Swept off her foolish feet of fancy and landed safely on the more practical ground of girls’ life, Nora presently found herself in the canvas tent, actually donning a Scout uniform.
No ivory dressing comb nor shell-back mirror, instead a wooden box for a dressing table, and a bowl of cool, clear water fresh from the velvet-rimmed pool, and a glass—the piece that fell from a wagon and was splintered up so no one would touch its “bad luck,” so Pell rescued it and painted a four-leaf clover on its jagged edge! That was a Scout mirror.
It was a revelation to the pampered child. And like so many others who are blamed for their circumstances, Nora was fascinated with the glimpse given of a real world. Here girls lived as human beings privileged to invent their own tools which would be used in modelling the skilled game of a happy life.
“Of course,” explained Pell, “we go through quite some formality before we really become Scouts, but necessity knows no law, and this is necessity.”
“It’s just wonderful,” admitted the stranger, all the while fighting down a sense of guilt that she should ever have disliked the Scouts and their standards.
“Now we want you to meet Alma,” announced Wyn. “She’s one of our little Tenderfoots, and so romantic? She will be sure to want to adopt you, for just wait until you see if Betta doesn’t say we found you in the lake!” she predicted.
Alma came from the leader’s tent. She had been studying—those tests were soon to be held.
“Just see our little pond-lily,” began Thistle, while Nora, now somewhat accustomed to the girls’ jokes, managed not to blush too furiously.
“Oh!” began Alma, then she stopped.
Nora felt in that moment she was discovered and that the prince would soon cease to be a mystery.
“Well, Alma, this is Nora—Nora——”
“Blair,” added Nora, realizing her full name had not been given the girls before.
“Oh, how do you do?” faltered Alma. “I thought at first I had met you before.”
“No. Nora is the visitor at the Mantons,” explained Wyn, “and we all had a ducking—we initiated Nora and had a lovely time. You missed it, Al.”
“Sorry,” said Alma, still eyeing Nora.
“But we spoiled our uniforms,” rattled on Wyn. “That wretch, Jimmie Freckles, dumped us right out into the lake.”
“And I was brought back to your camp to be redressed,” Nora managed to say. She felt if she did not say something the girl with the lovely, glossy, brown hair, who was staring at her, would penetrate her secret.
“Alma has visions,” went on Wyn. “She saw a real prince in your woods one day; didn’t you, Alma?”
“I saw a little boy in a velvet suit——”
“And he had curls.”
“And he had dimples.”
“And he had lovely gold buckles on his slippers.”
“And he had——”
But Alma turned on her heel and left the girls to finish their description without her aid.
Nora was greatly relieved when she left.
“Honestly,” explained Thistle, “Alma insists she did see a little boy in your woods. Did you ever come across such a child?”
“Never,” replied Nora, then, “I really must hurry home, I am afraid I am late for lunch now.”
“Won’t you stay? We are to have——”
“Thank you, Pell, but Cousin Ted and Cousin Jerry will be so anxious to hear all the news——”
“But you must keep secrets—make secrets if you haven’t any to keep,” advised Betta, who had taken a fancy to Nora. In fact all the girls showed unusual interest in the little visitor.
“Oh, I know how to do that,” Nora replied truthfully.
Then, with many invitations and a number of suggestions as to spending some days and even a few evenings, Nora finally managed to race off toward the Nest, after Betta walked with her out of the camp grounds and watched while she hurried down the road. It was a very short distance to Wildwoods, and before Betta turned back to Camp Chickadee she had seen faithful Cap run out to meet Nora.
“Now, are you satisfied, Alma?” asked Wyn. “You would insist the visitor was a boy.”
“It may be her brother,” replied the brown-haired one, “but honestly, girls, and no joking, he had curls just like hers,” said Alma.
“But isn’t she sweet?” asked Wyn.
“Princes aside, I like her most as well as Alma’s vision,” declared Thistle. “And did you notice how matter-of-fact she donned Bluebird’s outfit? What are we going to say to her if she happens back tonight?”
“Gone to the tailor’s to be pressed,” suggested Pell, glibly. “There come the others. Now for a lecture.”
But instead, Miss Beckwith, the leader, came up smiling. “We heard all about it, girls,” she began. “Met that precious James Jimmie Jimsby of yours, and he said it was in no way your fault.”
“Bless the boy!” murmured Pell. “We shall certainly have to adopt the list of Jays. First we capsize his boat and then he pleads for us. Now isn’t that gallant?”
“But Becky,” began Thistle, sidling up to the popular leader, “we have had such a wonderful experience. We have converted a real rebel.”
“Rebel!” exclaimed Wyn. “How do you know Nora was anything like that?”
“Well, Mrs. Ted Manton said as much, didn’t she?”
“She didn’t,” replied Pell crisply. “She merely said that Nora had very little experience in girls’ sports.”
“I know,” interrupted the leader. “Mrs. Manton has mentioned her to me, and I am very glad you have succeeded in interesting her. I fancy she is a very capable child, with too much time on her hands.”
“Oh,” sighed Betta. “If we had only known it we could have borrowed some. What ever shall we do to get in a day’s work now?”
“Lunch first and then do double quick duty,” suggested the young leader. “It has been rather a lost day, counting by the usual results, but then, we have to figure in the new friend.”
“You’re a love, Becky,” declared Treble. “I am sure you are going to help me with my basket. It has to be done tomorrow, if I am to get full credit for it.”
“Where’s Alma?” asked Miss Beckwith, suddenly.
“Pouting,” replied Wyn. “You are not to know it, of course, but Alma’s in love!”
A shout corroborated the statement. “She may be hanging up wet clothes,” suggested Pell. “When they’re in love they do foolish things like that, I’ve heard tell.”
“Girls! Didn’t you hang up your wet things yet?” Miss Beckwith asked in real surprise.
A rush to the back of the tent, where the garments had been hastily heaped, gave response. Presently there was a contest being held to see who could hang up the most material in the smallest space and with the fewest clothes pins; at least that appeared to be the attempt the happy four were making; but when the lunch bell sounded, each and all were ready for the fresh corn, new potatoes, string beans and macaroni—a menu especially designed for culprits who fall in lakes and forget to hang up their uniforms to dry.
Everyone talked of the little stranger, and also everyone praised her beauty. She was so cute, so sweet, so adorable, and Pell even went so far as to whisper to Thistle that she was “peachy,” although all slang was taboo at the table.
