CHAPTER IV
THE FAIRY'S WAND
"You are a direct gift of Providence, Jack Bolling," declared Madge the next morning, shaking hands with her cousin, in the parlor of Miss Rice's boarding house. "How did you happen to turn up here?"
"Well, I unexpectedly had a day off from college," explained Jack. "So I just telephoned to Miss Tolliver to ask whether I might come to see you, like the well-behaved cousin I am. She replied that you were in town and that I might come to see you. So here I am! What luck have you had?"
"None at all at the old places you recommended," Madge returned scornfully and in a most ungrateful fashion.
"Oh, I knew a girl couldn't find the right sort of boat without a fellow to help her," Jack teased, knowing Madge's aversion to the idea that a girl couldn't do anything she liked, unless with the help of a boy.
"Just you come along with us, Jack, and we will show you what we have found," invited Madge. "I think the girls are ready. We are. Here come Eleanor and Lillian. Miss Lillian Seldon, I wish to present my cousin, Mr. Jack Bolling. Where is Phil?"
While Lillian, looking unusually lovely in her gown of pale lavender organdie, with a cream-colored hat covered with violets, was shaking hands with Jack, Phyllis Alden came down the hall with a slight frown on her face.
Hadn't she and Madge vowed within themselves and to each other never to ask a man's help in anything they planned to do? And here was Madge introducing her cousin into their plan the very first chance she had. But in this Phil was mistaken.
Madge had made no explanations to Jack, and her cousin asked her no questions as the party started on their walk. When they came to the line of canal boats that the girls had seen the afternoon before a halt was made.
"There is our houseboat!" cried Madge, waving her hand toward the half dozen disreputable looking canal boats huddled close together.
"Where?" asked Jack in amazement.
"Oh, I don't know just exactly where," returned Madge with twinkling eyes. "Everyone look here, please." She took two large squares of white paper out of her bag. "You see, it is this way, Jack: We found that to rent a houseboat takes such a lot of money that we decided yesterday, to try to turn one of these old canal boats into a houseboat, and I have drawn the plans of what I think ought to be done."
Madge, who had a decided talent for drawing, had sat up late into the night to make her two sketches. One pictured the shanty boat as it was, dingy and dirty, with a broken-down cabin of two rooms at the stern. In the second drawing Madge's fairy wand, which was her gift of imagination, had quite transformed the ugly boat. The deck of the canal boat was about forty feet long, with a twelve-foot beam. To the two rooms, which the ordinary shanty boat contains, she had added another two, forming an oblong cabin, with four windows on each side and a flat roof. The flat roof formed the second deck of the prospective houseboat. It had a small railing around it, and a pair of steps that led up from the outside to the upper deck. Madge had decorated her fairy ship with garlands of flowers that hung far over the sides of the deck.
Jack Bolling looked at the drawing a long time without saying a word.
"Don't you think it can be done, Jack?" inquired Madge eagerly. "You see, this old boat could be cleaned and painted, and any good carpenter could put up the extra rooms."
"Right you are, Madge," Jack answered at last, making a low bow. "Hats off to the ladies, as usual. Who is that queer-looking customer coming this way?"
"He is the man who is to see about our canal boat," answered Phil, as though they were already in possession.
Madge had gone forward. "Have you found the boat for us?" she inquired. "I simply can't wait to find out."
The man grinned. "There is one towed alongside of mine that you might be able to git. I had a hard time finding it."
"That is all right," declared Jack, stepping forward, "you will be paid for your work. Will you please take us out to look at the boat?"
"Got to cross my shanty to git to it," the man replied, leading the way across a rickety gang-plank.
There were three or four dirty children playing on the deck of his boat and a thin, yellow dog. At the open door of the shanty kitchen stood the figure of a girl. She had on the faded calico dress of the day before; she was barefooted and her hair was ragged and unkempt. But as Jack Bolling and the four girls glanced idly at her a start of surprise ran through each one of these. Jack stopped for an instant, and instinctively took off his hat. Phil Alden whispered in Madge's ear, "I never saw any one so beautiful in my life," and Madge mutely agreed.
The girl was smiling a wistful, far-away smile that was very touching. Her hair was the color of copper that has been burnished by the sun, and her eyes were the deep blue of the midsummer sky. The wind and sun had tanned the girl's cheeks, but her skin was still fine and delicate. There was a strange, vacant expression in her eyes and a pathetic droop to her whole figure.
"Git you back in there, Moll," the owner of the shanty boat called out roughly. The girl started and quivered, as though she expected a blow. Jack's face turned hot with anger. But what could he do? The man was talking to his own daughter.
"Why did you speak to the poor girl like that?" asked Madge sharply.
"She ain't all right in the top story," the man answered. "She is kind of foolish. I have to keep a close watch on her."
