Kitabı oku: «The Campfire Girls on Station Island: or, The Wireless from the Steam Yacht», sayfa 3
CHAPTER VI – CHANGED PLANS
“How ridiculous!” Jessie cried. “That surely cannot mean you, Bertha.”
“Hush!” begged Amy. “It’s uncanny.”
Again the slow voice enunciated: “Bertha Blair will come home at once. This is serious – a serious call for Bertha Blair.”
“Criminy!” shouted Monty Shannon. “I know who that is. It’s Mr. Mark Stratford.”
“He is calling for you, Bertha,” said Jessie. “Can it be possible?”
“Something has happened!” gasped Bertha, starting for the door of the cottage. “Where is that child?”
“Never mind Henrietta. We will take care of her,” Jessie called after the worried girl, wishing to relieve her anxiety.
Bertha ran out of the house, and the next moment the Roselawn girls heard the car start. Bertha was being whisked away to Stratfordtown. The voice of Mark Stratford continued to repeat the call several times. Then he read the weather report, as expected.
“I can tell you one thing,” Jessie said eagerly to her chum and the Shannons. “Mark Stratford does not usually give out the announcements from that station. Now, does he, Monty?”
“No, ma’am, Miss Jessie. Only once in a while.”
“Then something has happened at the Blair house, or to Mr. Blair himself. That is why they send out this call, hoping that somebody down here would get it and tell Bertha.”
“Think! How funny it must feel to hear your name called out of the air in that way,” Amy remarked.
“Why, we had that experience ourselves,” Jessie said. “Don’t you remember? Mark thanked us publicly for finding his watch.”
“But that was not just like this,” replied Amy. “Anyway, there is something unsatisfactory about radio – and always will be – until we can ‘talk back’ as well as receive. See! If Monty had a sending set as well as a receiving, he could have answered Mark Stratford, and told him Bertha had heard the call and was starting home without any delay.”
“I am afraid something really serious has happened,” Jessie said. “Let’s go back home and call up Stratfordtown on the telephone.”
“We’ll take Hen along with us,” agreed Amy. “You said we’d take care of her.”
This the Roselawn girls did. When they set out from Dogtown in their canoe, Henrietta sat amidships. She was delighted to visit the Norwoods. She had stayed over night with Jessie before.
They passed the flotilla of tubs and barrels that the Dogtown children had set afloat. Mrs. Shannon would never see her washtubs again. Meanwhile the Costello twins and Charlie Foley had set out to walk around the lake and recover the big canoe from the place where it had drifted ashore on the other side.
“They certainly are the worst young ones,” commented Amy Drew. “Always in mischief of some kind.”
“There ain’t much else to get into at Dogtown,” said little Henrietta soberly. “We don’t have any boy scouts or girl scouts or anything like that. They have them at Stratfordtown. Mrs. Blair told me about ’em. I guess I’ll join the girl scouts and take ’em all out on my island.”
Little Henrietta was still intensely excited about “her island.” What the Roselawn girls heard over the telephone when they got home again was not encouraging. It seemed at first that Henrietta must be disappointed.
Jessie ran in to the telephone as soon as they arrived. She did not know the number of Mr. Blair’s private telephone – if he had one. But she knew how to get in touch with Mark Stratford whether he was at his home or at the offices of the Stratford Electric Company. She was able to speak with the young man almost at once, and questioned him excitedly.
“Yes. I know that Bertha has got home. I took a chance to reach her at Dogtown when I heard where she had gone,” Mark Stratford said. “You know Monty Shannon is a protégé of mine, and I have an idea he is listening in most of the time at that set he has built.”
“But what is the matter? Has Mr. Blair been hurt?”
“It is Mrs. Blair. She fell downstairs and has hurt herself severely. Did it not ten minutes after Bertha went out. Broke her leg. She will be in bed for weeks. I understand that they were planning to go away for the summer,” said Mark, sympathetically. “But that cannot be now. At least, I suppose Bertha will have to remain to take care of her aunt.”
“Sh! Don’t tell little Hen,” begged Amy Drew, when she heard this. “The child will be heartbroken. Without Bertha and Mrs. Blair Hennie can’t go to her island.”
Jessie made no audible reply to this. And she certainly had no intention of telling Henrietta the very worst. She discussed the situation with Momsy, and before Daddy Norwood returned from town that afternoon mother and daughter had just about perfected a very nice plan for little Henrietta.
