The poor cows were by now sadly frightened, and whatever sense they had had deserted them completely when the motorists on both sides of them began to blow their horns loudly. Whichever way the cows turned, there were champing, snorting machines and noisy horns to distract them.
"I agree with Artie that cows should not be made nervous," said Mr. Williamson. "Ward, go around and ask every one please to stop blowing his horn. Fred and Artie, help me let down these bars. I think we can drive the cows in here."
"But that's an alfalfa field," Mr. Marley protested. "The cows will ruin it, won't they?"
"If the cows stay here much longer they'll be ruined," replied Mr. Williamson. "The choice is not a wide one."
CHAPTER VI
PUNS AND POEMS
Fredand Artie hurried to let down the bars as Mr. Williamson directed, and then, not without some shouting and a wild rush after an obstinate beast or two, the cows were driven into the field and the bars replaced.
Some of the automobilists did not wait for the last cow to get out of the road before they started off, anxious to make up for the lost time. The Larue and Williamson cars were the last to leave, and, to the surprise of the children, Mr. Williamson drove ahead while Mr. Larue turned around and went back in the direction from which they had just come.
"I don't believe even the Riddle Club can solve that," said Mr. Williamson teasingly, as six pairs of eyes stared at him in amazement.
"Where are they going?" Margy asked. "Back home?"
"You see, we want to find the owner of the cows," her father explained. "We can't leavethem to eat their heads off among the alfalfa. But who knows where the farmer lives? He may be in that house we passed a mile or so back, or he may live on ahead. This way we'll make sure."
A half mile further on they came to a farm that looked as though it might be a dairy farm. As Artie observed, it had a barn and most farms had barns. Better still, there were two large silos. That meant there were cows to be fed through the winter. And Mr. Williamson said that the owner of two silos would plant alfalfa to go in them. So they turned up the winding road that brought them to the great white-washed barns.
"Good morning," Mr. Williamson greeted the man who came out of the barn with a pitchfork in his hand. "Have you missed any cows lately?"
"Haven't seen 'em since we drove them out to pasture this morning," the man replied. "Have they broken through the fence again?"
All the children nodded silently before Mr. Williamson could speak.
"I'll go get 'em. Where are they?" said the man, as though he was used to getting the cows.
"They had blocked the road till another five minutes would have meant a detour," Mr. Williamson told the farmer. "Cars were held upboth ways, and we did the only thing we could do—drove them into an alfalfa field."
"You've more than done your part, driving up to tell me," the farmer declared. "I'll send the boys right down. And wouldn't the kids like some cold buttermilk to drink?"
In another minute he had sent two tall lads flying down the lane after the cows and his wife had come out and was asking them all to "stay for dinner."
"We have our lunch," Polly explained. "We're going to the seashore—Sunrise Beach."
"Then you let me get you some of my cookies," Mrs. Marshall—she had told them her name—insisted. "I'll bet those pesky cows gave you a lot of trouble. My husband keeps his fences up, but he has a neighbor who won't do his share on the line."
She hurried into the house and in five minutes came back with a box which she told Polly not to open till lunch time.
"It's my baking day, and I just had some little pies handy," she said. "The boys like to take a little pie out in the field with them and eat it while they're at work."
Artie had spied a well, and nothing must do but he must pull up the bucket and have a drink.
"I read about a boy once who dropped hismother's teapot down the well," he announced, when he had had his drink and Polly was holding on to him as he leaned over the curb.
"That isn't so bad as dropping your brother down the well," Polly informed him. "And if you don't come away this minute, you're likely to go in—I can't hold you another minute."
"All aboard!" called Mr. Williamson, and three loud blasts from a horn told them that Mr. Larue's car was waiting at the foot of the lane.
Mr. and Mrs. Marshall waved to them till the tops of the orchard trees hid them from sight.
"We found the farmer!" called Ward, as he caught a glimpse of his father. "We found the man who owns the cows."
"They were driving them out of the field as we came past," said Mr. Larue. "The boys told us you had notified them. Now I suppose we continue our journey?"
"Unless we find another blockade," Mrs. Marley smilingly answered.
"Mother, you wouldn't call that a catastrophe, would you?" inquired Artie, who could use words "as long as himself" his father sometimes declared.
"Huh, that was a cowtastrophe," Fred said placidly.
"I never thought you'd do a thing like that, Fred," said Mr. Williamson. "Never. I am more shocked than grieved."
"What did he do?" clamored Ward and Jess, for the other car had shot on ahead. "What did Fred do?"
"He made a pun, and that is worse than a riddle," Mr. Williamson answered.
"He just did it for fun," said Polly, half-believing that Fred's father was displeased.
"I made a pun—just for fun," Fred chanted. "Gee, that's poetry."
"It was bum," sang Artie. "That makes more poetry."
"More truth than poetry, you mean," Margy put in. "'Bum' doesn't rhyme with 'pun.'"
"It does, too," Artie insisted. "Doesn't it, Polly?"
"No, it doesn't," the honest Polly admitted.
Then Artie wanted to know what would rhyme with "pun" and they told him "gun" and "run" and "sun" and half a dozen other words.
"I'll make up some poetry," Artie announced brightly, and forthwith he occupied himself with the poetic muse, paying not the slightest attention to the chatter and noise that went on about him.
They passed through Wickware and drove out on the country highway again. It washot and dusty for perhaps another half mile, and then they came to a group of magnificent willow trees, growing close to a little white bridge that spanned a creek. The water was low in the creek now, but the grass was thick and green on either bank and the shade offered by the trees was delightful.
"Here's our hotel," said Mr. Larue, as they came up with him. "That is, if we haven't lost the lunch."
"Why, Polly, what is that?" asked Mrs. Marley, as the children climbed out of the car. "I didn't put that box in."
"It's lunch. Mrs. Marshall gave it to us," Polly explained.
"More lunch!" groaned Mrs. Larue. "We have more now than we can eat."
"I never heard of Mrs. Marshall—who is she?" said Mrs. Williamson curiously.
"She owns the cows," Margy told her mother. "She gave Polly the box because Daddy came and told her the cows were eating the alfalfa."
"Oh!" said Mrs. Williamson. "But what is the matter with Artie?"
