The Marigold loafed along within sight of the beaches that evening and the girls and their friends reclined in the deck-chairs and watched the parti-colored electric lights that wreathed the shore-front. Jessie was careful to keep Henrietta near by. She began to realize that looking after the freckle-faced little girl was going to be something of a trial.
Henrietta finally grew sleepy and Jessie and Amy took her below, helped her undress, and tucked her into a berth. The Roselawn girls’ mothers were much amused by this. Their daughters had taken a task upon themselves that would, as Mrs. Norwood said, teach them something.
“And it will not hurt them,” Mrs. Drew agreed, with an answering smile. “Amy, especially, needs to know what ‘duty’ means.”
“Anyway, we’ll know where she is while she is asleep,” Jessie said to her chum, as they left the little girl.
“If she isn’t a somnambulist,” chuckled Amy. “We forgot to ask Mrs. Foley or Bertha that.”
The ground swell lulled the girls to sleep that night, and even Henrietta did not awake until the first breakfast call in the morning. Through the port-light Jessie and Amy saw Burd Alling “bursting his cheeks with sound” as he essayed the changes on the key-bugle.
The Marigold was slipping along the coast easily, with the northern end of Station Island already in sight. The castle-like hotel sprawled all over the headland, but the widest bathing beach was just below it. Next were the premises of the Hackle Island Gold Club, with its pastures, shrubberies, and several water-holes. It was to a part of these enclosed premises that Mr. Norwood said little Henrietta Haney was laying claim.
“And I believe she will get it in time. Most of the land on which those summer houses beyond the golf course stand is also within the lines of the Padriac Haney place.”
He explained this to them while they all paced the deck after breakfast. The yacht was headed in toward the dock near the bungalows, some of which were very cheaply built and stood upon stilts near the shore.
The tall gray staff of the abandoned lighthouse was the landmark at the extreme southern end of the island. The sending and receiving station of the commercial wireless company was at the lighthouse, and the party aboard the Marigold could see the very tall antenna connected therewith.
The yacht landed the party and their baggage about ten o’clock. Mrs. Norwood’s servants were at hand to help, and a decrepit express wagon belonging to a “native” aided in the transportation of the goods to the big bungalow which was some rods back from the shore. There were no automobiles on the island.
“Is this my house?” Henrietta demanded the moment she learned which dwelling the party of vacationists would occupy.
“It may prove to be your house in the end,” Jessie told her.
“When’s the end?” was the blunt query. “How long do I have to wait?”
“We can’t tell that. My mother has the house for the summer. She has hired it for us all to live in.”
“Who does she pay? Do I get any of the money?” continued the little girl. “If this island is going to be mine some time, why not now? Why wait for something that is mine?”
It was very difficult for Jessie and Amy to make her understand the situation. In fact, she began to feel and express doubts about the attempt that was being made to discover and settle the legal phases of the Padriac Haney estate.
“If I don’t get my money and my island pretty soon somebody else will get it instead,” was the little girl’s confident statement.
“Oh, Jess!” exclaimed Amy under her breath, “suppose that should be so. You know Belle Ringold’s father is trying to prove his title to the same property.”
“Hush!” said Jessie. “Don’t let little Hen hear about that. She is getting hard to manage as it is. Henrietta! Where are you going now?” she called after the little girl.
“I’m going out to take a look at some of my island,” declared the child, as she banged the screen door.
“She’s sure to get into trouble,” Jessie observed, sighing.
“Oh, let her go,” Amy declared. “Why worry? You can’t watch her every minute we are here. She can’t very well fall overboard from this island.”
“I don’t know. She manages to do the most unexpected things,” said Jessie.
But there was so much to do in helping settle things and make the sparsely furnished bungalow comfortable that Jessie did not think for a while about Henrietta. Besides, she was desirous of setting up the radio instruments at once and stringing the antenna.
Darry and Burd helped the girls do this last. They worked hard, for they had first of all to plant in the sands some distance from the house an old mast that Mr. Norwood bought so as to erect the wires at least thirty feet above the ground.
The antenna were not completed at nightfall. Then, of a sudden, everybody began to wonder about Henrietta. Where was she? It was remembered that she had not been seen during most of the afternoon.
“Oh, dear!” worried Jessie. “It is my fault. I should not have let her go out alone that time, Amy.”
“She said she wanted to see her island, I remember,” admitted her chum, with some gravity. “And this island is a pretty big place, and it is growing dark.”
“She could not get into any trouble if she stayed on Hackle Island,” declared Darry. “What a kid!”
“And she certainly couldn’t have got off it,” suggested Burd.
“We must look around for her,” said Jessie, with conviction. “Don’t tell Momsy. She will worry. She thinks I have had my eye on the child all the time.”
“You certainly would have what they call a roving eye if you managed to keep it on Henrietta,” giggled Burd Alling. “She darts about like a swallow.”
Jessie felt it to be no joking matter. The four young people separated and went in different directions to hunt for the missing child. Station, or Hackle, Island at this end was mostly sand dunes or open flats. A little sparse grass grew in bunches, and there were clumps of beach plum bushes. Towards the golf course the land was higher and there real lawn and trees of some size were growing.