“And Alma,” confided Wyn, “we were so sorry not to be able to locate your prince——”
“Girls,” Alma exclaimed. “If you say prince to me again I’ll scream.”
“You did this time,” said Betta, “and we don’t mind it at all. You scream really prettily.”
“Hush,” spoke Doro. She was down at the far end of the table and had not been with the girls on their eventful trip. “I think we have teased enough, really. Let the poor little prince rest.”
“Good idea,” chimed another who also had missed the expedition. “We have a new plan to propose, and with all that prince stuff we can’t get your attention. Becky is going to take us to the Glen tomorrow morning, and we want volunteers to make up the lunch baskets.”
“Call that a new plan?” mocked Wyn. “Why, that’s as old as the Scouts. First thing I ever did was to volunteer to make up a basket for my big sister, and she picked it up and walked off with it.”
“Didn’t even thank you?” asked Miss Beckwith, who always took part in the girls’ fun.
“Well, she may have,” replied Wyn, “but that didn’t impress me. It was those sandwiches and those cakes——”
“You didn’t make those, Wynnie?” demanded Treble. “If you did we won’t ask for volunteers. We’ll wish the job on you.”
Alma was quiet during all the merry chatting, but Thistle, who could not resist one more thrust, said next:
“Thinking of him, dearie?” she asked. “And his little velvet coat——”
But the joke had a most astonishing effect. Alma sniffed, breathed in quick little gasps, and the next moment asked to be excused from the table.
“She’s crying!” declared Betta.
“Horrid girls!” murmured Doro. “I told you she had had enough of princes.”
“But to cry! Alma isn’t like that,” said Wyn in real surprise.
Miss Beckwith, who had reached the end of her lunch and was waiting for the others to finish, slipped away after Alma.
This left the girls to wonder, and they did that in all the ways known to girlhood.
Then it was definitely decided the first girl who mentioned the word prince should be made to pay a heavy fine.
All felt truly sorry for little Alma, but it was the wise and understanding Janet Beckwith who gathered the sobbing girl into her arms and soothed the sighs, tears, and protestations.
“Just teasing, dear,” she insisted. “You must not mind their nonsense. They, every one, love you dearly.”
“But I did see a real prince, Becky. And—and they won’t believe me,” sobbed out Alma.
Miss Beckwith wondered. “A real prince?” she repeated.
“Yes. I was near enough to see all his pretty—things,” Alma paused in her sobbing to relate. “He had all velvet clothes, and such a pretty black cap. Oh Becky!” she sobbed afresh, “can you ever imagine what it is to have the—girls—all making fun of you?”
“Now, Alma dear,” again soothed the leader, “I am really surprised that you should take this so seriously. You know the girls are not making fun of you——”
“They—said I had—a vision,” she sobbed as heavily as ever. “And I am determined to find out who that was—and prove it to them.”
Miss Beckwith was sorely puzzled. Naturally she supposed the girl was romancing. But why should she take it so seriously?
“Come, now, dear,” she urged. “We have talked it all out and the only thing that worries you is that the girls do not believe you, isn’t it?
“Yes, that’s the worst of it.”
“Then, let’s sleep over it and see what the morrow will bring in the way—of light.” Becky scarcely knew just what to propose so she threw the responsibility on the “morrow.”
Alma was over her “spell” presently. But the prince had, by no means, lost his real personal identity to the sensitive little Scout.
Ted’s pleasure, shown when Nora’s transformation was revealed to her in a dripping little “pond lily” on the edge of Mirror Lake, was not to be compared with Jerry’s joys when he first beheld his Bobbs in the Girl Scout uniform. They were waiting for Nora when she returned at lunch time.
“Pretty kipper, nifty, all right and no kiddin’.” These were some of the exclamations he gave vent to.
“But I thought you didn’t like little girls in anything but skirts,” Ted reminded him.
“I didn’t but I do,” he replied Jerry-like. “Now what do you say Bobbie, to a try at horse back ridin’?” He always dropped his g’s when perfectly happy.
“I’d like to try it,” admitted Nora proudly. She might not have realized it but the trim little service costume had already emancipated her. She was no longer the creature of catalogued toilet accessories, “send no money” and “we guarantee money’s worth or money back,” etc. The new Nora was like a butterfly leaving its cocoon—although the drying process had been facilitated by the loan of a new blouse and bloomers from the Chickadees’ wardrobe.
Vita came out to announce lunch and she stood dumbfounded. Vita was not Americanized to the point of diplomacy.
“You lose your good clothes? Those t’ings not yours?” she asked blandly.
“I have one like this,” replied Nora. She did know how to respond to interference, and had not yet quite forgiven Vita for the attic episode.
“Don’t you like it, Vita?” asked Jerry, his brown eyes twinkling. “We were thinking of getting you one like it—for your tramps through the woods, you know.”
The Italian woman scowled. She lacked a sense of humor as well as some other details of Americanization.
“Don’t tease her, Jerry,” Ted ordered. “He is only fooling, Vita,” she assured the perplexed maid, while visions of the fat woman in a jaunty little Scout uniform filtered through the brains of both Ted and Nora.
During lunch time conversation ran to the important occurrence of the morning, but Ted did not know all about the ducking in the Lake, and since Betta had cautioned Nora to keep secrets and if necessary to make them, it seemed unwise to tell every single detail: thus Nora reasoned. So it happened neither Ted nor Jerry knew whether the first swim was intentional or accidental, and both respected the “secrets of the order,” as Jerry put it.
“The girls are coming over this afternoon with a manual,” the candidate said as tea was finished, “and then I’ll have to do some studying.”
“I see where Cap and I will have to paddle our own canoe hereafter,” lamented Jerry. “That’s just the way with you girls. I get you all broke in and you race off and join up with the Indians. Well,” he sighed deeply, “I suppose Ted and I and Cap will have to go on our picnics alone, in spite of all our plans.”
“Oh, Cousin Jerry! Did you have a picnic planned!” eagerly asked Nora, leaving her place at the table to join Jerry on the big couch.
“I did but I haven’t,” he replied, with pretended disappointment. “What good are picnics for Girl Scouts? They want big game with real guns and elephant meat for supper,” he finished pompously.
