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CHAPTER XI
WHERE THE ACCIDENT HAPPENED
“And where is Professor Skillings?” asked Mrs. Havel, as the well-laden launch drew away from the little natural landing which defended one end of the girls’ bathing beach at Green Knoll Camp.
“Bless your heart, ma’am,” said Ferdinand Roberts, laughing, “the old gentleman is trying to figure out one of Tubby’s unanswerable arguments–that is, I believe, what you’d call it.”
“One of Tubby’s unanswerable arguments?” cried Wyn. “For pity’s sake! what can that be?”
“Why, at breakfast this morning the professor got to ‘dreaming,’ as he sometimes does. He tells us lots of interesting things when he begins talking that way; but sometimes, if we are in a hurry to get away, we have to put the stopper in,” chuckled Ferd.
“Tubby usually does it. Tubby really is good for something beside eating and sleeping, girls–you wouldn’t believe it!”
“You do surprise us,” admitted Bess Lavine, cuttingly.
“All right. But just wait and listen. We wanted to get away early and come over here after you,” said Ferd. “And the professor began to give us one of his talks. This time it was on literature. By and by he says:
“‘We are told that it took, Gray, author of ‘An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,’ seven years to write that famous poem.”
“‘Gee!’ exclaimed Tubby. ‘If he’d only known stenography how much better off he’d been.’
“‘Ahem! how do you prove that, Mr. Blaisdell?’ inquired the professor, quite amazed.
“‘Why, we took that as a lesson in the shorthand class of the Commercial Department last spring,’ said Tubby, ‘and some of the real good ones could do Gray’s Elegy, from dictation, in seven minutes. See what Gray would have saved if he’d known shorthand!’
“And that completely shut up the professor,” said Ferd, as the laughter broke out. “He hasn’t recovered from the shock yet.”
The Happy Day was turned toward the Forge first, skirting the shore all the way. That brought them, of course, close to Jarley’s Landing. Polly was just pushing out in a little skiff.
Wyn and Frank waved to her; but the other girls did not know her, of course, and only watched the boatman’s daughter curiously.
“How well she rows!” exclaimed Percy.
“Say! but she’s a fine looking girl,” said Dave, earnestly. “What handsome arms she’s got.”
“Handsome is as handsome does,” remarked Bess, snappishly.
“She’s as brown as an Indian,” observed Mina.
“That doesn’t hurt her,” declared Dave, stoutly. “Is she the girl you were speaking about, Wyn?”
“She is Polly Jarley, and she is my friend,” responded Wynifred, quietly. “And I believe her to be as good as she is beautiful.”
“Then there are wings sprouting under her blouse,” laughed Frank; “for there’s no girl I ever saw who could hold a candle to Polly for right down beauty.”
“She looks so sad,” said Mina, softly.
“Why shouldn’t she be sad?” Wyn demanded, “with everybody talking about her father the way they do?”
“Come, girls!” commanded Mrs. Havel. “Don’t gossip. Find some other topic of conversation.”
“Ha! quite so,” cried Frank, with a grimace upon her own homely face. “A girl may be as pretty as a picture and spoil it all by an ugly frame of mind. How’s that for a spark thrown from the wheel?”
“Stand back, audience!” exclaimed Dave. “Something like that is likely to happen any minute.”
“I don’t really see how the old professor gets on with you boys at all,” remarked Bessie Lavine, with a sigh. “You’d worry the life out of an angel.”
“But Professor Skillings is not an angel–thanks be!” exclaimed Dave.
“He’s a good old scout!” drawled Tubby.
“He just hasn’t forgotten what it is to be a boy,” began Ferd.
“But, goodness me!” cried Frankie. “He’s forgotten about everything else, at some time or other; hasn’t he?”
“Not what he’s learned out of books and from observation,” declared Dave. “But my goodness! he is absent-minded. Yesterday a couple of us fellows chopped up a good heap of firewood. We don’t have a fancy stove like you girls, but just an out-of-doors fireplace. After supper the dear old prof, said he’d wash the dishes, and we dumped all the pots and pans together and–what do you think?”