“Well, you are to go to Hackle Island, Momsy,” Mr. Norwood said, when he first came in. “I have signed the agreement. You can send the people down to make the house ready to-morrow, if you like. I understand there will not be much to do about the place. We can all go by the end of the week.”
“You take my breath away – as usual,” laughed Jessie’s mother. “You are always so prompt, Robert.”
“And you will have a house full of company, I suppose?” he rejoined, but looking at Jessie with a smile.
“We are going to have one guest you didn’t expect, Daddy,” rejoined his daughter. She told him swiftly of what had happened at the Blair home in Stratfordtown. “So that spoils it all for little Henrietta, you see, Daddy, if we don’t take her. And you know she is crazy to see what she calls her island.”
“Sure that she won’t make you and Momsy crazy, Jess?” he asked, his eyes twinkling. “That child is as lively as an eel and as noisy as a steam-roller.”
“How can you say such things, Daddy?” cried Jessie, shaking a reproving head. “We have agreed to take her if you and the Blairs are willing. And Momsy and I will try to teach her the things she’ll need to know.”
“M-mm. Well, perhaps you will have success. You have done pretty well with me,” laughed Mr. Norwood, who made believe that his wife and daughter had “brought him up by hand.” “Being guided in any way will be a novel experience for little Hen, that is sure.”
He agreed so well with his wife’s and Jessie’s plans, however, that he called Mr. Blair up that evening and proposed to keep little Henrietta and take her to Hackle, or Station, Island, while Mrs. Blair was confined to her house. As Jessie’s father, along with Mr. Drew, had taken legal charge of Henrietta’s affairs for the time being, it was right that the orphan child should be in Mrs. Norwood’s care.
“There is an almost certain chance the child is going to be very wealthy,” Mr. Norwood said seriously, to Jessie’s mother. “Her education and improvement cannot begin too soon. She is as wild as a hawk and she needs encouragement and government both.”
Henrietta took quite as a matter of course every change that came to her. She had no particular affection for Mrs. Blair, for she had not known her long enough. She was delighted to go to “her island” with Jessie and her parents. As long as she got there and could survey her domain, little Henrietta was bound to be satisfied. But Jessie knew she would have to restrain the child in her desire to invite everybody she knew and liked to come to the island while she was there.
The Norwood family had not even discussed how they were to travel to the island – by what route – when Amy Drew bounded in. Jessie and Henrietta were upstairs in Jessie’s room listening to the bedtime story. A little girl not much older than Henrietta was telling the story, and Henrietta thought that was quite wonderful.
“I know that Bertha and you other big girls sing into the radio,” the freckle-faced child said, when it was over. “Do you suppose Mr. Blair would let me recite into it like that?”
“What would you say?” asked Amy, laughing as her chum and the smaller girl removed their earphones.
“Why – why,” said Henrietta eagerly, “I would tell stories, too. Spotted Snake, the Witch, used to tell stories to Billy Foley and the other Dogtown kids to keep them quiet. And they liked ’em.”
“We’ll see about that when we come back from your island, Henrietta,” said Jessie, smiling.
“And listen!” exclaimed Amy. “You remember I said I had a great idea about our going to Hackle Island. I didn’t finish telling you, Jess.”
“That is right,” her chum rejoined. “And no wonder, when we spied that crew of crazy ones venturing to sea in tubs!” and Jessie laughed.
“Listen here,” Amy said more seriously. “The boys have come home. I told you they were due. The Marigold is all right now. Her engines and everything are working fine. So, why don’t we take this opportunity to see what she is like. Darry has promised us long enough.”
“Oh, but we are going to Hackle Island!” cried Jessie.
“Station Island,” put in Henrietta. “My island.”
“Of course. That is what I mean,” Amy hastened to say. “Instead of taking the train and then the regular boat, why not get the boys to take us all the way from the yacht club moorings to Station Island, or whatever it is called?”
“Why, Amy, that would be fine!” cried Jessie. “Will Darry do it?”
“He will or I shall disown him as a brother,” declared her chum, with vigor.
“Let’s run and see what Momsy says!” exclaimed the eager Jessie.
“We’d better go and hear what she says,” laughed the irrepressible Amy. “Come on, Hen! You want to be in it. Wouldn’t you like a boat ride to your island?”
“Why, how do you suppose I was going to get there?” demanded the little maid. “Automobiles don’t run to islands – nor yet steam trains. But I hope the boat won’t leak as bad as that trough me and Charlie Foley sailed in this morning,” she added thoughtfully.