“Oh, Cousin Jerry!” pouted Nora. “If you really had a picnic planned couldn’t we have it, and couldn’t I invite my Scout friends?”
“’Course you could, Kitten,” Jerry gave in. “I’ll fix up the finest little picnic those Scouts ever heard tell of. Just you wait and see.”
“But we are going to celebrate privately this evening, Nora,” Ted added. “How would you like to go to a picture play?”
“Oh, I’d love it, of course. I do so love motion pictures, and the Misses Baily are so fussy about letting any of us go.”
“I’ll bet,” agreed Jerry. “Want you to see Mother Goose and Little Jack Horner——”
“Both of which are each,” interrupted Ted. “Guess you had better read up your nursery rhymes, Jerry.”
“Well, I didn’t take your college course, Theodora, but I went to Sunday School a lot—had to,” he admitted, shamelessly.
“Then, it’s all settled for this evening,” continued Ted, quite as if there had been no break in the conversation. “We will ride into Lenox and see the ‘movies.’ I know it’s a good picture this week and it isn’t Mother Goose either.”
“Glad of that. I hate the old lady myself,” scoffed Jerry. “This afternoon I must go out to moorlands, Ted,” he said next, seriously. “Suppose you and Nora take the day off and loaf? You did a lot of hard work this morning——”
“But I want to finish pegging off the west end,” Ted interrupted.
“Oh, could I help you, Cousin Ted?” begged Nora. “I would just love to do some real surveying.”
“And I would love to have you, certainly. We will rest for one full hour, then I’ll let you carry the chains and drops, and off we go to the West End. How’s that?”
“Lovely. Will Cap come?”
“Sartin sure,” declared Jerry. “I never let the youngsters go out on location without the big dog, do I Cap?”
Cap brushed his plumy tail against Jerry’s elbow and made eyes at his master, agreeing with everything he said, as usual.
Later, when the hour’s rest had been taken, Nora and Cousin Ted made their way to the grounds that were to be surveyed. Nora carried the “chain” which she wanted to call a tape line until Ted explained that carpenters had tape lines and surveyors used “chains,” and the term really meant an exact land measurement. The heavy instruments were already in position, and when the work of measuring the land with her eye, as Nora declared the process to be, was actually begun, the apprentice was quite fascinated.
“Now, show me the cobweb,” she insisted as Ted adjusted the delicate eye piece.
“There. Do you see that mark outside the little drop of alcohol?” asked Ted.
“The very small line like that on Miss Baily’s thermometer?”
“Yes, the line that frames the drop,” explained Ted, “that’s the finest substance we can get, and it’s cobweb.”
Nora peered through the telescope. She was seeing a drop of alcohol shift from level to level as Ted moved the transit, but she was thinking of the night she discovered the cobwebs in the attic. Somehow attic fancies clung to her, tenaciously, and had she been at all superstitious she surely would have called the attic unlucky. Just see the trouble that Fauntleroy acting got her into.
“It wouldn’t take many webs to make such tiny marks,” she said finally, as Ted moved off to “spot a tree.” “I guess I won’t have to gather many for Cousin Jerry for that little marking.”
Ted had moved off and with her small hatchet was hacking a piece out of the bark of a tree—spotting it, as she termed it. Then she returned to the telescope and sought the level.
“What’s the little weight on the string?” Nora next asked.
“Oh, that’s our plumb-bob,” replied the surveyor. “Bob shows us just when a line is straight. Now watch.”
Over a peg in the ground Ted swung the heavy little pendulum, first to right then to the left, and so on until it fell directly on the mark.
“Now see, that is plumb,” said Ted.
Nora gazed intently at the drop. “Everything has to be just exactly, hasn’t it?” she queried, wondering why. “First, you strain your alcohol with cobwebs, then you drop your bob on the little peg straight as the string——”
“That is just where we get the expression from,” her companion assured her. “Nothing can be straighter.”
“And how do you get the mark on the tree?”
“Look through the glass again.”
So the first lesson in surveying went on. It was fascinating to Nora, and when Ted decided enough land had been “chained off” Nora wanted to mark a few trees for her own use.
“Couldn’t I chop a nick in this one? It is so beautiful, and when we come another day I can add another nick—just like a calendar.”
Mrs. Manton readily agreed, so long as Nora did not use a mark that might confuse the surveyors; and so interesting was the work, time flew and the afternoon was soon waning.
While in the woods more than once Nora had reason to be thankful for her practical Scout uniform, for she climbed trees, sought wild grapes from high limbs, gathered wild columbine and enjoyed the wildwoods as only a novice can. Birds scarcely flew from the path, and she marvelled they were so tame, but Ted explained they had no cause for fear, as the woods were their own and danger would be a new experience to them.
When finally Cap came back from his rambles and it was decided that no more surveying nor “play-veying” should be indulged in, instruments were gathered again, and reluctantly Nora followed Mrs. Manton out into the path, newly beaten down by those who had been following spots, bobs, cobwebs, chains, telescopes, compasses, transits and all the other skilled implements used.
“Are you really a surveyor?” she asked Ted, just wondering what she would call herself in Barbara’s letter.
“Yes, that or a civil engineer,” replied Ted. “That is really what I studied in the famous college course Jerry is always teasing about.”
“It is sort of artist work, isn’t it?”
“A wonderful sort. Just see what good times I have out among birds, flowers, wildwoods, and the whole clean, untamed world,” said Theodora Manton. “Some women may like indoors, but give me the woods and the fields and all of this,” she finished, sweeping her free brown hand before her with a gesture that encompassed glorious creation.
Nora pondered. How many worlds were there after all? How different this was from that which she knew at school? Would she ever enjoy the other now, after all this? She glanced at her scratched hands and smiled. What manicuring would erase those, and yet how precious they would seem when Cousin Jerry would hear what she had done to help with his wonderful surveying?
“And we must fix up and look pretty for tonight,” said her companion, as if reading Nora’s thoughts. “I so seldom want to go out evenings I really have to think what to wear.”
“Do we dress up?” queried Nora.
“A little, that is we don’t wear these,” indicating the khaki. “But all the Lenox folks are professionals in one line or the other, and you know dear, they always claim a social code of their own.”
Nora was not positive she entirely understood, but she guessed that professionals, if they were anything like her Cousin Ted, would wear just such clothes as they liked best and felt most comfortable in, and she wondered how such would look in a theatre.
