Amy Drew sat up in the canoe as high as she could and stared ahead. Jessie’s observation suggested trouble; but Amy almost immediately burst out laughing.
“‘Drowning!’” she repeated. “Why, Jess Norwood, you know that you couldn’t drown those Dogtown kids. And if that isn’t some of them—Monty Shannon, and the Costello twins, and the rest of them—I’m much mistaken.”
“But see those barrels and tubs and what-all!” gasped her more serious friend. “Look there! It’s Henrietta!”
The fleet of strange barges that Jessie had first spied included, it seemed, almost every sort of craft that could be improvised. A rainwater barrel led the procession of “boats,” and Montmorency Shannon was in that, paddling with some kind of paddle that he wielded with no little skill.
There were two wooden washtubs in which the Costello twins voyaged. One was much lower in the water than the other, giving evidence of having shipped more water than its mate. In a water-trough that had been filched from somebody’s barnyard was little Henrietta and Charlie Foley.
“They will be overboard!” exclaimed Jessie, anxiously. “Drive ahead, Amy—do!”
The wind was blowing directly in their faces and from the direction of the Dogtown landing, where the flotilla had evidently embarked. The tubs spun around and around, the half-barrel in which Monty Shannon sat tried to perform the same gyrations, but Henrietta and the Foley boy blundered ahead. It was plain to Jessie’s mind that the reckless children could not have sailed in the other direction had they wished to do so.
“What do you come out here for?” she shrieked when the canoe drew near.
“Oh, Miss Jessie, we are going to the Carter place,” sang out Henrietta.
“But the Carter place is down the lake, not up!” exclaimed the exasperated Jessie.
“Yes. But the wind shifted,” said Henrietta.
“Where is your big canoe?” demanded Amy, who could scarcely paddle from laughter, in spite of the evident danger the children were in.
“That is what we started after,” said Montmorency Shannon, his red head sticking out of the barrel like a full-blown hollyhock. “It got away in the night, or somebody let it go, and we saw it away down by the Carter place. So—so we thought we’d go after it.”
“And I warrant your mothers don’t know what you are doing,” Jessie said sternly.
“Oh, they will!” cried Henrietta, virtuously.
“When they miss the washtubs,” put in Amy, with laughter.
“When we tell ’em,” corrected little Henrietta. “And we always tell ’em everything we do.”
“I see. After it is all over,” Jessie commented.
“We-ell,” said Henrietta, pouting, “we can’t tell ’em what we have done before we do it, can we? For we never know ourselves.”
“You certainly cannot beat that for logic,” declared Amy. She drove the head of the canoe to the tub of the nearest Costello twin. “Get in here carefully, Micky. You are going down.”
“That’s ’cause Aloysius always gets the best tub. He ain’t sinking none,” said Michael Costello, scowling at his twin.
“Quick!” commanded Amy, and the disgruntled Costello swarmed over the side of the canoe. “We can take in one more. Who is the nearest drowned?”
“I’m sitting in half a foot of water,” confessed the red-haired Shannon, grinning.
“A little soaking will do you good. I can guess who suggested this crazy venture,” Jessie said. “Come, Henrietta.”
“I need her to trim ship!” cried Charlie Foley.
“What do you want to trim your ship with—red, white and blue?” demanded Amy. “If that trough sinks I know you can swim, Charlie.”
The crowd would have had some difficulty in getting back to shore with the wind blowing as freshly as it did if the girls had not come along and, in relays, helped them all back.
“What Mrs. Shannon will say when she sees her two washtubs floating off like that, I don’t know,” sighed Henrietta, after they were all ashore.
“One of ’em’s sunk, so she can’t see it,” Micky Costello said calmly. “Maybe the other will go down. Don’t you big girls say anything and maybe she won’t find it out.”
Jessie and Amy had headed for Dogtown in the first place without any expectation of playing a life-saving part. Jessie thought they ought to see Mrs. Foley, who was fleshy and easy of disposition, and ask her about Henrietta’s visit. So they accompanied the freckle-faced little girl to the Foley house.
“I ain’t telling ’em all they can come to visit my island, Miss Jessie,” said the little girl. “But of course, the Foleys could come. Mrs. Blair and Bertha wouldn’t mind just them, of course. There’s only Mrs. Foley and Charlie and Billy and the baby and three more boys and—and—well, that’s all, only Mr. Foley. He wouldn’t want to come.”
“You would better be sure of your island, and just how much you own of it, Hen,” advised Amy Drew. “It may not be big enough to hold everybody you want to invite.”