CHAPTER VII – FORECASTS
The plan Amy had originated for going to Station Island on her brother’s yacht was approved by Jessie’s mother and father, and in the end the Drew family agreed to make the voyage, too. Mrs. Norwood sent down her housekeeper and a staff of servants in advance so that everything would be in readiness for the yachting party.
A few articles of clothing had been bought for Henrietta when she had gone to the Blairs. But, besides being few, they were hardly suitable for an outing on Station Island. So Jessie and Amy were allowed to use their own taste in selecting the child’s outfit for the island adventure. And how they did revel in this novel undertaking!
Being down town on these errands so much during the following two days, the Roselawn girls were bound to fall in with Belle Ringold and Sally Moon, as well as with other members of their class in the high school. Jessie, at least, would never have noticed Belle and her chum could she have avoided it.
Amy had an overpowering fondness for a concoction called a George Washington sundae which was to be found only at the New Melford Dainties Shop. So, of course, each shopping “spree” must end with a visit to the confectionary shop in question.
“Come on,” Amy said, on the second day. “I told Darry and Burd we’d wait for them, and we might as well ride home as walk. They have our second car. Cyprian is driving mamma to a round of afternoon teas and other junkets. But the boys won’t forget us. Come on.”
“‘Come on’ means only one place to come to,” laughed Jessie. “I know you. What shall we do on that island, Amy, without any George Washington sundaes?”
“Say not so!” begged the other girl. “There is a fancy hotel there, they say, and perhaps it has a soda fountain.”
“Hi! Amy Drew!” called a voice behind them, as they descended the two steps into the Dainties Shop.
“Well, would you ever?” demanded Amy, looking around with no eagerness. “If it isn’t Sally Moon and, of course, Belle.”
“Hi, Amy!” repeated Sally. “Let me ask you something.”
“Go ahead,” returned Amy, but in no encouraging tone. “It’s free to ask.”
Sally, however, was not easily discouraged. Evidently Belle had put her up to ask whatever the question was, and to keep friendly with Belle Ringold Sally had to perform a good many unpleasant tasks.
“Your brother and Burd Alling have got back with that yacht, haven’t they?” she demanded.
“You are correctly informed,” answered Amy lightly.
“We want to see them. I suppose the boat is all right? That is, it is safe, isn’t it?”
“So far it hasn’t sunk with them,” returned Amy scornfully.
“You needn’t be so snippy, Amy Drew,” broke in Belle. “We want to see your brother about the use of the Marigold. I suppose he will let it to a party – for a price?”
“I don’t know,” said Amy, staring.
“Why, that’s absurd!” Jessie declared, without thinking. “It is a pleasure boat, not a cargo boat.”
Amy began to laugh when she saw Belle’s face.
“They don’t even take passengers for hire,” she said. “Is that what you want to know?”
“We want to hire a yacht to take us to Station Island,” Sally hastened to say. “And Belle remembered Darrington’s boat – ”
“I don’t suppose it is fit to take such a party as ours will be,” interposed Belle.
“I guess Darry won’t want to let it,” said Amy, seeing that the two girls were in earnest. “Besides, we are going down ourselves this week.”
“Who are going where?” demanded Belle, sharply.
“It’s the Norwoods’ party, you know,” Amy said, for Jessie had “shut up as tight as a clam.” “Mrs. Norwood has taken a bungalow there.”
“On Station Island – Hackle Island it used to be called?” Sally cried.
“That is the place. And Darry will take us all on the Marigold. So, I guess – ”
“We might have known it!” exclaimed Belle, angrily. “The Norwoods or some of that Roselawn crowd would tag along if we planned something exclusive.”
But Amy only laughed at this. “You don’t own that island, do you? Remember what little Hen Haney said about owning an island? Well, Hackle, or Station Island, is the one she meant. She owns a big slice of it.”
“I don’t believe it!” cried Belle.
“She does. My father says so. And he and Mr. Norwood are going to get it for her.”
“They will have a fine time doing that,” sneered Belle. “Why, my father has a claim upon all the middle of the island, and he is going to make his claim good. That nasty little freckle-faced young one from Dogtown will never get a foot of Hackle Island – you’ll see!”
Amy shrugged her shoulders as she and Jessie took seats at a table. She knew how to aggravate Belle Ringold, and she sometimes rather impishly enjoyed bothering the proud girl.
“And there’s one thing,” went on Belle, with emphasis, so exasperated that she did not see Nick, the clerk, who was waiting for her order, “I wouldn’t go away for the summer unless we went to a really fashionable hotel. No, indeed! Cottagers at seaside places are always of such a common sort!”