Artie still sat in the car, though every one else was glad to be sitting under the trees in the shade.
"I'm writing a poem," he announced. "I'll be through in a minute."
So the lunch was unpacked and it was discovered that nothing had been forgotten—the chicken sandwiches were there and the boiled eggs and even the salt—Mr. Marley said it was the first picnic he had really enjoyed in fifteen years, because usually some one forgot the salt.
"Artie!" called Mrs. Marley, when everything was ready. "If you do not come this minute, you can't have your share of Mrs. Marshall's box."
The poet hopped down quickly. He said his poem was finished anyway. But to tell the truth, he was anxious not to miss the picnic lunch. He said it made him hungry to write poems.
Mrs. Marshall had put six beautiful rhubarb saucer pies in her box, two dozen sugar cookies and half a chocolate layer cake. As the three mothers had counted on hearty appetites, they had packed generous boxes, too, and Mr. Larue said that they could probably live the rest of the summer on what was left over. But, to everyone's surprise, there was very little left.
"We must all be poets," said Mr. Marley, pulling Artie over backward and tickling him. "For look what we have done to the party—the birds are lucky if they get a few crumbs."
"Tell us your poem, Artie?" coaxed Jess, when the waxed paper and the remains of the picnic—except the food scattered for the birds—had been neatly buried in a hole dug by Mr. Williamson. "Tell us what you wrote?"
"Well, I don't mind," agreed Artie unexpectedly.
He stood up and gazed at them calmly.
"Fred made a pun,And called it fun.I took my gunAnd made him run,Which seemed to stunHim."
"Is that a poem?" asked Fred doubtfully.
"Of course it is," the indignant poet retorted. "Don't you know poetry when you hear it?"
That rather discouraged further criticism, though Jess whispered to Margy as they climbed back into their seats that she thought it "ended queer."
"Lots of poems do," said Margy.
The grown-ups were anxious to reach Sunrise Beach in time for dinner, and the two cars made excellent time in the hour that followed.
"We'll soon be there now," Mr. Williamsonhad just remarked when Ward's sharp eyes saw the car ahead stop.
"Daddy's stopped! He's standing up and shouting to us," said Ward. "I wonder if there are any more cows?"
"The road is blocked—What on earth can that be?" Mr. Williamson frowned a little.
"It must be an automobile house," contributed Artie. "I read about one in a book. It is a regular house, except that it is on wheels, and people live in it."
"Well, what do you know about that!" Mr. Williamson said blankly, as they came abreast of the other car and for the first time could see clearly what it was that blocked the roadway.
CHAPTER VII
AN INTERESTING DETOUR
"Didn'tI tell you?" Artie insisted. "It is an automobile house, isn't it?"
"Certainly it isn't," retorted Fred, in his most crushing manner. "I should think you would know a barn when you see one."
Artie stared. Truth to tell, the building did look more like a barn than a house. But what was a barn doing in the middle of the road?
"Can't hope to drive that anywhere," Mr. Larue called. "Wonder what we do next?"
"Detour," Mr. Williamson said briefly, and the three mothers groaned.
"There won't be anything in the house to eat, you know," Mrs. Marley announced. "We can't get supplies and cook dinner if we get there so late."
"We'll go to the hotel," promised Mr. Marley. "It will be our one chance to be fashionable, so we ought to make the most of it."
"Oh, Mother, let's go to a hotel!" Margy begged. "I love to eat in a big dining-room."
The boys sniffed and Mrs. Williamson laughed.
"We'll look out of place in these traveling clothes," she said, "but I suppose it is the only thing to do; we certainly won't make Sunrise Beach before seven o'clock or half-past now."
"You sound like Carrie Pepper when you talk like that," Fred told his sister as the cars were backed.
"What is the barn there for?" asked Artie.
"She doesn't sound like Carrie Pepper. Mattie Helms talks that way," Ward declared.
"Stop squabbling about Margy and her talk, or you can't have any pink ice cream for your dinner," Mr. Williamson warned them. "The barn is in the middle of the road, Artie, because it is being moved."
Artie then wanted to know why the barn was being moved and where it had come from and where it was going.
"Perhaps they sold the farm and the owner didn't like the location of the barn," Mr. Williamson explained. He was always ready to answer questions. "I suspect that is what happened, Artie, because I noticed that the old foundations, from which the barn had been lifted, were almost squarely in front of the farmhouse. You wouldn't want to sit on your front porch and have the view blocked by a barn, would you?I think they are moving it across the road, and then it will be farther from the house and nearer to the hayfields, two points in its favor."
They were going back over the road now and, following Mr. Larue's car, made a sharp turn.
"We can cut off five miles if we go through the Mooney estate," said Mr. Larue, who had been consulting a road map, when they were up with him.
"But that is private, isn't it?" Mrs. Williamson asked.
"I think it is open to the public on certain days of the week," her husband replied. "And doubtless they will not object to a couple of cars, if we don't speed. There's the main entrance. Let's drive in, and if we see any one we'll ask permission to go through."
Just ahead of them was an elaborate entrance, built of gray stone and fitted with tall spiked iron gates. These were open, and, as Mr. Larue said, that might be an indication that the public was allowed to enter.
"Who lives here?" asked Margy, almost in a whisper, as they rolled between the stone posts and found themselves in a beautiful park.
"Captain Hal Mooney," Mr. Williamson answered.
"Is he in the army?" Fred inquired, while Ward said he was sure he ran an ocean liner.
"Ward is nearer right than you are, Fred," said Mr. Williamson, with a smile. "Captain Mooney is interested in boats, though not in ocean liners. He is immensely wealthy and builds and sails racing yachts."
"Just look at the flowers!" Polly cried. "Did you ever see anything like them! And the grass—I wonder who runs the lawn mower?"
There were great beds and borders of flowers on either side of the road, beautiful trees, planted singly and in groups, and acres and acres of the richest and smoothest green lawns that the children had ever seen.
"Hello, you'll have a chance to see the lawn mower, Polly," said Mr. Williamson suddenly. "And we'll ask this man whether Captain Mooney allows trespassing."