“Couldn’t think,” drawled Frank. “I’m too lazy. Tell us without making your story so complicated.”
“Why, we found he had carried an armful of firewood down to the shore and was industriously swashing the sticks up and down in the water, thinking he was washing the supper dishes.”
With similar conversation, and merry badinage, the journey around Lake Honotonka progressed. The shores of the lake, in full summer dress, were beautiful. There was an awning upon the motor boat, so the rapidly mounting sun did not trouble the party. But it was hot at noonday, and through Dave’s glasses they could see that the sails on the mill behind Windmill Farm were still. There wasn’t air enough stirring, even at that height, to keep the arms in motion, and down here on the water the temperature grew baking.
They ran into a cool cove and went ashore for dinner. Nobody wanted anything hot, and so, as there was a splendid spring at hand, they made lemonade and ate sandwiches of potted chicken and hard-boiled eggs which the boys had been thoughtful enough to bring along. The girls had crisp salad leaves to go with the chicken, too, and some nice mayonnaise. Altogether even Tubby was willing to pronounce the “cold bite” satisfying.
“And I’m no hypocrite,” declared the fat youth, earnestly. “When I say a thing I mean it.”
“What is your idea of a hypocrite, Tubby?” demanded Wyn, laughing.
“A boy who comes to school smiling,” replied Tubby, promptly.
After a while a little breeze ruffled the surface of the lake again and the Happy Day was made ready for departure. They continued then toward the west, where lay the preserve known as Braisely Park, in which there were at least a dozen rich men’s lodges. They were all in sight from the lake–at some point, at least. Each beautiful place had a water privilege, and the landings and boathouses were very picturesque. There was a whole fleet of craft here, too, ranging in size from a cedar canoe to a steam yacht. The latter belonged to Dr. Shelton, the man who had accused John Jarley of stealing the motor boat Bright Eyes and the five thousand dollars’ worth of silver images from the ruined temples of Yucatan.
“And of course,” said Wyn, warmly, “that is nonsense. For if Polly and her father had done such a thing, they would turn the silver into money; wouldn’t they, and stop living in poverty?”
“Well, it looks mighty funny where that boat and all could have gone,” Bessie remarked.
“If she sank as quickly as he says, the wreck must lie off Gannet Island somewhere,” remarked Dave, reflectively.
“Oh! I wish we could find it,” commented Wyn.
“If it ever sank at all,” sneered Bessie.
But it was almost impossible to quarrel with Wyn Mallory. Frank would have “got hot” a dozen times at Bess while the party chanced to discuss the Jarleys and their troubles. But the captain of the Go-Ahead Club was patient.
Bye and bye–and after mid-afternoon–the Happy Day came around to the west end of Gannet Island. Up among the trees a glint of white betrayed the presence of the boys’ tent. In a little sheltered cove below the site of Cave-in-the-Wood Camp, danced the fleet of canoes.
Nothing would do but the girls and Mrs. Havel must go ashore and see the cave and the camp.
“And we can have tea,” said Ferd. “How’s that, girls? Professor Skillings has got a whole canister of best gunpowder in his private stores–and there he is on that log, examining specimens.”
“Oh, dear me!” cried Frankie, “tea isn’t going to satisfy the gnawing of my appetite.”
“How about a fish-fry?” demanded Dave, swerving the motor boat suddenly away from the landing.
“Where’ll you get your fish?” cried Percy Havel.
“In the fish store at Meade’s Forge,” scoffed Ferdinand Roberts.
“That’s too far to run for supper–and back again–this afternoon, boys,” said Mrs. Havel.
“Just you wait,” cried Dave. “I caught sight of something just now–there she is!”
The Happy Day rounded a wooded point of the island. Near the shore floated Polly Jarley’s skiff and Polly was just getting up her anchor.
“She’s been fishing all day!” exclaimed Wyn.
“And I’ll wager she’s got a fine mess of perch,” said Dave. “Hi, Miss Jarley!” he shouted. “Hold on a minute.”
Polly had heard the chugging of the motor boat. Now she stood up suddenly and waved both hands in some excitement.
“What does she want?” demanded Bess.