The low sand dunes stretched in gray windrows right across the island. Jessie tried to think what might have first attracted Henrietta at this end of the island. She did not believe that she would go far from the bungalow, although Amy wanted to start at once for the hotel. That was the object that attracted her first of all.
Jessie ran toward the far side of the island. It was growing dark and everything on both sea and shore looked gray and misty. The seabirds swept overhead and whistled mournfully. Jessie shouted Henrietta’s name as she ran.
But she began to labor up and down the sand dunes with difficulty. It frightened Jessie Norwood very much whenever Henrietta got into mischief or into danger. No knowing what harm might come to her on this lonely part of Station Island.
Nor was this fear in Jessie’s mind bred entirely by the feeling that it was her duty to look out for Henrietta. The child was an appealing little creature, though she had had little chance in the world thus far to develop her better and worthier qualities. The pity that Jessie Norwood had felt for the untamed girl at first was now blossoming into love.
“What would I ever say to Bertha and Mrs. Foley if anything happened to the child!” Jessie murmured.
Jessie was beginning to learn that to guard the welfare of a lively youngster like Henrietta was no small task. The worst of it was, she was so fond of the little girl that she worried about her much of the time. And Henrietta seemed to have a penchant for getting into trouble.
Jessie called, and she called again and again, as she ploughed through the sand, and heard in reply only the shrieks of the gulls and peewees. Gray clouds had rolled up from the Western horizon and covered completely the glow of sunset. It was going to be a drab evening, and all the hollows were already filled with shadow.
Jessie toiled up the slope of one sand-hill after another, calling and listening, calling and listening, but all to no avail. What could have become of Henrietta Haney?
Suddenly Jessie fairly tumbled into an excavation in the sand. Although she could not see the place, her hands told her that the hole was deep and the sand somewhat moist. The hole had been dug recently, for the surface of the dunes was still warm from the rays of the sun.
She stumbled down the slope of the sand dune and found another hole, then another. Dark as it was in the hollow, when she kicked something that rattled, she knew what it was.
“Henrietta’s pail and shovel!” Jessie exclaimed aloud. “She has been here.”
She picked up the articles. Before leaving New Melford she had herself bought the pail and shovel for the freckle-faced little girl.
Where had the child gone from here? Already Jessie was some distance from the group of bungalows. As Henrietta insisted upon believing that most of the island belonged to her “by good rights,” there was no telling what part of it she might have aimed for after playing in the sand.
Jessie shouted again, her voice wailing over the sands almost as mournfully as the cries of the sea-fowl. Again and again she shouted, but without hearing a human sound in reply. She labored on, and it grew so dark that she began to wish one of the others had come with her. Even Amy’s presence would have been a comfort.
She came to the brink of a yawning sand-pit, the bottom of which was so dark she could not see it. She began skirting this hollow, crying out as she went, and almost in tears.
Suddenly Darry’s voice answered her. She was fond of Darry—thought him a most wonderful fellow, in fact. But there was just one thing Jessie wanted of him now.
“Have you seen her?” she cried.
“Not a bit. I have been away down to the lighthouse. Nobody has seen her there.”
“Oh! Who you lookin’ for?” suddenly asked a voice out of the darkness.
“Henrietta!” shrieked Jessie, and plunged down into the dark sand-pit.
“Who’s lost?” asked the little girl again. “Ow-ow! I—I guess I been asleep, Miss Jessie.”
“Has that kid shown up at last?” grumbled Darry, climbing to the sand ridge.
“Is it night?” demanded Henrietta, as Jessie clasped her with an energy that betrayed her relief. “Why, it wasn’t dark when I came down here.”
“How did you get down there?” demanded Darry from above.
“I rolled down. I guess I was tired. I dug so much sand——”
“Did you dig all those holes I found, Henrietta?” demanded the relieved Jessie.
“Why, no, Miss Jessie. I didn’t dig holes. I dug sand and let the holes be,” declared the freckle-faced little girl scornfully.
Darry sat down and laughed, but while he laughed Jessie toiled up the yielding sand hill with her hand clasping Henrietta’s. “Ow-ow!” yawned the child again. “When do we eat, Miss Jessie? Or is eating all over?”
“Listen to the kid!” ejaculated Darry. “Here! Give her to me. I’ll carry her. Want to go pickaback, Hen?”
“Well, it’s dark and nobody can see us. I don’t mind,” said Henrietta soberly. “But I guess I’m too big to be lugged around that way in common. ’Specially now that I own this island—or, most of it—and am going to have money of my own.”
“She’s harping on that idea too much,” observed Darry to Jessie, in a low tone.
The latter thought so too. Funny as little Henrietta was, the stressing of her expected fortune was going to do her no good. Jessie began to see that this fault had to be corrected.
“Goodness!” she thought, stumbling along after the young collegian and his burden, “I might as well have a younger sister to take care of. Children, as Mrs. Foley says, are a sight of trouble.”
They heard Amy and Burd shouting back of the bungalow, and they responded to their cries.
“Did you find that young Indian?” cried Burd.
“You’ve hit it. This little squaw should be named ‘Plenty Trouble’ rather than ‘Spotted Snake, the Witch.’”
“Why,” said Henrietta, sleepily, “I never have any trouble—of course I don’t.”
It was about as Jessie said, however: They were never confident that the freckled little girl was all right save when she was asleep. She had bread and milk and went right to bed when they got home with her. Then the evening was a busy one for the quartette of older young folks.
