The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point
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Laura Lee Hope >> The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point
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And as for Betty, brave as she had tried to be since that terrible night
when she had read Allen's name among the missing, even she felt her
courage slipping--slipping, and began to wonder if after all, hoping did
any good.
To-day, as she stood before the mirror, mechanically putting up her hair
and looking through and past her own reflection, her eyes suddenly lost
their preoccupied stare and became focused upon herself. For the first
time in days she was seeing herself without the mask of cheerfulness she
had so determinedly assumed. And as she looked, her eyes suddenly filled
with tears--tears almost of self-pity.
For the mirror told her, what she had scarcely realized, just how much
she had suffered. Her eyes, usually so bright and merry, were dark and
brooding. Her face looked thin and drawn, and her lips--those lips that
had always seemed to smile even when her eyes were grave--had a
pathetic, wistful droop, and there were lines, yes, actually lines,
about them.
"If Allen should see you," she told herself tremulously, "he probably
wouldn't know you, Betty."
Yet all the while she knew that if it were possible for Allen to see her
or for her to see Allen, the face in the mirror would disappear as if by
magic and the old Betty would return, for joy would have taken its place
in her heart.
With a little sob she turned from the mirror and switched off the light.
The noise of the surf beating against the rocks came to her menacingly
and the wind wailed shrilly around the house.
"Oh, Allen, Allen!" she cried, stretching out her arms in an agony of
entreaty. "Somewhere you must hear me calling you. Allen, come back to
me, dear!"
CHAPTER XXIII
THE SHADOW LIFTS
"I wonder if it is going to rain forever," cried Mollie petulantly,
beating a restless tattoo on the window pane. "As if we weren't forlorn
enough without the old weather making things a hundred times worse."
"They say troubles never come singly, and I guess they're right," sighed
Amy. She was sitting near the window in the brightest spot she could
find--which was not very bright at that--knitting and trying her best
not to think of Will. The result was that he was never for a minute out
of her mind.
"What's the matter, Grace--I mean more than usual?" Betty laid aside her
book and looked over at Grace questioningly. "I don't believe you've
said three consecutive words all day long."
"And left to myself I wouldn't say that much," returned Grace moodily,
adding, as they turned to stare at her: "It seems as if I never open my
mouth these days but what I say something unpleasant, so I made up my
mind last night that I wouldn't talk till I had something cheerful to
talk about."
"Then you're apt to be dumb till doomsday," retorted Mollie, with such a
depth of pessimism that the girls had to smile at her.
"What an awful thing to happen to a girl," said Betty, with a wry little
smile.
"I'm glad you didn't say what girl," retorted Grace, and therewith
subsided into her gloomy meditation again.
Betty took up her book and Amy went on with her knitting while the rain
came down in torrents and the surf thundered and roared.
Mollie turned from the window and looked at them, and the whole
situation suddenly appealed to her rather hysterical sense of humor. She
began to laugh, and the longer she laughed the harder she laughed till
she sank into a chair and shook with mirth.
The other girls first looked surprised, then alarmed.
Betty threw down her book and went over to her.
"For goodness sake, Mollie, what's the joke?" she asked, as Mollie
looked up at her with red face and watery eyes.
"If it's as funny as all that I think you might share it with us," added
Grace.
"Oh, it isn't funny," gasped Mollie, "it's h-horrible."
Then as suddenly as she had begun to laugh, she began to cry with great
sobs that tore themselves from her and seemed utterly beyond her
control.
Alarmed, the girls soothed and patted and comforted her till finally the
storm had passed and she became more quiet.
"You must think I'm a p-perfect idiot," she sputtered, raising swollen
eyes to them. "I don't know what in the w-world g-got into me. I just
went all to pieces."
"So we see," said Betty, while she gently wiped Mollie's eyes with a
clean handkerchief. "But please don't do it again," she added
whimsically. "I don't believe we could survive another one."
"But it's made me feel better," said Mollie, a minute later, as though
the discovery surprised her. "It's made me feel lots better," she added.
"I wonder if we couldn't all try it," suggested Amy.
"Yes, how do you get that way," added Grace, with interest. "I'm willing
to try anything once."
"It--it isn't pleasant while it lasts," said Mollie, adding with a
suggestion of a smile: "And I doubt if I could give you the recipe."
"I wonder," Amy suggested shyly after a little while, "if perhaps a
little music wouldn't help out. Won't you play for us, Betty?"
