CHAPTER III
NOT SO BAD
The next two hours was rather a trying time for everybody at the Norwood place. That brought the time around to six o’clock, and Mr. Norwood himself had returned from town, Chapman having driven down to the station to meet him.
Meanwhile the two physicians had come together to the house and had made a searching examination of the young fellow who had descended so abruptly out of the air and crashed upon the Norwood lawn.
“He is a lucky chap,” Dr. Ankers declared, when the examination had been completed and it was found that not a bone was broken.
But Mark was painfully bruised and it might be possible, as both doctors agreed, that he was injured internally. It seemed all but impossible that an aeroplane could be so effectually crushed and its pilot not be more seriously hurt.
Soon after Mr. Norwood arrived home a big limousine came tearing along Bonwit Boulevard and halted before the Norwood house. A big man with ruddy face and white hair got out before the chauffeur could alight, and strode up the path to the front door of the lawyer’s home. Jessie and Amy were on the veranda. They had never seen Mark’s father before but——
“It must be Mr. Stratford, he’s so handsome,” whispered Amy swiftly. “He’s a senator, too, you know, Jess.”
The maid had just come downstairs to announce that Mark had spoken for the first time, and Jessie went eagerly forward to meet the big man and tell him the good news.
“He has spoken, Mr. Stratford. The doctors say he hasn’t broken a bone.”
“That’s good!” exclaimed the caller. “What ran into him?”
“Why—why, nothing ran into him!” Jessie exclaimed. “How could it?”
“I don’t know how it could, but I am always expecting something to,” declared the big man. “Mark is a good driver— By the way, young lady, what’s all that mess on your lawn?” and he pointed to the wrecked aeroplane.
“Why, that’s it!” gasped Jessie.
“Er—indeed?” said Mr. Stratford.
Amy suddenly found her voice. As usual, she used it to laugh with.
“My goodness!” she cried, when she could speak. “He thinks Mark was driving his car.”
“Well, wasn’t he?” Mr. Stratford demanded. “I have always been afraid that that racer would bring him to grief.”
“Look! Look!” gasped Amy hysterically. She pointed to the wreck of the aeroplane. “He—he was driving that.”
“What under the sun was it?” murmured Mr. Stratford. Then, suddenly, he realized the nature of the wreck. “Not the plane?”
“Yes, Mr. Stratford,” Jessie interposed. “He fell with that thing. But, as I tell you, Doctor Ankers and Doctor Leffert say they can find nothing very serious the matter with him.”
There was a quizzical twist to the corners of Mr. Stratford’s lips as there was to Mark’s. Jessie thought that he must be just as likable as his son was. And now that he was reassured about Mark’s accident and his condition, he gave more attention to the two girls.
“You are Robert Norwood’s girl, I have no doubt?” he said to Jessie. “You have some look of your father. I have met him on the Country Club links.”
“Yes, sir, I am Jessie Norwood,” Jessie said, flushing a little. As she expressed it to Momsy, she just would blush, no matter who spoke to her! “And this,” Jessie added, turning to her chum, “is Amy Drew, who lives across the street.”
“And belongs to Wilbur Drew, I have no doubt?”
“Only half, if you please,” Amy said demurely. “Mrs. Sarah Drew likewise claims a share in me.”
Mr. Stratford seemed much amused by this statement. But he turned with some impatience toward the house door. Mr. Norwood was just coming out.
“Glad you are here, Mr. Stratford,” said the lawyer. “They tell me the boy has been asking for you. The consensus of opinion is that shock and a general shaking up is about the worst that has happened to him.”
“He always was a lucky young scamp,” replied Mr. Stratford. “And if there is a reckless thing to do, he’ll find it. Yet I’m sort of proud of him, Norwood. There aren’t many boys of his age that have done the things he has.”
“I grant you that,” said Mr. Norwood, yet doubtfully. “Just the same,” and he pinched Jessie’s ear, who stood beside him, “I am glad my son is a girl.”
“Ha, ha!” laughed Mr. Stratford. “I have been noticing that both these girls seem to be aping the boys pretty closely as to dress. And very fetching costumes they are.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Amy, with vast coolness (Jessie was for the moment confused), “we have to clear up Jessie’s radio aerial and hang it up again. That old aeroplane smashed right through it when it fell. That is how we come to be wearing our radio suits, Mr. Stratford.”
She tucked her hand in the crook of her chum’s elbow and led her away. They heard the gentlemen laughing as they went indoors. Jessie was secretly very glad that her father and Mr. Stratford could laugh. Suppose Mark had been killed!
“Mrs. Norwood says that you and Mark are perfectly welcome here,” Mr. Norwood said to the senator. “If the doctors think he should remain, I think you had better leave him.”
Both Dr. Ankers and Dr. Leffert had stayed to confer with the father of the injured young man. After this conference it was decided that an ambulance should be sent for and Mark removed to his own home. He asked for the girls and seemed to feel that somehow he owed them something for smashing the radio antenna.
“I’ll make it up to you, Miss Jessie,” was one of the last remarks he made as they carried him out of the house that evening. “It’s a shame you should have all that trouble because of me.”
Jessie stood on the veranda as the ambulance rolled away and gravely announced:
“Do you know what I just wish, Amy Drew?”
“I haven’t the first idea. Wish for a million; then if you get it, we’ll go fifty-fifty.”
“Nothing so common as that,” pursued Jessie, with continued gravity. “Money isn’t everything in this world. No,” she went on. “My thought is of something entirely different. I just wish——”
“So you do. What is your wish, honey?”
“If Mark Stratford thinks he owes us something for tumbling down here and smashing our aerial, I wish he would make it up to us in just one way.”
Amy arched her brows and looked curiously at her friend. “I don’t get your meaning at all, Jess,” she said.
“Why, we’ve talked enough about it, Amy. It is in his power—and in his father’s power—to do us the greatest favor.”
“Goodness me, Jess! It must be a million dollars you are talking about.”
“Nothing of the kind,” returned Jessie. “I should think you would see what I mean. We have talked enough about it. Think! If they would only ask Mr. Blair, their radio superintendent, to let us sing and recite on the Stratford program. Wouldn’t that be fine?”
“It certainly would be scrumptious,” Amy agreed. “I never! Why can’t we ask him the very next time we see Mark? Mr. Stratford, I mean.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t like to do that. We don’t know Mark’s father well enough.”
“How well have we got to know him to ask?” demanded Amy.
“We-ell, he might not like it. But if Mark says anything again about feeling that he has put us to trouble about the wires, I shall feel just like asking him.”
“Pooh!” exclaimed Amy. “I’ll not only feel like asking him, but I will do so. Why not? He’s only a boy like Darry. I’m not afraid of any boy.”