“Another rest, then an early dinner and we’ll be off,” announced Mrs. Manton when they reached the Nest. “Nora darling, you have made me very happy today,” the brown eyes embraced Nora while the hands were still burdened with instruments. “I will write at once to your mother and ask her——”
But a shout of Jerry’s interrupted the most interesting clause.
“You jump in the car and wait a few minutes,” said Ted to Nora.
It was almost dusk and the moving picture party was about to set out for Lenox in the trim little car which, Ted insisted, was tamed, educated and “fed from her hand” when it went out of gas.
Nora willingly complied with the order to take her seat and wait. Dark shadows fell from the trees to the narrow roadway, and while alone there Nora was just wondering if everything was going to happen in one single day.
Cousins Jerry and Ted had many things to look after before setting out, for while Vita was a capable houseworker, she knew nothing of home management. Some minutes passed and the others had not yet come to the car where Nora sat so quietly that the squirrels had no idea a single human being was in the black car. One gay little furred skipper had the audacity to hop on the running board, but Nora from the depths of her cushions, never stirred.
A rustling of the leaves, much heavier than the tread of squirrels could possibly have been, gave her a start. She just peeked out in time to see something crawl across the road and continue on toward the path to the cottage.
“Oh, what was that!” Nora barely whispered. Then she raised her head and gazed intently at the crawling thing, that now was not more than an outline in the coming darkness.
For the moment she was too surprised to jump out and follow. Could it be a bear or some big animal? Certainly it was no small woodland creature, and as it passed the car she could hear queer, jerky breathing.
Being so near the house there was no need for alarm as to her personal safety, so she did jump out now and ran to meet Ted and Jerry who were just turning in from the barn drive.
“Oh,” Nora exclaimed breathlessly. “Did you see—anything?”
“Anything?” repeated Jerry.
“I mean did you see—anything queer?”
“Why no,” replied Ted. “But Nora, you look as if you had.”
“I did, really. Something stole out of the bushes and crept across the path, toward the kitchen.” Nora was still short of breath from her fright.
“Now Bobbs! You don’t mean to say that some wild, roaring lion——”
But Nora interrupted Jerry. “Honestly Cousin Jerry,” she declared, “I did see something, and we can’t go out and leave Vita alone until we find out what it was.”
“Bravo! Spoken like a Scout!” sang out the irrepressible Jerry. “Now let’s all have a look.”
“Over there,” directed Nora, and while neither Mr. nor Mrs. Manton appeared to take the matter seriously, they did, never-the-less, follow Nora’s directions and quietly prowl along the path.
“There,” exclaimed Nora. “I saw it again!”
“I thought I saw something scamper off myself,” admitted Ted. “What do you suppose it can be?” She stepped out squarely in the driveway and stood watching.
“Give me a look and I’ll announce,” said Jerry, his cap in one hand and a great stick, more like a tree limb he had hastily snatched up, in the other. He was going to have some fun out of it, at any rate. He never could miss a chance like this.
Thrashing down the bushes from the drive to the garden path took but a few moments, then they were within sight of the door.
“What’s the matter?” called out Vita. “You find big snake?”
“No, we’re looking for it,” answered Jerry. “Did he come your way?”
“I no see, not any,” said Vita fully. She never depended upon the scant Englishothers were apt to employ. While speaking she kept moving from one spot on the path to another, and her actions seemed so absurd Ted questioned the maid again.
“Now Vita, you know perfectly well you have seen something,” she insisted. “And we are not going away until we find out what is around here. Just look at Cap sniffing! He knows,” continued Mrs. Manton, moving up nearer to Vita and closer to the house.
“Nothing a-tall. Everything all right—good,” persisted Vita backing to the doorway.
“Say Vi,” called Jerry in his cheeriest voice, “who’s your friend? Are you trying to hide him behind your skirts? I told you, Ted, she should wear a uniform.”
“Oh, Jerry, do stop your nonsense,” begged Ted. “We shall be late for the pictures. Just run in and look around the house. Of course everything is all right, but we don’t want Nora worrying while we’re away and Vita’s alone.”
Nora had been looking sharply from one dark spot to another but no further disturbance appeared.
“Nothing could get into the house with Vita right at the door,” she reasoned aloud. “I suppose it was just something from the woods. Maybe one of those ’possums you told me about, Cousin Jerry.”
“Maybe, and again maybe not,” he answered. “But just wait until I shake this stick over the premises. Vita will feel a lot safer when I wave the wand of warning over the place,” and he entered the house with Vita so close to his heels that both Nora and Mrs. Manton looked surprised.
“Queer, how she acts,” admitted Mrs. Manton. “I just wonder—— But of course she is only hurrying to get us off. She knows we will miss the first show if we do not get away at once.”
Jerry was soon out, stick in hand, and a broad grin on his handsome face.
“Nary a thing,” he announced. “Nora, I am afraid your scouting has gone to your head. That, or you are seeing things.”
Before Nora might have replied Ted insisted they hurry off or give up the trip to Lenox, entirely.
“I’m ready,” Nora said, instead of commenting on the moving shadow. “I shouldn’t like to miss that picture.”
“All aboard!” sang out Jerry, and when the little car shot out of the woods into the splendid turnpike—the pride of all motorists for many miles around—Vita might have entertained her mysterious visitor (if she really had one) to her heart’s content, for all of the party bound cityward.
Since her arrival at Woodlands Nora had little chance for auto rides, there were so many more interesting things to do, so that the short trip to Lenox now seemed something of a luxury.
But the evening’s entertainment was even more delightful. The attractive little theatre was so prettily made up with colored paper flowers over the lights, with breezy electric fans and such simple contrivances as, in the larger city, Nora had not seen, it all appeared new, novel and attractive. It was quaint and cosy, and such an effect was ever delightful to the fanciful daughter of a woman who called herself Nannie instead of mother.
All about them people greeted the Mantons, and it was plain they were held in high esteem by many, farmers as well as more cultured folks, plain or dressed up—all had a pleasant word or a cordial greeting for the government surveyor and his attractive wife.
Nora wondered if the Girl Scouts ever came in to see the pictures, but Ted expressed the opinion that when they did come they came in a crowd and made a regular party of the occasion.
“But they have so many pleasures of their own for evenings,” she told Nora, “I shouldn’t fancy they would want to come under an ordinary roof often during the summer months.”
