Kitabı oku: «The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna: or, The Crew That Won», sayfa 4

CHAPTER IX
ONE IS A HEROINE

When the girls invited to Evangeline Sitz's "party" hurried out of Central High on Monday afternoon, they found, as Laura Belding had promised, her father's automobile, as well as one of Mr. Purcell's big, three-seated "lumber barges," as the boys called Centerport's sight-seeing autos. There were three seats behind the driver's, each wide enough for four persons.

Laura and Chet (the latter of whom drove the Belding machine) had their own close friends in the smaller auto, and it was well filled. Mr. Purcell stood by the chauffeur of the big car as the Lockwood twins whisked into the front seat, completely filling it. Dora and Dorothy always preferred to keep together, and nobody could get between them here.

The girls heard the automobile owner ask the driver:

"How do you feel now, Bennie? All right?"

"Pretty good, Boss," said the man, who, the twins noticed, was pale.

"Sure you can make it all right? If you feel bad, say so, and I'll take your place."

"I'll be all right, Boss, once we get moving," said the chauffeur.

"Oh, look who's here!" whispered Dorothy, suddenly, to her sister, pinching her arm to attract her attention.

"It's Pretty!" gasped Dora. "Isn't he a vision of loveliness?"

The dandy of the school came mincing along the sidewalk with the evident intention of joining the auto party. He had been excused from classes early to go home and "rig up" for the occasion; and he certainly was – as Lance Darby said from the head automobile – "a sight for gods and men!"

Prettyman Sweet wore a white flannel coat and trousers, with a very fine line of blue running through the goods lengthwise. He wore a canvas hat and canvas shoes, cut low to show open-work crimson silk socks – oh, they were dreams of the hosier's art! He wore a flowing crimson tie, too, and around his waist, instead of an ordinary belt, he wore a new-fangled, knitted, crimson sash-belt, the like of which none of the boys of Central High had ever beheld before.

"Oh, Purt! where did you get it?" cried Lance Darby.

"You're fixed up to flag a freight, with all that red on you," said Chet.

"And where did you get that gorgeous sash, Mr. Sweet?" demanded "Bobby" Hargrew, who was a tease by nature, and had the sharpest tongue of any girl at Central High.

"Oh, now, Miss Clara," said Purt Sweet, carefully climbing into the seat directly behind the twins. "This is the very latest thing – weally! I sent clear to New York for it. You see, it's not so stiff and hard looking as a leather belt. This – er – lends a softness to the whole costume that is – er – quite unobtainable with a belt."

"Oh, gee!" gasped Bobby. "It's soft enough, all right, all right!" and the rest laughed as they piled into the machine.

Purt sat with his back to the twins, and was explaining to the girl beside him that he did not mind riding backward at all. Bobby was still on the ground, and as Dora and Dorothy looked down at her they saw the mischievous one suddenly reach up her thumb and finger and pick at a little frayed place upon the edge of Purt's beautiful sash.

The thing was knitted loosely of some kind of mercerized cotton, and when Bobby seized the end of a broken strand the sash began to unravel with marvelous rapidity. She grinned up at the twins delightedly, and continued to pull on the thread.

"All aboard, young folks!" cried Mr. Purcell. "You ready forward, there, Mr. Chetwood?"

"All right," returned Chet, tripping his self-starter.

Mr. Purcell stooped to crank up his big machine. Bobby, her eyes dancing, also stooped beside the front wheel for a moment, and then whisked into her seat, facing Purt Sweet. But the twins saw what she had done. She had fastened the end of the crimson thread to the head of a bolt upon the wheelbox.

"All right, Bennie!" said Mr. Purcell, stepping back and waving his hand. The big machine began to tremble and shake, and then they pulled out behind the Belding car. There was a lot of noise, and laughter, and fun; but nobody seemed so hilarious as Clara Hargrew and the Lockwood twins.

"Can't you keep your eyes off Purt, Bobby?" demanded the girl sitting next to the Sweet boy. "What's the matter with him?"

"No – nothing!" chortled Bobby, stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth.