“Why, Miss Amy, it’s a awful big island,” declared little Henrietta. “It’s got a whole golf link on it. I heard Mr. Blair say so.”
The “bulgy” Mrs. Foley welcomed the Roselawn girls with her usual copiousness. Of course, she had the youngest Foley in her lap, and the housework was “at sixes and sevens,” since little Henrietta had been at Stratfordtown for a week.
“How I’m going to git used, young ladies, to havin’ that child away is more than I can say. ’Tis a great mistake I have all boys for childers. There is nothing like a smart girl around the house.”
Jessie, very curious, asked the woman what she knew about Henrietta’s wonderful story of wealth.
“Sure, I’ve always expected it would come to her some day,” declared Mrs. Foley. “Her mother, who was a good neighbor of mine before we moved out here to the lake, said Hen’s father come of rich folks. They used to drive their own carriage. That was before automobiles come in so plenteous.”
“Did Bertha ever say anything about it, Mrs. Foley?”
“Not much. ’Tis Hen will be the rich wan. Oh, yes. And glad I am if the child is about to come into her own. She’s no business to be running down here every chance she gets. I had himself telephone to Bertha when he went to town this morning, and it is likely she will be here after the child. Hen’s as wild as a hawk.”
Bertha Blair, in fact, appeared in a hired car before Jessie and Amy were ready to return in their canoe to Roselawn. She was quite as excited as Henrietta had been about the strange fortune that promised to come into their lives. Bertha could tell the chums from Roselawn many more particulars of the Padriac Haney property.
“If little Henrietta will only be good and not be so wild and learn her lessons and mind what she’s told,” Bertha said seriously, “maybe she will have money and an island—or part of one, anyway. But she does not behave very well. She is as wild as a March hare.”
Little Henrietta looked serious for her; but Mrs. Foley took her part at once.
“Sure don’t be expectin’ too much of the child at wance, Bertha. She’s run as wild as the wind itself here. She’s fought and played with these Dogtown kids since she was able to toddle around. What would ye expect?”
“But she must learn,” declared the older girl. “Mrs. Blair won’t take us to the island this summer if she is not good.”
“Then I’ll go myself,” announced Henrietta. “It’s my island, ain’t it? Who has a better right there?”
Jessie took a hand at this point, shaking her head gravely at the freckled little girl.
“Do you suppose, Henrietta Haney, that your friends—like Mrs. Foley or Mrs. Blair, or even Amy and I—will want to come to your island to see you if you are not a good girl?”
“Say, if I get rich can’t I do like I want to—like other rich folks?”
“You most certainly cannot. Rich people, if they are to be loved, must be even more careful in their conduct than poor folks.”
“We-ell,” confessed the freckled little girl frankly, “I’d rather be rich than be loved. If I can’t be both easy, I’ll be rich.”
“Such amazing worldliness!” sighed Amy, raising her hands in mock horror.
But Jessie Norwood truly wished the little girl to be nice. Poor little Henrietta, however, had much to unlearn. She chattered continually about the island she owned and the riches she was to enjoy. The smaller children of Dogtown followed her—and the green parasol—about as though they were enchanted.
“’Tis a witch she certainly is,” declared Mrs. Foley. “She’s bewitched them all, so she has. But I’m lost widout her, meself. When a woman has six—and them all boys—and a man that drinks——”
This statement of her personal affairs had been so often heard by the three girls that they all tried to sidetrack Mrs. Foley’s complaint. It was Jessie, however, who advanced a really good reason for getting out of the Foley house.
“I promised Monty Shannon I would look at his radio set,” she said, jumping up. “You will excuse us for a little, Mrs. Foley? You are not going back to Stratfordtown at once, Bertha?”
“Before long. I have only hired the car for the forenoon. The man has another job this afternoon. And I must find that Henrietta again,” for the freckle-faced little girl was as lively, so Amy said, as a water-bug—“one of those skimmery things with long legs that dart along the surface of the water.”
The trio went out and across the cinder-covered yard to the Shannon house. The immediate surroundings of Dogtown were squalid, although its site upon the edge of Lake Mononset might have been made very pleasant indeed.
“If these boys like Monty Shannon and some of the girls stay at home when they grow up they surely will improve the looks of the village,” Jessie had said. “For Monty and his kind are altogether too smart not to want to live as other people do.”
“You’ve said it,” agreed Amy, with enthusiasm. “He is smart. He has a better radio receiver than you have. Wait till you see.”
“How do you know?” asked the surprised Jessie.
“He was telling me about it. You know how often some ‘squeak box,’ or other amateur operator, breaks in on our concerts.”
