her brown fingers stained with berry juice, and looked at them sadly. Then her face brightened.
“I was almost forgetting,” she said out loud, but to no one. “I am always in too great a hurry. I have waited a long time and now it is beginning to come. It was too soon last summer, but now at last it is time.”
Dr. Hume noticed Phoebe talking to herself and shook his head.
“Too much alone,” he thought.
Meanwhile, Billie, piling sandwiches on the lunch cloth, was busy thinking of something far different. Her glance shifted from Dr. Hume to Phoebe and back again. She closed her eyes and the thought which at first she saw dimly in the dark recesses of her mind advanced to the open, took form and shape and presently boldly showed itself as a full-grown plan. Billie, sitting abstractedly on the ground, piling and re-pilingthe sandwiches, was startled by Ben’s rather impatient voice.
“I’ll have to fall-to unless you give the word, Billie; I’m famished.”
“Excuse my absent-mindedness, Ben,” laughed Billie. “I had just thought up a wild, though perfectly feasible scheme, and I couldn’t turn my mind to mere food for a moment.”
“And the scheme is?” demanded Elinor, seating herself at the lunch table while she waited for the water to boil.
“I shall have to wait to tell you until it’s ready to serve up,” answered Billie, “nice and brown and done through.”
“Why, Billie, what kind of kitchen talk is that?” exclaimed Elinor, laughing. “You’ll be seeing with the eyes of a cook next. Sunsets will remind you of tomato soup and clouds will make you think of meringues and—”
Elinor broke off, her eyes wide with astonishment, and the others following the direction of her gaze saw that she was looking at a man whohad crept into their midst so silently that no one had noticed him. In that haggard and unshaved face they recognized Mr. Lupo.
“Something to eat,” he demanded fiercely. “I’m almost starved.”
Without a word Billie handed him several sandwiches and some fruit.
“Eat it over there,” she ordered, pointing to a distant tree, “and afterwards you can tell us what is the matter.”
The others admired her calm assurance with the half-breed, but Billie was tired of the Lupos. The wife had come near being the death of her beloved cousin, and the husband was a lazy, loafing fellow. Such was her judgment of them.
“Come, Phoebe. Come, Dr. Hume,” she said, and the others gathered around the lunch cloth. Mr. Lupo lifted his sodden, bloodshot eyes at the word “Phoebe,” and saw with astonishment the young girl, whom Billie knew the couple hated, now drinking tea and mingling on equal terms with the people of Sunrise Camp.
His eyes narrowed into little slits. After choking down the sandwiches greedily, he stalked over into their midst.
“What have you done with my wife?” he demanded.
“We know nothing of your wife, Lupo,” answered Dr. Hume, who knew all about the couple by this time. “You had better go on now, if you have had enough food.”
“I don’t want any more of your cursed food,” answered Lupo, looking very much like his namesake, the wolf, at that moment. “But I tell you if you’ve given my wife money to leave me, you will have to pay for it in another coin.”
“Nobody has ever given your wife any money. She has never been back since the day she threatened Miss Campbell with a carving knife. If anybody has driven her away, it’s you, with your drunken, low habits.”
Lupo moved a step nearer and pointed his thumb at Phoebe.
“So you’re trying to make a lady of her, are you?”
Phoebe took not the slightest notice. She was watching the antics of a squirrel leaping in the branches of a giant oak tree, but she turned her eyes gratefully toward Billie, when that young woman burst out with:
“She is a lady and my friend. I think you’d better go now, Mr. Lupo.”
“Whoever meddles with those two shall pay for it,” cried the man fiercely, just as Ben seized him by the collar and flung him into a thicket of bushes, from where he presently crawled away out of sight, occasionally pausing to shake his fist in their direction.
“A nice return for hospitality,” exclaimed Billie.
“He’s a dangerous fellow,” said the doctor. “But I imagine he’s mostly talk. What do you know of him, Miss Phoebe?”