The radio set was put into place in the library of the bungalow. They had brought the two-step amplifier and proposed to use that for most of their listening in, rather than the headphones. Although Darry and Burd helped in this preliminary work, the girls really knew more about the adjustment of the various parts than the college youths.
But in the morning Darry and Burd strung the wires and completed the antenna. The house connection was made and the ground connection. By noon all was complete and after lunch Jessie opened the switch and they got the wave-length of a New York broadcasting station and heard a brief concert and a lecture on advertising methods that did not, in truth, greatly interest the girls.
After that they tuned in and caught the Stratfordtown broadcasting. They recognized Mr. Blair’s voice announcing the numbers of the afternoon concert program.
But radio did not hold the attention of these young people all the time, although they had all become enthusiasts. They were at the seashore, and there were a hundred things to do that they could not do at home in Roselawn. The sands were smooth, the surf rolled in white ruffles, and the cool green and blue of the sea was most attractive. One of the safest bathing beaches bordering Station Island was directly in front of the bungalow colony.
At four o’clock they were all in their bathing suits and joined the company already in the surf or along the sands. In any summer colony acquaintanceships are formed rapidly. Jessie and Amy had already seen some girls of about their own age whom they liked the looks of, and they were glad to see them again at the bathing hour.
“Is it a perfectly safe beach?” Mrs. Norwood asked, and was assured by her husband that so it was rated. There were no strong currents or undertows along this shore. And, in any case, there was a lifeguard in a boat just off shore and another patrolling the sands.
“I ain’t afraid!” proclaimed Henrietta, dashing into the water immediately. “Come on, Miss Jessie! Come on, Miss Amy, you won’t get drowned at my island.”
“What a funny little thing she is,” said one of the friendly girls who overheard Henrietta. “Does she think she owns Station Island?”
“That is exactly what she does think,” said Amy, grimly.
“I never!” drawled the girl. “And there is a girl up at the hotel who talks the same way. At least, when she was down here yesterday she said her father owns all this part of Station Island and is going to have the bungalows torn down.”
Jessie and Amy looked at each other with understanding.
“I guess I know who that girl is,” said Amy quickly. “It’s Belle Ringold.”
“Yes. Her name is Ringold,” said their new acquaintance. “Do you suppose it is so—that her father can drive us all out of the cottages? You know, we have already paid rent for the season.”
Amy Drew scoffed at the thought of Belle Ringold’s tale of trouble for the “bungalowites” being true.
“She is always hatching up something unpleasant,” she told the neighbor who had spoken of Mr. Ringold’s claim to a part of Station Island. “We know her. She comes from our town.”
But little Henrietta continued to tell anybody who would listen that she owned a part of the island and expected to take possession of the golf links almost any day. The funny little thing, however, was very generous in inviting people to remain on “her island,” no matter what happened.
“Something has got to be done about that child,” said Jessie, sighing. “I can’t control her. She does say the most awful things. She has no manners at all!”
“He, he,” chuckled Amy. “Hen was built without any controller. I wouldn’t worry about her, Jess. She’ll come out all right.”
“I hope she comes out of the water all right,” murmured her chum, starting again after the very lively little girl who occasionally made dashes for the surf as though she proposed to go right out to sea.
But for one person Henrietta had some concern. That was Mrs. Norwood. She thought Jessie’s mother was a most wonderful person. And when Mrs. Norwood had a chair and umbrella brought to the sands and sat down within sight of Henrietta, the older girls had some opportunity of having a little amusement with the college boys.
“Come on,” Darry Drew said. “This staying inshore is no fun. Beat you to the raft, girls, and give you ten yards start.”
“O-oh! You can’t!” cried his sister, dashing at once for the sea.
“Hold on! Hold on!” commanded Darry. “I don’t believe you even know how long ten yards is. Both you girls go in and stand even with that pile yonder. You are headed for the raft. You see the life saver beyond it, I hope?”
Amy made a face at him, settled her bathing cap more firmly, and looked at Jessie.
“Ready, Jess?” she asked.
“We’ll just beat them good,” declared her chum. “They always think they can do things so much better than us girls.”
“‘We’ girls,” corrected Amy, giggling.
“‘We’ or ‘us’—it doesn’t so much matter, as long as we win the race,” said Jessie.
“All ready out there?” demanded Darry.
“They’re edging out farther,” observed Burd Alling. “It wouldn’t matter if you gave them a mile start; they’d take more if they could. Give ’em an inch and they’ll take an ell,” he quoted.
“You don’t know what an ell is,” scoffed his friend.
“It’s something you put on a house after you think you’ve got all the rooms you’ll ever need. I know,” declared Burd, grinning.
“Come on out!” retorted Darry. “Cut the repartee. You have got to swim your little best, for those two girls are no slow-pokes.”
“You’ve said something,” agreed Burd. “Shoot! I am ready, Gridley.”
“Huh!” exclaimed his chum. “You have even forgotten your Spanish War history.”
“Shucks! They change history so fast now you don’t more than learn one phase than you have to forget it and learn some other fellow’s ‘hindsight’ of important events. The only way to get history straight,” declared the philosophical Burd, “is to be Johnny-on-the-spot and see things happen.”