“We-ell, not so often now,” Jessie said. “I have learned more about tuning and wave-lengths. But, of course, I have only a single circuit crystal receiving set. I have been talking to Dad about getting a better one.”
“Monty will show you,” Amy said with confidence, as they knocked at the Shannon door.
The little cottage was small. Downstairs there were but two rooms. The door gave access to the kitchen, and beyond was the “sitting-room,” of which Monty’s mother was inordinately proud. She was a widow, and helped herself and her children by doing fine laundry work for the wealthy people of New Melford.
From the front room when the girls entered came sounds that they recognized—radio sounds which held their instant attention, although they were merely market reports at that hour in the forenoon.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Bertha Blair said, clasping her hands. “I never can get over the wonder of it.”
“Same here,” Amy declared. “When Jess and I listened to you singing the ‘Will o’ the Wisp’ last night it seemed almost shivery that we should recognize the very tones of your voice out of the air.”
“Huh!” exclaimed Montmorency, grinning. “I got so I know the announcers, too. When that Mr. Blair speaks I know him. Of course, I know Mr. Mark Stratford’s voice, for I’ve talked with him. I wouldn’t have such a fine machine here, only he advised me.”
“Tell me,” Jessie said, “what is the difference between my receiving set and yours, Monty?”
“If you want to hear clearly and keep outside radio out of your machine, use a regenerative radio set with an audion detector. The whole business, Miss Jessie, is in the detector, after all. A regenerative set of this kind is selective enough—that’s the expression Mr. Mark used—to enable any one to tune out all but a few commercial stations. And they don’t often butt in to annoy you. For sure, you’ll kill all the amateur squeak-boxes and other transmission stations of that class.
“Now, I’m going to tune in for Stratfordtown. They are sending the Government weather reports and mother wants to know should she water her tomatoes or depend on a thunderstorm,” and he grinned at Mrs. Shannon, who stood, an awkward but smiling figure, in the doorway between the two rooms.
“’Tis too wonderful a thing for me to understand, at all, at all,” admitted the widow. “However can they tell you out of that machine there is a thunderstorm coming?”
“Listen!” exclaimed the boy eagerly. There was a horn on the set and no need for earphones. He had tuned the market reports out. From the horn came a different voice. But the words the visitors heard had nothing to do with the report on the weather. “What’s the matter?” demanded Monty Shannon. “Listen to this, will you?”
“... she will come home at once. This is serious—a serious call for Bertha Blair.”
“Do you hear that?” almost shrieked Amy Drew. “Why, it must mean you, Bertha!”
“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.
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?
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!”
Jessie’s cry startled everybody on deck and Darry and Burd came running from the stern.
“Where is she? Do you see her? Throw out a buoy!” exclaimed the young owner of the yacht. “Hey, Skipper Pandrick! Lower the boat.”
“Man overboard!” shouted Burd Alling.
“Get out!” exclaimed Darry. “It’s not a man at all. It’s little Hen. Is that right, Jessie? Did you see her fall?”
“No-o,” replied Jessie. “But she’s not here. Where else could she have gone?”
Burd stared up and all about. Amy said promptly:
“You needn’t look into the air, Burd. Hen certainly didn’t fly away.”
The skipper arrived, but he was not excited. “Who did you say had gone overboard, Mr. Darry?” he asked.
“What does it matter? Can’t we save her without so much red tape?” snapped Darry. “Come on, Skipper! Get out the boat.”
“You mean the little girl who stood right here?” asked the man. “Well, now, I saw how she was playing her line. She didn’t have it fastened to a cleat. And she sure didn’t just now fasten it when she went overboard. No, I guess not.”
“Oh! Maybe he is right,” cried Jessie, with much relief.
“Well, I declare!” grumbled Darry. “It takes you girls to stir up excitement.”
“But where is little Hen?” Amy asked, whirling around to face her brother.
They all stared at one another. The skipper wagged his head.
“You’d better look around, alow and aloft, and see if she ain’t to be found. If she did go down, she ain’t come up again, that’s sure.”
“But that splash!” cried Jessie, anxiously.
“Wasn’t any splash except when I threw that big flatfish overboard,” said the skipper. “And the little girl didn’t scream. I guess she’s inboard rather than overboard—yes, ma’am!”
The four young people separated and scoured the yacht, both on deck and below. At least, the girls looked through the cabin and the staterooms and the boys went into the tiny forecastle. They met again in five minutes or so and stared wonderingly at each other. Little Henrietta had as utterly disappeared as though she had melted into thin air.
“What can have happened to the poor little thing?” cried Amy, now almost in tears.
“Of course, she must be on the boat if she hasn’t fallen overboard,” Jessie replied hesitatingly.