But she was watching that red thread shooting down to the wheel and winding around and around the box, faster and faster as the big machine got under way. By the time the auto turned into Market Street a great ball of the red worsted, or whatever it was, had formed on the inside of the wheel, and the perfectly unconscious Prettyman Sweet was fast losing his beautiful crimson sash.

The knitted part of the sash overlaid a belt of canvas which really did the service of holding up the exquisite's trousers. But fast, fast indeed, the red thread was running out.

Others saw the unraveling yarn, and joined Bobby and the twins in hilarious laughter. Then a man walking on the sidewalk espied the growing ball of thread on the wheel and followed the strand to its source. His happy chortles attracted the attention of other pedestrians, and soon the big automobile was being accompanied by a chorus of shouts from small boys in the streets, and laughter from an ever-increasing number of bystanders.

"What do you suppose is the matter with all these people?" demanded the unconscious Purt. "I never did see the like. Weally! It's too widiculous."

"That's what it is!" laughed Bobby.

"Why!" exclaimed Purt, "they weally seem to see something about us to laugh at! What can it be?"

"Must be you, Purt," said one of the boys.

"Widiculous! There is nothing about me to laugh at, dear boy."

"Huh!" grunted his schoolmate. "You're one big laugh all the time, Pretty, only you don't know it!"

The way to the farm where the young people were bound was out Market Street to the east, and then through the winding road which bisected Robinson's Woods and up into the hills. Mr. Sitz was a Swiss, and had been used to hilly farms in his youth; therefore the "up hill and down dale" nature of his farming land near Centerport did not trouble him in the least. He and Otto, his son, and the hands he hired, made good crops upon the hilly farm, and the Sitzes were becoming well to do.

In the front auto Laura was speaking about Eve Sitz.

"She's such a big, muscular girl. If she comes to Central High next fall, as I want her to, she'll help us greatly in athletics. You see, she'll enter as a junior, and be in our classes. And she can pull an oar already – and what a fine guard she'd make at basketball! She's a lot lighter on her feet than Hester Grimes, or Mary O'Rourke, in spite of the fact that she's so big."

"Bully!" exclaimed Jess. "She can cut out Hessie, then."

Suddenly Lance, who looked back, raised a shout of surprise and terror.

"Look at that! What's happened to the other car! Stop, Chet!"

The young folks in the Belding car sprang up and looked back. They were just in time to see the man who drove the sight-seeing car fall sidewise from his seat, and slip down until half of his body lay upon the step. He had dropped the wheel and the heavy car was running wild.

The two cars were out of the city now, and running upon a lonely bit of road. The Belding car was, indeed, half way down the long slope, which the heavier one had just begun to descend. The big auto began to wabble from side to side, and those ahead saw one of the Lockwood twins seize the man who had fallen and drag him back into the car. But, meanwhile, the car itself was running away.

Faster and faster it rolled down the hill, and its course was so erratic that those in the first car almost held their breath. The expectation was that the big car would collide with a telegraph pole beside the road, or go into the ditch on the other side.

"Stop, Chet!" yelled Lance again.

But if Chet Belding stopped his car, he knew that the other might run them down. He dared not run that risk.

"Grab the wheel! Shut off the power! Brake her!" yelled Lance, wildly waving his arms at the crowd behind. "Some of you fellows do something!"

But the boy nearest to the steering gear of the big machine was Purt Sweet – and Purt scarcely knew enough about an automobile to keep from being run over by one!

"Oh!" cried Laura, "they will be hurt! There! it's going to smash into that tree – "

But suddenly they saw one of the twins dive into the chauffeur's seat. She seized the wheel and guided the big machine into the straight road again. Then she manipulated the levers and quickly brought the shuddering car to a stop. The driver still lay motionless.

"Oh, oh!" cried Jess, hopping out of the Belding car when Chet stopped it, and running back. "She stopped it! You're a real heroine – Dorothy – Dora – whichever one you are."

But the Lockwood twins looked at each other quickly and that understanding glance made the girl who had played the heroine say:

"It doesn't matter which one of us did it, Jess. We'll divide the heroic act between us. But let's see what's the matter with this poor man; he's fainted, I believe."