“Now!” shouted Darry to the girls.
The four splashed in, the girls starting with a breast stroke and the boys having to run for some distance until the sea was deep enough to enable them to swim. The water beyond the ruffle of surf was almost calm. At least, the waves did not break, but heaved in, in smooth rollers. As Amy had said: The sea was taking deep-breathing exercises.
Just now, however, she was not making jokes. The two girls were doing their best to win the race. Darry was a long, rangy fellow, and his over-hand stroke was wonderful. Burd Alling—“tubby” as he was—was an excellent swimmer. The girls started with a dash, however, and they kept up their speed for some rods before either felt any fatigue.
The diving raft was a long distance out from the beach, because the sandy bottom here sloped very gradually. This part of the island was ideal for swimming and bathing. If it was finally proved that the old Padriac Haney estate belonged to little Henrietta, she would control the longest strip of beach on the island.
Amy flashed a glance over her shoulder to see how close they were pursued, and almost lost stroke.
“Come on!” panted Jessie. “Don’t let them beat you.”
“Ain’t—go-ing—to,” gasped her chum, in four short breaths.
They were more than half way to the raft, and it really seemed as though the stronger—and longer—arms of the two college boys were not aiding them to overtake the Roselawn girls. The latter began to congratulate each other upon this—with glances. They did not waste any more breath in speech.
Rising high to change stroke, Jessie turned on her side and did the over-hand. It heaved her ahead of her chum for a yard or so; and it likewise enabled her to see over the raft. The raft chanced to be deserted, nor were there any swimmers between her and the boat of the lifeguard beyond the raft.
The man in the boat suddenly stood up. He began waving his arms and shouting. As he was looking shoreward Jessie thought he must be cheering her and her chum on. She forged still farther ahead of Amy, and the lifeguard became more energetic in his motions.
Suddenly he dropped upon the seat of his boat, grabbed the oars, and pulled the bow of the craft around, heading it seemed, for the raft. He did act peculiarly.
From behind her Jessie heard faintly a cry from her chum:
“Oh, Jess! What’s that? What is it?”
“Why, it is the lifeguard,” rejoined Jessie Norwood, flashing another glance over her shoulder, but continuing to thrash forward at her very best speed.
“No, no! That thing! In the water!” At first Jessie saw nothing ahead but the raft. She thought the lifeguard was hurrying to the raft to meet Amy and herself if they won the race. Another glance that she flashed back swept the smooth, rolling sea as far as Darry and Burd, endeavoring to overcome the handicap they had given the two girl chums.
It was only then that Jessie realized that something must be happening—some threatening thing that she did not understand. From the rear Darry’s hail reached Jessie’s ear:
“Turn back! Come back, Jess!”
“Why! what does he think?” considered Jessie, amazed. “That I am going to stop and let him and Burd beat us? I—guess—not!”
Then she heard the voice of the lifeguard. He was driving his boat inshore with mighty strokes; but he sat facing shoreward, too, using his oars back-handed. He shouted:
“Shark! Shark! Look out for the shark!”
And behind Jessie Norwood her chum took up the cry:
“Shark! Oh, Jess! Shark!”
The word, which had never meant much to Jessie Norwood in her life before, being merely the name of a quite unknown fish, suddenly became the most important of words! She whirled over and took up the breast stroke. She rose high in the water again to look.
Off at one side and seemingly swimming toward them from a tangent, came a gray, sail-like thing, the like of which the Roselawn girl had never seen before. She accepted as true however the identification of the lifeguard. He should know.
The race to the raft became suddenly a double race. More than ever did Jessie Norwood wish to win it! She desired to outswim the dangerous fish of which she had heard such terrible stories.
Jessie was badly frightened, but she was not too scared to swim as hard as she could for the diving raft. The lifeguard drove his boat around the end of the raft toward the gray, sail-like object which had so startled them all. Jessie remembered of reading that the dorsal fin of a shark shows above water when it swims at the surface. This odd looking thing must be it—it must be!
She measured the distance between it and herself with some calculation. It came on in a halting, undecided way. Perhaps the shark had not yet caught sight of any of the swimmers. Jessie flung up her arm and shouted at the top of her voice to her chum:
“Come on! Come on! Don’t let him get you!”
Amy was struggling so hard to reach the raft now that she had no breath left for speech. Jessie saw her splashing on in her wake. Behind, the boys were making a great splashing too, and Jessie realized that it was for an object. The shark might be frightened away if they made disturbance enough in the water.
Jessie was now very near the raft and the other three were bunching up not far behind her. The lifeguard shot by in his boat, yelling like mad. Darry shouted:
“Get aboard the raft, girls! Burd and I will beat him off till you are landed!”
“You come right on here, Darrington Drew!” sputtered his sister. “What good will you ever be if you get your leg bit off?”
Jessie reached the raft and seized a loop of rope hanging from it. If it had not been for this assistance she doubted if she could have hauled herself out of the water. When Amy arrived, her chum was lying over the edge of the refuge, and reached one arm out for her.
“Quick! Quick!” cried Jessie.
“Do—don’t scare me so!” gasped Amy. “I—I feel just as though he was nibbling at my toes right now!”
But it seemed no laughing matter to Jessie Norwood. Her chum, however, would find a joke in even the most serious circumstance. And the moment she lay on the raft beside Jessie she began to laugh, gaspingly.