Polly glanced over to one side and saw a tractor pulling a lawn mower as easily as her daddy pushed their lawn mower at home. So that was how these lawns were kept so evenly clipped and trimmed!
There was one man running the tractor and another stood on a gravel path, watching him. He turned at the sound of the cars and looked inquiringly at the driver. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man in golf clothes, and had a pleasant face and a white mustache that made his dark eyes very noticeable.
"I hope we're not trespassing," said Mr. Larue courteously. "But we are anxious to reach Sunrise Beach and were forced to make a detour because they are moving a barn across the road and the way is blocked. Do you know whether Captain Mooney objects to travel over his roads—the gates were open—or not?"
The man smiled a little and lifted his hat to show the white hair beneath.
"I am sure Captain Mooney will have no objections," he said heartily. "The roads are only closed to motorists who abuse their privileges."
The children were staring in fascination at the lawn mower, and so absorbed were they that the clang of a clear little bell made them all jump. A girl about Polly's age came wheeling up the gravel path and jumped from her bicycle.
"Daddy, I thought we were going to the beach!" she exclaimed. "Oh!" she said, suddenly noticing the two cars.
"Ella, all these young people are going to Sunrise Beach," said the white-haired man, smiling. "You'd like to have some brothers and sisters like that to play with, wouldn't you?"
The little girl smiled and Polly saw how prettyshe was. Her bobbed hair was yellow, but her eyes were dark like her father's, and she was tanned as though she had spent much time near the water. Her teeth were very even and very white.
"I haven't any one to play with," she mourned. "Are you all brothers and sisters?"
It was slightly confusing to introduce so many at once, but Mr. Williamson managed it, and then the little girl's father put his arm around her and said something that surprised them all.
"I am Captain Mooney," he said simply, "and this is my daughter, Ella. And I hope we may see you this summer, for we drive to Sunrise Beach almost daily."
The mothers were anxious to reach the shore and get settled before it should be dark, so with a few more words, chiefly between Ella and the children, the two cars went on. They wound in and out, over a perfectly kept road and between handsome shrubbery, and soon came to the road that would take them straight to the beach.
"Hasn't Ella Mooney any brothers or sisters?" Jess asked, as soon as they had left the father and daughter.
"No. And her mother is dead," said Mr. Williamson soberly. "So, in spite of all her money, she is a lonely little girl."
"I suppose she has a pony," Artie mused.
"And all the dresses she wants." This from Margy.
"And she can go traveling and see California," said Polly.
"I wouldn't mind running that tractor," Fred declared.
"But I wouldn't want to live all alone and have no one to play with," objected Jess.
"She isn't all alone—she lives with her father," Ward declared.
"Well, fathers are all right, but you need a mother and some other people, too," Jess informed him, and Mr. Williamson laughed and said she was right.
"If she comes down to the beach and we see her, she can come to a meeting of the Riddle Club, can't she, Polly?" Margy suggested.
Polly said of course, and just then Artie caught a glimpse of the ocean and Ward saw a man in a bathing suit and every one was suddenly aware that they had reached the seashore at last.
"Where's our house?" said Margy, staring at the rows of houses on either side of the street as though she expected to recognize the house they were to occupy.
"It's at the other end of town, Margy," her father said. "This is the comparatively new section—pretty new houses and bungalows. There's the hotel—we'll come back there for dinner. Well, children, there's the ocean—are you glad to see it?"
They had turned down another street and were now facing the great blue ocean that lay smoothly before them. It was as smooth as the Rocio River, except for the breakers that broke and ran up the beach and back again.
The children had seen the ocean, for they had gone on excursions several times from River Bend. This was the first summer they were to stay for any length of time near salt water, and they looked forward to many good times.
"Is this the unfashionable part of Sunrise Beach?" asked Margy, a little uncertainly.
"It is," her father laughed. "So I have been informed. The houses are larger and more comfortable, they have yards of their own, and the bathhouses are built under the porch for comfort and convenience. Would you rather be comfortable or fashionable, Margy?"
"Comfortable, I guess," said Margy sensibly.
Mr. Larue and Mr. Williamson had hired the cottage and had wired ahead to have it opened and aired. It was a brown house, large and rambling and set in a garden that had been planted with many old-fashioned flowers and thenleft to itself. The effect was pretty, but so tangled that the paths around the house were quite over-grown. There was a porch around three sides, a fireplace in the hall, which was also the living-room and every room had an "ocean view." As Mr. Williamson said, what more could any one want?
They found the trunks had been delivered and were in the hall. But every one was too tired and too hungry to think of "dressing up."
"Let us go and get our dinners and come back and go to bed early," Mrs. Larue suggested. "Then we'll be up early to-morrow morning and accomplish wonders."
"All I wish is that Carrie Pepper could see me now," whispered Margy, a half hour later as she walked into the dining room of the large hotel.
"There's Mattie Helms!" Artie announced, in a tone that he fondly imagined was very low, but which made Mattie—across the room—look up in surprise.
CHAPTER VIII
MEEKER'S COTTAGE
Mattiewas seated at a table with her mother and two other ladies. Mrs. Helms nodded pleasantly when she saw the River Bend folk, but Margy was almost crying as she sat down at the table the waiter found for them.
"I knew it!" she declared. "I knew it! If we didn't dress up, I was sure we'd see some one we knew."
The boys laughed at her wail, but Mrs. Williamson spoke soothingly.
"Never mind, Daughter," she advised. "We have been traveling and are tired. Our dresses are dark, but they are clean and neat, and that is all that is necessary."
Poor Margy, however, during the dinner kept glancing over toward the table at which Mattie sat. Mattie wore a pink dress, with slippers and stockings to match. She came over to speak to her friends before they had finished.
"Hello, everybody!" said Mattie cheerfully."We got here at noon. Isn't this a nice hotel? We are going to take all our meals here, so Mother won't have to keep house. Have you seen our bungalow? It is the fourth down the street. It's painted brown and white. Carrie is coming to-morrow to stay with me. I suppose you came in the car? Wasn't it hot? Where are you going to be? Oh, that part of Sunrise Beach is awfully out of date. Nobody goes there any more."
She rattled on, hardly pausing for a reply to her questions, till her mother caught her eye and signaled to her to go with her. Artie stared after her as she left the dining room.