Madge turned pitying eyes on the demented girl, then as they stepped aboard the other canal boat, for the time she forgot the lovely apparition she had just seen.
"How much will the owner rent this boat for?" Madge asked at last, trying hard to conceal her enthusiasm. The boat was dirty and needed renovating, but it was well built of good, strong timbers.
"My friend is willing to sell this here boat for a hundred dollars," said the fisherman, Mike Muldoon, hesitating as he mentioned the sum.
It was all Madge could do to keep from clapping her hands for joy. One hundred dollars for the boat—that left another hundred for painting and remodeling and for other necessary expenses.
Just as Madge was about to close with the man's offer a look from Jack Bolling interrupted her.
"The boat is not worth a hundred dollars," he declared decisively. "The young lady will give you fifty dollars for it, and not a cent more."
The man laughed contemptuously. "I can't do it," he said. "That boat is cheap at a hundred dollars."
"At fifty, you mean," retorted Jack stubbornly.
The girls stood back quietly and allowed Jack to drive the bargain, which he did with so much spirit that the coveted boat was at last made over to him at his price, fifty dollars.
For the rest of the day the four girls spent their time interviewing carpenters and painters. At last they found a man who promised to deliver the boat, rebuilt according to Madge's idea, at a little town several miles farther down the bay. The man owned a motor boat. He was to take the houseboat to a landing, where the girls could load it with the necessary supplies, and then to tow them farther down the bay, until they found the ideal place for their summer holiday.
"I declare, Madge, dear, I was never so tired, nor so happy in my life," declared Eleanor Butler late that afternoon, as the quartette were on their way back to their school at Harborpoint. "I can see our houseboat, now, as plainly as anything. At first, Lillian and I couldn't quite believe in your idea."
Madge had heard Eleanor's comments but vaguely. She was doing a sum in mental arithmetic. "Fifty dollars for the old shanty boat, seventy-five for remodeling it, fifteen to the man for towing." Here she became confused. But she still knew there was quite a large sum of money left for buying the little furniture they needed and their store of provisions.
Phyllis Alden, too, had been busy calculating. "I think we can do it, Madge," she said, leaning over from the back seat to speak to her friend.
"Of course we can. We shall have whole lots of money," announced Madge triumphantly.
Phil shook her head. "I am afraid we won't. There is one thing we must buy that will be expensive."
Lillian straightened up. She had been leaning against the back of the seat, utterly worn out. The three girls gazed at Phil in consternation. What was this new item of expense that threatened to eat up their little capital?
"Don't keep us in suspense, Phil," laughed Eleanor. "What have we forgotten to buy?"
"A kitchen stove!" cried Phil dramatically. "And I know they must be awfully expensive."
"What a goose you are, Phil," said Lillian in a practical tone. "We don't want a kitchen stove. It would take up too much room. We need an oil stove or something like that."
"Then I appoint you as a special committee to look into the stove question, Lillian," laughed Madge.
"I accept the appointment," bowed Lillian, "and I won't waste our capital on kitchen ranges of elephantine proportions, either."
During the next five days the four friends found plenty to occupy their time. Then Miss Tolliver's school closed, and Phil Alden hurried home to her family in Hartford, Connecticut; Lillian returned to her home in Philadelphia, while Madge and Eleanor departed to spend a week with Mr. and Mrs. Butler in their old home in Virginia. Miss Jones, however, remained at the school. She made one hurried trip into Baltimore, and on another occasion had a visitor, but the rest of the time she sewed industriously; for on June the eighth a new experience was to be hers—she was to begin her duties as chaperon to four adventurous girls aboard their longed-for "Ship of Dreams."
CHAPTER V
ALL ABOARD
Blue waves lapped idly against the sides of a little, white palace that had risen out of the waves of the bay overnight. One side lay close along a quiet shore. Overhead the leaves of a willow tree stirred in the wind, and the birds twittered in its branches. The rosy flush was just fading out of the sky. Dawn had come only a short time before, and the wind, the waves and the birds were the only things stirring so early in the morning. There was not a sound or a movement aboard the odd vessel that was moored to the shore.
Along the shore sped the slender figure of a girl. It was a part of the morning. Her blue frock was the color of the sky and her auburn hair had been touched by the sun, and on her radiant face lay the glory of youth.
Of course, it was Madge! She did not stop when she first spied her houseboat between the branches of the willow tree. She gave a little gasp, and ran on faster than ever. A moment later she came alongside her boat, which was only about three feet from the shore. Madge had not practised running and jumping in the gymnasium at school and on the old farm in Virginia for nothing. She gave one flying leap and landed on the deck of her houseboat. Then she stood perfectly still, a little song of gratitude welling from the depth of her happy heart.