After the big picture with all its wizard scenes had been enjoyed, they started back towards Wildwoods. It was then that the fear of that crawling thing again crowded down on Nora and caused her to shiver until she actually shook.
“Too cool?” inquired Ted, unfolding a soft knitted scarf from her end of the seat.
“No, just shivery,” truthfully answered the imaginative Nora.
It was very dark along the country road, and only the flashing lights of passing cars penetrated the dense blackness of the tree-tunnels through which the party rode. It may have been this or it may have been the accumulated fatigue of her big, full day, but at any rate, Nora felt very much inclined to huddle up to Cousin Ted and hide.
The humming of the motor was like a lullaby, and the voices of Ted and Jerry mingled so evenly that presently Nora forgot, then she forgot to think, and then she stopped thinking.
She was sound asleep in the cosy comfort of Theodora Manton’s encircling arm.
“I’ll lift her,” she heard a voice whisper.
It had seemed only a minute since she entered the car and here she was home, at the very door, with Vita standing there, lantern in hand.
“Oh, thank you, Cousin Jerry,” spoke up Nora bravely. “I am wide awake now. How perfectly silly to fall asleep?”
“How perfectly sensible,” he contradicted. “I wish you had not awakened. I should have had a great joke to tell your Girl Scouts,” he teased.
Nora laughed lightly. She was on the ground and anxious to get into the cottage. Why she felt so timid was not clear even to herself, but somewhere within her dread lurked, and when Ted proposed lemonade and crackers Nora excused herself on the grounds of being deliciously sleepy. For once she accepted Vita’s offer to light her lights and make the window right for the night.
“You go quick asleep?” Vita remarked, turning down the soft summer covering from the little bed.
“Oh, yes. I fell asleep in the car,” returned Nora, yawning.
“That’s good. Then you hear no storm——”
“But there is no sign of a storm, Vita.”
“Oh, but maybe. Or maybe, yes, some big birds fly and make screech——”
“Vita!” exclaimed Nora sharply. “What ever are you talking about? Are you trying to—scare me?”
“Oh, no. No get scared at—any t’ing.” mumbled Vita while her own excited manner seemed real cause for alarm. “I just like to know when my little girl sleep very good, like baby.”
Truth to tell Nora was too sleepy to argue, otherwise she might have demanded an explanation. Vita was plainly excited, and this fact coupled with that of her strange actions earlier in the evening was unquestionably enough to cause suspicion; but rest to a girl afflicted with “nerves” is a precious thing, and when it came to Nora she had no idea of risking its loss by any sort of argument.
But Vita seemed to want to linger longer. First she looked at one window, then at another. She even plumped a cushion—as if that were necessary to a night’s comfort!
“Where do you sleep, Vita?” asked Nora, drowsily.
“Oh, in a good bed, in the little room by kitchen,” replied the maid.
Nora recalled the maid’s room. It was on the first floor just off the kitchen. So it could not have been Vita who slept in the attic.
“Would Vita get you a nice cold glass of water?” asked the solicitous one, still anxious to please.
“Oh, Vita,” a yawn interrupted, “I am so sleepy——”
“Then I go——”
“Yes, you go. Good night, Vita,” said Nora sweetly, “and I hope I sleep as soundly as I threaten to and as well as you want me to,” finished Nora. “Isn’t that being a very good girl?”
“Very, very good,” said Vita happily. Then she went out quietly and left Nora to her coveted slumber.
But being converted to scouting could not at once cure Nora of her dream habits. Being so long alone in school, and having a brain insatiable for creative material, she usually went to bed to think and she went to sleep to dream.
“I never felt so deliciously tired,” she murmured. “But I do wonder what ailed Vita.”
Presently blue eyes cuddled in their white satin blankets with brown fringe borders (a way Nora had of describing eye lids and lashes), and then the panorama began.
First it was the Scout memory. She, as the bravest Scout that had ever joined a troup, dramatically saved someone from drowning. Next, Nora as the actress in the picture shown at Lenox, performed the daring feat of swinging from the great rock with strikingly better effect than had she whose name graced the program. The third dream installment had to do with something very indistinct but horribly terrifying. It revealed a crawling thing that first crossed the path, then climbed the morning glory vine right up to Nora’s window, and now—yes now—it was choking her!
Had she screamed?
She found herself sitting up straight in bed and she felt as if her very curls had straightened out in fright.
There—was a noise! She listened, put her hand out and switched on the light. It was nothing in her room, but seemed somewhere—Yes, there it was again and it surely was up in the attic!
Was that someone moaning?
Dream dizzy still, Nora could form no definite resolve, either to call or to remain quiet. She simply lay fascinated with fright. The noise ceased. Still she lay—listening. Then other sounds penetrated the night. That was feet—shuffling of feet and they seemed just above her head! Quickly Nora reached out again and touched the button that switched off the light. She would rather lay hidden deeply in the bed clothing than be exposed to whatever was prowling in the attic, should it come down the stairs.
Then she thought she heard whispering, but that might have been her excited imagination. She drew the covers closer and with her head buried from sound she could no longer listen, and not possibly hear.
But after, what seemed to the frightened girl, a very long time she ventured to poke her head out again, just as she heard a stealthful step on the stairs.
“Oh!” she gasped aloud. Then “Vita!” she called faintly.
“Yes, I come. Sh-s-!”
Nora had not expected to hear that voice. She merely called Vita because she did not want to call Cousin Ted, and she felt the intruder was dangerously near. But there was Vita!
“What is it? You have bad dream?” asked the maid in a whisper, standing now beside the bed.
“No, it was no dream.” Nora’s voice was not very low, in fact she was angry. “I did hear things and there’s no use telling me it was the wind. It wasn’t,” she snapped.
“Sh-s-!” again Vita warned. “It is no good to wake cousins. I was up the stairs for that old window. It slam—you hear it?”
“What could slam a window tonight?”
“I do-no!” in the way foreigners have of not understanding when ignorance is more convenient. “I must go to bed now. You all right?”
“Say Vita!” charged Nora. “If you don’t tell me the truth I’ll—I’ll—just shout!”
“No, not too much noise,” coaxed the big woman, who in her night robe looked like a masquerade figure. “What do you want I should get you?”
“Nothing. I don’t want anything but for you to tell me who is up in that attic!” demanded Nora sharply.
“Me—Vittoria, is up attic.”