“This is no laughing matter!” Jessie declared. “How can you, Amy? Darry and Burd——”
At that instant a wild shout rose from the two collegians and from the lifeguard who had rowed so energetically to their rescue. Amy broke off suddenly in her nervous laughter.
“He’s got ’em!” she shrieked. “Oh! Oh!”
But, strange though it seemed to her, Jessie realized that Darry and Burd were laughing. And the astonished expletives that the guard emitted did not seem to show fear.
“What is the matter?” Jessie demanded, standing up.
“And where is the shark?” asked Amy, likewise scrambling to her feet.
The boys were hanging to the side of the guard’s boat. He was fishing for something in the water with an oar. He finally got the object and raised it aloft.
“What is it?” repeated Jessie.
“The shark!” shrieked her chum.
It actually was all the shark there was—a pair of partly deflated swimming wings which, carried here and there by the wind, had looked like a shark’s dorsal fin at a distance.
“Good thing you girls saw it,” declared Darry, when the boys lumbered along to the raft. “If you hadn’t been so scared you never would have beat us. Would they, Burd?”
“Of course not,” agreed his friend. “And how Jess can swim—when there is a man-eating shark after her!”
“Don’t make fun,” Jessie said, somewhat exasperated. “It might have been a shark. Then where would you have been?”
“Either here or inside the shark,” said Darry. “One thing sure, he never could have caught you girls.”
“Well,” Amy sighed, “we had all the excitement of racing with a shark, even if the shark was only in our minds. I’ll never be so scared by one again.”
“Goodness!” exclaimed Jessie. “I know I shall always be nervous in the water here after this. I’ll always be looking for one. What an awful feeling it is to try to swim when one is being pursued by——”
“By a pair of swimming wings,” chuckled Burd. “Some imagination you’ve got, my dear Jess.”
There was a serious side to the matter, however. Although the shark scare had proved to be groundless, the quartette decided to say nothing about it to those ashore.
“Especially to Momsy,” Jessie Norwood said. “I don’t want to make her nervous. Little things annoy her.”
“She’ll be some annoyed by little Hen, then,” chuckled Amy. “Hen is worse than any shark you ever saw.”
“How terrible!” cried Jessie. “She is not a bad child at all, but she is wild enough.”
When they swam ashore later they found Henrietta on her good behavior with Momsy. Nobody on the sands had chanced to see the excitement out by the raft. Or, if they had, it was merely supposed that the four young people from Roselawn were playing in the water.
Jessie, however, felt rather serious about it. And she knew she would never go into the sea again at Station Island without thinking about sharks.
While they were playing hand-ball on the beach, still in their bathing suits, a low-wheeled pony carriage came along the drive from the upper end of the island, and Amy’s sharp eyes spied and recognized the two girls seated on the back seat of the vehicle.
“And that’s Bill Brewster driving!” cried Amy. “Some difference between the speed of that quadruped and his sports car.”
“One thing sure,” chuckled Burd. “He can’t do so much damage with that old Dobbin as he did with the car he drives about New Melford.”
“Belle and Sally have got a hen on,” said the slangy Amy to Jessie. “See them whispering together?”
“I can see what they are up to from right where I stand,” announced Darry, dropping the ball. “Come on, Burd! Let’s beat it for the raft again. That’s one place those two girls can’t follow us without bathing suits.”
“He, he!” giggled his sister. “I hope they sit right down here and wait for you to come ashore.”
“Send out our supper by the lifeguard,” called Burd, as he followed his chum into the surf. “We fear sharks less than we do a certain brand of featherless biped.”
“I suppose it would be too pointed for us to run away,” said Amy to Jessie, as Bill Brewster drove the pony carriage out on to the beach.
“Belle has got her eye on us, that is a fact,” agreed Jessie.
She was curious, especially after what their new friend had told them an hour before about the story that Belle Ringold was circulating. Belle was eager to talk—as she always was.
“So your folks got one of these bungalows, did they, after all, Jess Norwood?” she began. “I suppose you know there is no surety that you can keep it a month?”
“I don’t know about that. I guess father attended to the lease. And he is a lawyer, you know,” said Jessie, quietly.
“Pooh! Yes,” said Belle, tossing her head. “But there are lawyers and lawyers! My father has the smartest lawyer in New York working for him. And I suppose you know about the claim he has against all the middle of this island?”
“We have heard that you have a claim on the island—or think you have,” said Amy slyly. “But, then, Belle, you always did think you owned the earth.”
“Now, Miss Smartie, don’t be too funny! Father is going to prove his right to the golf course and all these bungalows. Don’t you fear— Why! There’s that terrible Henrietta Haney! How did she come here?”
“She is with us,” said Jessie shortly.
“Oh, indeed! One of your week-end guests, I suppose?” scoffed Belle. “We are entertaining General O’Bigger and Mrs. O’Bigger at the hotel. Of course, we would not live in one of these small bungalows—not even if we needed a vacation.”
“You wouldn’t,” said Henrietta promptly, “because I wouldn’t let you.”
“Oh! Oh! Hear that child!” cried Sally Moon.
“Nor you, neither,” declared Henrietta. “All them houses are mine—or they are going to be.”
