No one could tell just how they got there, but realizing that some one was suffering they had all followed Cap to the attic, and there waited again for the sound that was to lead them to the victim.
“There’s a cabinet over there,” Nora whispered. “A person might hide in that.”
She was holding on to Alma and looked odd, indeed, still dressed in that gorgeous velvet costume.
“Here’s another light—this will show us the far end there,” said Miss Beckwith, snapping on the extra bulb.
“There it is!” gasped Pell. “Oh, it is somewhere—yes, come over here,” she cried. “Surely that’s a child!”
The faint cry, that was almost like a sob, sounded again. It must be over under the low beams.
Nora forgot her terror now, for she knew the secret place of the long, rumbling attic, and no sooner had she heard the distinct cry than she brushed past all the others, dragged up a big dust curtain, then stopped.
“Here! Here!” she called frantically. “It’s a little girl. Bring the candle!”
Thistle was beside her with the extra light. “Oh, mercy!” gasped Nora. “It’s Lucia.”
“Lucia,” repeated the others.
“Yes, my own little darling Lucia. Oh, child,” she cried out, “what has happened to you? How ever did you get here?”
“Go away. Please, go away. I can’t tell you. Oh, where is Vita? Vita come!” begged a voice, while Nora tried in vain to soothe her.
“Let me there!” ordered Miss Beckwith. “The poor little thing!” she continued. “She evidently has had a fit of hysteria. Just see her gasp! Keep quiet, dear,” she said gently. “You are all right now. We will take care of you. There! Stop sobbing. Don’t you know the girls?”
“She knows me, don’t you, Lucia?” asked Nora, anxiously. “Oh, I am so glad we found her. She might have died.”
“Don’t let us waste time in talking. Here girls. Use your first aid, now. We must carry her down stairs to the air,” ordered Miss Beckwith.
They carried her down carefully and laid her on a couch by the window.
“Where is this?” the girl murmured. Then she looked into Nora’s face and something of the terror left her own. “Angel,” she said simply, blinking uncertainly.
“You know this little girl, don’t you, Lucia?” pressed Becky now, anxious to arouse her.
“Yes,” she said.
Nora cast a look of appeal at the director. She wanted to speak to the sick girl. Becky motioned she might do so.
“Lucia,” began Nora, very gently, “where did—you—come from?”
“I run away from—Nick,” she gasped, and again that look of terror flashed across the little pinched face.
“Don’t be frightened; you are here with me, Nora, now,” said the girl in the velvet suit. “No one can touch you here.”
“Where—is—Vita? She not come back, bring doctor?”
That was it. Vita had gone for a doctor.
“She’ll be here soon,” soothed Miss Beckwith. The Scouts stood spell bound. How wonderful to have found the poor little waif right in Nora’s own attic!
There was a sound below. Vita came stamping up the stairs.
“What is it?” she panted. Then seeing the crowd. “You come—save my poor little Lucia!”
“Yes, Vita, we are here,” replied Nora, sensing now the part that Vita had been playing. “We brought her down.”
“Poor Lucia. Vita’s baby—Vita’s bambino,” crooned the woman, as she leaned over the couch and chaffed the trembling hands.
It was a pathetic picture. The brilliantly-lighted room was like a stage with this strange drama being enacted upon it. The row of Scouts were unconsciously standing like a patrol at attention, while Nora in Fauntleroy dress, stood at Lucia’s head; and the woman in the quaint peasant attire bent over; and then, there on the soft, bright couch, lay the inert figure with the great eyes staring out from under the bandage, evidently put on the hot forehead by Vita.
No questions asked, every one could see the child was kin to Vita, but not her own child, perhaps her granddaughter.
“She will be all right now, I think, Vita,” said Miss Beckwith. “She just had a spell of hysteria, didn’t she?”
“Oh, she have a fit very bad,” whispered the woman. “I run for doctor, quick, but he is no place——” her voice droned off into a low sound of foreign words, lamentation and wailings.
“Why was she shut up there?” asked Nora.
“She beg for dark—she never go in light when fit comes,” Vita managed to make them understand. “I always hide her—she runs from Nick like anything. But he no hurt her, never. Just one time he scare her. She always cry so much he t’ink she might get better, and he scare her. Lucia run away and come to Vita, every time.”
“He didn’t really hurt her,” Miss Beckwith was both asking Vita and explaining to the girls. “Hysterical children must have a dread of something, and I suppose she seized on that.”