"Oh, Betty, please!" Grace took up the suggestion eagerly. "It would
take our minds off ourselves."
"Yes, do, Betty. You know you never refuse," urged Mollie, jumping up
and escorting the Little Captain to the piano.
Betty obediently sat down to the piano, but her fingers wandered over
the keys uncertainly. She did not want to play. Music, good music,
always roused in her a feeling of exquisite sadness, a pain that was
akin to joy, and in her present mood she was afraid to play.
But the girls had asked her to, and if it would make them feel any
better--
She struck a chord of exquisite harmony, and every fibre in her seemed
yearningly to respond. She had meant to play something bright and
cheerful, but almost against her will her fingers wandered into Grieg's
"To Spring."
The elusive, plaintive melody floated throbbingly out into the room,
while the girls sat motionless, fascinated. They had never heard Betty
play just this way before, and instinctively they knew that she was
showing them her heart.
She played it through to the last whispering note, then dropped her
head upon her arms and sobbed as though her heart would break.
"You shouldn't have asked me," she said, when they tried to comfort her.
"I knew I couldn't play without making a f-fool of myself. It was the
one--Allen loved best--" the last words so low that they had to bend
close to hear them.
"Poor little Betty!" cried Mollie, stroking her hair gently. "It was
selfish of us to ask you, but you did play it wonderfully," she added
with a sudden little burst of enthusiasm. "You had us all hypnotized."
"And then I had to go and spoil everything by making a baby of myself,"
Betty lamented. "Goodness, I've cried more in the last week than in all
the rest of my life before."
"Well, you have had plenty of company," said Grace dryly. "Though what
comfort that is, I never could see."
Betty sat up, dabbed a last tear from her eyes, and looked about her
with a weak little attempt at a smile.
"Well," she said, "now that Mollie and I have entertained the company, I
wonder who's next?"
"I'll recite that little ditty entitled, 'The Face On the Barroom
Floor'," Amy volunteered. "Some kind person wished it upon me when I was
too young to object."
"Don't you dare," said Grace, alarmed. "If you do I'm going out, rain or
no rain--"
"And get drowned."
"Well, there are worse things."
"No there aren't," denied Amy, with a shiver. "I know, because I tried
it."
At that moment came an interruption in the shape of a sharp rapping at
the kitchen door.
The girls looked at one another questioningly.
"Mercy, I wonder who's calling upon us in this weather?" said Mollie.
"It might be a good idea to look and see," Betty returned dryly, and ran
to the kitchen, followed closely by the others.
She flung open the door, letting in a gust of wind and a flood of rain
as she did so, and a tall figure in a rubber coat almost fell into the
room.
"Why, it's our delivery-boy-mail-carrier!" cried Betty, as the young
giant recovered himself and pulled off his dripping hat.
"Yes'm," he replied, with a good-natured grin that stretched from ear to
ear. "The very same, an' at your service."
"But how did you manage to get here?" cried Betty, too astonished even
to offer the unexpected visitor a seat. "You never could drive through
that awful mud."
"No'm, I reckon mos' likely I couldn't," he answered amiably, adding
with a return of the loquacity that was his most marked failing: "I
remember one year we had a storm near's bad as this, an' Luke Bailey, he
got kind of short o' pervisions--campin' in the woods he was--an' he
tried to drive his team into town--"
"But you said you didn't drive out!" Grace interrupted. "And if you
didn't drive, you must have walked all the way."
"Yes'm, reckon I did. Well, Luke he got jest about as fur--"
"But why did you come?" broke in Mollie, unable to bear the suspense any
longer.
"I got this here package of letters," he replied, seeming suddenly to
remember the cause of his errand. "Some o' them came a couple o' days
ago, but I said to myself I might jest as well wait an' see if the
weather didn't clear up--"
"And so when it didn't, you walked away up here in all the rain," Betty
finished for him, real gratitude in her voice. "It was most awfully kind
of you."
"Oh, that ain't nothin'," he denied, fidgeting uneasily, while Mollie
hastily sorted the letters. "I ain't never finished tellin' you what
happened to Luke Bailey--"
He was off again, and the girls were vaguely conscious of his voice
rambling on and on while they eagerly scanned the handwriting on their
letters.
Then suddenly Betty gave a little cry and stumbled back against the
table, holding on to it for support.
"Betty! Honey! What is it?" cried Amy. "You look as white as a ghost."