CHAPTER X
BAKED IN A BISCUIT

There wasn't a house in sight; but not far beyond was the inn at Robinson's Woods, the picnic grounds, and Lance took the management of the big car while the unconscious chauffeur was rushed ahead by Chet in the Belding car. The man was put to bed at the inn and a physician sent for; but Lance agreed to drive the big car himself on to the Sitz place.

When the larger car reached the inn, however, another discovery was made. Even while the auto had followed its erratic course, untended, part way down the hill, Purt Sweet had sat tight and merely squealed. He had not offered to leave his seat.

But now, by the merest chance, he happened to look down at his waist. The greater part of that beautiful crimson sash had disappeared!

"Wha – wha – what's the matter with me?" gasped Purt. "I – I've lost it! Who's taken it?"

He bobbed up suddenly and broke the strand that had been, all this time, winding around and around the wheelbox until there was now a big roll of it.

"What's the matter with you, Purt?" demanded one of the boys, bursting with laughter.

"Why – why – somebody's stolen my sash!" wailed the youth. "Did you see it? Isn't that a mean trick, now?"

The shout that went up from the girls and boys who had been watching the unraveling process brought the crowd from the first automobile back, too. Poor Purt looked ruefully at his lost sash, wound around the wheel, and bemoaned his bad fortune most feelingly. But Lance cut off the ball of red worsted and threw it in the gutter.

"I really wish you wouldn't be so careless, Purt," he said, as though the victim were at fault. "Mussing up the whole machine with your fancy fixin's. Don't you do that any more."

"But, my dear boy, I had no idea of doing it – weally!" exclaimed the unfortunate Purt. "I don't for the life of me see how that could have become attached to that wheel."

And as nobody explained the mystery to him, he was in low spirits all the rest of the way to the farmhouse.

But the preparations at the Sitz farm were likely to raise the spirits of any boy or girl. In the first place the farmhouse was a very pleasant old house indeed, and its big grassy yard, with shade trees and vines, was a delightful spot for an open-air party. Under the grape arbors, now in full leaf, long tables had been spread, and as soon as the automobiles arrived Eve called the girls to the back porch to help hull berries already picked, while Otto, her rather slow-witted brother, took the boys down to the strawberry patch to help pick more of the fruit.

Purt, who was greedy as could be, "picked into his mouth" until Chet and the other boys warned him that he'd be so full he would not be able to do justice to the berries and cream that would come later.

The big kitchen of the farmhouse was a scene of great activity, too. Mother Sitz, who could scarcely speak a word of English, was happy in having the girls about, however; and she had made and frosted and decorated innumerable little cakes such as she had been used to in the old country. Eve put on a big apron and lent Laura one, and the two set about making the biscuit and the old-fashioned dough for the short-cakes.

Laura Belding was fond of Eve for the country girl's own sake; but loyalty to Central High and Laura's deep interest in school athletics caused her to cultivate the girl, too. There was a very good district school which Eve had attended, in which the teacher had brought her older scholars along to a point that enabled them to take the examinations for the Junior grade of the city schools. These examinations were to be held in Centerport within a fortnight, and Laura wished Eve to come to Central High in the Fall, instead of to the Keyport High, which was somewhat nearer to the Sitz place.

"You'll have to take train to Keyport, anyway, Eve," urged her friend, while they were busy making the biscuits. "There is a better train stops at your station, bound for Centerport; and you can get out at the Hill Station and then it is only a five-minute walk to our school."

"I know, Laura," said the big girl. "But do you suppose I can pass?"

"Why not?"

"They say that Mr. Sharp is dreadfully sharp on Latin, and that's my weak point."

"Why, you can cram on Latin in a fortnight. I'll tell you a book to get that will help – and it costs but fifty cents. You can begin right away on it – "

"But I haven't got the book yet."

"You've got the fifty cents, haven't you?" returned her friend.

"Yes."

"Then – what time does your rural delivery man go by the end of the road?"

Eve glanced at the big clock solemnly ticking on the wall.

"In about three-quarters of an hour."

"Run and write your letter to the Keyport bookseller. One of the boys will run out and give the letter to the mail carrier."

"But a fifty cent piece won't be safe in a letter," said Eve, doubtfully.

"We – ell – "

"And I haven't time to run out there and stop Mr. Cheever, and make out a money order – for fifty cents, too!" exclaimed Eve.

