Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes
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Stella M. Francis >> Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes
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"Do you live in the cottage over there?" Ethel Zimmerman inquired,
pointing toward Graham summer residence.
"Yes," Addie replied. "Our name is Graham. We were very much interested
when we learned that a company of Camp Fire Girls were camping near us."
"Don't you girls camp out any?" Katherine asked with the view of
possibly bringing out an explanation of the Graham girls' attire, which
seemed suited more for promenading along a metropolitan boulevard than
for any other purpose.
"Oh, dear no," Olga answered somewhat deprecatingly. "We'd like to well
enough, you know, but we're in society so much that we just don't have
time."
Katherine wanted to ask the Graham girls if they were going to a stylish
reception before breakfast, but restrained the impulse.
Both Katherine and Hazel recognized Addie as the girl whom, on their
first trip to Stony Point, they had seen handle roughly the little boy
they believed to be Glen Irving, the grandnephew of Mrs. Hutchins' late
husband in whose interests they made the present trip of inspection.
Whether or not she recognized among the campers the two girls to whom
she had behaved so rudely on that occasion did not appear from her
manner, which was all sweetness now. She continued her social discourse
thus:
"I really wish society did not demand so much of our time, and I'm sure
my sister feels the same way about it. There's nothing we'd like better
than to become Camp Fire Girls and live close to nature, you know, just
the way you girls live. Truly it must be delightful. But when you
become an integral figure in society (she really said integral), you are
regarded as indispensable, and society won't let go of you."
None of the Camp Fire Girls attempted to reply to this speech. Their
plan was to bring about an appearance of friendship between them and the
Grahams in order that they might associate with the family that had
custody of the little boy in whose interests they were working. Any
attempt on their part, they felt, to discuss "society" from the point of
view of the Graham girls must result in a betrayal of their utter lack
of sympathy with this "social indispensability" of such helpless society
victims.
"We'd like, however, to do something for you in your unfortunate
situation," Addie Graham continued with a gush of seeming friendliness.
"I'm sure my brother James--he's 16 years old--would be glad to assist
you in any way he can. I'm going to send him down here, if you say the
word, to help you extend that rope around your swimming place. He's a
very handy boy, and it would be much better for you to let him do the
work than to perform such a laborious task yourselves."
"Thank you ever so much," returned Miss Ladd with a warmth that seemed
to indicate acceptance of the offer. The truth was that anything which
tended to increase friendly relations between them and the Grahams was
acceptable.
"I'll send him around today," the older Graham girl promised. "We must
hurry back now for breakfast. We were just out for an early morning
constitutional, you know."
"Come and see us any time you wish," Miss Ladd urged. "You'll always be
welcome. We haven't made the acquaintance of anybody around here yet.
Come over and help us eat one of our constitutional luncheons, or
suppers. We have real picnics every day, the jolliest kind of
times--except when the ghost walks. Maybe you can help us catch the
ghost, also."
"Maybe we can," said Addie. "Well, good-by. You girls come and see us,
too."
"Thank you," was the acknowledgment uttered by several of the members of
Flamingo Camp Fire as the two Misses Graham stepped primly in their
French-heel shoes over the uneven ground and returned homeward along a
diagonal course up the side of the hill-shore of Twin One.
CHAPTER XXIII.
"HIGH C."
All the members of Flamingo Camp Fire gathered close together on the
sandy beach after the departure of the two Graham girls and held a
low-toned discussion of the situation.
"There was only one thing missing this morning," Hazel Edwards observed.
"That was the perfume. I suppose they didn't have time to spill it on in
proper proportions."
"I wonder why they came down here at this time of day?" said Harriet
Newcomb. "There must be something in the air."
"I bet they never got up this early before unless their house was
afire," Ethel Zimmerman ventured.
"Do you suppose they wanted to be on hand to witness our discomfiture
when we discovered what had been done to our swimming place?" Azalia
Atwood asked.
"That would imply that they knew who did it and may even have been a
party to the plot," Miss Ladd reasoned.
"And why not?" Azalia returned. "They don't look to me, for a moment, to
be above it."
"I feel like a miserable hypocrite," Katherine declared with a sarcastic
smile. "I'm not used to extending warm expressions of friendship to
people for whom I haven't any use and asking them to call and see me."
"Remember you're a spy now," said Helen Nash slyly. "When engaged in a
praiseworthy spy work, always remember your mother and the pantry and
the fist in the jam, if you have any doubt as to the worthiness of your
occupation."
"Enough said," Katherine announced, "I'm convinced. The jam is well
spiced and I smell it already. I shall expect to find it on somebody's
fist."
The girls did not forego their morning plunge because of the removal of
the "safety line," but were careful to keep well within the approximate
limit which they remembered fairly well. After about fifteen minutes in
the water they returned to the camp and donned their khaki middies; then
they had breakfast.
The breakfast dishes had not long been washed and put away when another
caller arrived at the camp. Although not unheralded, the appearance of
this new arrival was a surprise to all the girls, for they had not
rested much importance upon the promise of Addie Graham to send her
brother to them to offer his assistance in repairing the damage done by
some mischief-maker in the night before.