Lucia now sat up and looked about her. All the fear had left her, and her black eyes shone with relief.
“She’s all right now, aren’t you, Lucia?” Thistle ventured to ask. The other girls were still spellbound.
“Lovely,” replied the child, actually rubbing her brown hand on the soft couch cover almost as if she were saying, “Nice! Nice!”
“There come Cousin Jerry and Cousin Ted!” exclaimed Nora. “I’ll bring them right up.”
“What Mrs. Jerry say?” asked Vita, anxiously.
“Oh, that will be all right, Vita,” said Nora, running along. “She’ll understand everything.”
It is marvelous what sympathy can explain. No need for words to fill out the gaps.
“Well, what a reception!” exclaimed the surprised Ted. “I never expected such a party as this.” Her eyes fell upon Lucia. “A refugee?” she asked kindly.
“Vita’s little girl, Cousin Ted,” said Nora, promptly. “We found her—sick.” She did not say where.
“She is in good hands now, I am sure,” said Mrs. Manton, glancing around at the patrol. “We were detained with our fractious car—should have been home ages ago. Did you need anything? Have you had a doctor?”
“She seemed merely hysterical,” explained Becky. “I don’t think she needs a doctor tonight. She will probably sleep well after the excitement—and exhaustion,” she added in an undertone.
“Well, of all things,” exclaimed Mrs. Manton, suddenly getting a good look at Nora. “Have you been having a masquerade?”
“A little Scout party,” Miss Beckwith replied, to save Nora embarrassment. “This has been an eventful evening.”
“Must have been,” agreed the hostess. “Shall we all go down and leave the child to rest?” she proposed.
“We must go,” assured the leader. “It is not ten o’clock, I hope?”
“No, and we’ll run you over in our car—if the car will run. Mr. Manton is out tinkering with it. That’s how he missed the excitement,” Ted explained.
Nora hung back with Lucia. She felt she had found her after so much anxiety, she was almost afraid the child would be spirited away if she should lose sight of her now.
“How nice!” said Vita, and the relief in her own voice proved that the big woman had been suffering no little anxiety, herself.
“I go home now, Vita,” said Lucia, humbly. “I’m sorry, Vita.”
“Oh, you don’t have to go home, Lucia,” Nora hurried to interrupt. “You can stay right here. You don’t want to go hide in the dark any more, do you Lucia?”
“But I don’t want to make the trouble.”
“She is so good when the fit is gone,” said Vita, affectionately. “Poor Lucia, she can no help it.”
“Of course, she can’t. I’ll tell you, Vita, we’ll ask Cousin Ted and I’m sure she’ll let us fix Lucia up in that nice attic bed. Would you like that, Lucia?” enthused Nora.
“She love the attic,” said Vita. “She come every time, and I must hide her. But I no like to make the bother——”
“And that was why you kept it secret!” said Nora. “Well, Vita, I did think you were—mean,” she paused to soften the word, “but now I know why. And I am so glad to find Lucia again. You see, I knew her before.”
“You bring her the cakes——”
“And you knew that, too?” Nora’s secrets were fast evaporating. “Well, at any rate, Vita, you gave me a nice tin box and all the good things you could make, so I won’t blame you. I’ll run along and ask Cousin Ted about the attic. Dear me! What a blessing the girls came over with me! We might have been going on this way—for weeks and not have found out,” she added. “But the girls have to hurry off; it is getting time to answer the night roll call. I’ll be back in a minute, Vita,” she was talking fast. “Don’t let Lucia move until I tell you,” she warned.
“All right, little Nora,” replied Vita fondly. “I have two little girls, now; yes, Lucia?”
“The girls have to leave without hearing this whole wonderful story, Nora,” said Ted, as they crowded out to the car, “but I have asked them to come over tomorrow. They will die of curiosity in the meantime if Miss Beckwith does not keep them too busy to get into such mischief,” added the young woman jocularly.
“Oh, Nora!” called out Wyn, “you come right over about daylight, will you? We’ll leave a tent flap loose and you can crawl in. I would have nervous prostration if I had to wait until after inspection to hear the sequel. Good night!”
“Good night! Good night! everybody!” went up the customary shout, and when the reliable little car, so recently called fractious by its owner, rumbled out into the roadway, the Scouts were actually singing their camp song.
How wonderful to be girls! And how wonderful to be Girl Scouts!