Amy only laughed. Jessie remained silent. It really did trouble her to have these controversies with Belle. It was not nice and she did not feel right after they were over.
“There is something wrong with us, as well as with Belle,” Jessie said once to Amy, on this topic.
“I’d like to know what’s wrong with us?” her chum demanded. “I like that!”
“When we squabble with Belle and Sally we make ourselves just as common as they are.”
“Tut, tut! Likewise ‘go to,’ whatever that means,” laughed Amy Drew. “Why, child, if we did not keep up our end of any controversy that those girls start they would walk all over us.”
However, on this occasion, and at Jessie’s earnest desire, Amy hastened the eating of her George Washington sundae and the two friends got out of the shop before Darry and Burd Alling appeared in the car.
“What’s the matter?” asked Amy’s brother, when the car stopped before the Dainties Shop and he saw his sister and Jessie waiting. “Spent all your money and waiting for us to take you in and treat you?”
“We had ours,” Jessie replied promptly, getting into the tonneau.
“Yes, indeed. ‘Home, James!’” Amy added, following her chum.
“And so we are to be deprived of our needed nourishment because you piggy-wiggies have had enough?” demanded Burd Alling, with serious objection. “I – guess – not! Come along, Darry,” and he hopped out of the car.
“You’d better look ahead before you leap,” giggled Amy.
“What’s that?” asked Darry, hesitating and looking at his sister curiously.
“What’s up her sleeve?” demanded Burd, with suspicion.
“You can treat Belle and Sally instead of Jessie and me, if you go in,” said Amy.
“Oh, my aunt!” exclaimed Burd, and sprang into the automobile again. “Drive on, Darrington! If you love me take me away before those girls get their hooks in me.”
“Don’t mind about you,” growled Darrington, starting the car. “I will look out for myself, if you please. I hope I never meet up with those two girls again.”
At that his sister went off into uncontrollable laughter.
“To think!” she cried. “And Belle and Sally are going to be all summer on Station Island!”
“That settles it,” announced Darry. “Burd and I will spend our time aboard the Marigold. How about it, Burd?”
“Surest thing you know. At least we can escape those two on the yacht.”
And this amused Amy immensely, too. For was not Belle desirous of chartering the Marigold?
CHAPTER VIII – ABOARD THE “MARIGOLD”
Before she was ready to go to Station Island Jessie Norwood had a few purchases to make that had nothing to do with little Henrietta Haney. She had decided to disconnect her radio set and send the instrument down with the rest of the baggage. In addition, she was determined to take Monty Shannon’s advice and buy the additional parts which made the Dogtown boy’s set so much more successful than her own.
“We’ll buy wire for the antenna, of course,” Jessie said to Amy. “Let our old aerial stand till we return. All we shall have to do will be to hook it up again when we set up the set in my room.”
So they bought the wire, the lightning switch, and the other small parts in New Melford and sent them all on the truck with the trunks to the dock where the Marigold waited. The next day the two families, the Norwoods and the Drews, as well as Burd Alling and little Henrietta, were whisked to the yacht club dock in several automobiles.
The girls had heard from Bertha over the telephone. And considering the state of mind and body that Mrs. Blair was in, the poor woman was probably very well content that Henrietta should be in Mrs. Norwood’s care for a while.
The freckle-faced little girl was wild with excitement when she got aboard Darry’s yacht. She had never been on such a craft before.
“I declare,” said Amy, “we’ll have to put a ball and chain on this kid, or she will be overboard.”
Henrietta stared at her. “Is that one of those locket and chain things you wear around your neck? I’m going to buy me one when I get my island. I never did own any joolry.”
This set Amy off into a breeze of laughter, but Jessie realized that Henrietta was perfectly fearless and would need watching while they were on the yacht.
The Marigold was by no means a new vessel, but it was roomy and seaworthy. That it was a coal-burner rather than a modern oil-burner, or with gasoline engines, did not at all decrease its value in the eyes of its young owner. Darry Drew was inordinately proud of the yacht.
He ran it with a small crew, and he and Burd, or whoever of his boy friends he had aboard, did a share of the work.
“I declare!” sniffed Amy, “I suppose you will expect Jess and me to go down and stoke the furnaces for you if you get short handed. Why not? You expect Mrs. Norwood and mamma to do the cooking.”