“I only know that years ago they tried to drive us away from our house. But an old man wholived with us, protected us. He owned the cabin and he left it to father and me. There was a will that made it ours. It became a home.” They smiled at her quaint expression. “And the Lupos have been turned against us always, but God has protected us from our enemies.”
They looked at her silently. It was impossible not to feel deeply impressed with the earnestness of her tone. Billie felt ashamed. With all her advantages and the opportunities money and travel had brought her, Phoebe, raised in a cabin on the mountain side, had learned something she had not.
Presently she went over and sat beside the mysterious girl.
“I wish you would teach me a few things, Phoebe. I feel that I am very ignorant.”
“But I have never been to school,” replied Phoebe in astonishment.
“There are some things one doesn’t learn at school,” answered Billie.
CHAPTER X.ALBERDINA SCHOENBACHLER
“You no lig I shall dos clothes coog?” asked Alberdina, the Monday after her arrival.
“Boil, you mean?” corrected Miss Campbell. “Certainly. There is a clothes boiler, and goodness knows the things need it, and a good bleaching afterwards in the sun. They are as yellow as gold.”
When Alberdina, the new German-Swiss maid, had alighted from the train with her absurd little iron-bound trunk, about as big as a bread basket, Billie had felt no misgivings. Here, indeed, was a creature too healthy to know the name of fear, and too good-natured to object to hard work. The brilliant red cheeks and broad engaging smile immediately decided Billie to put all her accumulated linen in wash at once.
On top of Alberdina’s large peasant head was perched a small round hat, positively the most ludicrous thing ever seen in the shape of millinery. With its band of red satin ribbon and tiny bunch of field flowers, it seemed to defy the world to find anything funnier.
“It’s a real comedy hat,” Dr. Hume observed. “The kind they wear when they sing:
“‘Hi-lee-hi-lo-hi-lee-hi-lo,I joost come over; I joost come over.’”
“But she’s really a ministering angel, you know,” said Billie, “sent to do the washing and ironing and scullery work. Except for cooking meals, we expect to take life easy from now on.”
And so, right gladly, they had carried Alberdina Schoenbachler over the twenty-five miles of mountain road and established her in Sunrise Camp.
“I think she is the very person we needed, Cousin Helen,” Billie said. “Not accomplished, you know, or trained in any way, but goodenough for camping. And there is no reason now why we shouldn’t take the trip to the lower lake if you feel well enough. The weather is perfect.”
“Do you think we ought to leave her on the first day?” Miss Campbell replied somewhat doubtfully.
“Why not? She has enough to occupy her, goodness knows, with all that washing.”
“But suppose she should get lonely or frightened—?”
Just then a melodious Swiss yodel broke the stillness of the early morning and Billie laughed.
“She isn’t going to be lonesome. She is accustomed to the mountains. Do let’s take a holiday, Cousin Helen, please,” and with Miss Helen’s assent, Billie rushed off to find the others and tell the good news.
Perhaps some people would regard it as a fault in Billie’s character that, having formed a plan, she was always filled with wild impatience to carryit out. But when we consider that Billie’s plans concerned the pleasure and entertainment of other people and that her impatience was only another form of earnest enthusiasm, it would be difficult to criticise her.
While three of the Motor Maids busied themselves preparing the luncheon, Billie and Ben worked over the motor car, putting it in condition for a long trip, and Percy, in blue overalls, washed the body of the car.
“I am so glad to save you this drudgery,” he observed, with an ingratiating smile.
“You’re not half as glad as we are, Percival Algernon,” answered Ben. “It’s a double blessing, because it’s good discipline for you and it gives us a chance to show how much we know about machinery.”
“Don’t boast, my son. You may have a sure enough chance before the sun sets,” remarked Percy in the tone of a prophet.
“After you have washed him off well, rub himdown with those cloths,” ordered Billie from under the car. “Then stow the rubber curtains inside and see to the lights. It may be late before we get back.”
“All right, Captain,” answered Percy respectfully.
