CHAPTER XXIII
“DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE?”
Let’s go down, anyway, and see what they are doing,” said Amy eagerly. “The sun was out for five whole minutes just now.”
“Perhaps it will clear off,” Jessie said. “They will be so disappointed if it doesn’t.”
“Don’t get mushy about it, Jess,” advised Darry Drew. “They’d be only too glad if your mother’s affair to-morrow proved to be a failure.”
“Right-o,” said Burd Alling. “I never could forgive and forget as easy as Jess does. You are too good for words, Jessie.”
“You don’t know how painful it is,” sighed Jessie, but with twinkling eyes.
“Never mind nagging Jess,” broke in Amy. “I want to go down there to Carter’s and crow over Belle and Sally and the others.”
“You do your crowing under your breath, Sis,” warned Darry. “We don’t want to start any neighborhood feud that will disrupt the whole of Roselawn and New Melford.”
“And the Ringolds and the Moons will certainly have chips on their shoulders if it starts in to rain again,” admitted Amy.
“Perhaps it will clear,” Jessie, the optimist, said.
“I am still believing in the witch’s curse,” chuckled Amy. “I am going to give her one of the best dolls out of my collection if the picnic is spoiled. Henrietta, I mean.”
“Why!” scoffed her chum. “You half believe that the child really brought about this bad weather.”
“No,” said Amy elfishly. “But I do think little Hen should have a job in the Weather Bureau when she grows up.”
The two young fellows were quite as curious as the girls about the outcome of the affair at the Carter place. The entire neighborhood having been well plastered with bills announcing the entertainment, and its being given in the name of the new hospital fund, it was bound to create interest. Busses were advertised to start from the New Melford post-office as early as two o’clock in the afternoon.
The girls and Darry and Burd boarded the launch, however, and started down the lake about three o’clock. A long distance away from Carter’s they could see the strings of flags and other decorations. Mrs. Ringold and her helpers had spared no expense in making the place attractive. There were decorated booths and a host of uniformed servants in view when the Water Thrush came near. But, as far as the quartette could see, there were not a great number of visitors.
“It’s going to be a frost,” Amy said, with confidence. “I tell you, our little Spotted Snake is a wonder.”
“Oh, don’t say anything,” begged Jessie, as they prepared to go ashore. “I hope you’ve brought some money, Amy. We must all spend some.”
“Darry has got some,” returned her chum. “That is one of the uses of a brother. And even Burd may have a little.”
“Oh, I know my duty,” grumbled the stocky youth. “I am prepared to buy George Washington sundaes, or Kewpie dolls, or boudoir caps, or lollipops.”
They were met at the shore before they landed by two girls with decorated “tags” which they were asked to buy for the hospital fund.
“And for mercy’s sake buy from me and Mabel and nobody else,” begged Jennie Pell. “This party is going awfully slow. There haven’t a dozen people come yet, except those who are working. Mrs. Ringold gave us each a hundred tags and said we were expected to sell them all at fifty cents each.”
“We can’t make folks to sell them to,” groaned Mabel Frost, “even if we can make those we solicit, buy. Thanks ever so much, Darry Drew!”
It could not be said that either Darry or Burd Alling was niggardly with his money on this occasion; but the poor girls who had things to sell swooped upon the party from Roselawn like a band of hawks on four helpless chickens.
“You can’t blame ’em,” said Jessie. “There’s not a handful of people here yet.”
“And it is going to rain again,” declared Amy. “It’s one solemn time—I’ll tell the world!” said Burd. “Look at Belle over there. She’s too unhappy to quarrel.”
That was a misstatement. It was proved later that Belle was quite as quarrelsome as usual. But just then she was busy on the porch of the old house with the radio outfit that had been set up there, and Sally Moon and Mrs. Ringold were with her.
“There is something the matter with that aerial; don’t you think so, Amy?” Jessie said, looking up at the wires stretched from the corner of the house to a distant tree.
“What is wrong with it? Didn’t Monty Shannon get it stretched before he left yesterday?” asked Darry.
“He most certainly did not. And he said he would not come back to help them.”
“Of course they got somebody to fix it for them,” said Amy. “Anyway, Belle talked as though she knew all about radio.”
“So do a lot of people,” chuckled Jessie. “But sometimes it’s only talk. She knows how to use the detector and put on the earphones, and all that. But I believe that antenna is rigged wrong.”
At that moment there arose high words between mother and daughter on the porch. Mrs. Ringold suffered the same lack of self-control that her daughter so often displayed. The Roselawn girls now heard Mrs. Ringold say in a high-pitched voice:
“You told me you could run this—that you knew all about it. Why, I don’t get a sound out of it, and when you switch on the amplifier it is just the same. You seem, Belle, to know absolutely nothing about it.”
“I guess I know enough,” snapped the girl. “You’ve bought a broken set, that’s what is the matter.”
“Nothing of the kind. Unless you girls have broken it since it was set up here. I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to run this radio just as well as Jessie Norwood ran hers. You don’t have to go to school to learn how, do you?” added the woman scornfully.