"Perhaps it was not fair in me to have run away from Eleanor," she mused. "But then Nellie is such a sleepy-head, she never would have wished to get up so early. And I did want to see the boat alone, just for a moment. I am not going to look into the cabin, though. I am going to wait for the other girls——"
A stone went whizzing by Madge's ear at this moment, causing her soliloquy to come to an abrupt end.
She glanced toward the shore. A small boy stood grinning at her, with his hands tucked into a pair of trousers so much too long for him they had to be turned up from the ankles to the knees.
"Hello," he remarked cheerfully, eyeing Madge owlishly.
"Hello yourself," returned Madge. "Do you usually begin the day by throwing stones at peaceful strangers?"
"Yes'm," the small boy responded calmly. "Where'd you and that come from?"
"I came from my home in Virginia, and if by 'that' you mean my boat, it is a 'Ship of Dreams' and was towed up here from Baltimore yesterday afternoon. What do you think of it?"
"She isn't a dream, she's a peach," was the prompt retort.
"I'm glad you like her," smiled Madge in a winning fashion that caused the lad to smile in return. "Why are you up so early in the morning?"
"Driving home the cows," was the laconic answer.
"I don't see any cows," teased Madge. "Wait a minute. I have something for you to do. Would you like to earn a quarter? If you would, then come back here about nine o'clock. We are going to load our boat with some furniture and provisions, and we would like to have you help us."
"All right, I'll be here," promised the boy, and ran off into the bushes with a derisive grin which Madge did not see.
A few moments later Madge went back to Eleanor to have breakfast at the little boarding house where she and her cousin had spent the night. Miss Jones, Lillian and Phil had not yet arrived, but they were expected by the early train that came from Baltimore. The little village from which they intended to go aboard their houseboat was only about half an hour's ride from the city, and was situated on one of the quiet inlets of the bay.
Fifteen minutes before the train was due Eleanor and Madge were impatiently waiting at the station. The newcomers were so surrounded by bags, suit cases and mysterious packages that it took all the men about the depot to land them safely on the platform. Madge gave the order to the expressman to bring all their luggage to the houseboat landing near the willow tree. Then the party started out to find the boat, without losing a minute by the way.
Madge slipped her arm through that of Miss Jones and walked beside her dutifully, though she secretly longed to be with her chums. Lillian, Phil and Eleanor joined hands and ran ahead, without being in the least degree affected by the idea that they were no longer children. Madge, however, was the only one who knew the way. She hurried Miss Jones along until that young woman was almost out of breath. When they were within a short distance of the place where she had found her boat waiting for her in the early morning, she could bear it no longer. With a murmured excuse she broke away from Miss Jones and started on a run toward the willow tree. Her three chums were close behind her. The branches of the willow tree seemed more impenetrable in the bright sunlight. It was not so easy to see through them. Madge ran straight past the tree, then uttered a shrill cry. She stopped short, her cheeks turning first red, then white.
"What is it?" cried Phil, springing to her friend's side.
Madge pointed dumbly toward the water.
"Tell us!" said Eleanor, running up to Madge and lightly grasping her arm.
"Our houseboat is gone!" gasped Madge. "It was right there, tied to that very post along the shore early this morning! The man who brought it down from Baltimore left a note for me describing the landing place. He said he had to go back to Baltimore, but that he would come here this afternoon to tow us. Now the boat has gone! O, girls, what shall we do?"
The girls stared at the water in silence. Disappointment rendered them speechless for the moment. "Let us look up and down the shore," suggested Phil comfortingly. "I suppose it is just barely possible that the rope broke away from the stake, and the boat has floated off somewhere."
The four girls ran up and down the bank, straining their eyes in anxious glances out over the wide stretch of water. There was no houseboat in sight. It had vanished as completely as though it had really been a "Ship of Dreams."
"Perhaps you have made a mistake in the place, Madge," was the chaperon's first remark as she joined the excited party.
Madge compressed her red lips. Miss Jones was so provoking. She was utterly without tact. But now that she was to be one of the party it would be wrong to say a single impolite thing to their chaperon the whole six weeks of their holiday, no matter how provoking or tactless she might he. Madge sighed impatiently, then turned to the teacher.
"No, I am not mistaken, Miss Jones. I can't be. You see, I came to this very spot this morning and went aboard our boat. Then I have the man's description of the landing place. I think we had better go back to the village and see if we can get some men who know the shore along here to come to help us look out for our boat. There is no use in having our furniture brought here if we haven't any houseboat," finished Madge, her voice trembling.
"Come along, then; I will go back with you," volunteered Phil. "Miss Jones, you sit under the tree. Lillian, you and Nellie keep a sharp look-out. If any one comes along in a boat, ask him about ours."