It was still not nine o’clock when the “Comet,” polished and oiled and looking as neat in his dark blue and buff uniform as a soldier on parade, stood ready for departure. The hamper of luncheon was strapped on behind, and underneath the middle seats in a pan of ice were bottles of root beer and ginger ale. Presently he started down the steep road with his load. The rustic camp, perched on the ledge in the side of the mountain, with its guard of pine trees crowding almost to its doors, never looked more alluring.
“I declare I hate to leave the place,” said Miss Campbell, peeping through the glass window in the back curtain of the car.
“It’s in good hands,” laughed the doctor, asthe voice of Alberdina floated to them, singing in fulsome tones:
“Ach, mein lieber Augustine, Augustine, Augustine!”
But the motor car with its load of campers had not been long gone when Alberdina withdrew her arms, elbow deep in soapsuds, from the wash tub, and looked around her.
“Ach, mein lieber Gott,” she said turning her large cow-like eyes on the pile of linen, “I dis worg nod much lige. It is too many. I mag to coog dos clothes and rest. Dis life it all hard worg ees.”
She lifted an armful of linen garments from the tub and stuffed them into the clothes boiler which she filled with water and set on the coal oil stove. Then drawing up a steamer chair, she settled herself comfortably and closed her eyes, not noticing that in the boilerful of white things she had plunged a red silk handkerchief of Percy’s. Nearly an hour had passed when Alberdinaawoke from her healthy, conscienceless slumber with a start. Turning her head lazily, she noticed that the clothes were boiling and the water was running over the sides of the boiler.
“Mein Gott!” she said in German. “That little mistress will make of me the Hamburger. I must do some work.”
But to her horror and astonishment, when Alberdina made an effort to rise from the low, easy chair, she could not move. She had been bound to the chair with a stout rope, the clothes line in fact. Each fat red hand was secured to an arm of the chair, her feet tied together and her body strapped to the seat and back.
Alberdina groaned and her stupid eyes became humid with terror.
“Helb! Helb!” she called. “Helb bring. Mein Gott in himmel, helb!”
No answer came from the silent camp.
“Ees it for dis, den, I haf to you come?” she cried, addressing the circle of mountains shimmeringin opalescent light. Far down from the valley below came the long clear note of a bugle, probably of some coaching party. An impudent woodpecker seated on a limb above her commenced an insistent, aggravating tapping.
Alberdina made another struggle to loose her bonds and then settled back weeping. At last merciful sleep brought her oblivion. The mountains shimmered in the heat waves. The sunlight slanting through the trees cast flickering golden shadows on the carpet of pine needles. The tinkle of a cowbell broke the stillness. In her dreams the Swiss girl was reminded of her own cherished uplands, where in the festive cheese-making time she had gathered with other maids and youths and danced to the music of the zither. Zither, did she say? But, had she been dreaming then, all the while? Was not that a zither now mingling its fairy music with the notes of the cow bell? Alberdina opened her eyes.
“Helb! Helb! I asg you helb!” she called.
The music stopped instantly and a man, tall, slender, with an indescribably distinguished air, approached, carrying the zither under his arm.
“You called?” he asked courteously.
Alberdina burst into a torrent of excited German. She rolled her prominent eyes to indicate her bonds. Streams of tears flowed down her cheeks, or taking a short cut, ran over the bridge of her nose and dropped down a precipice to her heaving bosom. Phoebe’s father watched her with an expression of gentle bewilderment. He seemed to be trying to recall something an infinite distance away, like one of those inexplicable reminiscences that flash through our minds and are gone before we can grasp their significance.
“It’s useless,” he said, shaking his head. “But something has happened to you? Oh, yes, you have been tied up.”
Taking a bone-handled clasp knife from his pocket, he carefully cut the ropes wound about her. Alberdina bounded out of the chair like a big, fleshy catapult.
“Ach, himmel, I thangs mag to you, sir,” she cried respectfully, for there was something in this wanderer which commanded deference, although he did wear a threadbare suit and mountain brogans.
“You know who did this, my girl?” he asked.