The young male scion of the Graham family appeared so suddenly before
the eyes of the girl campers that some of them afterward expressed the
suspicion that he walked timidly on his tiptoes all the way from his
home to the camp. Indeed all the members of Flamingo Fire have today a
decided impression that the sound of his voice was the first notice they
had of his approach.
Whether this impression be a true one or not, that voice was enough to
compel memory of it ahead of anything else. It was the most effeminately
high-pitched voice the girls had ever heard.
"Excuse me, young ladies, but my name is James Graham, Jr.," squeaked
the treble clef.
There was a general start throughout the camp. Most of the girls were
seated upon the grassy plot within the crescent arrangement of the tents
and engaged in their forenoon routine, and several of them actually
dropped their craft work into their laps so great was their surprise.
Ethel Zimmerman uttered a little cry of astonishment in almost the same
key as the announcement of the newcomer.
The latter was almost as effeminate in appearance as in voice. First, he
was very much overgrown and fleshy. He probably weighed 150 pounds. His
face was round and very pale, and his eyes were not over-endowed with
expression. He wore a "peaches-and-cream" two-piece suit and a panama
fedora and carried a delicate bamboo cane.
"My two thoughtful sisters info'med me that you young ladies were in
need of the assistance of a man, and I volunteered to offer my aid,"
continued young Master Graham.
"Oh dear me," replied Katherine; "it would be a shame to put you to so
much trouble. We thank you ever so much for your offer, but we'd much
rather retain the friendship of your folks by urging you not to insist.
If you really must be so good as you suggest, you might go back and send
your hostler or chauffeur, but tell him to bring a pair of rubber boots
that reach to his ears."
This rather enigmatical answer puzzled the not very quick-witted James,
Jr., and his chin dropped.
"You see, we want a pile-driver out in the lake to sink some posts into
the submarine earth," Katherine continued. "But, by the way, come to
think of it, you might help us wonderfully if you have a rowboat and
would lend it to us for an hour or two."
"Sure I've got a boat," replied the "would-(not)-be ladies' aid," as one
of the girls afterward dubbed him. The tone of relief with which he now
spoke was unmistakable. "I'll go and row it right over to you."
"We won't want it until about 11 o'clock," said Miss Ladd. "If you need
it between now and then you'd better wait."
"Oh we won't want it all day," James, Jr., returned reassuringly. "I'll
bring it right away."
"I hope he doesn't tip his boat over on his 'high C'," Hazel Edwards
said generously, as the caller disappeared in the timber. "He might be
drowned in the billows of his own voice."
"That's his name--High C," declared Estelle Adler enthusiastically. "I
refuse to recognize him by any other name. Dear me, girls, did you ever
in all your born days hear such a voice?"
"No," cried several in chorus.
"He's just the dearest thing I ever saw," declared Ernestine Johanson,
making a face as sour as the reputation of a crabapple.
At this moment the discussion of "High C" was dropped as suddenly as
"it" had appeared upon the scene. Another arrival claimed the interest
of the girls.
It was a little boy about ten years old, clad in steel-gray Palm Beach
knickerbockers and golf cap, but not at all happy in appearance. He was
a good looking youth, but there was no sprightly cheerfulness in his
countenance. He seemed nervous and on the alert.
"My goodness!" exclaimed Hazel Edwards; "that's Glen Irving, the little
boy we----"
Katherine, who was seated close to Hazel, cut the latter's utterance
short by clapping her hand over the speaker's mouth.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE RUNAWAY.
The boy was excited. Evidently he was laboring under anything but normal
conditions. He had appeared very suddenly around the north end of the
bluff which sheltered the camp on the east. "High C" or "Jimmie Junior,"
as the girls from now on referred to young Graham, had left the camp
around the south extremity of the bluff.
The youth in Palm Beach knickerbockers fairly rushed from the thicket
north of the camp and directly toward the girls, all of whom jumped to
their feet in astonishment. The newcomer did not slacken his pace, but
ran up to the group of startled campers as if seeking their protection
from a "Bogy Man." And as he stopped in the midst of the group which
circled around him almost as excited as he, the little fellow looked
back as if expecting to behold some frightful looking object bearing
down upon him.
"I ran away," were his first words; "so--so they couldn't beat me."
"Who wanted to beat you?" inquired Miss Ladd sympathetically, leaning
over and taking him gently by the hand.
"Mom--an' Ad.--an' Olg.--an' Jim--they all hit me," he replied, his eyes
flashing with anger. "Mom locked me in a room, but I opened a window
an' clum out."
"Did they beat you today?" Hazel Edwards questioned.
"No," replied the youth with a puzzled look; "they don't want you to
know they whipped me. They stopped it after you came and after a man
came and told 'em not to."
"Who is the man?" Hazel asked.
"I don't know. I heard his name, but I forgot."
"Was it Langford?"
"Yes, that's it--Langford. He told 'em all to be good as pie to me while
you was here. They thought I was asleep, but I was just pretendin'."
"Did Mr. Langford say why they must be good to you while we were here?"
asked Katherine.