"A letter," she gasped, holding out an envelope with the familiar red
diamond in the corner. She was shaking from head to foot. "Girls, oh,
girls, it's from Allen!" Then she turned and fled from the room.
Luke Bailey's biographer stared after her stupidly while the girls
gasped and looked wildly at one another for confirmation of what they
had heard.
"A letter!" she had said. "From Allen!"
Then he was not dead--their dazed brains comprehended that fact. And he
could not be missing either. After a minute that stupefying fact became
equally clear.
Then slowly they regained the use of their tongues.
"Did you hear what I heard?" asked Mollie, looking from Grace to Amy and
back again.
"I think I'm awake," Grace answered, with the same incredulous look in
her eyes.
"She said," Amy repeated slowly, "that she had received a letter from
Allen. Then the report that he was missing must have been a mistake."
"It looks that way," said Mollie, two spots of color beginning to burn
in her face. Then she turned to the boy who was still staring stupidly
from one to the other of them. Even the story of Luke Bailey had been
temporarily driven from his mind.
"Miss Nelson," Mollie explained, taking pity on his bewilderment, "has
received the most wonderful news, and we can't thank you enough for
bringing it to her. Can't we get you a cup of tea or something?" she
offered, rather vaguely.
But the boy refused, and seeing that they were all tremendously excited
about something, he finally took his leave, feeling very much abused
that his story of Luke and his adventures had not been listened to with
the attention it deserved.
Once the door was closed behind this angel in disguise, the girls rushed
after Betty and were met and nearly bowled over by that delirious little
person herself.
"He's not missing--never was!" she cried, waving the letter wildly in
the air, beside herself with relief and joy. "He's just as well as ever
he was, and Grace darling, and Amy, too, he says, he says--"
"Oh, what?" cried Grace, her face growing white while Amy clutched the
back of a chair.
Betty tried to pull herself together. She turned the pages of the letter
in search of a particular place. Finding it, she began:
"He says that Will--Oh read it," she cried, thrusting the letter into
Grace's hands. "There it is--that paragraph. Read it aloud, Grace. Oh, I
think--I think--I'll die of joy!"
CHAPTER XXIV
HIS THREE SWEETHEARTS
Grace's eyes filled with tears of sheer weakness, but she brushed them
away impatiently. Then she read, brokenly at first, then radiantly as
the marvelous truth came home to her.
"'Poor old Will certainly did have a narrow
escape,'" she read, "'but thanks to the gods he is
out of danger now. I went to see him
yesterday--got leave for the first time in
weeks--and he was looking mighty chipper. No
wonder, with the good looking nurse he had.'"
Amy gave a little involuntary sound and then blushed scarlet when the
girls looked at her.
"Never mind!" cried the joy incarnate that was Betty, putting an arm
about her. "Just wait till you hear what he says later on. Go on,
Gracie."
"'But do you know what that old boy said when I
happened to comment upon the excellent nursing he
must have had?'" Grace read on, while Amy tried
hard to look unconcerned. "'He reached under his
pillow and pulled out three pictures. "Those are
my three girls," he said, and I swear there was
moisture in his eyes. "You probably won't believe
me, old man, but there isn't a girl or woman over
here who could make me look twice at her unless
she resembles one of those," and he pointed to the
photographs I still held.
"'And when I opened them there was Mrs. Ford's
face smiling up at me as sweet as life, and Grace
with her best Gibson Girl expression--you can tell
her from me that that is some picture of her--And
who do you think the third was?'"
Grace paused again and looked over slyly at Amy, who turned away her
face, only just showing the tip of one furiously blushing ear.
"'It was Amy Blackford,'" Grace read on, "'And it
was one fine picture of her too. Gosh, I didn't
know it was as serious as all that, did you,
little girl? But then the war does make a fellow
feel about ten years older than he really is, and
the girls at home suddenly seem the most desirable
and necessary things on earth. And Amy did look so
sweet and comfy and altogether like home that I
couldn't blame the old chap.
"'Then I pulled out the picture of the most
beautiful girl in the world and we talked about
home and--other things, you know--until we were
ready to weep on each other's shoulders and the
handsome nurse put me out.
"'Do you know what I'm going to do the first
minute I reach good old U. S. A. territory, Betty
de--'"
But the sentence was never finished, for with a quick movement, Betty
snatched the letter away and hugged it to her breast while her face
flamed.