She shook her head and ran into the camp beyond. The locker rooms on the two sleeping porches were in confusion. The contents of drawers and trunks had been dumped to the floor and writing portfolios overhauled. But, apparently, nothing had been taken, because there was nothing valuable enough to tempt the most eager burglar. What little ready money they had the campers had carried with them, and there was no jewelry to steal. Only Alberdina had been robbed. With many deep guttural exclamations she found that her own little emigrant trunk had not been overlooked in the pillage and her purse, containing ten dollars, was gone.
The gentleman with the zither turned to go.
“I came to find a physician,” he said. “Is there none here?”
“I know nod,” answered the girl, shaken with sobs.
He lifted his old slouch hat.
“I bid you good day,” he said, and started away, then turning back, he exclaimed: “Perhaps I ought not to leave you here alone. But I must not stay away so long. Phoebe will be frightened. Will you come with me to my home?”
Alberdina shook her head. She was half afraid of the strange man. Who knows but it might have been this stranger, himself, who had robbed her of her savings?
“No, no; I vill stay here. The vorst is over yet already. Dey haf me robbed of my moneys. I no more haf. Dey vill not come bag.”
Having so spoken, she returned to her labors and was presently hanging on the line a long row of deep pink clothing, headed by the red silkhandkerchief, the iniquitous author of the wicked deed.
In the meantime the motorists had proceeded joyfully on their way. They sang and joked and made so merry that Dr. Hume felt that he had gone back fifteen years in his busy life and was a boy himself. The road as indicated on the map in the road book was cut through forests of primeval growth. Sometimes it descended into the valley past villages and farm houses. Once it took them through a splendid tract of land dedicated with its club house to St. Hubert, patron saint of the hunt. At last it began by degrees to climb upward, and with a sudden turn around the mountain side, they came into view of an exquisite little lake, reflecting in its mirrored depths the peaks of the high mountains encircling it. Hundreds of silver birches, slender and elegant, fringed its edges, gleaming white against a background of impenetrable green.
At one corner of the lake were a small boathouseand restaurant, where customers are perpetually served with tea and maple cake. Long ago they had eaten lunch and were quite ready for more refreshments. Then everybody but Miss Campbell took a dip in the lake. The hours sped past and the sun was well on its downward grade before they realized it was time to return.
In the meantime, Billie, always eager to find out about new roads and new trails, had been questioning one of the guides at the boathouse.
“He says there’s a walk called the ‘river trail’ only two miles long that we could take, and meet the ‘Comet’ at a bridge at the end. Don’t you think some of us could take it, Dr. Hume? It’s right through the most wonderful pine forests,—one of the most beautiful walks in the Adirondacks, he says.”
“But who will run the motor car?” asked the doctor, beetling his shaggy eyebrows.
“I will,” Ben volunteered, and it was accordingly arranged that Dr. Hume and Percy shouldconduct the girls along the river trail while Miss Campbell and Ben proceeded by the road in the car.
It was all very simple. Miss Campbell was to take a nap while Ben looked after the “Comet’s” needs and in the course of half an hour, or at their leisure, they were to take the road. In the meantime, the others, with good walking, would have ample time to make the two miles through the forest. They bade each other a casual farewell since they were to meet again so soon, and led by the doctor, plunged into the forest.
The ground had been cleared of undergrowth, so that looking up the side of the mountain, at the foot of which gurgled a little river, one could see a vast multitude of tall straight pine trees and occasionally the flash of a silver birch. Rank on rank they stood in infinite perspective; and sometimes an aged beech tree generalled their march and sometimes a magnificent oak spread out his venerable arms with a gesture ofcommand. But the rank and file were pines; gray grenadiers, still upright with the years; young stripling pines, eager to be on the march. And always they seemed to be going the same way over the mountains to the frontiers of the world, and always through their branches came the murmur of their martial song.
Nowhere had Billie seen so impressive, so magnificent a forest. She thought of the cryptomerias in Japan, but they were more like the gigantic pillars of a cathedral, while these hurrying hordes of pines and birches were like human beings. They suggested romances: lovers in the forests; knights in armor; wicked enchantresses.