"She's kind of dressed up, isn't she?" he ventured.
"Did you see her lovely slippers?" Margy sighed.
"You know if you had to get into pink slippers every night, you'd make an awful fuss," the practical Fred declared. "I'm glad my mother has some sense."
"Thank you," laughed Mrs. Williamson. "And now let's wander back to our comfortable, old-fashioned house and see about settling down for a good rest."
The house had been thoroughly aired and all the bedding, and it did not take the three motherslong to have the beds made up. There was a shabby old barn at the end of the lot which served as a garage, and the cars had been run in there. The house was three stories high, but there was only one room on the third floor—a large room that had a balcony in front of one of the windows. Indeed, as Polly said, whenever they didn't know what to do, they built a balcony. Some were almost porches and others were little more than platforms, but nearly every window had its balcony. The large room in the third story, it was decided, should be given over to the boys. Three cots were put up there, and Fred and Artie and Ward were delighted.
"What's the bell for?" asked Fred, pointing to a black iron bell in one corner over the door.
"I suppose it connects with the kitchen, and if we had a maid it would be a signal for her," Mr. Williamson said. "We'll use it to let you know when breakfast is ready. One ring will be the rising bell; two, a summons to breakfast; three will mean that if you don't hurry you'll get nothing to eat; and four rings will tell you that all is over—we have eaten everything up."
There were four large square bedrooms on the second floor, and the one allotted to the three girls had two balconies, one of them directly under the third story balcony. Polly said they could sitout and listen to the ocean, but Margy was sure that some one would hear them and come to say they must go to bed.
"They won't hear us listen," argued Polly. "Of course I don't mean to-night, for we'd go to sleep sitting up. But some night we can sit out here, if we don't get to giggling."
However, no one felt like listening to the ocean that night. They were all tired from the long drive, and Polly's cheeks were burning from the wind. Within half an hour the whole house was dark and silent, and though the breakers came in and ran out ceaselessly and the tide turned, rose and turned again, not a person in Meeker's Cottage paid the slightest attention.
Polly was awake before Jess or Margy, and she dressed very quietly. When she was ready, she stepped out on the balcony to get a glimpse of the ocean, sparkling in the sun.
"Um, um, isn't that good!" she whispered, taking a long breath of the salty air. "I'm so glad we came to the beach—it is nicer even than Lake Bassing."
Then, in spite of her resolution to keep perfectly quiet and wake no one else, she jumped and shrieked. A huge black spider had spun silently down before her, and now dangled just under her nose.
"What is it?" cried Margy, rushing to the window. "What is it, Polly?"
A snicker made Polly look up. There was Ward perched on the upper balcony, holding the make-believe spider by a string.
"You're a wretch," Polly informed him, laughing. "How can you be playing tricks the very first morning, Ward? How long have you been up?"
"Hours," said Ward confidently. "I'm hungry."
Polly's shriek had wakened the others, and, as she waited for Margy and Jess to get dressed, they found the grown-ups downstairs when they went down. The boys did not wait for the warning bell, but came tumbling down, three steps at a time.
"Did you know there were bathhouses under the porch?" demanded Fred, who had made an inspection tour, when he came in to breakfast. "Dinky little closets where we can dress and not have to bring wet suits into the house. Say, I think this is a great place."
After breakfast, the three mothers announced that they wanted a morning to "put things to rights," and they said they would work much better if every one went down to the beach and stayed till lunch time.
"The children won't rest till they get into their bathing suits," said Mrs. Marley; "so they might as well do that first. Then, with three daddies to see that they stay out of the water for an hour or so, I think they will be all right. Take the old sweaters down with you and leave them in a pile on the sand. Our beach is so far from the crowd that it is safe to leave things unwatched—Mrs. Meeker wrote me that."
Mrs. Meeker owned the cottage, and that was why it was called "Meeker's Cottage." It had been known by that name for years, and once the governor of the state had rented it for a summer. Mrs. Meeker was very proud of that. In those days, Meeker's Cottage had been in the fashionable part of Sunrise Beach.
You may be sure it did not take the Riddle Club long to get into their bathing suits. Very pretty the suits looked, too, with the white initials "R.C." on each. The girls had caps to match their suits—Polly blue, Jess red and Margy green. Each had a sweater—"a last year school sweater," as Margy described hers—to put on if it was chilly when they came out of the surf. As soon as they were ready, they raced across the road, scrambled over a sand dune, and were out on the beach and capering about as though they had just been released from some box.
"Can't go in for a couple of hours," said Mr. Williamson firmly, capturing Fred, who seemed inclined to meet a breaker more than halfway. "Now we'd like to run through the papers before we go in. Will you promise to stay on the beach until we give the word?"
"Of course," promised Polly, and the others nodded. "I'll tell you what we will do—we'll walk up the beach as far as the fishing pier and back, and then we'll hold a meeting of the Riddle Club. By that time we can go in bathing."
"But I can't collect the dues," Fred objected. "No one has any money and I haven't any pocket."
"It won't be a regular meeting," argued Polly. "We'll just ask as many riddles as we can remember."
"Well, let me tell you this club can't go on forever and not collect any dues," Fred declared earnestly. "We're always having special meetings, and 'special' means no dues taken up. Ever since we put our money in the bank, you all seem to think we have a fortune and don't need any more."
"Calm yourself, Fred," said his father. "As this is a special meeting, I'll pay the dues."
"No, we'll chip in," Mr. Marley suggested. "I'll pay twenty cents for Polly and Artie."
"Here is twenty for Jess and Ward," said Mr. Larue.
Mr. Williamson took the money and added another twenty cents for his two children, Margy and Fred.
"I'll be acting treasurer till the real treasurer gets to his trousers pockets," said Mr. Williamson. "Now then, let's carry out the program."
The children started to walk to the fishing pier while the fathers settled down comfortably in the sand, under a section of abandoned boardwalk that served to shade them nicely. They were anxious to read their morning papers.
"I wonder how far the beach goes?" speculated Jess, as she let a breaker come up almost to her ankles before she retreated.
"Florida," Artie said promptly.
"Could we walk to Florida?" said Jess a little doubtfully.