“That is wisdom,” remarked Burd Alling, dryly. “She hasn’t flown away, that’s sure.”
The two mothers were on the afterdeck in comfortable chairs; Jessie hated to disturb them, for Mrs. Norwood and Mrs. Drew had not heard the first outcry regarding Henrietta. Mr. Norwood and Mr. Drew were busy with their fishing-lines. Neither of the four adult passengers had seen the child.
“I’ll be hanged, but that is the greatest kid I ever saw!” exclaimed Darry Drew with vigor. “She’s always in some mischief or other.”
“I am so afraid she is in trouble,” confessed Jessie. “You know, we are responsible to her cousin Bertha Blair for her safety.”
“If the kid wants to dive overboard, are we to be held responsible?” demanded Burd, somewhat crossly.
“You hard-hearted boy!” exclaimed Amy. “Of course it is your fault if anything happens to Hennie.”
“I told you, Drew, that you were making a big mistake to let this crowd of girls aboard the Marigold,” complained the stocky youth, sighing deeply. “While this was strictly a bachelor barque we were all right.”
Jessie, however, was really too much worried to enter into any repartee of this character. She ran off again to the cabin to have a second look for Henrietta. She found no trace of her except the doll she had brought aboard and the green parasol.
She went back on deck. The fishermen were beginning to haul in weakfish and an occasional tautog, or blackfish. Amy, with a shout, hauled in Henrietta’s line and got inboard a fine flounder.
“Anyway, we’ll have a big fish-fry for supper. The men will clean the fish and Darry and Burd will fry them. Your mother and mine, Jess, say that they have got through with the galley for the day.”
“Oh!” ejaculated Jessie and, whirling suddenly around, started for the galley slide.
“Where are you going?” cried Amy. “Do help me with this flopping fish. I can’t get the hook out.”
Her chum did not halt. She knew that nobody had thought to look into the cook’s galley that had been shut up after lunch. She forced back the slide and peered in.
There on the deck of the little compartment, with her back against the wall, or bulkhead, was Henrietta. On one side was a jar of strawberry jam only half full. Much of the sticky sweet was smeared upon the cracker clutched in the child’s hand and upon her face and the front of her frock. Henrietta was asleep!
“What is it?” demanded Amy, who had followed her more excited chum. “What’s happened to her?”
“Look at that!” exclaimed Jessie, dramatically.
Darry and Burd drew near. Amy burst into stifled laughter.
“What do you know about that kid? She asked me if she could have a bite between meals and I told her of course she could. But I never thought she would take me so at my word.” Amy’s laughter was no longer stifled.
“Fishing in the jam jar is more to Hen’s taste than fishing in the ocean,” observed Darry.
“Nervy kid!” exclaimed Burd. “I’d like some of that jam myself.”
“Bring him away,” commanded Jessie, pushing to the slide. “She might as well sleep. We will know where she is, anyway.”
This little scare rather broke up the fishing for the Roselawn girls and the college boys. They went to the wireless room which had been built on deck behind the wheelhouse, and Darry put on the head harness and opened the key by which he took the messages he was able to obtain out of the air.
The girls were particularly interested in this form of radio telegraphy at this time. Darry had bought and was establishing a regular radio telephone receiving set, too. He could give Jessie and Amy a deal of information about the Morse alphabet as used in the commercial wireless service.
“Practice makes perfect,” he told them. “You can buy an ordinary key and sounder and practice until you can send fast. While you are learning that you automatically learn to read Morse. But I’ll have the radio set all right shortly and then we can get the station concerts.”
“How near we’ll be to that station on the island!” Amy cried. “It ought to sound as though it were right in our ears.”
“Not through your radiophone,” said her brother. “That station is a great brute of a commercial and signal station. It sends clear to the European shore. No concerts broadcasted from there. Now, let’s see if we can get some gossip out of the air.”
The girls took turns listening in, even though they could not understand more than a letter or two of Morse. Darry translated for their benefit certain general messages he caught. They learned that operators on the trans-Atlantic liners and on the cargo boats often talked back and forth, swapping yarns, news, and personal information. Occasionally a navy operator “crashed in” with a few words.
Calls came for vessels all up and down the North Atlantic. Information as to weather indications were broadcasted from Arlington. The air seemed full of voices, each to be caught at a certain wave-length.
“It is wonderful!” Jessie exclaimed. “‘Gossip out of the air’ is the right name for it. Just think of it, Amy! When we were born there was very little known about all this wonderful wireless.”
“Sh!” commanded her chum. “Don’t remind folks how frightfully young we are.”