Once Dr. Hume paused and pointed to a cleared space beyond. There, standing under a great pine tree looking at them with startled eyes were a doe and her young. In another instant they were gone, leaving the campers holding their breath.
In a little more than an hour they reached the end of the trail, where a foot bridge made oftwo logs took them over the turbulent little river. But no “Comet” stood waiting for them at the rendezvous with Ben at the wheel and Miss Campbell on the back seat. To be sure the road was twice as long, as the trail had wound around the side of the mountain for some five miles, but that was nothing to a motor car.
“Might as well sit down and wait,” suggested the doctor.
They seated themselves in a row on a log expecting every minute to see the familiar blue car loom into sight.
But the lagging moments dragged themselves into half an hour and still the “Comet” lingered.
“I think we’d better walk back,” said Billie, beginning to feel just a tinge of uneasiness.
“Perhaps it would be as well,” echoed the doctor. “They have had a breakdown, no doubt.”
The band of wayfarers feeling very weary after the rough walk along the river trail began their march back toward the lake.
CHAPTER XI.A COMEDY OF ERRORS.
The original lake party might have served as an excellent illustration of the history of many principalities and nations. Having suffered a division and then a subdivision and finally a breaking up into fractional groups, it became as a weakened and shattered government, powerless to help itself.
It soon became evident that Mary Price was too weary to take the long walk back to the lake.
She was left therefore by the roadside with Percy and Elinor, while Dr. Hume, Nancy and Billie went on.
“It will probably be no time at all before we pick them up,” said the doctor cheerfully, but they made the entire walk to the lake house and there was no “Comet” to be seen.
“It left here two hours ago,” the boatman informed them. “Maybe they went on to the second bridge. That’s half a mile beyond the first one. They’ll tell a person anything, these people here will.”
“I suppose that’s exactly what happened,” Billie exclaimed, much relieved. “They have been waiting at the second bridge and will be on their way back by this time. But I think they will have to come all the way. Nancy has a blister on her heel.”
“Now, don’t blame it all on me, Billie,” said Nancy. “You know you are dead tired yourself.”
Billie smiled guiltily.
“I am played out,” she said.
“I wouldn’t think of allowing either of you young ladies to start on another tramp,” put in Dr. Hume. “I am too good a doctor for that. You must stay right here and rest and I’ll start back. I may meet the whole party any time, now.”
Billie and Nancy, therefore, settled themselves to rest on two benches near the lake while the good doctor trudged off along the dusty road.
In the meantime, Mary, who had more than overtaxed her strength that day, gave Percy and Elinor a bad fright by toppling over in a faint. They brought her to with water which Percy carried from a brook in his hat, and then carried her into the wood a bit where she could lie on the pine needles and rest her head in Elinor’s lap. But Percy hurried back to the road to keep watch, and seeing a motor car broken down in the distance hastened to catch up with it. It was a strange car, however, and the chauffeur had not seen the “Comet.”
And all this while, Ben and Miss Campbell, having waited an incalculable time at the second bridge, had gone on for half a mile. Few people can stand the test of being kept waiting. Their patience may be inexhaustible but their judgments are apt to take a bad twist and bring them right about face in the wrong direction.
It is true that Ben had yielded to Miss Campbell in going beyond the supposed meeting place, and now to make matters worse, the “Comet” came to an inexplicable standstill. Poor Ben, with small knowledge of what to do, began a long and wearisome investigation of unfamiliar machinery.
There was something of the dumb driven animal in Ben when he entered unfamiliar territory, and his slow plodding methods had been known to irritate Miss Campbell profoundly.
And now, one more separation remained to complete the disbandment of this innocent party of pleasure. Ben, shamefaced and very humble, was obliged to confess to Miss Campbell that he could not locate the trouble with the “Comet.” Deeply he regretted his inefficiency, but there was nothing to do but give up.
“I’m thinking,” he said, “that maybe I had better walk back a little ways and see if the others aren’t coming up behind us.”