“Hush, Henrietta,” commanded Jessie, in a low voice.
“Didn’t the funny little thing say something before about owning an island?” asked Belle, somewhat puzzled.
“And this is it,” said Henrietta. “You just try to come into any of them bungleloos! I’d get a policeman and have him take you out. So now!”
“Will you behave?” said Jessie, feeling like shaking the child, and in reality leading her away.
Amy came running after them in the midst of Jessie’s berating of the freckle-faced girl.
“Did you ever hear such nonsense?” Jessie’s chum demanded. “Belle declares the case is coming up in court next week and that her father is going to win. Did you ever?”
Mr. Norwood was sitting with his wife when they came near to that lady’s beach chair. Jessie was anxious enough to ask about Belle’s statement regarding the imminent court investigation of the controversy over Station Island.
“Why, yes, Ringold’s lawyers claim they have found new evidence entitling him to be heard as a claimant to the Padriac Haney estate,” the lawyer acknowledged. “But there may not be anything in it.”
“But is there a possibility, Robert?” Momsy asked, seeing how anxious both Jessie and the little girl looked.
“There is nothing sure in any case that comes into court,” declared her husband. “Besides, those attorneys of Ringold’s are sharp fellows. He may make his claim good.”
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” burst out Henrietta. “And then I won’t have nuthin’? No island, nor golf link, nor—nor nuthin’? Oh, dear me!”
“Never mind, honey,” Jessie begged. “You have friends. You have me.” And she sat down on the sands and took the freckle-faced little girl in her arms.
“Ye-es, Miss Jessie. I know I got you,” sobbed Henrietta. “But—but you ain’t a golf link, nor you ain’t a bungleloo. And—and I want to turn that Ringold girl off my island, I do!”
The Stanleys arrived at Station Island the next day, the doctor having arranged for a substitute preacher at the Roselawn Church for two Sundays. The bungalow they had arranged to occupy was one of the colony not far from the big house the Norwoods and their party were staying in.
Darry and Burd began to spend a good deal of their time on the yacht after that first day. Amy accused her brother of being afraid of a flank attack by Belle Ringold and Sally Moon, and he admitted that he had hoped to escape those two “troublesome kids” when he came to the island.
“I came here as the guest of little Hen Haney,” he declared soberly. “And I don’t wish to be annoyed by any girls older than she is.”
But he did not say this within Henrietta’s hearing. The little girl went around with a very long face indeed. She seemed to think that she was going to lose her island. Even Nell Stanley, who was a general comforter at most times, could not alleviate little Henrietta’s woe.
With the coming of the Stanleys, however, Henrietta became less of a trial to Jessie. For Sally Stanley was just about Henrietta’s age and the two children got along splendidly together.
Bob and Fred, those lively and ingenious youngsters, made their own friends among the boys of the bungalow colony. The three girls from Roselawn—Jessie, Amy, and Nell—found plenty to do and enjoyed themselves thoroughly during the next few days. Being all interested in radio they naturally spent some time at Jessie’s set. But unfortunately it did not work as well here as it had at home.
“And I do not know why,” Jessie ruminated. “I have been studying up about it and the more I read the less I seem to know. There are so many different opinions about how an amateur set should be built. Do you know, sometimes I feel as though I should have an entirely different kind of outfit. There is a new super-regenerative circuit that is being talked about.”
“But some people say it is not practicable for amateurs,” broke in Nell. “I’ve read so, anyway.”
“I should like to talk with some professional—some radio expert—about that,” Jessie confessed. “If I had thought before we left home I would have spoken to Mr. Blair.”
“You’ll have to wait until you get back, then,” said Amy promptly.
“Why?” cried Nell suddenly. “There must be experts over at that Government station.”
“That is so,” agreed Jessie, thoughtfully. “Do you suppose they would——”
“Let’s go and see,” urged Nell. “I’m crazy to see the inside of that station, anyway.”
“It’s wireless—like the little outfit aboard the Marigold,” Amy suggested.
“But so much bigger,” Jessie chimed in eagerly. “If they admit visitors, let’s go.”
Mr. Norwood found out about that particular point for the girls and reported that if they went over to the station in the late afternoon the operator on duty would be glad to show them “the works” and give them all the information in his power.
The three friends went alone, for the collegians were off fishing that day on the Marigold. They left the little girls in Mrs. Norwood’s care and slipped away about four o’clock and walked to the station, which was some distance from the bungalow colony. They had to climb the stairs in the old shaft of the lighthouse to the wireless room. The room was half darkened and they heard the snapping of the spark, and even saw the faint blue flash of it when they came to the door.
The operator, with his head harness on, was busy at his set. Jessie, at least, had spent some time trying to learn the Morse code since talking the matter over with Darry on the yacht. But although the signals the operator received were in dots and dashes, she could not understand a single thing.
“I am afraid it will take us a long time to learn,” she said to Amy, sighing. “We shall have to buy a regular telegraph set and learn in that way.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk about learning anything!” cried her chum. “Vacation is slipping right away from us.”
After a few moments the spark stopped snapping, the operator closed his switch and removed his harness. He wheeled around on the bench and welcomed them. He was really a very pleasant young man, and he explained many things about both the radio-telegraph and radio-telephone that the girls had not known before.