"Do you think our boat has gone forever, Phil?" asked Madge dejectedly as the two companions walked wearily back over the road they had traveled so gayly a short time before.
"I don't know," replied Phil. "I should say it depended entirely upon who had taken the trouble to spirit it away."
While the two girls stood gazing moodily out over the bay a hard, green apple landed with a thump on top of Madge's uncovered head. Madge and Phil looked up simultaneously. There in a gnarled old apple tree directly above them appeared the grinning face of the small boy whose acquaintance Madge had made earlier in the morning.
"Lost your boat, ain't you?" he asked cheerfully.
Madge nodded and walked on. She was not anxious to renew conversation with the mischievous youngster.
Phil, however, was seized with an inspiration. "Have you been about this place very long?" she inquired casually.
"Yep," the boy returned.
"Then, perhaps, you know what has become of our boat," suggested Phil.
"Yep," answered the voice from the tree, "I know all about it."
"Then tell us this minute what has become of it!" ordered Madge. "I knew the moment I saw you that you were the very imp of mischief. Tell us where our boat is at once."
"I won't tell," the urchin spoke firmly.
"You shall," declared Madge, her eyes flashing.
"I'd like to see you make me tell," dared the boy. "A girl can't climb a tree." The grin on his impish face widened.
"I'll show you that a girl can climb a tree, young man," exclaimed Madge hotly, making her way toward the tree. "I have climbed a good many more trees than you have ever climbed in your life."
"Listen to me, Madge," admonished Phil, laughing at her friend, "you can't have a fight with a small boy in the top of a tree or shake him out of it. Don't allow him to tease you. Let's go on into the village and get a policeman. Then, if the boy really knows anything about the disappearance of our houseboat, the policeman will make him tell us." Phil tried to make her voice sound as threatening as possible when she mentioned the word "policeman."
"I won't be here when you git back," was the imp's cheerful response.
Madge and Phil paid no further heed to him. They went on toward the town. A few yards farther on they heard the patter of bare feet. "Can't you wait a minute?" a voice pleaded. "I was only teasing you. If you promise you won't give me away, I'll tell you what became of your old boat. My pa took it."
"Your pa?" cried Madge in surprise. "What do you mean?"
"When I told Pa I'd seen a new-fangled kind of a boat hitched to our post, where we most generally ties up our own boat, he said you hadn't no right to be there. So he just hitched up our mule and he come down here and untied your boat and dragged it up shore. I run after him until I got too tired. Then I come back here to tell you," ended the boy.
"Where is your father?" Phil asked quietly. Madge's eyes were flashing dangerously, her temper was rising.
"He's cutting hay," the boy returned. "I'll show you the field and then I'll run."
Lillian and Eleanor had now joined the two girls to find out what was delaying them. Miss Jones still waited, disconsolate, under the willow tree. The four girls started out behind the one small boy, who answered to the name of Bill Jenkins, Jr. It was evident that Bill Jenkins, Sr., was the name of the boat-thief.
"What shall we say and do when we find the man?" asked Eleanor anxiously. "I suppose we had no right to tie our boat up at his landing place without asking permission."
Madge shook her head angrily. "Right or no right, I shall certainly tell him my opinion of him," she said tensely.
"You must not make the man angry, Madge," argued gentle Eleanor, who knew Madge's fiery, temper and stood in awe of it. "Perhaps, when he sees we are girls, he will be sorry he took our boat away and will bring it back for us."
"Let us go and see him at once," was Madge's sole response.
After all, it was Eleanor's gentleness that won the day! She told the farmer, whom they found in the hay field, the whole story of the houseboat, and how they hoped to spend their holiday aboard it.
"I declare, I'm real sorry I moved your houseboat," he apologized. "If I'd 'a' known the pretty toy boat belonged to a parcel of young girls like you, I'd never have laid hands on it. You kin stay along my shore all summer if you like. But no one asked my permission to tie the boat to my post. And soon as I seen it, I just thought the boat belonged to some rich society folks who thought they owned the airth. I hid the boat up the bay a piece. But don't you fret. I'll go git it and tote it back in no time."
"I am so sorry," explained Madge prettily, ashamed of her bad temper and how near she had come to displaying it. "I thought, of course, the engineer who towed our boat out here from Baltimore had asked your permission before he made a landing. I suppose he was in such a hurry to get back to the city that he neglected it."
While the girls and their chaperon waited for the return of their houseboat they ate an early luncheon out of the hampers that Phil and Lillian had brought from their homes to provision the travelers for the day.
The houseboat finally did appear, much as the girls had pictured her. She was painted white, with a line of green showing just above the water. The four rooms in the cabin, which was set well toward the stern, opened into each other, and each room had a small door and window facing on the deck. The two bedrooms had six berths set along the walls. One room was intended for the kitchen and the fourth, which was the largest, was to serve as the dining room, sitting room, work and play room for the houseboat party on rainy days, when it was impossible for them to be out on deck.