“Get out! farther out!” the boatman’s daughter shouted, her clear voice echoing from the wooded heights of the island. “Danger here!”
“What’s the matter with her?” demanded Bess again. “Is there a submarine mine sunk here?”
But Dave veered off, taking a wider course from the shore.
“What is the matter, Polly?” shouted Wyn, standing up and making a megaphone of her hands.
“Snags!” replied the other girl. “Here’s where father ran Dr. Shelton’s boat on a root. The shallow water here is full of them. Look out”
“Say!” cried Frank Dumont “We don’t want to sink the old Happy Day.”
“So this is where the accident happened; is it?” observed Wyn, looking around at the shores of the little cove and the contour of the island’s outline.
“Humph!” snapped Bessie Lavine, sitting down quickly. “I don’t believe there was any accident at all. It was all a story.”
CHAPTER XII
AN OVERTURN
Dave Shepard had stopped the motor boat land now he hailed the pretty girl in the skiff.
“I say, Miss Jarley! did you have any luck?”
“I’ve got a good string of white perch. They love to feed among these stumps,” returned Polly.
“Oh, Polly Jolly! sell us some; will you?” cried Wyn, eagerly. “We’re so hungry.”
“Do, do!” chorused several of the other girls and boys aboard the Happy Day.
Polly, smiling, held up a long withe on which wriggled at least two dozen silvery fish. “Aren’t they beauties?” she demanded. “Wait! I’ll row out.”
She had already raised her anchor. Now she sat down, seized the short oars, and plunged them into the water. How she could row! Even Bessie Lavine murmured some enthusiastic praise of the boatman’s daughter.
Her skiff shot alongside the motor boat. She caught the gunwale, and then held up the string of fish again.
“How much, Miss Jarley?” asked Dave.
“Half a dollar. Is that too much?”
“It looks too little; but I suppose you know what you can get for them at the Forge,” he said.
“And this saves me rowing down there,” returned the brown girl, smiling and blushing under the scrutiny of so many eyes.
Wyn leaned over the rail, took the fish, and kissed Polly on her brown cheek.
“Dreadfully glad to see you, dear,” she declared. “Won’t you come over to the camp to-morrow and show us girls where–and how–to fish, too? We’re crazy for a fishing trip.”
“Why–if you want me?” said Polly, her fine eyes slowly taking in the group of girls aboard the motor boat.
All looked at her in a friendly way save Bessie, and she had her back to the girl.
“I’ll come,” said Polly, blushing again; and then she pocketed, the piece of money Dave gave her, and pushed off a bit.
“Is this really where your father came so near losing his life, Polly?” asked Wyn, seriously.
“Yes, Miss Wyn. Right yonder. It was so thick he could not see the shore. A limb of that tree yonder–you can see where it was broken off; see the scar?”
There was a long yellow mark high up on the tree trunk overhanging the pool where Polly had been fishing.
“That limb brushed father out of the boat just as she struck. The snag must have torn a big hole in the bottom of the Bright Eyes. Lightened by his going overboard, she shot away–somewhere–toward the middle of the lake, perhaps. He knows that he gave the wheel a twirl just as he went overboard and that must have driven the nose of the boat around.
“She shot away into the fog. He never saw or heard of her again. We paddled about for a week afterward–the bateau men and I–and we couldn’t find it. Poor father was abed, you see, for a long time and could not help.”
“All a story, I believe,” whispered Bess, to Mina.
“Oh, don’t!” begged the tender-hearted girl.
Perhaps Polly heard this aside. She plunged her oars into the water again and the skiff shot away. She only nodded when they sang out “Good-bye” to her.
The Happy Day carried the party quickly back to the cove under the hill on which Cave-in-the-Wood Camp had been established. The girls and boys landed and were met by Professor Skillings–who could be a very gallant man indeed, where ladies were concerned. He helped Mrs. Havel out of the motor boat, which Dave had brought alongside of a steep bank, where the water was deep, and which made a good landing place.
“My dear Mrs. Havel! I am charmed to see you again,” said the professor. “You are comfortably situated over there on the shore, I hope?”