Sally Moon looked very much disturbed as she came hastily away from the porch. She caught sight of Jessie and Amy standing near and came over to them.
“I don’t know what the matter is with it,” she said abruptly, but under her breath, to the Roselawn chums. “And Mrs. Ringold is so mad!”
“What’s she mad for?” Amy asked bluntly.
“Oh, everything is going wrong. You can see that, can’t you?” complained Sally. “Anyway,” she added, “Belle and her mother are always fighting.”
This sounded pretty bad, Jessie thought; but as the voices of Mrs. Ringold and her daughter rose higher and they became more angry, the fact of their “fighting” could scarcely be denied.
“Goodness me!” gasped Amy. “She’ll slap Belle in a minute!”
“Can’t they get any action at all from the set?” Jessie asked Sally Moon hastily.
“Nothing but a scratchy sound—like a bad record on a talking machine,” replied Sally.
“Atmospherics,” suggested Amy. “It’s a bad day, anyway. There’s thunder in the distance.”
“They have been trying for an hour,” said Sally.
“It’s the rigging of the aerial,” said Jessie thoughtfully. “Look, Amy. The wires are a little twisted, but what is making the real trouble is the way those porcelain insulators are put on.”
She started for the porch. Amy cried after her: “Better not! You’ll get your nose snapped off or something.”
“But it will be awful if they can’t give the radio concert after advertising it,” Jessie murmured, hesitating.
Amy was still opposed to her chum’s offering any help. But Sally had turned and run ahead. She now called to the angry Mrs. Ringold:
“Oh, wait, Mrs. Ringold! Jessie says maybe it is the aerial that is at fault. Maybe she can tell you how to fix it.”
The woman turned with some relief in her face, but Belle was by no means pacified by this interference. She blazed out:
“Tell her to mind her own business! She doesn’t know any more about this thing than I do.”
“And you don’t seem to know anything at all, Belle,” her mother joined in maliciously. “Do you know any more? Can you see what’s wrong, Jessie Norwood?”
This was not very encouraging, but Jessie had been taught to be respectful in any event. She said quietly:
“I am not positive. But it looks to me as though a mistake had been made in the stringing of the aerial up there.”
“If there is,” snapped Belle, “you like enough put that Dogtown kid up to doing it that way. You were here yesterday when he was doing it.”
“Stop that!” commanded her mother sharply. But Jessie could not endure this false accusation without defense.
“You know very well, Belle, that Monty Shannon did not finish the job. He was called home. Whoever rigged the wires after he left made a mistake.”
“Now, don’t interfere here again, Belle!” commanded Belle’s mother, and she actually drove her daughter away from the porch. “If you can help fix this thing I’ll be a thousand times obliged to you,” she added, turning to Jessie.
Jessie called the boys to help and in half an hour they got the wires untwisted and the insulators properly placed and Mrs. Ringold heard plainly through the earphones. It was in good season for the dance music program that would be broadcasted at four o’clock from one of the sending stations.
But, unfortunately, there were very few people to dance. The few busses that had arrived from town were not half filled. And almost nobody had come in private cars or boats. Just before four o’clock the thunder became louder and the lightning more threatening. The quartette of Roselawn young people made for the Water Thrush on the run.
In the cabin of the launch they could keep dry. The other pleasure-seekers had to crowd into the kitchen of the old house, or into the motor busses. The clouds shut down over the picnic ground and for an hour the rain poured torrentially.
Darry Drew got into oilskins and went out and started the motor. Before the storm held up they were at the Norwood landing. They had had a gay time after all.
“But,” said Amy, making a little face, “that Mrs. Ringold didn’t even thank you, Jess. Her being a thousand times obliged was a joke. And Belle will never forgive you!”
“What does that matter?” returned her chum cheerfully. “We did our duty, didn’t we?”
“Believe me,” groaned Amy Drew, “I never could get so much satisfaction out of doing my duty, and I don’t see how you can, Jess Norwood!”
As they walked up to the house Jessie suddenly saw something that brought a cry of dismay to her lips. Amy stared all around, demanding to be told the worst.
“What is it? Is the sky falling, Chicken Little?” she demanded.
“That aerial! See! Didn’t I tell you when we fixed it after Mark’s accident that I thought that hook we drove into the tower window frame was not safe?”
“I believe you! It’s down, Jess. Dear me! We do have the worst luck! And see!” she added. “It’s broken the branch of that small pear tree.”
“It is that pear tree that has the bad luck,” said Jessie. “It came near to being squashed when the airplane fell. And now——”
Suddenly Jessie emitted a shriek and started to run across the side lawn toward the small tree. A branch had been broken by the falling wires, and now hung half torn from the stem of the tree.
Revealed among the torn foliage was something that likewise brought from Amy’s lips a loud cry.
“Do you see what I see?” she yelled.
“Is—is it real?” gasped Jessie, in wonder.
The two college boys came running up the hill behind them. Darry demanded:
“What’s struck now—lightning? You girls are enough to give heart disease to an old fellow like me. What’s the big idea?”
But for the moment neither Jessie nor Amy could reply.