"That's all you get," she cried, "the rest belongs to me. Oh, girls, did
you ever hear such wonderful news? Allen strong and well and Will
recovering splendidly, and both of them so sweet and loyal. Oh, I could
kiss that beautiful red-haired angel who brought all this happiness to
us. Where is he? Has he gone back again?"
"Yes, he has, and what do we care!" cried Grace wildly, her face
radiant. "Amy, you little goose, you're not crying are you? Don't you
know there isn't a thing in the world to cry about? Come on--laugh, you
sweet, comfy, little thing. Don't you know that Will is getting better
and keeps our pictures under his pillow? That darling, wonderful,
adorable boy. Great heavens!" She stopped suddenly and a dismayed
expression crept over her face. "Excuse me, please," and she was racing
up the stairs, leaving the girls to look after her, bewildered.
"What in the world," began Betty, when Amy lifted a face, shining
radiantly through her tears.
"Don't you know?" she said with an understanding born of her wonderful
happiness. "Grace has gone to tell her mother. You really can't blame
her for being in a hurry."
A few minutes later Grace called down to Amy.
"Come on up, Honey," she commanded. "Mother wants to speak to you."
After Amy had left the room, Mollie and Betty looked at each other
questioningly.
"I wonder if Mrs. Ford is going to welcome Amy into the family,"
chuckled Mollie.
"I hardly think so, since there isn't anything definitely settled yet,"
said Betty absently. She was thinking of Allen and what he had said in
the part of his letter she would not let Grace read. Her eyes shone
mistily and her heart sang. Allen, her Allen, was safe, and, oh, those
wonderful things he had said!
"It must be nice to be as happy as they are," Mollie said, with a little
sigh, and with a start Betty came out of her preoccupation.
"Oh, Mollie, dear, I--I forgot," she confessed, putting an arm about her
chum. "I was so selfishly taken up with my own happiness that I didn't
think!"
"It isn't your fault," said Mollie, smiling bravely. "You just can't be
happy enough to suit me. You know that, don't you, Betty?"
"Of course I do, you perfect brick!" said Betty, hugging her fondly.
"But we can't any of us be really happy until we know you are. But even
that is coming out all right, I'm sure of it," she finished gayly, her
old optimism fully restored.
Mollie started to shake her head moodily, thought better of it, and
smiled instead.
"I won't be a death's head at the feast," she told herself savagely. "I
suppose I'm awfully wicked, but now that they are all so happy, it makes
me feel dreadfully lonesome. I'm glad from my very heart for them, of
course. But, oh, Paul! Oh, little Dodo! If you will only come back to
Mollie, she will never go away from you again, never, never!"
Dinner that night for the other girls was a joyful occasion. The girls
dressed up in their prettiest and best, Mrs. Ford and Betty cooked a
most appetizing supper, and if it had not been for the one dark cloud
still hanging over them, the evening that followed would have been the
happiest they had ever spent.
Mollie kept her promise to herself and entered into the gayety with the
best of them, and no one--except Betty, perhaps--realized how much she
was suffering.
However, when the lights were out that night and everybody but herself
was asleep, Mollie's brave barrier broke down and she sobbed miserably
into her pillow.
"I want to go home!" she cried, heart brokenly. "I can't keep this up
day after day! I can't! If I don't hear some good news soon, I'll die--I
know I shall."
Only the sound of the waves pounding angrily on the shore and the
shrilling of a rapidly rising wind answered her, and after a while she
sank into a troubled, uneasy sleep.
And how could she know as she lay there, restlessly tossing from side to
side and muttering incoherently to herself, that the wind and waves were
actually sending her an answer which, in her wildest moments, she could
never have imagined?
Toward morning something, she could not tell what, roused Betty and she
sat up suddenly in bed, every nerve taut, every sense alert.
The wind had increased in fury while they slept, till now it was howling
fiercely about the house, rattling the windows and whistling shrilly
through the cracks, which together with the pounding of the waves, made
an almost deafening uproar.
And the rain! It came down in sheeting torrents and was driven by the
rushing wind in maddened gusts against the window panes until it seemed
they must give beneath the strain.
"What a storm!" cried Betty, pressing her hands against her ears to keep
out the noise of it. "I wonder if that was what wakened me."
Then, becoming fully awake, she suddenly realized that she was very
uncomfortable, and, looking down, discovered that the bed spread was
wet.
"Mercy, it's raining in all over us!" she tried aloud, and, springing
out of bed, ran over to the window and closed it with a bang. When she
came back she found Grace sitting up in bed and staring at her.