“My girls are as successful in making me comfortable as are your boys in looking after you, I believe, Professor Skillings,” returned the lady, laughing.
“More so–I have no doubt! More so,” admitted the professor.
“Treason! treason!” shouted Dave Shepard.
“What’s the matter with you?” demanded Wyn, who had hopped ashore behind the chaperone.
“Professor Skillings is going back on us, boys,” declared Dave.
“Why, Professor!” cried Ferdinand. “Where would you find in all the five zones such a set of boys as we-uns?”
“Five zones? Correct, my boy,” declared the professor, seriously. “But name those five zones; will you, please?”
“Sure!” wheezed Tubby, before Ferd could reply. “Temperate, Intemperate, Canal, Torrid, and Ozone.”
“Goodness gracious, Agnes!” gasped Dave. “Can you beat Tubby when he lays himself out to be real erudite?” while the others–even the professor and Mrs. Havel–could not forbear to chuckle.
But Dave and Ferd got busy at once while the others laughed, and chaffed, and looked over the boys’ camping arrangements. Dave was cook and Ferd made and fed the fire. These boys had all the approved Scout tricks for making fire and preparing food–they could have qualified as first-class scouts.
Ferd started for an armful of wood he had cut down at the bottom of the steep bank and suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, he slipped, his feet pointed heavenward, and he skated down the bank upon the small of his back.
“My goodness me!” exclaimed Frank Cameron. “Did you see that?”
“Sure,” said Dave, amid the laughter of the crowd. “Poor Ferdy! the whole world is against him!”
“You bet it is,” growled Ferd, picking himself up slowly at the bottom of the bank. “And it’s an awful hard world at that.”
“Come on! Come on!” whined Tubby Blaisdell. “Aren’t you ever going to get supper? You’re wasting time.”
Dave was expertly cleaning fish. Wyn ran to his help, finding the flour, cracker-crumbs, and salt pork. The pan was already heating over the blaze that the unfortunate Ferdinand had started in the fireplace.
“If you’re so blamed hungry,” said Dumont to the wailing Tubby, “start on the raw flour. It’s filling, I’ll be bound.”
“Say! I don’t just want to get filled. I want to enjoy what I eat. I could be another Nebuchadnezzar and eat grass, if it was just filling I wanted.”
“Ha!” cried Dave. “Tubby is as particular as the Western lawyer–a perfectly literal man–who entered a restaurant where the waiter came to him and said:
“‘What’ll you ’ave, sir? I ’ave frogs’ legs, deviled kidneys, pigs’ feet, and calves’ brains.’
“‘You look it,’ declared the lawyer man. ‘But what is that to me? I have come here to eat–don’t tell me your misfortunes.’”
Amid much laughter and chaffing they finally sat down to the fish-fry–and if there is anything more toothsome than perch, fresh from the water, and fried crisply in a pan with salt pork over the hot coals of a campfire, “the deponent knoweth not,” as Frank Cameron put it.
Then Tubby got his banjo, Dumont his mandolin, Dave his ocarina, and they sang, and played, and told jokes, until a silver crescent moon rising over the lake warned them that the hour was growing late. The feminine visitors then boarded the Happy Day and under the escort of Dave and Ferdinand to work the boat, the girls and their chaperone made the run back to Green Knoll Camp, giving the cove where Polly Jarley had caught the perch a wide berth.
Dave insisted upon going ashore at Green Knoll and searching the camp “for possible burglars,” as he laughingly said.
“Do, do look under my bed, Dave!” squealed Frank, in mock distraction. “I’ve always expected to find a man under my bed.”
“But it was real nice of him, just the same,” admitted Mina Everett, when the Happy Day had chugged away. “I feel a whole lot better now that he has beaten up the camp.”
On the next morning Grace and Percy were not allowed to lag over the breakfast dishes till all hours.
“This shall be no lazy girls’ camp,” declared Mrs. Havel. “The quicker you all get your tasks done, the better. Then you can have games, and go fishing, and otherwise enjoy yourselves.”
The fish-fry they had enjoyed at Cave-in-the-Wood Camp the evening before had given them all an appetite for more, and as Polly Jarley appeared early, according to promise, Wyn began to bustle around and hunt out the fishing tackle.