“Of course, she’ll come over. Didn’t I say I’d leave a flap up?” asked Wyn. It was so early that the very Chickadees, after whom the patrol had been named, were still asleep in their own tree-top scout tents.
“As if she could get out of bed——”
“Why couldn’t she? After last night I wonder if she will ever feel safe in bed again. Seems to me,” said the incorrigible Wynnie, “she could do lots more good sitting up—raiding attics and things like that.”
“But Chicks,” said Thistle from a rumpled pillow, “isn’t that child a dream?”
“You mean didn’t that child dream——”
“No, I do not. I think she is the most adorable thing. Why, she looks exactly like a painting we have——”
“There—there,” soothed Treble.
“Don’t get homesick,” Pell called out. “We have a few more days to go before time to break camp and you want to be in at the big party, don’t you?”
“I think the prince part simply the most marvelous story I have ever heard,” said Treble, under her breath. It was too early to join in a general wake-up.
“Leave it to Alma,” whispered Laddie. “I always said these quiet little girls have the most fun. I heard Wyn groaning in her sleep after every one else was aslumber. That’s the kind of fun she has.”
“Looks as if Nora had not walked in her sleep, at any rate,” put in Betta. “I move we get up and slick things up early. How do we know but the myth flew away in the night?”
“We don’t, but she didn’t,” replied Treble crisply. “But hark to a familiar sound. It calls arise——”
Then began the duties, and in spite of their anxiety to get over to the Nest, the Scouts did succeed in performing their tasks with the usual accuracy and unusual alacrity.
At nine o’clock they were free.
No need to ask what anyone was going to do that morning. Every Girl Scout who had been in “the raid” was ready to run before the day’s orders had been read from the bulletin.
They headed for the Mantons’ cottage.
“Did you ever?”
“No, I never!”
This was a part of the meaningless contribution in words offered as the girls came up to the Nest. They had seen the tableau on the front porch.
“Hello!” called out Nora.
“’Lo, yourself,” sang back Thistle.
“Too early for a fashionable call?” asked Treble.
“Come along, girls,” Mrs. Manton welcomed them. “I am sure Nora has been anxiously waiting for you. I’ll let her tell you the news,” she finished, indicating the chairs for the party.
Lucia was in a big steamer chair. It almost swallowed up the tiny figure, but she had a way of reclining, quite gracefully.
“How are you today, Lucia?” asked Alma.
“Oh, I’m all right,” replied the child, pinking through her dark skin. She looked very pretty in one of Nora’s bright rose dresses, with the same color hair ribbon, and her feet encased in a pair of white slippers. No wonder she was “all right.”
“She’s going to stay,” said Nora proudly. “We’ve adopted her.”
“Quick work,” remarked Laddie. “But I don’t blame you. She looks as if she grew right here in this lovely big wild wood. Don’t you like it, Lucia?”
“Lots, much,” said the child.
“We found out all about it, of course,” continued Nora. “Lucia won’t mind if I tell you?” she questioned.
“No,” said the stranger. The single word indicated her timidity.
“You see, she is the daughter of Vita’s daughter who died last year,” Nora explained. “She has been living with cousins, and the man Nick, of whom she was so frightened, is the cousin’s husband.”
Lucia now seemed to shrink back, and at that sign Nora signaled the girls to leave the porch and adjourn to more convenient quarters for their confidences.
Once away from the restriction, words flew back and forth in questions and answers, until Wyn wanted to know if it was all a duet between Alma and Nora, or could they make it a chorus?
“And he didn’t beat her?” demanded Pell.
“And she is really related to Vita, not kidnapped?” asked Betta.
“You didn’t find her all bruised up——”
“Now girls,” scoffed Nora. “I know perfectly well you don’t think anything of the kind. You all know Vita was always kind and generous——”
“Whew!” whistled Wyn. “How we can change! I thought she was a regular bear this time yesterday morning.”
“I think your cousins are perfectly splendid,” said Betta, sensibly. “Is she really going to adopt the child?”
“We had a doctor this morning,” said Nora with an important air, “and he advised change of scene——”
“Let’s take her over to Chickadee!” interrupted Thistle. “That would be a distinct and decided change.”
“Oh, hush,” begged Alma. “What else did the doctor say, Nora?”
“She is hysterical—all came from the fright of her mother’s sudden death,” continued Nora. “But girls, I don’t know how much to thank you,” she broke off. “Being a Scout has done much for me.”