"Sure we could! Don't you remember how the coast looks on the map?" Fred reminded her.
"We could walk all around the United States if we went on the top of Canada," said Ward, screwing up his eyes as though he were looking at a map a long way off. "Say, that would be fun, wouldn't it?"
"Don't let's start in our bathing suits," Margycautioned, with something of her father's teasing seriousness.
Polly had stopped to examine a shell.
"Let's pick up all the prettiest shells we see," she suggested. "We can save them and then, just before we go home, select six perfect ones for our clubroom."
"What do we want shells for?" Jess asked.
"Oh, to remind us of Sunrise Beach," said Polly.
"You can use clam shells for dishes," Artie now announced. "I read it in a book. You wash 'em and bake things in them."
"All right, we'll get some for Mother," decided Fred, approving of this practical idea. "Here's a dandy clam shell."
There were many clam shells on the beach, and the boys and girls carried home a dozen that morning. These were scrubbed, and the Riddle Club was filled with surprise and delight when they appeared on the table that evening at supper—the clam shells, not the children—with escalloped potatoes in them.
"But try and find larger ones next time," said Mrs. Williamson. "Large shells make excellent dishes; they sell them in some stores for ramekins."
Picking up shells and seeing how near they could come to going into the ocean without actually getting wet, made the walk to the fishing pier seem short. It was a long pier and the end was black with people, all trying their luck with line and pole.
"Dad likes to fish from a boat," remarked Fred. "He said we could go with him, if he goes to-morrow."
"We can't go—I asked Mother," said Jess. "Just you boys, because girls don't go out. Ward says men have a better time fishing by themselves."
"Well, I should think they would," Polly declared. "I don't see any fun in catching fish, and Mother doesn't, either. So of course we wouldn't have a very good time."
"Fish are too smelly," said Margy, as though that settled the matter for her.
"Let's go back and have our meeting," Ward suggested. "I've just thought of a dandy riddle."
"We'll run, so you won't forget it," said Fred, wheeling suddenly and setting off down the beach at top speed.
CHAPTER IX
ANOTHER MEETING
Wardwas not a good runner and he was quickly out of breath. Panting and gasping, he trailed after the others and by the time he came up with them he was in no shape to ask a riddle or any kind of question for as long as three minutes.
They all dropped comfortably on the sand and Polly insisted that no one should ask a riddle until Ward was ready.
"That is, if he hasn't forgotten the one he remembered," Fred remarked, for Ward often remembered something and forgot it before he could tell it.
Fat Ward looked reproachfully at Fred, but just then he recalled his riddle and that pleased him so much he decided not to be cross.
"I'm all ready," he beamed. "Who'll I ask?"
"Me," said Artie. "Bet you can't ask a riddle I can't answer."
Of course this rash challenge earned him theright to be "asked first," and Ward's eyes danced.
"When does the ocean resemble a big bakery?" he demanded.
"Huh," Artie said. "Huh, that's easy——"
Then he stopped.
"Hurry up," prodded Ward. "I thought you said you could guess any riddle."
"I didn't say without thinking," Artie retorted. "When does the ocean resemble a big bakery? Keep still and let me think."
Artie was famous for taking a fearful length of time to meditate on his answers to riddles, and the others settled down for a long wait. He was staring out to sea as though he expected the water to give him help of some kind.
"When does the ocean—" he kept murmuring. "When does the ocean——"
"Fish cakes!" he said triumphantly. "That's it, isn't it, Ward?"
"They don't have fish cakes in a bakery," Ward informed him. "Besides, I never heard of fish cakes in the ocean."
"If a fish hit the side of that old piling he'd be a fish cake, I guess," argued Artie.
"Well that isn't the answer, anyway," Ward declared, with finality.
"Let every one have a guess," suggested Polly. "If Artie gives up, ask Margy."
"My goodness, I don't know," Margy cried a little wildly. "I wasn't even thinking."
"Margy always shies off as though a riddle was going to bite her," said Fred. "I should say a bakery was like the ocean when it has scales."
"You mean the ocean is like a bakery," Ward corrected. "But that isn't right, Fred."
Jess ventured the answer, "when it is crowded," and in response to the laughter explained that the ocean was crowded "in spots."
"I've seen the excursion crowds," she said.
"When it's full of rolls?" Polly hazarded slowly, when it came her turn.
"You've got it!" exclaimed Ward, in delight. "'When it's full of fresh rolls,' is right, but rolls is the answer. Good for you, Polly!"
"How'd you do it, Polly?" asked Margy.
"I saw the breakers rolling in and that made me think of it," Polly said modestly.
They insisted that she must ask the next riddle, as a reward for guessing correctly, so Polly thought for a few moments and then asked:
"What fish always goes around armed?" and added: "That's the easiest one I know."
"A shark!" cried Jess.
Polly shook her head.
"I don't know many fish," Margy complained. "Only bluefish and weakfish and—and——"
"Poor fish!" said Ward teasingly. "Anyway, whose turn is it to guess?"
"I meant to ask Jess," Polly said. "If she has given up, any one may try."
Fred thought it might be a flounder. "He might flounder when he's attacked and then the other fish couldn't fight him," he explained.
"That doesn't sound just right," Artie objected, but Polly, anxious to forestall a long argument on flounders and floundering, suggested that Ward had not had his turn.
"The fish that always goes armed," recited Ward, in his best classroom manner, "is the swordfish."
"Good gracious!" Jess stared at her brother in mingled admiration and pride. "How did you know?"
"I thought of guns and then I thought of swords," Ward beamed. "Then, of course, I remembered swordfish."
"Want to go in now?" called Mr. Williamson. "We're going up to get in our suits, and we'll be right down. Wait for us."
The children waved their hands to show they had heard and understood and Margy said hurriedly:
"Ask another—let Artie, because he ought to know an easy one."
"I think we ought to have some system," Artie announced, with earnest disapproval. "I'll start with Jess and go right around the circle, asking: Why is a ship always polite?"
"I suppose because it is called 'her,'" said Jess composedly.
The others stared.
"Her?" repeated Fred. "Who says her?"
"I know it, because some one said so," Jess maintained. "You never heard a ship called 'him.' Daddy always says, 'She's built from the best dried lumber,' when he's talking about his boats."