There probably wasn’t a girl in the crowd who was afraid to put a worm on a hook, save Mina. She owned up to the fact that they made her “squirmy” and she hated to see live bait on a hook.
“But that’s what we have to use for lake fish–or river fish, either,” Wyn told her. “You’re not going to be much good to this fishing party.”
“I know it, Wynnie. And I sha’n’t go,” said the timid one. “Mrs. Havel is not going fishing, and I can stay with her.”
“You’ll have company,” snapped Bessie Lavine. “I’m sure I’m not going,” and she said it with such a significant look at Polly Jarley, who had come ashore, that the boatman’s daughter, as well as the other girls, could not fail to understand why she made the declaration.
“Why, Bess Lavine!” exclaimed Frankie, the outspoken.
Polly’s face had flushed deeply, then paled. Bess had avoided her before; but now she had come out openly with her animosity.
“Is your name Miss Lavine?” asked the boatman’s daughter, her voice quivering with emotion.
“What if it is?” snapped Bess.
“Then I guess I know why you speak to me so – ”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Miss! I don’t care to speak to you,” said Bess.
“Nor do I care to have anything to do with you,” said Polly, plucking up a little spirit herself under this provocation. “You are Henry Lavine’s daughter. I am not surprised at your speech and actions. He has done all he could to hurt my father’s reputation for years–and you seem to be just like him.”
“Hurt your father’s reputation–Bosh!” cried Bess. “You can’t spoil a – ”
But here Wyn Mallory came to the rescue.
“Stop, Bess! Don’t you pay any attention to what she says, Polly. If this quarrel goes on, Bess, I shall tell Mrs. Havel immediately. You come with us, Polly; if Bessie doesn’t wish to go fishing, she can remain at camp. Come, girls!”
Bess and Mina remained behind.
“I told you how ’twould be, Miss Wyn,” said Polly, her eyes bright and hard and the angry flush in her cheek making her handsomer than ever. “I shall only make trouble among your friends.”
“You don’t notice any of the rest of us running up the red flag; do you?” interposed Frank Cameron. “Bess’s crazy.”
“The Lavines have been our worst enemies–worse than Dr. Shelton,” said Polly, with half a sob. “Mr. Lavine is up here at the lake in the spring and fall, usually, and he will always talk to anybody who will listen about his old trouble with father. And he is an influential man.”
“Don’t you cry a tear about it!” exclaimed Frank, wiping her own eyes angrily.
Wyn had put a comforting arm over the shoulder of the boatman’s daughter. “We’ll just forget it, my dear,” she said, gently.
But it was not so easy to forget–not so easy for Polly, at least, although the other girls treated her as nicely as they could. Her face remained sad, and she could not respond to their quips and sallies as the fleet of four canoes and Polly’s skiff got under weigh.
Polly pulled strongly along the shore in her light craft; but of course the canoes could have left her far behind had the girls so wished. Their guide warned them finally against loud talking and splashing, and soon they came to a quiet cove where the trees stood thickly along the lake shore, and the water was not much ruffled by the morning breeze.
Polly had brought the right kind of bait for perch, and most of the girls of the Go-Ahead Club had no difficulty in arranging their rods and lines and casting for the hungry fish. Perch, “shiners,” roaches, and an occasional “bullhead” began to come into the canoes. These latter scared some of the girls; but they were better eating than any of the other fish and both Wyn and Frank, as well as Polly, knew how to take them off the hook without getting “horned.”
Polly did not remain with them more than an hour. She was sure the girls would get all the fish they would want right at this spot, and so, excusing herself, she rowed back to the landing.
“It’s a shame!” exclaimed Frank, the minute she was out of hearing. “I don’t see what possesses Bess to be so mean.”
“I am sorry,” rejoined Wyn. “Polly will not come to the camp again–I can see that.”
“A shame!” cried Percy. “And she seems such a nice girl.”
“Bessie ought to be strapped!” declared Frank.
“I am sure Polly seems just as good as we are,” Grace remarked. “I don’t see why Bess has to make herself so objectionable.”