"Humph!" ejaculated Laura. "There's fifty ways of sending fifty cents – "

"Sure," laughed Eve. "A penny at a time!"

"No. I'm not joking. Write your letter. Give me the fifty cents. I'll find a safe way. Give me the half dollar now. I'll put the biscuits in the pans. Is the oven hot?"

"Pretty near."

"I'll try it – with one biscuit, anyway," chuckled Laura, seizing the half dollar her friend gave out of her purse.

In ten minutes Eve came dancing back from her room with the letter written.

"How you going to send the money, Laura?" she demanded. "Here's the letter – all ready."

"And the money will be ready in a minute or two. That oven's good and hot," said Laura.

"What do you mean?" gasped Eve. "You're not baking the half dollar?"

"Yes, ma'am," laughed Laura. "That's what I'm doing."

She dropped the range door and showed a small pan with one lonesome little biscuit in it.

"It's baking fine, too. I want it to be a hard, crusty one – "

"And you've baked the half dollar in the biscuit!" screamed Eve.

"That's what I've done. You just add a line to your letter to that effect. Then we'll put the letter and biscuit in that little box, tie it up, address it, and Lance Darby will run out to the road and mail it for you. Be quick now," concluded Laura, whisking the pan out of the oven, "for the half-dollar biscuit is done!'"

"What an original girl you are, Laura," said Eve, doing as she was bid. "Who'd have thought of that way to send coin in the mail?"

"Your Aunt Laura thought of it," laughed her friend. "For we want nothing to stand in your way of passing that examination, Eve. We need you at Central High."

CHAPTER XI
THE BOAT IS FOUND

And that supper! It was something to be membered by the crowd from town. Such thick, luscious yellow cream that Mother Sitz lifted from the pans of milk in the cement block "milk-house" most of the town-bred folk had never seen before. The biscuits and "short-cake" came out of the oven with just the right brown to them. The big berries were heaped upon the wedges of buttered short-cake, and then cream poured over the berries, with plenty of sugar.

"Yum! Yum!" mumbled Lance Darby, with a huge mouthful obstructing his parts of speech. "Isn't this the Jim-dandiest lay-out you ever saw, Chet?"

"I never sat down to a better one," admitted his chum. "But please don't talk to me. Purt is getting more of the berries than I am – and he isn't talking at all. Just pass the sugar, Lance, and then shut up for a while."

But there was enough serious talk during the supper to arrange a return treat for Eve and Otto Sitz. The farmer boy and his sister had seldom been on Lake Luna and Laura and her brother suggested a trip by boat and canoe to Cavern Island for the following Saturday.

"And no picnic luncheon at the park. That's too common," declared Jess Morse, eagerly. "Let's do something different."

"Trot out your 'different' suggestion, Josephine," said her chum.

"Let's go to the caves. Let's picnic there."

"Oh!" cried one of the Lockwood twins. "That's where we saw the 'lone pirate.'"

"The lone what?" rejoined Nellie Agnew. "What do you mean by that?"

The other twin explained how and when they had seen the bushy-headed, wild-looking man at the foot of Boulder Head.

"There's where the caverns open onto the shore, exactly," remarked Chet Belding. "Are you afraid of meeting the pirate, girls?"

"We'll capture him and make him walk the plank!" declared Bobby Hargrew. "Hurrah for the pirate!"

So the trip to Cavern Island for the next Saturday was arranged, Eve and Otto promising to join the party at Centerport. And the run home by automobile in the moonlight was enlivened by plans for the coming good time on the Lake.

Lance ran the sight-seeing automobile carefully and delivered it to Mr. Purcell, the owner, in good season. The man who should have driven it, but who was taken ill, had been removed to the hospital from the inn in the woods.

"I understand one of those girls played the heroine and stopped the car," said the automobile owner.

"Yes, sir," replied Lance. "That was one of the Lockwood twins."

"Which one was it? I'd like to thank her, at least," said Mr. Purcell.

"Couldn't tell you," laughed Lance.

"Why couldn't you? Sworn to secrecy, young man?" demanded Mr. Purcell.