“We believe you,” said Wyn in her usual bantering way. “But say, little girl, are you going back to that school where they teach you to wear silk underwear in the cold, blasty winter weather? Couldn’t you make out to get adopted at the Nest yourself?”
A laugh, then a set of laughs, followed this.
“You are coming over to camp tonight, remember,” said Alma, seriously. “We have not initiated you yet, you know.”
“How about that first formal ducking, with Jimbsy in the background?” Pell reminded them. “That seemed all right for an initiation.”
Mrs. Manton was coming down the path with the inevitable letter. Was there ever a story finished without “a letter”? Mr. Jerry followed up.
It was, as you have guessed, from Nora’s mother, and she did grant permission for her to stay.
“So,” said Mrs. Teddy Manton, otherwise Theodora, while the real Jerry looked over her shoulder at the letter, and Cap sniffed approvingly at Nora’s khaki skirt, “we expect to have Nora go to school in town this winter, and perhaps next summer we will all be back again at Rocky Ledge.”
“This was a real vacation,” sighed Nora, “the best I ever had.”
“Three cheers!” yelled the Scouts; and Lucia from her porch was truly sorry she had ever called those girls “crazy.”
It was all so comfortable and safe now. Even her “bad fit” was gone with the winds, and how lovely to be out in the sunlight and have nothing to fear!
Again came a riotous shout from the girls on and off the bench.
“Chick! Chick! Chick-a-dees!” they yelled. And it must have been Wyn who echoed:
“Cut! Cut! ka-dah! cut!”
Girl Scouts are many and their adventures equally numerous, from mountain to valley, over hill and dale, and their further activities will be told of in the next volume of this series, which will be entitled: The Girl Scouts at Spindlewood Knoll.
THE END.
THE GIRL SCOUT SERIES
By LILIAN GARIS
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors
Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid
The highest ideals of girlhood as advocated by the foremost organizations of America form the background for these stories and while unobtrusive there is a message in every volume.
1. THE GIRL SCOUT PIONEERS, or Winning the First B. C.
A story of the True Tred Troop in a Pennsylvania town. Two runaway girls, who want to see the city, are reclaimed through troop influence. The story is correct in scout detail.
2. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT BELLAIRE, or Maid Mary’s Awakening
The story of a timid little maid who is afraid to take part in other girls’ activities, while working nobly alone for high ideals. How she was discovered by the Bellaire Troop and came into her own as “Maid Mary” makes a fascinating story.
3. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT SEA CREST, or The Wig Wag Rescue
Luna Land, a little island by the sea, is wrapt in a mysterious seclusion, and Kitty Scuttle, a grotesque figure, succeeds in keeping all others at bay until the Girl Scouts come.
4. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT CAMP COMALONG, or Peg of Tamarack Hills
The girls of Bobolink Troop spend their summer on the shores of Lake Hocomo. Their discovery of Peg, the mysterious rider, and the clearing up of her remarkable adventures afford a vigorous plot.
5. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT ROCKY LEDGE, or Nora’s Real Vacation
Nora Blair is the pampered daughter of a frivolous mother. Her dislike for the rugged life of Girl Scouts is eventually changed to appreciation, when the rescue of little Lucia, a woodland waif, becomes a problem for the girls to solve.
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THE RUTH FIELDING SERIES
By ALICE B. EMERSON
12mo. Illustrated. Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid
Ruth Fielding was an orphan and came to live with her miserly uncle. Her adventures and travels will hold the interest of every reader.
RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL
or Jasper Parloe’s Secret
RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL
or Solving the Campus Mystery
RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP
or Lost in the Backwoods
RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE
POINT or Nita, the Girl Castaway
RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH
or Schoolgirls Among the Cowboys
RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND
or The Old Hunter’s Treasure Box
RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM
or What Became of the Raby Orphans
RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES
or The Missing Pearl Necklace
RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES
or Helping the Dormitory Fund
RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE
or Great Days in the Land of Cotton
RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE
or The Missing Examination Papers
RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE
or College Girls in the Land of Gold
RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS
or Doing Her Bit for Uncle Sam
RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT
or The Hunt for a Lost Soldier
RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND
or A Red Cross Worker’s Ocean Perils
RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST
or The Hermit of Beach Plum Point
RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST
or The Indian Girl Star of the Movies
RUTH FIELDING ON THE ST. LAWRENCE
or The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands
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