He was so friendly that Jessie ventured to ask him about the new super-regenerative circuit in which she was interested.
“Yes. I’m strong for that new thing,” said the wireless operator, enthusiastically. “In the first place, it was invented by the man who originated the ordinary regenerative circuit so much in use at present, and also of the super-heterodyne circuit. I understand this new circuit permits a current amplification up to a million times, and all with three tubes. You know, to reach such a high mark with your ordinary regenerative circuit, many more tubes would be necessary.”
“I understand that,” said Jessie. “But can an amateur build and practically work this new circuit?”
“Why not? If you follow directions carefully. And with the new outfit a loop is just as effective an antenna as an outside aerial. They say, too, that to catch broadcasting for not more than twenty-five miles, not even a loop is needed, the circuits themselves acting as the absorbers of energy.”
“I’m going to try it,” declared Jessie, with more confidence. “But I feel that I understand so little about the various forms of radio, after all.”
“You have nothing on me there,” laughed the operator. “I am learning something new all the time. And sometimes I am astonished to find out how, after five years of work with it, I am really so ignorant.”
The girls had a very interesting visit at the station; and from the operator Jessie and Amy gained some particular instruction about sending and receiving messages in the telegraph code. He received several messages from ships at sea while the girls remained in the station, and likewise relayed other messages received from inland stations both up and down the coast and to vessels far out at sea.
“It is a wonderful thing,” said Nell, as the girls walked homeward. “I never realized before how great an influence wireless already was in commercial life. Why, how did the world ever get along without it before Marconi first thought of it?”
“How did the world ever get along without any other great invention?” demanded Amy. “The sewing machine, for instance. I’ve got to run up a seam in one of my sports skirts, for there is no tailor, they say, nearer than the hotel. I do wish a sewing machine had been included in the furnishings of your bungalow, Jess. I hate to sew by hand.”
The boys had come in before the Roselawn girls returned for dinner, and they were very enthusiastic over a plan for taking a part of the bungalow crowd on an extended sailing trip. They had met Dr. Stanley walking the beaches, and he had expressed a desire to go to sea for a day or two, and at once Darry and Burd had conceived a plan for the young folks to be included.
“The doctor is a good enough chaperon,” said Darry, with a laugh. “Nell shall come. Her Aunt Freda will be down to look after the children.”
“And Henrietta?” asked Jessie, hesitatingly.
“For pity’s sake!” cried Darry, in some impatience. “Don’t be tied down to that kid all the time. You’d think you were a grandmother.”
“Well, I like that!” exclaimed Jessie. “I’m not sure that I want to go on your old yacht, Darry Drew.”
“Aw, Jess——”
“Well, I’ll think about it,” murmured Jessie, relenting.
Darry and Burd seemed to have little time to spend ashore these days. They said that they had a lot to do to fix up the Marigold for the proposed trip seaward. But Amy accused them of being afraid of Belle Ringold and Sally Moon.
“Belle is determined that she shall get an invitation to sail aboard your yacht, Darry,” teased his sister. “Don’t forget that.”
“Not if we see her first,” responded Burd, promptly. “And don’t you ring her in on us, for if you do we’ll not let you aboard the Marigold either. How about it, Darry?”
“Good enough,” agreed Amy’s brother. “Oh, I promise not to ring Belle Ringold in on you,” giggled Amy.
“It is perfectly disgraceful how you boys teach these girls slang,” Mrs. Drew remarked with a sigh.
“Why, Mother!” cried Darry, his eyes twinkling, “they teach it to us. You accuse Burd and me wrongfully. We couldn’t tell these girls a single thing.”
This was at breakfast at the Norwood bungalow. After breakfast the young folks separated. But Jessie and Amy had no complaint to make about the boys. They had their own interests. This day they had agreed to explore the island with Nell Stanley as far as the hotel grounds.
They took Henrietta and Sally Stanley along, and carried a picnic lunch. The older girls were rather curious to see the extent of “Henrietta’s domain,” as Amy called it. The pastures included in the Hackle Island Golf Club grounds covered all the middle of the island, and consisted of hills and dells, all “up-and-down-dilly,” Amy observed, and from a distance, at least, seemed very attractive.
Of course, they could not go fast with the two smaller girls along, although Henrietta seemed tireless.
“But Sally ain’t a tough one, like me,” declared the little girl who thought she was going to own an island. She approved of Sally Stanley very much because the minister’s little girl was dainty, and kept her dresses clean, and was soft-spoken. “I got to run and holler once in a while or I thinks I’m choking,” confessed Henrietta. “But your mamma, Miss Jessie, says I’ll get over that after a while. She says I’ll go to school and learn a lot and that maybe I’ll be as nice as Sally some day.”
“I hope you will,” said Jessie warmly. “That’s hardly to be expected,” Henrietta rejoined in her old-fashioned way. “Sally was born that way. But I always was a tough one.”
“There is a good deal in that,” sighed Jessie to the other Roselawn girls. “The poor little thing! She never did have a chance. But Momsy is already talking about sending her away to school to have her toned down and——” “Suppose the Blairs won’t hear to it?” suggested Amy. “Leave it to Momsy to work things out her way,” said Jessie, more gaily.