“She should be punished for it,” declared Percy.
“Turn the tables on her,” suggested Frank. “If she will not have anything to do with Polly, let’s give her the cold shoulder.”
“No,” said Wyn, firmly. “That would be adding fuel to the flames–and would be unfair to Bess.”
“Well, Bess is unfair to your Polly Jolly,” said Frankie.
“Two wrongs never yet made a right,” said the captain of the Go-Ahead Club.
“Well!”
“Bessie is a member of our club. She has greater rights at Green Knoll Camp than Polly. It is true Polly will not come again, unless Bessie is more friendly. The thing, then is to convince Bess that she is wrong.”
“Well!” exclaimed Frank again. “I’d like to see you do it.”
“I hope you will see me,” returned Wyn, placidly. “Or, at least, I hope you will see Bessie’s mind changed, whether by my efforts, or not. Oh, dear! it’s so much easier to get along pleasantly in this world if folks only thought so. Query: Why is a grouch?”
Percy suddenly uttered a yell and almost plunged out of her canoe. She had whipped in her line and there was a small eel on the hook.
It is really wonderful what an excited eel can do in a canoe with a girl as his partner in crime! Mr. Eel tangled up Percy’s line in the first place until it seemed as though somebody must have been playing cat’s cradle with it.
Percy shrieked and finally bethought her to throw the whole thing overboard–tangled line, rod, and Mr. Eel. In his native element, the slippery chap in some mysterious way got off the hook; but the linen line was a mess, and that stopped the fishing for that morning.
They had a nice string, however, and when the odor of the frying fish on the outdoor fire began to spread about Green Knoll Camp, Frank declared:
“The angels flying overhead must stop to sniff–that smell is so heavenly!”
“Nonsense, child!” returned Grace. “That thing you see ’way up there isn’t an angel. It’s a fish-hawk.”
There were letters to take to the Forge that afternoon, and the girls all expected mail, too. But after the fishing bout, and the heavy dinner they ate, not many of the Go-Aheads cared to paddle to town.
“The duty devolves on your captain,” announced Wyn, good-naturedly. “Of course, if anybody else wants to go along – ”
“Don’t all speak at once,” yawned Frank, and rolled over in the shade of the beech.
“It’s a shame! I’ll go with you,” said Bessie Lavine, getting up with alacrity.
“All right, Bess,” said Wyn, cheerfully. “I am glad to have you go.”
The other girls had been a little distant to Bess since their return from the fishing trip; but not Wyn. She had given no sign that she was annoyed by Bessie’s demeanor towards Polly Jarley.
Nor did she “preach” while she and Bess paddled to the Forge. That was not Wynifred Mallory’s way. She knew that, in this case, taking Bess to task for her treatment of Polly would do only harm.
Bess had probably offered to come with Wyn for the special purpose of finding opportunity to argue the case with the captain of the club. But Wyn gave her no opening.
The girls got to the Forge, did their errands, and started back in the canoes. Not until they got well out into the lake did they notice that there were angry clouds in the northwest. And very soon the sun became overcast, while the wind whipped down upon them sharply.
“Oh, dear, me!” cried Bess. “Had we better turn back, Wyn?”
“We’re about as far from the Forge as we are from Green Knoll Camp,” declared the other girl.
“Then let’s run ashore – ”
But they had struck right out into the lake from the landing, and it was a long way to land–even to the nearest point. While they were discussing the advisability of changing their course, there came a lull in the wind.
“Maybe we’ll get home all right!” cried Bess, and the two bent to their paddles again, driving the canoes toward distant Green Knoll.
And almost at once–her words had scarcely passed–the wind whipped down upon them from a different direction. The surface of the lake was agitated angrily, and in a minute the two girls were in the midst of a whirlpool of jumping waves.
In ordinary water the canoes were safe enough. But when Bess tried to paddle, a wave caught the blade and whirled the canoe around. She was up-set before she could scream.
And in striving to drive her own craft to her friend’s assistance, Wyn Mallory was caught likewise in a flaw, and she, too, plunged into the lake, while both canoes floated bottom upward.