While the men were unloading the barrels and boxes on the boat the girls ran in and out the doors of their cabin rooms like the figures in a pantomime, bumping into each other and stumbling over things. Miss Jones at last sent Eleanor and Lillian to the kitchen to drive nails along the wall and to hang up their limited display of kitchen utensils, while Phil and Madge helped with the unpacking. There was one steamer chair, bought in honor of the chaperon, and a great many sofa cushions, borrowed from their rooms at school, to be used as deck furniture. A barrel of apples, a barrel of potatoes and two Virginia hams were donations from the farm in Virginia. Mrs. Seldon, Lillian's mother, had also sent a store of pickles and preserves.
Phil, too, had brought a big box from home, while Madge's own purchases for the houseboat included a small table, five chairs, besides the necessary china and some of the bedding. The rest of the outfit the girls managed to secure from their own homes.
Miss Jones, Phil and Madge were industriously turning the berths into beds when a sharp scream from Lillian, who was working in the kitchen, filled them with terror. Miss Jones arrived first at the kitchen door, with her heart in her mouth. Had some horrible disaster overtaken them, just as they were about to start on their adventures? There stood the two girls, Lillian and Eleanor, their faces, instead of showing fright, apparently shining with delight. The men who had been setting up the little stove, which they had bought for a trifling sum after all, had disappeared. The girls were now in full possession of their domain.
"What is it, children? What has happened?" implored Miss Jones, with a white, scared face. Lillian pointed ahead of her, but only the kitchen stove was to be seen. Madge and Phil, who had followed close behind their chaperon, were equally mystified.
But hark! What was the noise they heard all at once? A gentle crackling, a roar, a burst of flame, and a puff of smoke up through the long stove pipe! The pipe went through a hole cut in the side of the wall. "A fire, a fire!" exclaimed Lillian joyously, wondering why the others looked so startled.
There was really a fire burning in the stove of the houseboat kitchen! And as a fire is a first sign to the pioneer that he is at last at home, so the little company felt themselves to be the original girl pioneers in houseboat adventures, and felt the same thrill of peace and pleasure.
Madge seized the shining new tea-kettle and filled it with water from the big bucket that rested on a shelf just outside the kitchen door.
"Madge, put the kettle on,
Madge, put the kettle on,
We'll all take tea,"
She sang in a sweet, high, rapturous voice.
Toot, toot, toot! a motor boat whistle sounded out on the water. The four girls rushed on deck to call a greeting to the engineer who was to tow their houseboat down the bay, until it found an anchorage in a cove in the bay near a stream of clear water.
Four weary but happy girls sat out on deck on cushions as the engineer made fast to their boat preparatory to starting. The chaperon was installed in the solitary grandeur of their one steamer chair.
There was a heavy tug at the great rope that bound the houseboat to the little motor tug. The motor boat moved out into the bay, and with almost no perceptible motion and no noise, except the gentle ripple of the water purling against the sides of the craft, the houseboat followed it. The longed-for vacation on the water had begun.
CHAPTER VI
PLEASURE BAY
Just before twilight the boat reached a spot that seemed especially created for the travelers. For two hours they had been silently drinking in the beauty of the sun-lit bay and the green earth. They were not in the main body of the great Chesapeake Bay, but in one of the long arms of the bay that reaches into the Maryland coast.
"Look ahead of you, girls, to the left," called Phyllis Alden, as they glided slowly along.
Miss Jones and the three girls looked. There, in a curve of the land, was a low bank, with great clusters of purple iris growing along it, among the slender, long, green stems of the "cat-tails." An elm tree stood close to the edge of the water, spreading its branches out over the miniature sea. It was so strong, so big and enduring that it gave the home-seeking girls a sense of protection. The elm's branches could shelter them from the sun by day, and at night their boat could be tied to its trunk. Farther up the bank the girls could see a comfortable old, gray, shingled farmhouse. The farm meant water, fresh eggs, milk and butter.
Madge looked inquiringly at their chaperon, who nodded with an expression of entire satisfaction. Next, Madge glanced about the semi-circle of eager faces. "Shall we cast our anchor in Pleasure Bay?" she asked, and thus the pleasant little inland sea was named.
Madge signaled to the motor boat ahead, and the engineer stopped. He had several passengers on board his motor boat, but the men had been inside the saloon most of the time, and no one on board the houseboat had noticed them.
Before the houseboat anchored Madge and Phil ran up the hill to ask at the farmhouse for the privilege of making a landing. They had learned a lesson they were not likely to forget.