"But what has that got to do with being polite?" Polly asked, puzzled.
"Oh, girls are always more polite than boys, so ships must be," said Jess, apparently thinking her reasoning was most clear.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Artie declared, with more frankness than courtesy. "But, anyway, that isn't the right answer. Margy?"
Margy looked anxious. She took her riddles seriously.
"Is it because it dips its colors when it meets another boat?" she asked.
"No, that isn't right," Artie said. "They don'tall dip their colors, either. Can you guess, Ward?"
"Maybe because the decks are scrubbed," declared Ward. "My mother says it is polite to have clean hands."
Artie shook his head, not against the clean hands, but to signify that the answer was not the one sought.
Polly, whose turn was next, gave up frankly and Fred asked for a few minutes in which to think.
"Maybe it is because it will wig-wag back when some one signals," he said finally. "It is polite to answer when you're spoken to."
"Everybody's wrong," Artie announced, a little triumphantly. "I'm the only one who knows the answer."
Fred laughed good-naturedly.
"Well, I should hope you'd know the answer to your own riddle," he said quickly. "Come on and let us share the secret."
Artie cleared his throat.
"A ship is always polite," said he, "because it approaches with a bow."
"And arrow?" Ward chimed in.
"No, not an arrow, silly," said Artie. "This is another kind of a bow. I mean the front part of a ship."
Fred and Polly looked as though they wanted to laugh.
"Say," said Fred, "did you hear that riddle, Artie, or did you read it? I'll bet a cookie you read it."
"Of course I read it—in a book," Artie answered. "It said the front part of a ship."
"That's all right," replied Fred, grinning. "But you don't pronounce this b-o-w that way. The front part of a ship is the bow, the way you say you made a bow. See? That's where the being polite, comes in."
Ward made a dive for Artie and they rolled over on the sand.
"Nobody could guess the riddle!" chuckled Ward. "Not even Artie had it right!"
"Anybody going swimming?" asked Mr. Larue, coming down to them in his bathing suit, followed by Mr. Marley and Mr. Williamson. "If the Riddle Club will adjourn, we'll take you as far as you want to go, to make up for waiting so patiently."
"I move that the meeting be adjourned," said Jess, and Margy seconded the motion.
Two minutes later the Riddle Club membership might have been seen floating far out, just beyond the lazy breakers. They could swim a little, and all of them could float, and they stayedthere till an unusually heavy comber frightened Margy and she wanted to come in. Then they splashed around in the shallower water for another half hour, and then put on their sweaters and toasted themselves in the sun till reminded that it was time to go up to the cottage and get dressed for lunch.
"Gee, I like it here," announced Fred, as they toiled through the heavy sand. "We can have heaps of fun—there's country back of all the cottages."
"Yes, farms and things," Polly agreed. "They bring in fresh vegetables every morning."
"Don't talk of vegetables—I'm starved," said Margy, and they all owned that whether it was the riddles or the swim in salt water that was responsible, the fact remained that they were exceedingly hungry.
The three mothers had spent a busy morning, and the trunks were unpacked, light curtains hung at the doors and windows—"to take away the bare, rented look," Mrs. Marley explained—fresh towels and bureau scarfs distributed throughout the rooms, and, best of all, a substantial lunch cooked and waiting.
"Now, this afternoon you're to rest," announced Mr. Williamson. "Whatever these young Indians do, they mustn't make a single demand on any mother. If we are not careful every one will have a fine vacation except these mothers, who will work harder than they do at home."
"Oh, the worst is done now," Mrs. Williamson said quickly. "We're ready to keep house with as little fuss and trouble as possible. This afternoon we have planned to take our needlework down to the beach, if you'll put up the tent for us."
A large square of canvas was rolled up in the back hall, and this, Mrs. Meeker had explained, was to be tied over a simple frame of light wood that rested in the sand. This gave the sketchiest kind of a "tent," merely a protection from the sun, but affording a comfortable place to sit and read and sew. The beach at this end of the town was dotted with these tents, and here mothers sat for hours while their babies slept and the older children frolicked on the sands.
By the time the tent was up, the Riddle Club members had decided that what they needed was exercise, and they declared they would walk to the post-office, going by way of the beach. There could not be any mail yet, but it would be interesting to see the town and, as Artie remarked, it was their duty to know the location of the post-office. Artie had a lively sense of duty, and now and then his friends confused it with curiosity.
"Here comes a girl in a pink dress," said Margy, when they had walked about half a mile up the beach. "She looks something like Mattie Helms, doesn't she?"
Margy and Polly and Jess wore dark blue skirts and middy blouses, and the two girls coming toward them were dressed in fluffy light-colored frocks and one carried a blue parasol.
"It is Mattie Helms," Jess declared. "Who do you suppose that is with her?"
"Well, no matter who it is, don't stop and talk," warned Artie. "We'll never get anywhere."
"There's a boy looks like Joe Anderson," Fred said suddenly. "Say——"
He and Polly had the same thought at the same time. They spoke simultaneously.
"That must be Carrie Pepper!" they cried.
"I knew if I wore this blouse with a berry stain on it, we'd meet somebody," Margy almost wept. "I wanted to change it, and you wouldn't wait."
CHAPTER X
VACATION DAYS
Carrie Pepperdid not allow the berry stain on Margy's blouse to chill her greeting to the Riddle Club.
"Well, for goodness' sake!" she said most cordially. "Where are you going?"
"To the post-office," Polly explained. "Hello, Mattie. Hello, Joe," for Joe Anderson had stopped skipping stones into the water and had come up to them.
"We got here this noon," volunteered Carrie. "Joe Anderson is going to stay with Albert Holmes for two weeks—they have the bungalow next to Mrs. Helms'."
"Where is your bungalow?" Mattie asked curiously.
Fred glanced at Polly and laughed.
"Have to be some bungalow to get us all in," he said. "We have a large cottage and it's none too big. Guess you don't know it—the Meeker Cottage, they call it."
"We have balconies to spare," Polly chimed in. "Regular little porches and stuck wherever there is a window."