“Very well,” answered Miss Campbell with dignity. “You may go. I suppose nobody would wish to harm an old woman.”
Presently, therefore, she found herself alone in the wilderness. There was something almost human and comforting about the “Comet,” however, that faithful mechanism that had borne them on so many pilgrimages, and Miss Campbell addressed herself to him as to a human companion.
“I just believe you had more sense than that stupid Ben Austen,” she said. “You wouldn’t go on because you knew perfectly well that your mistress was behind you. You’re a nice, good old thing.”
She paused and peered out of the car. Darkness was falling and the road was filled with somber shadows cast by the far-reaching branches of the trees on either side. As far as she could see along the white strip of road there was no human soul behind her. Her eyes sweptthe road in front. It was criss-crossed with light and shadow and it was difficult to make out anything moving, but Miss Campbell thought she saw an object approaching. Yes, it was unquestionably an object. Something large and white—a van. Great heavens, it was a Gypsy van!
“Ben!” she called, but Ben was quite a quarter of a mile away by now.
The only thing to do was to get out and hide behind a tree in the woods. She could not bring herself to face a band of Gypsies. Hurriedly climbing down from the car, Miss Campbell concealed herself in a thicket of trees near the road.
Presently the van drew up alongside the empty car.
“By Jove, here’s an abandoned motor. Where do you suppose the people are?” said a man walking at one side of the van and driving the horse.
Two women were comfortably seated in rocking chairs in the little front compartment of the vehicle.
“How strange!” said one of them. “It’s like finding a derelict at sea. Where are the Captain and the crew? Where are the passengers?”
“Where indeed?” thought the lady behind the tree.
“It’s like the mystery of the ‘Maria Theresa,’” pursued the man. “A perfectly good ship abandoned in mid-ocean without the slightest explanation and all on board lost forever.”
This gruesome comparison made Miss Campbell decidedly uncomfortable.
“Shall we leave her to drift, ladies?” he asked affably.
“I will protect the ‘Comet’ with my life,” she thought. “I don’t believe they are Gypsies anyhow. Their accent is too good, and a Gypsy would never address the women of his family as ‘ladies.’”
“I am afraid I am at present the sole survivor of the crew,” she said politely to the young man. “If you would be kind enough to advise me, sir, I should be greatly indebted.”
Immediately the man lifted his broad-brimmed hat and the women in the rocking chairs leaned forward in order the better to see this dainty, mysterious little lady in gray who had emerged apparently from a primeval forest.
“With the greatest pleasure, ma’am,” answered the young man, filled with curiosity, and they all listened with courteous attention while she related the history of the afternoon’s mishaps.
“And now that stupid Ben, who is really a very nice boy under ordinary circumstances, has gone off and left me and almost anything could have happened,—wolves, Indians, half-breeds—” she added, thinking of the treacherous Lupos.
After she had finished, the young man stood for a moment thinking.
“My name is Richard Hook, ma’am, at your service,” he said. “The only thing I could suggest is for me to unhitch Dobbin here and ride him down the road to look for your party andleave you with my sister, Maggie, and her friend. This is as good a place as any other for us to put up for the night. You might as well start supper, girls. Perhaps this lady is hungry.”
“I am,” interjected Miss Campbell fervently.
So it happened that Richard Hook went ambling off into the twilight on old Dobbin while Maggie Hook and her friend, Amy Swinnerton, made Miss Campbell comfortable in the van and prepared to cook supper.
“And you are not Gypsies after all?” asked the little lady, watching one of the girls light a bracket lamp on the wall of the van.
“No, indeed,” laughed Maggie Hook. “Not by birth at least, but I think we have something of the Gypsy spirit because we love to spend our summers in this way. Have you never seen a van?”
Miss Campbell could not say that she had and looked about her with much interest.
“These are our beds, you see,” Amy explained.“The top one folds up and we use the lower one for a divan. Richard sleeps in a tent. This is the dressing room,” she continued with as much pride as a custodian showing a sightseer over an ancient castle.