“Who was with you?”
“Cap.”
“Where is he now?”
“He go down—back way.”
“Now Vita—” Nora stopped. She was baffled. This woman could confuse her so and then walk off demurely, just as she had done that other night. Finally Nora began again:
“All right, Vita, but you just listen.” She was shaking a small finger toward the face with the black flashing eyes. “If you don’t tell me all about your secret I shall tell Uncle Jerry. Now do you understand?”
“Secret? What is ‘secret’?”
“The thing up in the attic is a secret,” persisted Nora, although she feared her voice might disturb the others now.
“That thing big Cap. He always at night sniff so much,” said Vita. “Now, I go to bed,” she spoke this very emphatically. “I go to bed and you go to sleep.”
“All right, go,” ordered Nora. “And don’t you dare go up in that attic again tonight. I was just having the most——”
But her audience had vanished and the house was empty, so to speak, so why orate or harangue?
All sleep and its delightful attributes had flown. Nora was so wide awake she felt she would never sleep again, and worse still, she was angry. What did that old Vita mean by her attic tricks? If it were she who was up there why did she moan? And if it were something else why did the woman try to conceal it?
“Now, I have a Scout duty,” Nora promised herself. “I must fathom that mystery and protect Cousin Theodora and Cousin Gerald from that unscrupulous woman.” Visions of crimes hidden in the attic, memory of her own incarceration there when the trap door, as she now regarded the door with the spring lock snapped shut, filtered through her excited brain, and when she remembered how she had almost died up there, and how it might have been years before her skeleton would have been discovered, just as so many others had fared on secret attic trips, it did seem to Nora that she should arise at once and immediately start her investigations. Humor and tragedy hopelessly mixed.
“But it’s so late,” she figured out, “and would it be fair to wake Cousin Ted when she is so tired and after her taking me to that beautiful picture?”
Convincing herself that this was why she did not immediately begin her brave Scout work, she once more attempted to quiet her nerves by thinking of all the sheep Miss Baily had recommended to skip over fences and lull one to sleep.
But sleep was far out of the reach of frisky sheep, and Nora lay there thinking of so many things, her head threatened to ache and a miserable day promised to dawn upon her if she did not soon succumb.
“Perhaps I wronged poor Vita. There may not have been anything wicked in the attic after all,” she soothed herself. “Why couldn’t she go up there if she wanted to? And maybe she stubbed her toe.”
It was not very consoling but the best Nora could work up in the way of consolation. One thing certain, Vita was honorable. She was a trusted servant, and in the short time Nora had been at the Nest, many small favors, peculiar to good cooks, had come Nora’s way through Vita’s intervention.
Such happy thoughts finally dispelled the other unfriendly mental visitors, and when Vita stole past the door again and looked in through the darkness, all she heard was the even breathing of little Nora Blair, who might or might not have been dreaming of horrible attic noises.
The day brings wisdom, and when Nora again dressed in the borrowed khaki suit (she had suddenly taken a dislike to her own fancy dresses), the glorious sunshine of the bright summer morning mocked the terrors of the night.
A step in the hall. “I bring your fruit,” said Vita kindly through the open door; and there she stood with a small dish of such delicious berries to be eaten off stems by hand—surely Nora had wronged this kind, tender-hearted foreigner.
Nora was somewhat conscience stricken as she accepted the peace offering. “Oh, thank you, Vita,” she exclaimed. “I was just coming down.”
“But the Jerries are out early and you no need hurry,” explained Vita. “I make nice breakfast when you come.”
“Cousin Ted gone out?” asked Nora.
“Yes, she say you stay home, not go after them, they must ‘bob swamp.’”
“Bob swamp? Oh, you mean use the plumb-bob in the swamp. I understand, Vita.” It was really remarkable how well both understood today and how dense both had been last night. “Very well, I’ll eat my fruit here by the window, and later try your lovely biscuits,” said Nora, with a smile rarely used outside the family.
The housemaid shuffled off. Looking after her, Nora wondered.
“I do believe she is trying to keep on good terms with me for something—something queer,” she decided. “Certainly she is afraid I will tell Cousin Ted about the attic business.” She paused with a big red strawberry half way to her lips. “Well, I have a secret, anyhow,” she decided, “and I like Alma, she makes me think of myself—she is sort of shy and sensitive. Perhaps I shall make her my confidante.”
Of all the Scouts Alma seemed most congenial, and having a real secret was the first definite step in Nora’s summer career. But are secrets wise and are they safe to carry around in so big and open a place as Rocky Ledge?
It was so much better than dreams. Not only did Nora feel the importance of having a real secret, but she also realized that the same circumstance had actually made Vita her abject slave. Not a wish was expressed by the visitor in Vita’s presence but the maid would, if it were possible at all, see to its fulfillment.
“I believe I’ll tell Alma,” Nora decided one morning after a visit and return to and from Camp Chickadee. Almost daily she made those trips and the Scouts had become such friends with her she was now regarded quite as one of their number.
Expecting to join formally as soon as the other candidates of Rocky Ledge were ready and the Counsellor should come down from the city, Nora studied her manual and prepared for the honor. In the meantime she was privileged to enjoy many of the Scout activities.
But “the secret” was really more engrossing just now. It provided her with a personal importance—what girl does not enjoy the possession of a knowledge others have not and everyone would love to have?
It was thrilling. Alma, the Tenderfoot Scout, who from the first had espoused Nora’s cause and even confided in her the real story of the woodland prince, met her daily at a wonderful rendezvous, and there the two girls, away from teasing companions, enjoyed confidences and built air castles.
“I’ll tell her today,” the resolve was repeated as Nora started out.
She arrived first, and while waiting had a race with Cap all the way to the Three Oaks and back again.
“Dogs have to run faster,” explained Nora breathlessly, when Cap won by more than he needed to establish his claim. “If you could not run faster than human beings, Cap, you could never have been made a Red Cross messenger, as you were in the awful war.”
The arrival of Alma cut short the encomium. Salutations were brief for both were eager to “tell each other a lot of things.”
“Alma, do you think you could keep a secret?” The question was so trite and time worn Alma smiled before answering in the affirmative.
“Because,” continued Nora, “this is the biggest secret I have ever had, and Barbara and I have had a great many.”
