CHAPTER I
JO'S TROUBLE
"Jo! You never mean it!"
Nan Harrison regarded the dark-haired girl with dismay.
"I'm afraid I do," said Jo Morley miserably. "You don't hate it any more than I do, Nan!"
"You said you couldn't go with us to Laurel Hall," said the third of the trio, repeating the statement made by Jo Morley a moment before as though she still could not credit it. "Why, Jo, it was only yesterday we were talking over our plans for boarding school! You expected to go then, didn't you?"
"Of course I did! I learned the awful news only last night!"
Over Jo's dark head Nan Harrison and Sadie Appleby exchanged frowning glances. Then Nan slipped a coaxing arm within Jo's.
"Suppose you tell us all about it, Jo," she said. "It's the worst news in the world, of course, but we might as well hear it now as later."
"I hardly understand about it myself, yet," said poor Jo, with a telltale quiver of her lips. "But it has something to do with Dad's business. He's had a heavy money loss, as he calls it, and—and he can't afford to send me away to boarding school. That's all."
"All!" echoed Nan Harrison, aghast. "It's enough! Why, Jo, if you can't go to Laurel Hall it will just spoil everything! I don't want to go at all!"
"Nor I!" said Sadie Appleby.
The three girls walked along moodily for a distance, pondering this unexpected change in their prospects.
Nan Harrison, the tallest of the three chums, was fair-haired and blue-eyed, a fine specimen of the athletic schoolgirl. Jo Morley formed a rather striking contrast to Nan in that her hair and eyes were as dark as Nan's were fair. Jo was small, too, and as lithe and active on her feet as a little cat.
Sadie Appleby, on the other hand, was rather a cross between the two, being of medium height, and having light brown hair and gray eyes.
The three girls had been chums all through the years of grammar school. It was their boast that nothing and nobody could separate them, that where one went the other two were sure to follow.
The happy association of grammar school days at an end, they had planned to go together to famous Laurel Hall boarding school which was situated about two hundred miles west of their home town of Woodford.
Their names had been entered with Miss Jane Romaine, the presiding head of Laurel Hall, a year before the delightful, late-summer day on which poor Jo was breaking her news to her dismayed chums. It was a well known fact that there was always a waiting list of those who aspired to enter the select portals of Laurel Hall, and that not all who applied were admitted.
So there was great rejoicing on the part of the three girls when their parents had received word from Miss Romaine that their applications had been accepted and that the girls' names had been enrolled among those who would enter the following fall.
It would be such great fun! The three chums had looked forward to it as such a marvelous experience! And now all their happy plans must be overshadowed by this inexplicable statement of Jo's in regard to her father's business!
"Maybe your father didn't mean it," said Sadie, a desperate gleam of hope in her eye. "Maybe he was just fooling you."
Jo shook her head gravely.
"That isn't Dad's idea of a joke, Sadie," she said. "If you could have seen him when he told me," she added, with a miserable little shake of the head, "you wouldn't think he was joking!"
"Is it very bad, Jo?" Nan bent down and tried to peer into her chum's downcast face. "Your father was always well off. Surely, he can't have lost every cent of his money at once!"
Again Jo shook her head, frowning.
"I tell you, I don't understand about it altogether, Nan," she answered. "Dad was so blue last night that I didn't like to question him much."
"How did he come to tell you about it?" Sadie insisted.
The shadow of trouble deepened on Jo's face, and for a moment she walked on between the two girls in silence, her eyes on the ground.
"It was last night after dinner," she said finally, speaking rapidly as though she did not like to remember the scene she was about to describe. "I was raving on about Laurel Hall and wishing the last days of vacation would fly a little faster so that we could start in there when Dad turned around and looked at me. There was—there was a look on his face that frightened me!"
For a time Sadie and Nan said nothing; just stared at Jo with a tragic expression.
"Well—" prompted Nan at last.