"No, sir. But the twins themselves seem to be. Nobody knows them apart, and they won't tell on each other. One of them is the heroine, but which one nobody knows," and Lance Darby went off laughing.

Meanwhile the twins themselves walked briskly home from the schoolhouse where the party of young folk had separated. On the way they met a girl a little older than themselves, hurrying in the opposite direction.

"Here's Billy Long's sister, Alice," whispered Dora to Dorothy.

"Oh, dear me!" replied Dorothy. "I suppose she has had to work late at the paper box factory. And how she must feel – "

Her twin seized the factory girl's arm as she was hurrying past with just a little nod to the Lockwood twins.

"Alice Long!" ejaculated Dora. "You're crying. What's the matter?"

"Oh, girls! you know about Billy, don't you?" cried Short and Long's sister.

"They haven't caught him?" cried Dorothy.

"No, no! I almost wish they would," sobbed Alice Long. "We don't know where he is. I've just been down to Mr. Norman's to see if the boat has been found."

"And it hasn't?" demanded one of the twins.

"No. It was an old boat that Mr. Norman thought he was going fishing in, same as usual. Billy often brings home a mess of fish, or sells them. You know, he has always been a helpful boy."

"We want to tell you, Alice dear," said Dorothy with a glance at her sister, "that we don't believe a word of what they say about Billy."

"Thank you, Miss," said Alice, eagerly. "I was sure his schoolmates would stand by him. But he was very foolish to run away – if he has run away."

"Otherwise, what has happened to him?"

"That is what is worrying father and me. The boat was old. Something might have happened. He might be drowned," sobbed the sister.

"Oh, no, Alice! Billy was a good swimmer."

"I know that. But often good swimmers are taken with cramps. And if the boat overturned, or sank, out in the middle of Lake Luna – "

"That's too dreadful a thing to think of!" cried Dora. "I believe he ran away because he was afraid of being arrested. Everybody was talking about his having a hand in that robbery."

"Well, he never did it. I could testify that he wasn't out of his bed Tuesday night when the robbery took place. I told the policemen so. But, of course, Billy could have gone out of the window and down the shed roof – and got back again, too – without our knowing it. He has more than once, I suppose," admitted the troubled sister.

"You see, on Wednesday Stresch & Potter sent their store detective to see Billy, and he bulldozed him and threatened him. I expect the boy was badly frightened, although the man was only a cheap bully. So we don't know what to think – whether Billy has deliberately run away, or that some accident happened to him on the lake."

"Chet and Lance Darby were looking for him Saturday over at Cavern Island," said a twin. "But they met with an accident. We're all going over to the island again this coming Saturday, and we'll search the east end for him."

"How would he live over there?" gasped his sister.

"Oh, there are berries this time of year. And of course, he could fish," said Dora eagerly.

"There's a man hiding there, anyway," added Dorothy, but then remembered that the information might add to Alice's fright, so said no more.

"We'll do everything we can to find Short and Long," Dora assured the boy's sister. "And we are telling everybody that we don't believe Billy would do such a thing as they say. As though there wasn't any other boy in Centerport who could have crawled through that window at Stresch & Potter's."

The twins parted from Alice Long, and ran home. They slipped to bed without encountering Aunt Dora and counted that day well spent because the old lady had not yet caught them so that she could identify Dora.

But on Tuesday Aunt Dora appeared at Central High and met Miss Grace G. Carrington – otherwise "Gee Gee."

"I wish to hear my nieces recite," she said, with sharply twinkling eyes behind her glasses.

"It doesn't matter what class – any class will do."

Miss Carrington politely asked the prim old lady to sit beside her on the platform, and Aunt Dora listened to the recitation then in progress. Both Dora and Dorothy took part; but for the life of her the near-sighted lady could not tell when Dora spoke, and when Dorothy answered!

"I suppose you know them apart?" she ventured, to Miss Carrington.

"Oh, no; but I believe they usually answer to their names. They stand about alike in their classes and we have put them on their honor not to answer for each other. They are good girls and give me little trouble," added Gee Gee, which was a concession from her.

"So if you called one of them to the desk you could not be sure that the one you called really came?" asked Aunt Dora.

"Not as far as physical appearances go," said Gee Gee, shaking her head.