“I have to have secrets,” returned Alma, “because none of the girls seem to understand me. They tease, you know, they almost made me homesick one night; they kept teasing and teasing about the prince; and Miss Beckwith had a hard time to make me stop crying.”
Nora winced. “Well, this isn’t that sort of a secret,” she said presently. “It’s about our attic.”
“What about it?”
“Oh, it’s a lot to tell. We had better sit on the big log under the chestnut tree and be comfortable before I start.”
Then began the story of the first night at Wildwoods when Nora was determined to sleep in the attic. Many an exclamation of surprise was thrown in by the more practical Alma, but this in no way turned the narrator from her course. She sent thrill after thrill up and down Alma’s spine, and she even voiced a suspicion that Vita might have a member of “some den of thieves hidden in the attic, although she is the soul of honesty,” Nora was particular to state.
But it was the incident that occurred the night they went to Lenox that really caused Alma to exclaim tragically:
“Nora, you should tell Mrs. Manton! It is not safe to hide anything so serious as that. Suppose the Thing comes crawling down some night and Vita is not there to drive it back?”
“Oh, she doesn’t drive it back,” Nora had not actually visualized the terror in that way. “She just kept me from finding out——”
“What?” interrupted Alma when Nora paused from sheer excitement.
“I don’t know what!”
“What do you think?”
“Well, maybe it’s a—really Alma, I don’t dare think. I did not know how frightened I was till I started talking about it. Why, I am just all creeps,” admitted Nora. “Here Cap,” she shouted, as the dog attempted to wander off, “don’t go away. Come on, Alma. I guess we had better go out by the road. Why, I am just as frightened as if the—Thing were around here!” she gasped.
“Maybe it is,” said Alma cruelly, picking up her knitting upon which she had not taken a stitch, and following Nora out of the little woodland into the more open field that flanked the narrow roadway.
They hurried. Alma tripped and Nora almost screamed.
“Why, what is the matter?” asked the Scout. “You haven’t seen anything?”
“No, but I feel so queer. You know, Alma” (she loved an audience), “I am queer and I do believe I sometimes feel things in advance. Miss Baily always said I did.”
“She must have been queer herself,” retorted Alma. “I had those wild ideas, too, until I joined the Scouts. That’s the reason Mother had me join. She said I was too much alone——”
It was difficult to talk while hurrying over newly-cut stumps with which the field was so thickly strewn. The surveyor’s men had hewn many a fine young birch and numbers of ambitious young maples there, for this was one of the forests lately cleared.
“Here come the girls,” exclaimed Nora, as they looked down the road. “Alma, promise not to say a single word——”
“Why, Nora Blair! As if I would divulge a secret——”
“Excuse me, Alma. I did not mean just that. But when one does not realize the importance——”
“I do realize it. But it’s all right, Nora. I know just how you feel,” conceded Alma, amiably. “There. I have to go with Pell to get some grasses from the Ledge. I’m sorry I can’t walk home with you. You don’t mind——”
“Not in the least, Alma. I was just jumpy while we talked—that way. Besides, I always have Cap. Good bye. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Won’t you wait for the girls?”
“I’m afraid if I do I’ll stay talking. Hello,” she called out as Pell and Thistle came up. “Alma and I have had such a lovely time out in the oak woods I am late for my—chores,” she finished, laughing.
“What do you chore, Nora?” asked Pell. Her face was beaming with the health of camp life and her voice vibrated youth and happiness.
“She chores chores of course,” Thistle assisted. “I am sure the Nest is a lot nicer place to live and work in than Camp Chickadee—when Pell Mell is our inspector,” she finished, with a pout.
“Nora, would you believe it that wretched girl left her shoes outside of camp last night and this morning they were gone—to a goat preserve somewhere,” explained Pell. “She has my second best ‘sneaks’ on now, yet she will malign me——”
“Why and whither away?” interrupted Thistle, seeing Nora about to escape.
“Oh, I really must. I’ll see you later,” promised the blonde girl, whose hair, always so fair, seemed to have taken on a shade of pure gold since exposed to the open sunshine of Rocky Ledge.
So with paths divided they separated, and that was how it came to pass that Nora was alone when she encountered the wonderful adventure.
Taking to the lane path, a walk she seldom thought of following, Nora, keyed up with her excitement following the telling of her story to Alma, felt she must get off somewhere and “collect herself” before going back to the house.
Perhaps her head was down, and she may have ventured along as do much older and more serious folk when engaged in some perplexing problem, at any rate Nora was down the lane and into a strange grove before she realized it.
She looked up with a start. “Where ever am I?” she said, if not aloud, certainly loud enough for her own hearing.
The place was a veritable camp of low pines, and so dark it was beneath the thickly woven boughs, Nora felt as if she had stepped from day to night.
“But so pretty,” she commented. Then she looked about for Cap. It would not be wise to stray into such a lonely place without his reliable protection. He marched up with a very military air as she called his name. Evidently the place, strange to Nora, was familiar to him, for he did not so much as raise his shaggy head to glance around him.
“Stay here,” she whispered. Then, turning to survey the place, she almost froze with fright. Over in under a very low tree she saw something move—it was like a bundle of rags and it—yes, it had a head!
“Oh, mercy!” she gasped. “What’s that?”
The black bundle rolled over and sat up. Two big, brown eyes glared at her! The head was covered with a shawl. Was it a woman?
Frozen now with genuine fright Nora tried to move, but felt more like sinking down.
“Oh!” she breathed. Then she saw how small it was. There! It was humping up. Like a queer sort of animal the bundle took shape on huddled shoulders, and from the outline eyes glared.
It was not more than twenty feet from where Nora stood, but the almost night darkness of the grove helped make illusions terrifying.
Now it was on knees and now it stood up!
“Oh,” cried Nora. “Who are you?”
A little girl—a poor little ragged girl, evidently more frightened than Nora herself.
“Oh, do come here,” cried Nora, as soon as she saw how she had been deceived. “I won’t hurt you.”
The child was now standing. What a sorry little figure! The part that was not eyes seemed just rags, and two bare feet pressed upon the brown pine needles like chunks of withered wood. Her head was covered with an ugly gray scarf and yet the day was warm enough to feel the sun’s rays even through the dense trees.
“What’s your name, little girl?” asked Nora, venturing a step nearer.
The eyes rolled and then a smile broke over that frightened face. “I’m Lucia,” replied the child, and her voice was as pretty as her name.