Too tired to begin work, the girls ate their supper out of the luncheon baskets, then sat about on deck, singing and talking until the stars came out and twinkled down on their little houseboat with a million friendly eyes; then, urged by their chaperon and their own heavy eyes, they crept into their berths.
It was still night when Madge awakened with a start. She thought she heard some one talking. "To whit! to whoo!" It was only the call of a friendly owl. Yet the night seemed curiously lonely. It was strange to be asleep on the water instead of on the land! There was another weird sound, then something stirred outside on the deck of the boat. From her cabin window Madge could see the line of the shore. It was quiet and empty.
This time she heard the sound of a voice. Another voice answered it. Could it be possible that the second voice sounded like that of Miss Jones! What could have happened? Without pausing to put on her shoes Madge slipped into the next room. Eleanor lay breathing quietly in the upper berth and Miss Jones seemed to be asleep in the lower one. But the cover was drawn up almost to where her ears should be and Madge could not see her face.
She crept over to the chaperon's berth. It was necessary to waken Miss Jones and tell her of the mysterious sounds. She slipped her hand along the pillow in the dark. There was no response. She groped deeper under the covers. Still no movement or sound. Miss Jones was not in her berth. She was out on deck, talking to some one. Madge returned to her room. She did not intend to call the other girls until she knew what was the trouble. Phyllis was always brave and so were Lillian and Eleanor, but in this instance they could do nothing.
The girl stole softly to the cabin window and peeped out. She could just catch the outline of two figures that were standing well up toward the bow of the boat. One was a woman's figure, with a shawl thrown over her head, but Madge was sure that she recognized the chaperon. Hurrying back to her berth she slipped on her steamer coat and slippers. She was trying every moment to fight down the distrust and dislike she had felt toward Miss Jones ever since their first acquaintance. She was trying to tell herself that she had invited their teacher to act as their chaperon from other motives, as well as from sympathy. But the finger of suspicion seemed to point plainly toward the teacher.
Madge walked quietly, and without any fear or hesitation, out on the deck of the houseboat, straight toward the two shrouded figures in the bow. Neither of them heard her coming, but she heard Miss Jones's distressed plea: "Won't you go away, and never come here again. I tell you, I can not do it. I simply can't——"
"Miss Jones," Madge's voice, clear and cold, sounded almost in her chaperon's ear.
The young woman turned so white that Madge could see her pallor in the moonlight.
The figure with her was shrouded in a long, black coat which was pulled up about its face. At the first sound of Madge's voice it made for the extreme end of the boat. With a quick turn, Madge ran after the escaping form. As it poised itself for a leap toward the shore, Madge caught at the cloak and dragged it away from the face, and for a brief instant she saw the face of a boy a little older perhaps than she was. It was a wild and elfish face, while a pair of ears, ending almost in points, stuck up through the masses of thick, curly hair that covered his head. But before she could get a distinct impression of his face the young man was gone, racing up the low embankment with great leaps, like a hunted deer.
Madge turned to their chaperon, waiting for the latter to offer some explanation. Miss Jones said nothing, but regarded Madge with distressed eyes.
"Who was your visitor? I did not know that any one knew we were anchored here. We did not know, ourselves, that we were to land here until we spied the place. Was that boy a stranger to you? Why didn't you call one of us if he frightened you?" Madge's tone was distinctly unfriendly.
Miss Jones only shook her head. Big tears were rolling down her cheeks. She was trembling so that Madge, much against her will, took her by the arm and assisted her across the deck.
"I can tell you nothing, Madge," was the teacher's husky reply. "I am perfectly aware that you have a right to know. Still, I simply can't tell you. But I can go away, if you like, and I will, as soon as you can get some one else to chaperon you. Only I must ask you not to tell the other girls what has happened to-night, or why I must leave you. You see, dear," Miss Jones ended wistfully, "the other girls are fond of me. You never have been. I can not bear to lose their faith and trust."
There was a significant silence after this remark.
"Did you really see who it was with me?" Miss Jones questioned anxiously. "Would you know the face if you saw it again?"
"I don't know," was Madge's stiff reply, "but I believe I should."
"Won't you promise me that you will not tell the other girls?" Miss Jones whispered, as they crossed the deck and came to the door of their little cabin. "I am not asking you to do anything wrong, only asking you to trust me and believe that I do not think I am doing a wrong by not taking you into my confidence."
"Very well, I will keep your secret," returned Madge slowly. "I do not wish you to leave us, Miss Jones. I wish you to stay and take care of us, just as you planned to do."
"You are only saying that, dear, because you know I have no other place to go for my holiday, and you are afraid my health will suffer. You must not think of my health. I can not stay with you just for my own sake."
"Then stay for ours," said Madge shortly, and without further words she went into the cabin and climbed into her berth.