"Oh, those old-fashioned places are so queer," said Mattie, with a smile. "Daddy wanted Mother to take a cottage over where you are, but she says no one goes there any more. Our bungalow is awfully pretty, but the rooms are a little small and we have to keep the shades down all the time because the houses on either side are built so close every one looks right in our windows. But it's a lovely house, isn't it, Carrie?"
"I should say it was!" Carrie responded enthusiastically.
"Have you been in the water yet?" asked Fred, speaking to Joe Anderson, who seemed strangely silent.
Usually Joe was more than willing to tell what he had done or intended to do.
"Went in right away, had a cramp and had to come out," Joe said briefly.
Polly saw that he looked pale and instantly excused him for seeming rather sullen.
"I guess I'll go on to the post-office with you," announced Carrie, quite as though she had been considering this plan, as indeed she had.
Mattie stared and Polly at once asked her to come, too.
"I can't go so far in these slippers," Mattie answered. "Besides, the sun is too hot. I hate to get tanned. Polly, your nose is red this minute."
Joe Anderson said he was going to sit under the fishing pier in the shade and Mattie made for the boardwalk, which would be kinder, she had no doubt, to her patent leather slippers than the hot sand. Carrie slipped her arm through Margy's as the Riddle Club resumed its tramp.
Carrie did most of the talking on that walk, and it did not seem to exhaust her at all. When the Riddle Club reached the town, she accompanied them to the post-office, and when Fred said something to Polly about going home another way, she declared that she would love to go.
"I like to walk; and, anyway, you'll have to take me home for I don't know my way," she said. "I'll tell you—let's go as far as your cottage and I'll see your folks and then you can walk back to the bungalow with me."
No one was especially pleased with this plan, but there did not seem to be any reason for rejecting it. So, a little glumly, the Riddle Club members marched home again, Carrie going with them. Fred was a bit ashamed of himself when he saw how pleasantly his mother greeted Carrie. Mrs. Marley brought out ice-cold ginger ale for them, and Mr. Larue, who was going to run thecar out to a farm and back, to make arrangements for the delivery of vegetables, offered to take Carrie back to the bungalow colony.
"It's a kind of nice house," said Carrie wistfully, when she was ready to go. "I suppose a crowd can have lots of fun in a place like this. You can't make a bit of noise in Mrs. Helms' bungalow, because the neighbors can hear you. And they play their phonographs sometimes till midnight, Mr. Helms says. I like this big yard."
"Come and see us whenever you feel like it, Carrie," Mrs. Williamson said, as Carrie went down the steps.
"Oh, Mother!" Margy hardly waited till the car had rounded the corner.
"Oh, Daughter!"
"What made you say that?" wailed Margy. "Now she'll be here all the time and spoil all our fun."
"No, she won't, Margy," Mrs. Williamson comforted her. "She will be too busy with Mattie to bother you very much. But her mother is a neighbor of ours, and Carrie might be lonely or home-sick down here and need old friends. You wouldn't want to be away from home, would you, and have old friends treat you unkindly?"
"I could stand her if she was lonely or home-sick," the rebellious Margy protested. "But all she does is to talk about Mattie's clothes."
Margy spoke with such energy that every one laughed and, after a minute or two, she had to laugh at herself.
"Take my advice, Margy," said Mr. Marley, from the railing where he was tying up a trailing vine, "and be so busy you won't have any time to be annoyed."
Meeker Cottage was so comfortable and so convenient that by the time they had occupied it three days, the three River Bend families began to feel as though they really lived there. They soon settled down to a more or less regular program, and as Sunrise Beach was one of those excellently managed shore towns where every one likes to know every one else and friendly courtesy seems to be part of the atmosphere, the children were allowed to come and go pretty much as they pleased. They had certain tasks to do each morning, as their contribution to the work of running the house, and some older person was always on hand when they went bathing. But they took long walks up and down the beach, explored the country back of the town with fair thoroughness, and, inside a week, knew, so Mr. Marley declared, the name of every cottage and bungalow resident.
"Artie speaks to all the dogs," said Mr. Marley. "Fred knows all the fishermen. And Ward, I notice, likes to do the errands. I hope he doesn't wheedle cakes from the fat bakery lady."
For the first week the three fathers enjoyed a rest and a real vacation, and then one morning they went back to River Bend in Mr. Larue's car, promising to return the following Friday.
"Polly, do you know what the boys are doing?" Margy asked, squinting a little, which gave her a wise look.
The sun was in her eyes, for she and Polly and Jess had ridden to the crossroads in the car and were now walking back to the cottage. The boys had declined the invitation to go.
"No, I don't, but it's something mysterious," said Polly promptly.
"I think they're mean not to tell us," Jess declared. "I met Carrie Pepper in the post-office yesterday and she said she saw them 'way up past the fishing pier. There's nothing to see up there."
"We might go and look," suggested Margy. "Maybe they're building that raft they're always talking about."
Polly giggled. Artie had been responsible for the idea of a raft. He had read of a raft—in a book—and nothing would do but that he must make one this summer. Fred and Ward had discouraged him good-naturedly, but at intervals Artie voiced his desire to build a raft.
"Let's go see if we can find what they're up to," Margy suggested. "They always want to know our secrets, and yet they have dozens they never tell us."
Margy was exaggerating slightly. Indeed, Fred had once declared that she found out everything he ever tried to hide from her, so it was safer to tell her and let her help.
Polly and Jess had no objection to walking as far as the fishing pier. They would cause no worry at the cottage if they did not come back till lunch time and they were quite as curious as Margy to see what the boys were doing. For three mornings the boys had vanished from the breakfast table and, turning up at bathing time, had resolutely declined to give a hint as to how they had been spending the hours.
"I don't see them anywhere," said Jess disappointedly, when they had walked to the pier.
"We'll walk under it and look on the other side," Polly replied. "They may be further down the beach."
Margy and Jess scrambled under the heavy iron beams, absorbed in getting through quickly. But Polly's quick eyes spied something that shehad never seen before, though she had been under the pier a dozen times.
"Look!" she cried, stopping suddenly. "Somebody's been digging here."
There was a huge mound of sand heaped up between two beams and a circular pit dug carefully around it. A board was laid across a hole in the mound.
"That's Artie's shovel," Polly whispered. "I'll bet this is what they've been doing."