So Aunt Dora was thwarted again and went back to the cottage to invent some other method of tripping the twins. It had become a game, now, that both sides were determined to win; and Mr. Lockwood and Mrs. Betsey stood by and watched the play with amusement.

A veritable fleet of canoes, pair-oared and four-oared boats gathered at Central High boat house, just before noon the next Saturday. It was a bright and calm day and the lake looked most inviting.

The girls were in fine fettle, particularly. The subscription paper to raise the sum necessary for the purchase of a new eight-oared shell had gone about town briskly that week and Laura reported that already more than half of the sum necessary had been promised. She had written to the builders of such shells and they had replied that there was one in stock that they would be glad to send the girls of Central High, on approval, if the physical instructor agreed.

"And Mrs. Case is writing to them to-day," concluded Laura. "They will send on the new boat and we can pay for it after the money is all in. And, oh, girls! We'll win that race from the Keyport and other crews, if such a thing is possible. After to-day the crew will be in training. We must try out the boat, and work in her just as soon as she arrives, and every other afternoon thereafter. So, you members of the crew make your preparations accordingly."

"And for goodness sake, Bobby," urged Nellie Agnew, to the little "cox" of the crew, "don't you go to cutting capers in school so that Gee Gee can condition you. She's just waiting for a chance to fix it so you cannot steer for us."

"Aw, pshaw!" said Clara Hargrew. "I don't do anything."

"No; but Gee Gee does something to you," declared Jess Morse, laughing.

"See that you don't give her a chance to stop your after-hour athletics again, Bobby," begged Laura.

"All right; I'll be good," said Bobby, grinning.

"But after school – well, when long vacation comes this time I think I'll have to set the old school house afire to celebrate!"

"No. You had trouble over fires before," advised Dorothy Lockwood.

"That's so," agreed Dora.

"Don't mention fire again!" exclaimed Jess. "That's why we lost the race before – because you could not steer for us, Bobby."

Laura and Lance Darby took Eve and Otto Sitz with them in Lance's nice boat. There were two pairs of sculls and Otto managed to row very well in the bow. Of course Chet took Jess in his boat, and the remainder paired off as fancy beckoned. But the twins paddled their cedar canoe.

And few of the fleet of small craft were propelled to the island in better shape than Dora's and Dorothy's canoe. The others cheered the pretty girls as they forced their craft through the rippling water. The management of a canoe – especially a double canoe – is not so easy as it appears. But the Lockwood twins had taken to that form of aquatic sports very kindly, and there really were few canoe crews in Centerport who handled their craft as well.

The fleet of boats crossed the lake in a short time and, headed by the twins' canoe, reached the eastern end of the island. They swept into the cove where the girls had seen, the previous Saturday, the rough-looking, bewhiskered man upon the shore. Right here under the Boulder Head was the mouth of the cavern from which the island obtained its name.

As the twins swept their canoe on with easy strokes, Dora suddenly uttered a cry of excitement.

"See there, Dory!" she said.

"See where?" demanded her sister, craning her neck to see over Dora's shoulder.

"There! Down in the water! The sunken boat!"

The water in the cove was very clear, but it had considerable depth. The canoe was brought sharply up by the two girls and both peered down.

Below them could plainly be seen a sunken rowboat. It did not appear to be damaged in any way, but had simply filled and sunk.

"What have you found, girls?" demanded Lance Darby, whose boat was nearest to the twins' canoe at the moment. "Is there some deep sea monster down there?"

"Come and look, Lance," cried Dora.

The moment the young Darby saw the submerged craft he exclaimed:

"Here it is, by gracious!"

"Here is what?" demanded Laura.

"The boat. Hey, Chet! we've found it!" he called to his chum, who quickly turned his own boat's prow in their direction.

"What you found?" demanded Laura's brother, coming nearer.

"Here's Mr. Norman's boat that he lent Short and Long," declared Lance, eagerly. "It was just as you said, Chet. Billy came over here to the island."

"Oh, my!" cried Jess. "And if that is so, perhaps he is still here."

"We must find him," said one of the twins, earnestly. "His sister Alice is just about worried to death about him; and the longer he remains in hiding, the worse it will be for him, anyway."