Sleep was far from weighing down her eyelids. She lay awake for some time, wondering why clouds and distrust should so often spring up among human beings when everything seemed arranged for their perfect happiness.
She generously made up her mind, however, never to trouble their chaperon with questions about her mysterious visitor, but she determined to discover for herself who that boy was, and whether he had come aboard the boat to rob them.
CHAPTER VII
THEIR UNKNOWN JAILER
"Madge Morton, what do you mean sleeping until seven o'clock, the first morning we are on our houseboat?" cried Phil, poking her head in the cabin door. "I would have awakened you before now, only Miss Jones would not let me. Lillian and Eleanor have been waiting for you in their bathing suits for a long while. Do let's have a salt water plunge before breakfast."
Springing from her berth, Madge made a dash for her bathing suit, which she had laid out the night before.
The girls were over the side of the boat in a hurry, swimming about in the water with gleeful shouts. The odor of frying bacon, which was presently wafted to their nostrils from the door of the houseboat kitchen, was something the bathers were too hungry to resist, and with one accord, they swam toward their boat.
It had been arranged that Miss Jones was to get the breakfast, Lillian and Eleanor the luncheon, and Phil and Madge, who were the most ambitious of the cooks, though not the most proficient, were to cook the dinner.
Madge noticed that Miss Jones looked whiter than usual, but the other girls saw no difference in their chaperon as they clambered up over the side of the boat to get ready for breakfast.
"Girls," Miss Jones remarked, as she put down a big plate of corn muffins before her hungry charges, "Phil accused me once of being mysterious and never talking about myself. Well, I am going to make a confession about myself at once."
Madge raised her eyes in surprise. After all, was Miss Jones going to tell of last night's adventure? But the chaperon was not looking at her. She was smiling at Phil, Lillian and Eleanor.
"Well, out with it, Miss Jones," laughed Phil. "What is the confession?"
"It is a foolish one, perhaps. I hate the name of 'Jones.' I have despised it all my life. There, that is my confession. Won't you girls please call me something else while we are having our holiday together? I know Madge can find a name for me." She looked rather timidly at Madge.
The girl blushed, though she felt vastly relieved at Miss Jones's confession. "What do you wish us to call you? I saw your initials in some of your books, 'J. A. Jones,' so we might call you Jenny Ann Jones, because, when Nellie and I were children, we used to play an old nursery game: 'We're going to see Miss Jenny Ann Jones, Miss Jenny Ann Jones, and how is she to-day?'" Madge's explanation ended with a song.
Miss Jones laughed. "My name is worse than Jenny Ann, it is Jemima Ann."
"It isn't pretty," agreed Phyllis, with a shake of the head. "Girls, what shall we call our chaperon? And we have never named our houseboat, either. We have a day's work ahead of us. We must think of names for both of them."
"Wouldn't 'Miss Ann' do?" Eleanor asked.
"I think Ann is such a pretty name."
"I would rather you had a more individual name for me. I have often been called Ann."
"You might be the 'Queen of our Ship of Dreams,'" laughed Lillian.
"That sounds altogether too high and mighty," objected Phyllis. "We ought to have something nice and chummy."
"We might call you 'Gem,' because it is short for Jemima, and in honor of these corn muffins, which we call 'gems' in our part of the world," added Phil. "We'll think of a name yet. Come on, girls, we must get to work; there is so much to be done. Lillian, you and I must go up to the farmhouse to get some supplies this morning. Suppose we take a long walk this afternoon and explore the woods back of us?"
"We will think of the prettiest name we can for you and another for our houseboat," declared Lillian as the four girls rose from the table to go about their various tasks; "then we shall make our report to-night."
It was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon when the four churns started on their walk. Miss Jones did not go with them. She was tired and wished to sit out on the deck of the boat in the sunshine.
"Be back before dark, children," she called out gayly as the girls climbed up the little embankment. "Remember, you don't know your way in this country, as you do at old Harborpoint. I shall be uneasy about you if you aren't back on time."
There were several scattered farmhouses at the top of the hill that sloped down to the cove of the bay, but back of the farmlands lay a long stretch of forest. The ground was covered with a carpet of wild flowers and a few late violets.
Once the chums were fairly in the heart of the woods they did not meet another traveler. They seemed to have the forest to themselves. They had no thought of danger in the quiet woods, and Madge and Eleanor, who had been brought up in the country, were careful to watch the paths they followed.
They had been in the woods for an hour or more when Lillian, who was stooping over a clump of big, purple violets, thought she heard a peculiar sound resembling light footsteps, Whether there was a human being or an animal near them she could not tell. The footsteps would run rapidly and then stop abruptly.
"Phil," called Lillian, "I thought I heard something. Did you? Listen once more. There, did you hear that?"
Phil listened. "Not a sound, Airy Fairy Lillian. It must have been your fancy."