“Oh, that’s only for this voyage. When we have only fellows aboard we all take turns cooking and get along all right.”
“Does Burd cook?” demanded Amy, in mock horror.
“Well, he is pretty bad,” admitted Darry, with a grin. “But we let him cook only on days when the sea is rough.”
“And why?” demanded his sister, with wide-open eyes.
“We never feel much like eating on rough days,” explained Darry. “You see, the Marigold kicks up quite a shindy when the sea is choppy.”
“Let us hope it will be calm all the way to Station Island,” Jessie cried.
She had her wish. At least, the wind was fair, the sea “kicked up no combobberation,” to quote her chum, and every one enjoyed the sail. If the Marigold was not a racing boat, her speed was sufficient. They had no desire to get to the island until the following day.
Darry’s sailing master was a seasoned old mariner named Pandrick. They called him Skipper. At noon the yacht crossed one of the many “banks” to which New York fishing boats sail and the skipper pronounced the time opportune for fishing.
“There’s blackfish and flounders on the bottom and yellow-fin and maybe bass higher up. You won’t find a better chance, Mr. Darry,” observed the sailing master.
Every one grew excited over this prospect, and the boys got out the tackle and bait. Even Henrietta must fish. Jessie had been about to suggest a cushioned seat in the cabin for the little girl, with a pillow and a rug, for she had seen Henrietta nodding after lunch. The child would not hear of anything like that.
The anchor was dropped quietly and the Marigold swung at that mooring while the fishermen took their stations. Darry gave his personal attention to Henrietta’s bait and showed her how to cast her line. The little girl had been fishing many times, if only for fresh water fish, and she was not awkward.
“Don’t you bother ‘bout me, Miss Jessie,” she said to her mentor impatiently. “I bet I get a fish before you do. I ain’t so slow.”
Amy had fixed a station for her chum beside her own in the shade of the awning. Mr. Norwood and Mr. Drew had brought their rods. Everybody was soon engaged in an occupation which really calls for the undivided attention of the fisherman. The boys ordered all of them to keep quiet.
“You know,” observed Burd sternly, “although these fish out here may be dumb, they are not deaf. You chatterboxes keep quiet.”
Jessie was greatly excited. She had a nibble on her hook, then a positive strike.
“Oh! O-oh” she squealed under her breath. “There’s – there’s something!”
“Is it a wolf or a bear?” demanded Amy, giggling.
“Can you get it aboard, Jess?” asked Darry, from the other side of the deck.
Jessie was not awkward. She had pulled in a good-sized fish before. This one splashed about a great deal and, when she raised it to the surface, it looked so much like a big rubber boot that Jessie squealed and almost dropped it.
“Hey! What did I say about that stuff?” called out Burd. “You’ll give all the fish nervous prostration. My goodness! What is that?”
He hurried to give Jessie a hand in hauling up the heavy, slowly flapping fish. It was half as broad as a dining table, with one side grayish-white and the other slate color. The skipper gave it a glance and laughed.
“Virgin,” he said. “We don’t eat that kind o’ fish.”
“Oh, dear! isn’t it a flounder?” wailed Jessie, disconsolately.
“No, no. ’Tain’t worth anything,” said the skipper, unhooking the heavy and ugly-looking fish.
They joked Jessie about the worthless flat-fish, but she laughed, too. Baiting again, she threw in, and just at that moment there was a heavy splash from the other side of the yacht.
“Somebody else has got a strike,” cried Amy. “Who is it?”
Nobody answered. There seemed to be nobody excited over a bite. The two lawyers were forward. Darry and Burd were aft. Jessie suddenly dropped her line and shot across the deck to the other rail.
“Oh, Amy!” she shrieked. “Where is little Hen?”
“You don’t mean she’s gone overboard?” gasped her chum, excitedly, and she came running in the wake of Jessie.
Henrietta’s fish line was attached to a cleat on the yacht’s rail. She had been standing on a coil of rope so as to be high enough to look over into the sea. The fear that clamped itself upon Jessie Norwood’s mind was that the little girl had dived headlong over the rail.
“Oh, Henrietta!” she cried. “She – she’s gone! She’s gone overboard, Amy.”
Her chum was quite as fearful as Jessie was, but she tried to soothe her chum.
“It can’t be, Jess! She – she wouldn’t do that! She just wouldn’t!”
“But you heard that big splash, didn’t you?” cried the frightened Jessie. Then she began to shout as loud as she could: “Help! Help! Henrietta’s overboard! She’s gone overboard, I am sure!”