They soon left the sand dunes behind them and marched up over what the natives of the island called “the downs” to a scrubby pasture at the edge of the golf links. Crossing the links watchfully they only had to dodge a couple of times when the players called “Fore!” and so got safely past the various greens and reached the patch of wood between the club premises and the hotel grounds.
There was a spring here which they had been told about, and it was near enough noon for lunch to occupy an important place in their minds. They spent an hour here; but after that, much as she had eaten, Henrietta began to run around again. She could not keep still.
Her voice was suddenly stilled and she halted in the path and stood like a pointer flushing a covey of birds. The older girls were surprised. Amy drawled:
“What’s the matter, Hen? You don’t feel sick, do you?”
“I hear something,” declared Henrietta, her freckled face clouding. “I hear somebody talk that I don’t like.”
“Who is that?” asked Nell.
“She makes me feel sick, all right,” grumbled the little girl. “Oh, yes! It’s her. And if she says again that she owns my island, I’ll—I’ll——”
“Belle Ringold!” exclaimed Amy, much amused. “Can’t we go anywhere without Belle and Sally showing up?”
The two girls whom they all considered so unpleasant appeared at the top of the small hill and came down the path. They were rather absurdly dressed for an outing. Certainly their frocks would have looked better at dinner or at a dance than in the woods. And they strutted along as though they quite well knew they had on their very best furbelows.
“Oh, dear me! there’s that awful child again,” drawled Belle, before she saw the older girls sitting at the spring.
“She must be lost away up here,” said Sally Moon, idly. “Say, kid, run get this folding cup filled at the spring.”
“What for?” demanded Henrietta.
“Why, so I can drink from it, foolish!”
“You bring me a drink first,” said the freckle-faced girl stoutly. “Nobody didn’t make me your servant to run your errands—so now!”
“Listen to her!” laughed Belle. “She waits on Jess Norwood and Amy Drew hand and foot. Of course she is a servant.”
“You ain’t a servant when you wait on folks for love,” declared Henrietta, quickly.
Amy clapped her hands together softly at this bit of philosophy. Jessie stood up so that the girls from the hotel could see her.
“Oh! Here’s Jess Norwood now,” cried Sally. “You might know!”
Little Henrietta was backing away from the two newcomers, but eyeing them with great disfavor. She suddenly demanded of Jessie:
“Is this spring on a part of my land, Miss Jessie?”
“It may be,” said Amy, quickly answering before Jessie could do so. “Like enough all this grove is yours, Hen.”
“Why,” gasped Belle Ringold, “my father is just about to take possession of this place. He is going to have surveyors come on the island and survey it.”
“This is my woods!” cried Henrietta. “It’s my spring! You sha’n’t even have a drink out of it—neither of you girls!”
“What nonsense!” drawled Belle. “Who will stop us, please?” and she came on down the path toward the spring.
The other girls had now got up. Jessie tried to reach out and seize Henrietta; but the latter was so angry that she jerked away. She stood before Belle and Sally with flashing eyes and her hands clenched tight.
“You go away! This is my woods and my spring! You sha’n’t have a drink!”
“The child is crazy,” said Belle, harshly. “Let me pass, you mean little thing!”
At that Henrietta stooped and caught up dirt in each grubby hand. It was a little damp where she stood, and the muck stuck to her palms. She shrieked hatred and defiance at Belle and, running forward, smeared the dirt all up and down the front of the rich girl’s fine dress.
Belle shrieked quite as loudly as the angry Henrietta and threatened all manner of punishment. But she could not catch the freckled girl, who was as wriggly as an eel.
“I’ll—I’ll have you whipped! You ought to be spanked hard!” panted Belle Ringold. “And it is your fault, Jess Norwood. You egged her on.”
“I did not,” said Jessie, angrily.
But she was vexed with Henrietta, too. She ran after and caught the panting, sobbing little thing. She really was tempted to shake her.
“What do you mean, Henrietta Haney, by acting this way and talking so? Do you want to disgrace us all? For shame!”
“I don’t talk no worse than the Ringold one,” declared Henrietta.
Jessie tried a new tack. She said more quietly: “But you know better, Henrietta.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And perhaps she doesn’t,” ventured Jessie.
“Well—er—she’s got money,” pouted Henrietta. “Why doesn’t she hire somebody to teach her better? You know I never did have any chance, Miss Jessie.”
She felt she was in disgrace, however, and the older girls let her feel this without compunction. Belle was frightfully angry about her frock. She sputtered and threatened and called names that were not polite. Finally Jessie said:
“If you feel that way about it, Belle, send the dress to the cleaner’s and then send the bill to my mother. That is all I can say about it. But I think you brought it on yourself by teasing Henrietta.”
In spite of this speech to Belle, Henrietta felt that she was in disgrace as Jessie marched her away from the spring. Little Sally Stanley came to her other side and squeezed Henrietta’s dirty hand in sympathy.
“Huh!” snuffled Henrietta. “It’s too bad you’ve got the same name as that Moon girl, Sally. Why don’t you ask the minister to change it for you? He christens folks, doesn’t he?”
“Why, yes,” murmured Sally, uncertainly. “But I was christened, you know, oh, years and years ago.”
“That don’t cut no ice,” replied Henrietta, unconscious that her language was not all it ought to be. “You just have him do it over again. And don’t be no ‘Sally,’ nor no more ‘Belle.’”