But Lillian was not convinced. Several times she believed she heard the noise again. However, she did not mention it.
As the girls came out of the woods to a little clearing Phil, who was in the lead, ran forward. "Madge, Eleanor," she called, "come here, quick! I am sure this must be a regular, old-time log cabin."
Before them the girls saw an old cabin that looked as though it had been empty for a quarter of a century. It was strongly built of logs, and the chinks between the logs were filled with mud that had hardened like plaster. There were no windows in the cabin, except in the eaves. The heavy door was half open, but it had an old-fashioned wooden latch on the outside.
"The old cabin looks rather creepy, doesn't it, Madge?" asked Eleanor. "It is built more securely than our cabins farther down south, too. This place seems more like a prison."
"It looks interesting. Let's go in to see it." Phil suggested.
The cabin stood in front of a stream of clear water. Close around it grew a number of dark old cedar trees.
Phil and Madge shoved open the heavy door. Inside, the one large room looked gray and dark, as the only light came from the two small windows so far overhead.
"I would rather not go in, Madge," protested Eleanor, hesitating on the threshold after Lillian had followed the other two girls inside.
"Don't be a baby, Eleanor," scolded Madge. "There is nothing to hurt you."
Once inside the old house, Eleanor was as much interested as her chums. There was no furniture in the place, but a few faded pictures were tacked up on the walls, and the corners of the room were thick with mysterious and inviting shadows.
As they clustered in a group under an old magazine picture of a darkey with a fiddle in his hand there was an unexpected sound just outside the door, and the big room grew suddenly darker.
The four girls turned simultaneously.
The heavy door through which they had entered the cabin, and which was the only entrance, had been shut fast. At the same instant there was the sound of a heavy, sliding bolt, then the rush of flying feet.
For the moment no one of the girls realized the seriousness of what had happened.
"Some one must have locked us in for a joke," declared Phil stoutly.
Madge ran to the door and shook it with all her strength. It was built of heavy logs, and, though the girls could see the daylight through the cracks between the timbers, the door showed no sign of opening.
"Don't work so hard, Madge," remonstrated Phil. "Whoever shut us in will come back in a moment to unfasten the bolt."
The girls waited a long time. No one returned.
"Perhaps the person who closed the door did not know there was any one in the cabin," suggested Eleanor faintly.
"But we were all talking, Nellie. No one but a deaf person could have failed to hear us," Lillian insisted.
Eleanor realized the truth of the words.
"Don't be frightened, Nellie," begged Madge remorsefully. "Let's all push against the door at the same time. I am sure we shall be able to break the bolt. One, two, three! Now—all together!"
The four girls shoved with all their might, until their arms ached and their faces perspired from the exertion. Still the old door resisted them. Perhaps Eleanor was right and the log house had been built as a prison.
"I think we had better call for help," was Phil's practical suggestion. "If we all scream together, we ought to make considerable noise. I am afraid Miss Jones may become worried about us before any one comes to let us out."
The girls called and called, until their voices were hoarse, but no one answered them. Each girl remembered that she had not met a single person in her journey through the woods.
Then the prisoners made a trip around the big room, poking and peering about to see if there were any other possible method of escape.
"If I could only get up to one of those windows, I could easily break the bars and try to jump out of it," speculated Madge aloud. "But, alas, I am not a monkey! I can't climb straight up the side of a wall."
"You shall not try it, either," retorted Eleanor determinedly. "You would break your neck if you tried to jump from one of those high windows. Thank goodness, you can't climb up to them!"
"You were the wise one, Nell, and we wouldn't listen to you." Madge eyed Eleanor mournfully. She had an overwhelming desire to burst into tears.
"Don't take it so to heart, Madge," comforted her cousin. "Some one is sure to come this way finally, if we only call long enough."
But the afternoon shadows lengthened and no one came. Gradually the twilight fell, enveloping the big, bare room in hazy darkness. The prisoners huddled together with white and weary faces. They thought of their cosy houseboat with the little lamps lit in the dining room, and the big lantern hanging in the bow, and of Miss Jones, who by this time was no doubt anxiously waiting and watching for their return.
It was perhaps eight o'clock, although to the girls it seemed midnight, when Lillian whispered:
"Girls, I hear some one coming this way. Phil was right; it was a joke, after all. Whoever locked the door has come back to unlock it."
The girls smiled hopefully. After all, their experience did not amount to anything. They would be back inside the houseboat in another hour.
The footsteps now sounded plainly just outside the cabin door.
"Won't you please unbar the door for us?" called Phil and Madge in chorus. "Some one has locked us inside."
An elfish laugh answered them. Or was it the wind? Perhaps they had heard no one after all. They strained their ears but heard no further sound. Then the last bit of twilight vanished and night came down in reality.