"Well," Jo sighed, "he told me I'd better not count too much on going to Laurel Hall. At first I thought it must be a joke, but when I saw Mother over in a corner crying into one of Dad's pocket handkerchiefs, I saw it was all true enough."
"But what did he say?" persisted Sadie, who was always insatiable for details.
"Just what I told you before. That he had been unfortunate in business and had lost a great deal of money, and that he couldn't afford to send me away to school. Poor old Dad, he took it pretty hard, too. So did Mother. I wish there was something I could do to help."
"Same here!" said Nan unhappily. "This is awful, Jo!"
"It's positive cruelty to animals," agreed Sadie. "I think I'll sit right down when I get home and write out a resignation to Miss Jane Romaine. I shan't stir a step if you don't, Jo, and that settles it!"
"I'm not a dog in the manger," said Jo, with a mirthless smile. "It won't help me any to have your good time spoiled."
"Our good time!" cried Nan. "As if it wasn't spoiled already if you can't go with us! I can't believe the awful truth yet. I simply can't!"
The three girls had been for a hike out into the country. Now they realized suddenly that it was getting late, and they turned their steps toward home.
They walked on for a considerable distance in silence, each busy with her own thoughts. Suddenly Nan spoke.
"We've got troubles at home, too, though of course they are nothing like yours, Jo," she said. "Dad has money enough yet, thank goodness! But poor Aunt Emma—" she paused and a shadow clouded her face.
Jo and Sadie knew of Nan's Aunt Emma, although they had seen very little of the maiden lady who lived with the Harrisons. The latter was half-paralyzed, an all but helpless invalid. Week after week, month after month, she sat in her wheeled chair near the window of her room, reading, sewing, or sitting idle, hands clasped in her lap looking out upon a scene of which she could never again hope to be an active part. So now when Nan spoke the invalid's name Jo and Sadie were all sympathy.
"Why, what's the matter with your Aunt Emma—worse than usual, I mean?" asked Jo.
"You look so dreadfully sad, Nan," added Sadie.
Nan shook her head.
"It's enough to make any one sad, to see that poor patient woman sitting there week after week and year after year, watching other people do what she is crazy to do herself. But that isn't the worst. Lately, it seems to us," Nan paused and stared at the girls tragically, "as if poor Aunt Emma were losing her mind!"
The girls cried out, shocked:
"Oh, Nan, you never mean that!"
"The few times I have spoken to her she seemed unusually quick-witted," protested Jo.
Nan nodded.
"She doesn't talk much any more, though, and when she does she says—funny things. Too much brooding, Dad says. He believes that if something would only happen to shock her out of this state of mind and give her a new interest in life, she might have a chance. As it is, we are all dreadfully worried about her."
They had been walking slowly toward town.
"If we want to get home in time for dinner," Sadie observed, "I guess we'll just about have to run!"
They did run, but on reaching the outskirts of the town they slowed their progress to a quick but decorous walk. They had not gone more than two or three blocks, however, when Jo stopped and sniffed the air in a curious manner.
"What's wrong with you?" Sadie wanted to know. "You look like a pointer dog."
"Thanks for the comparison," retorted Jo. "Does anybody smell smoke?"
"Yes! And I see it, too!" Nan pointed toward a cloud of smoke that curled lazily skyward. "It looks as though it came from my street! Girls, it can't be our house!"
The girls turned the corner of the street and found that their worst fears were justified. Smoke was rolling in gray clouds from the windows of the Harrison house!
"It seems to be downstairs!" gasped Nan.
The girls ran swiftly toward the house, but as they reached it a sound came to them that chilled their blood. They stared at each other, white-faced, desperate. For that sound had been a cry for help!
Nan pointed to an upper window.
"Aunt Emma's room!" she cried. "The fire has reached her room! She will die like a rat in a trap! Girls, we've got to get her out! We've got to!"
Again from the room above came that fearful, heartbreaking cry.
"Help! Oh, help!"