Hearing that small, fluty voice Nora sighed with relief.
“Come here, little girl,” she said gently. “I won’t hurt you.”
“Please, I can’t. I must run——”
“Oh, no; don’t run,” begged Nora, as the child showed every sign of escaping. “I am all alone. I just want to talk to you.”
“But I must not. I have to run,” insisted the other.
“Why?”
“Because——” the voice had dropped many tones.
“Will any one hurt you if you don’t?” This was merely a chance question of Nora’s. She could not think quickly of just the right thing to say and was anxious to detain the child.
“Yes, no, maybe,” a shrug of the small shoulders proclaimed foreign mannerisms. Her dark eyes also bespoke the alien.
“Well, I won’t let anyone hurt you,” declared Nora bravely. “I’m a Girl Scout, do you know what that means?”
“Yes, I know. It means crazy,” promptly replied Lucia.
“Crazy?” Nora was somewhat taken back. Then it dawned upon her that foreigners had a way of saying things—perhaps—“crazy” meant something else to the child.
“Why do you say ‘crazy’?” Nora asked next.
“Oh, they dress funny, and they run all over and they climb trees like—crazy,” said Lucia. Nora saw she was correct in her free translation. Crazy was a comprehensive term to Lucia.
“Don’t you like them, the Scouts?” pressed Nora.
“The little one—I like. The big ones chase me one day,” came the indifferent answer. “I have to go, I must run sure now,” declared Lucia, putting out her small hands to make a hole in the bushes through which to escape.
“Oh, please don’t go yet,” begged Nora. “I have just found you and I want to—know you.”
“I don’t dast,” replied Lucia. “I have to hide now,” she was getting through the break when Nora took hold of the long skirt. At this Lucia looked around sharply, and her dark eyes flashed dangerously.
“Are you hungry?” Nora asked. This was a tactful thing to ask and offered immediate postponement of flight for Lucia.
“Sure,” she replied, beaming. “What you got?”
“Nothing—just now,” faltered Nora. “But I can bring you lots of good things. You wait here——”
“Oh, no, I get caught,” interrupted the woods wraith. “Then I ketch—it.”
Nora was sorely puzzled, but being Nora she had no idea of allowing such an interest to escape. She said next: “If you tell me where to leave things for you, I’ll bring them and you can get them when no one is around. Would that be all right?”
“Maybe,” replied the exasperating Lucia. “But when you get it?”
“Oh, any time, I live near here and I can just run over and be back before you have to go. Where do you go to?”
“I can’t tell,” answered Lucia with more foreign tone than she had yet assumed.
“You mean you do not dare tell me where you live?”
“Yes, that’s what I mean.”
“Why?”
“I don’t dast,” again came that quaint, childish negative.
“Who would do anything to you?”
“Nick.”
If Nora was eager to talk, surely Lucia was determined to be very brief. What could she mean by “Nick.”
Again Lucia held the bush back into an open gate. And again Nora tugged at the skirt.
“If I bring you a lovely sweet pie will you come back and talk to me here?” begged Nora.
“Where will you put the pie?”
“Can’t you come and get it?”
“I don’t know.”
It was aggravating. The child seemed purposely obtuse. Nora had an instinctive feeling that somehow she was the object of abuse. Her cringing manner indicated oppression.
“Now, Lucia,” she began again, “if you come here every day I’ll come all alone, except for Cap, and I’ll bring you lovely things to eat. Wouldn’t you like that?”
“Sure.”
“Then you will come?”
“What time?”
“In the morning—about this time. Would that be all right for you?”
“If Nick is gone.”
“Who is Nick?”
“Very bad man. I hate Nick.” This last sentence was so purely American, that even Nora guessed the child had come from mixed surroundings. Holding to her shawl Nora could feel, she imagined, a shudder pass through the slim frame at the very mention of the name Nick.
Lucia dragged her scarf off a bush. “I go now,” she said with just a tinge of politeness. “You bring pie?”
“Yes, a big pie. Don’t forget to come.”
“I come—sure.”
The queer figure stood for a moment out in the clear sunlight, and Nora had a chance to see her features. She was pretty, strikingly so, in spite of her pinched cheeks and her too lustrous eyes.
“Please—you don’t tell anybody?” came the appeal. “I work all day and pull weeds, but like to sleep little bit by the big trees, sometimes.”
Then Nora guessed. “You mean you are sick and come here to rest?”
“Please.”
“Well, you just come here whenever you want to, Lucia,” said Nora with feeling. “The idea of a tiny tot like you working at pulling weeds! And with all those heavy rags on you! It’s a shame!” she declared indignantly.
“You don’t tell?” the child persisted anxiously.
“No, Lucia. I’ll never tell. I have a lot of secrets, and this one I won’t even tell Alma.”
“Good bye.”
Like a frightened animal the waif sped across the field and dodged into the next clump of shrubbery.
“She is afraid of being seen,” reasoned Nora. “Who ever saw such a pitiful little thing?”
Then it dawned upon her that Cap had not even sniffed suspiciously.
“Did you like her, Cap?” she asked, patting the patient animal, that all during the broken conversation had lain at Nora’s feet without so much as a single growl. “Did you feel sorry for her, too, Cap?”
He may have or there may have been some other reason for his indifference, but now he was willing and anxious to go home. It was lunch time and Cap never needed an announcement.
Nora followed him. She was too astonished to know even what to think. That a little beggar girl should hide in the bushes to rest from hard work!
“I’ll bring her the nicest things Vita can bake,” she concluded. Then came the thought: How would she get Vita to give her the supplies without making known the use she was to put them to?
Picnics were common. These would surely supply an excuse for carrying out food, and, after all, wouldn’t it be a picnic for Lucia?
Nora’s heart was fluttering.
“I never knew what a vacation was before,” she told Cap. “Here I am having a love of a time and doing things worth remembering.”
How different from the fashionable summers she had been accustomed to! Nowadays she hardly had time to look in a glass, and yet she was enjoying every hour. It was like discovering something new continually, and did Nora but know the secret of the adventure it was simply that she was discovering her own resources—she was getting acquainted with Nora Blair.
But miracles are not common, and Nora was not yet completely transformed from a sensitive, secretive girl, to an honest, frank, fearless Girl Scout.
Even the new discovery of Lucia and her sad plight was now locked up in her breast.
But should it have been?