A little space had been curtained off in the back and behind this hung a mirror over a small dressing table, and a row of hooks for clothes.
“And this is your kitchen?” asked Miss Campbell, indicating a row of plates and cups on a plate rack and a small kerosene stove, at one side opposite the beds.
“That and a chafing dish and a camp fire,” answered Maggie Hook. “But we mostly prefer the fire. I’ll get things started here to-night and when Richard comes he can make us a fire if he dares. I believe the laws around here are pretty strict about fires.”
“Well, my dears, it is assuredly the most complete and delightful little traveling home I ever saw,” exclaimed Miss Campbell, after she hadlooked over the entire van and then seated herself in a rocking chair to watch preparations for supper. It did not take long for her to make friends with these nice young girls who were indeed about the age of her own charges.
“How many are in your party, Miss Campbell?” asked Maggie, in the act of breaking eggs into a bowl.
“There are eight of us, but I hope you aren’t thinking——”
“Oh, but I am,” insisted Maggie. “I am sure they will be very tired and hungry, and, besides, we have plenty in the larder for everyone,—a whole ham!” she added archly.
“Dear me, I wish Billie were here,” said Miss Campbell. “I believe she always keeps things stored away in the ‘Comet’ for an emergency.”
“I’ll beat up some Johnnie cakes,” announced Amy. “We can cook those on the wood fire later.”
In the meantime, the waiters who had waitedin vain and the wanderers who had wandered fruitlessly, began to realize that the situation was serious. Billie grew desperately impatient. At last she succeeded in engaging a carry-all and two horses from a man at the moat house and soon she and Nancy, seated face to face, were hurrying along the road. Dr. Hume had met Percy. Ben had discovered Elinor and Mary standing fearfully on the edge of the forest. By the time that Richard Hook had got anywhere at all with his old nag, the lake-party, with the exception of Miss Campbell, was re-united in Billie’s carry-all and driving comfortably in the direction of the “Comet.”
They were very tired and hungry but a graven image would have melted to laughter over this comedy of errors, and Richard Hook, hearing the gay chorus of voices approaching, was quite sure it was another picnic party. But he was not a young man to take chances, and having taken his position across the middle of the road, he waved his arms and yelled, “Stop!”
“Do you know anything about a little lady in gray and an abandoned automobile?” he asked.
“Cousin Helen and the ‘Comet,’” cried Billie, consumed with anxiety. “Oh, Ben, how could you have left them?”
“But——” began Ben.
“I assure you the lady is in good hands,” interrupted Richard. “My sister is looking after her.”
There were more explanations and presently they started on their way again, and in a little while drew up beside the Gypsy van and the abandoned motor car. And the upshot of the whole adventure was that the two parties joined forces and provisions.
The boys built a fire against a great boulder on the river bank and there was a wonderful supper. All the very best of everything was brought out for the occasion. They ate Johnnie cakes from wooden platters and drank black coffee from glasses, Russian fashion. Later theysang songs and told stories around the camp fire. Never did people commingle so agreeably as the caravanners and the motorists. Somehow Sunrise Camp and Alberdina Schoenbachler faded into the dim recesses of their memories.
“Of course you can’t go home,” Richard Hook remarked to Billie. “We’ll camp out to-night. You’ll never be able to mend that car in all this blackness, and it would be a pretty hard road to follow at night anyhow. We’ve just come over it. Dobbin can pull the car over to one side of the road, and Miss Campbell and Miss Price can sleep in the van.”
“And we’ll show you what a bed really is,” Ben went on eagerly. “Not a motor car cushion affair either.”
To their surprise, Miss Campbell was agreeable to the plan.
“There’s nobody at home to worry but Alberdina,” she said, “and it won’t hurt her to lose a little flesh, anyhow.”
The boys worked hard over the beds. Springy couches they made of spruce branches, covered with blankets, and, at last as care-free as a lot of Gypsies, they all slept as soundly as they had ever slept in their own beds at home.