"But what is it?" said Margy, puzzled. "It looks like a—a—grave."
Polly clutched her arm and Jess shrieked. Before their fascinated eyes the mound was sinking. It slumped in the middle, cracks appeared in the sand far behind it, and without a sound the mound caved in.
"Dig!" commanded Polly furiously. "Dig! Don't stand there and do nothing!"
CHAPTER XI
SOME OLD FRIENDS
Pollywas down on her knees, flinging handfuls of sand behind her with feverish energy.
"What's the matter?" Jess demanded. "What's underneath?"
Polly never stopped scooping up the sand.
"I don't know," she flung over her shoulder, with a flurry of sand. "I don't know for sure, but I think the boys are buried in this."
That roused Margy and Jess to action, and they began, too, to dig. A few feet behind the mound there was an upheaval and Fred's face and shoulders came into view. Polly never stopped digging, though Jess and Margy paused and stared.
"I've got Ward," sputtered Fred, and he pulled the younger boy up beside him.
Then they all rushed to Polly, who had uncovered the sturdy legs in their brown socks that belonged to Artie. A frenzied and concerted effort uncovered the whole boy in less time than ittakes to tell it—a purple-faced Artie who was several minutes recovering his breath, but who was all right as soon as he found he could breathe.
"Gee," said Fred, "I never thought the thing would bust in like that!"
"I couldn't tell what hit us," Ward observed, trying to rub the sand out of his hair.
"You didn't see our cave, did you, Polly?" asked Artie, apparently unaware that he had been nearly suffocated.
"Is that a cave?" Margy's tone was scornful. "Is that what you've been doing all this time? It didn't look like much."
"That's because you didn't see the inside," said Fred. "You could almost stand up in the main room, and we had a lot of tunnels and passages we were building."
"It was great," and Artie nodded. "We were going to have the largest cave any one ever made at Sunrise Beach."
"It looks as though there'd been an earthquake, doesn't it?" giggled Jess.
All the tunnels and passages the boys had labored so faithfully to dig had caved in, together with the mound which had been the roof of the main room. As Jess said, the depressions did look as though an earthquake, or some suchhavoc-maker, had visited that section of beach.
"Well, I don't think you'd better build any more caves," Polly said, with decision. "It isn't safe. Artie might have choked before we dug him out."
"You mean, you dug him out," Fred declared. "You're the one who had your wits about you, Polly. What made you think we were in the cave?"
"I wasn't sure," admitted Polly. "But when the sand began to break down, I thought 'maybe the boys are under it somewhere,' and if you were, I knew the only thing to do was to dig you up."
"We figured out it was wet enough to pack and make firm walls," Fred explained. "But I guess it wasn't. Of course, if we had had boards we could have fixed up a good cave—shored it up as they do in mines, you know."
"Come on and let's go swimming," suggested Margy, anxious to get away from the talk of cave-building.
The boys, too, had had quite enough of their secret, and they abandoned the scene of their labors without a protest. When the three mothers heard what had happened, they declared that no more sand caves were to be thought of, as long as they remained at Sunrise Beach.
Artie and Ward went over for the mail that afternoon, and when they returned they were filled with news of a carnival that had come to the edge of the town and set up its tents on the vacant lots bordering the village limits.
"It's exactly like a circus, only different," said Ward, and then wondered why the others laughed at him.
"There's a merry-go-round," Artie announced, looking at Jess, who had a weakness for that form of amusement.
"And fat ladies and snakes and everything, probably," contributed Fred.
Mrs. Marley laughed and said that if Fred liked fat ladies he need not go so far from home.
"You're not fat, Mother!" Polly protested indignantly.
Pretty Mrs. Marley laughed again and declared that if she wasn't, it was not Mrs. Williamson's fault.
"For she will persist in giving us berry short-cakes, and I cannot refuse them," said Mrs. Marley regretfully. "Well, chicks, I suppose we'll have to go over and see this wonderful carnival some day."
"They don't stay very long in one place," hinted Artie.
"My goodness, won't it be there to-morrow?" his mother asked, in seeming alarm.
"It would be safer to go to-night," Ward assured her earnestly.
As eager as the other children were to go, they couldn't help laughing, and Mrs. Marley said she thought that the next afternoon would be time enough.
"I do, too," agreed Mrs. Larue decidedly. "If your fathers were here, we might go over at night, though I think it is far better to go to bed early. But we wouldn't find it pleasant going about in a crowd at night, so the afternoon will be much better in every way."
"I'll have lunch early, and we will go as soon as it is over," Mrs. Williamson promised. "Then we can have a long afternoon there and you will have a chance to go into everything and see everything."
Mrs. Williamson was "cook" that week. The mothers took turns so that the work might be evenly divided.
They were down on the beach—where Ward and Artie had brought the mail—and now the active mind of Jess suggested that they might go wading and pick up shells. So they took off their shoes and stockings and left them under the tent where the three mothers were comfortably established with their book and sewing, and off they went to walk and wade along the edge of the ocean.
"Here comes Joe Anderson and Albert Holmes," said Fred, looking up the beach. "I wonder where they're going?"
"Hello!" was Joe's greeting. "Been over to the carnival?"
"We're going to-morrow afternoon," Fred informed him. "Have you seen it?"
"On our way now," answered Albert Holmes. "Don't you want to come? All of you. Somebody at the hotel said it was pretty good."
"We'll wait, thanks," Fred responded. "Say, isn't that somebody calling to you?"
Joe did not turn, but he seemed to know that Fred was right.
"It's Carrie Pepper and Mattie Helms," he said hurriedly. "Come on, Albert, we'll have to hurry. You see, Fred, we said we'd take the girls to the carnival, and then we changed our minds. Carrie wants to eat everything she sees and Mattie isn't much better, and we haven't got money enough to take them and have a good time ourselves. Are they coming this way?"
"Sure! And waving for you to stop," Fred reported.
Without another word Joe and Albert hurriedoff up the beach, carefully refraining from looking over their shoulders.
"Nice unselfish people," remarked Margy sarcastically.
"I think it's pretty mean to invite the girls and then go off and leave them," Jess said mildly.
"What are you going to say?" Polly asked Fred.