"For goodness sake, what's happening?" asked the latter sleepily: "Is it
the end of the world?"
"Search me," returned Betty, inelegantly. She had to almost scream to
make herself heard above the noise of the storm. Furthermore, her feet
were wet and her nightgown was wet, which did not serve to lift her
spirits. In fact, she was feeling decidedly grumpy. "The only thing I do
know," she shouted, "is that I'm nearly drowned."
"Don't you know that getting drowned at night is strictly forbidden?"
Grace began severely, but was promptly smothered by an avenging pillow.
"Why don't you get in bed?" she asked, when she had succeeded in
disentangling herself. Betty was sitting disconsolately on the dry side
of the bed, which happened to be that occupied by Grace.
"If you want to know, just feel the covers," Betty answered. "Next time
I'm going to make you sleep on the side near the window. Think I'll go
in and see if Mollie and Amy are drowned yet," she added, starting for
the door. "Goodness, but this is a heavy storm!"
However, when she started to close the window in the next room she
noticed to her surprise that the rain had slackened, had almost stopped.
But not so the wind. If anything, it had increased in fury.
She was about to turn back and tiptoe out of the room, hoping that she
had not roused the girls, when her eye was caught and held by a vivid
flash of red somewhere out to sea.
Startled, she stood stock still, staring out in the direction from which
that light had come. It seemed weird, eery--that lonesome light sending
its signal out into the storm-whipped darkness. For that it was a
signal, she did not for a minute doubt.
Then it came again--green this time--a light that shot up rocketlike
toward the sky, then, bursting, dived to instant annihilation in the
turbulant water.
Another followed, and another, and then the truth came home to Betty.
Somewhere out there In that foaming sea a ship had met with disaster,
perhaps at this moment was sinking and her crew, were sending out
desperate appeals for aid.
For a moment she felt almost sick with pity and excitement. Then she
controlled herself and ran over to wake the girls.
"Mollie! Amy!" she cried, her voice shrill even above the shrieking of
the wind. "Wake up, wake up! Oh, why don't you wake up?" as the girls
opened sleep-laden eyes and stared at her stupidly.
"Wh-what's the matter," stammered Mollie, suddenly sensing almost
hysterical excitement in Betty's voice and realizing that something
terrible had occurred.
"Is anybody sick?" queried Amy almost fretfully, for she had been
enjoying the first good sleep she had had in weeks.
"No. But somebody may be if we don't hurry up," cried Betty, wild with
impatience. "Don't lie there asking foolish questions when people may be
dying."
"Dying," they echoed, still staring at her stupidly.
"There's a wrecked ship out there," Betty explained, her words stumbling
over each other as she tried to make the girls understand. "They are
sending up signals for help, and if we don't get it for them right away
it may be too late. Oh, girls, for all we know, it may be too late now!"
Mollie and Amy, at last fully awake and almost as excited as Betty
herself, sprang out of bed and rushed to the window to see for
themselves the signals the distressed vessel was sending up.
CHAPTER XXV
JOY
What happened in the next hour the girls never afterward clearly
remembered. In what seemed a nightmare, they found their clothes, and,
after turning things wrong side out, getting the left shoe on the right
foot, and various other mishaps calculated to wreck the most
well-balanced nervous system, they finally succeeded in getting them on.
"Where shall we go?" Mollie gasped out, as, clad in oilskins, they
rushed madly down the stairs.
"There's a farmhouse about a mile down the road," explained Grace, "and
all the farm hands sleep on the premises. We can get them. And there's
the life-saving station only a little way beyond. They may have seen the
signals and be on their way already."
"All right--let's go," said Betty grimly, as she flung open the door.
A terrific gust of wind greeted her and sent her staggering back upon
the other girls.
"It's even worse than I thought," she gasped, regaining her balance. "We
will have to do some fighting to get there, girls."
"A mile against that wind!" groaned Grace. "Betty, I don't think we can
ever make it."
"We've got to--or at least make the attempt," cried Betty, pulling her
coat more tightly about her. "If nobody else will come, I'm going
alone," she added, and the girls knew her well enough to be sure she
meant it.
"Come on," cried Mollie, who had never yet been known to ignore a
challenge. "We'll do our best, anyway, even if we die trying."
"Bravo! Spoken like an Outdoor Girl!" cried Betty, and at the challenge
in her voice, Grace and Amy instinctively straightened up.
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