"I guess he did," the boy replied slowly. "He said somebody'd take me
away and Mom 'u'd lose a lot o' money."
"That's just what we thought," Hazel declared.
"What else did you overhear?" Katherine inquired.
"They're goin' to be awful nice and awful mean."
"Awful nice and awful mean," Katherine repeated. "That's interesting.
What do you mean by that?"
"They're goin' to be awful nice to your face, but mean on the sly."
"Have they done anything mean yet?" Miss Ladd interposed, having in
mind the depredations of the night before.
"I don't know," the boy answered. "They were talkin' about doing
somethin' last night, and the man and Jim went out together."
"You don't know what they proposed to do?"
"No--just somethin', anything they could."
"What is your name, little boy?" Hazel asked.
"Glen" was the answer.
"Glen what?"
"Glen Graham."
"Isn't it Glen Irving?"
The boy looked doubtfully at his interrogator.
"I don't know," he replied slowly. "I guess not."
"Didn't you ever hear the name Irving before?"
The boy's face brightened up suddenly.
"That was my papa's name," he said eagerly.
"Now, I want to ask you an important question," said Miss Ladd
impressively. "Try your best to tell us all you can, and don't tell any
of the Grahams you were down here talking to us. We won't forget you. If
they beat you any more come, and tell us if you can get away. We'll have
the police after them. But be sure to keep this to yourself. Now, here's
the question I want you to answer: Did anybody outside of the Graham
family ever see them beat you?"
"Sure," Glen replied quickly. "Byron Scott did. So did Mrs. Pruitt and
Guy Davis and Mark Taylor."
"Where do they live?" was Miss Ladd's next question.
"Byron lives here, so does Mrs. Pruitt. Guy and Mark live in Baltimore."
"Do they live near the Graham's home in Baltimore?"
"Yes, right in the same block. Mark lives next door."
"Good. Now, Glen, we are going to take you back to Mrs. Graham. We
haven't any right to keep you here, but if they beat you any more, we
will complain to the police and take you away never to come back to
them."
"Oh, I wish you would," exclaimed the little fellow, throwing his arms
around the neck of the Guardian who had seated herself on the grass
before him. "I don't want them to scare you with a ghost."
"Scare us with a ghost!" Miss Ladd repeated in astonishment. "What do
you mean by that?"
"They said----" the boy began, but his explanation was interrupted in a
manner so confusing that the group of Camp Fire Girls might easily have
wondered if the world were suddenly assuming all the absurdities of a
clownish paradise in order to be consistent with what was now taking
place.
Addie Graham, the girl of ultra-style and perfume who had behaved so
rudely to little Glen when she discovered the runaway with Katherine and
Hazel in the woods, suddenly dashed into the deeply interested group of
Camp Fire inquisitors, seized the boy in her arms, kissed him with
apparent passionate fondness, and addressed him with a gush of
endearment that must have brought tears to the eyes of an
unsophisticated listener.
CHAPTER XXV.
A LITTLE SCRAPPER.
"Oh, you dear little brother, you dear darling child," almost sobbed
Addie as she seized Glen Irving in her arms and began to shower kisses
on his unwilling face.
The boy shrunk away, or into as small a compass as he was able, to
escape from the "affectionate attack." Plainly it was anything but
pleasing to him.
The "attack," however, did not cease in response to his protest. Addie
held onto her captive with all her strength, at the same time attempting
to soothe his wrath or fear, or both, with as many kisses as she could
force in between the boy's belligerent arms. Glen, conscious of the
presence of friends who, he believed, would go to any extreme to assist
him, fought as he had never fought before, desperately, viciously. He
used his fists and fingernails to good purpose and pulled Addie's hair
until it presented a ludicrous appearance of disarrangement.
Realizing that the boy's actions might prove harmful to his cause if
this affair should ever be contested in the courts, Miss Ladd decided to
take a hand and do what she could to pacify the young heir who had
suddenly been transformed into a veritable wildcat. She had no doubt
that there was good cause in his past experience for the development of
such character in him, but expediency demanded that it be checked at
once.
"Here, let me take him," Miss Ladd urged as she laid her hands on his
shoulders and attempted to draw him away. A few gentle words and an
exhibition of a kind persuasiveness of manner brought success. She drew
the lad back some distance and tried to reason with him, whereupon he
burst into convulsive sobbing.
His sobs were not a new expression of an outburst of passion. Miss Ladd
was certain of this. Little Glen was weeping not because anger "opened
the floodgates of his soul," but because of some picture of dread in his
past experience which he feared would be repeated in the future.
But Addie Graham was not equal to the occasion. The veneer of gentleness
that she had put on could not withstand the deep-seated spitefulness of
her nature, and as she observed a severe scratch on one hand and felt
the disarrangement of her hair, she yielded impulsively to vengefulness
of spirit that was boiling within her and exclaimed:
"The miserable little pest! Just wait till I get you home, Glen Graham,
and I'll----"
She stopped right there, much to the disappointment of the eagerly
listening Camp Fire Girls, who fully expected her to open an avenue to
the very evidence for which they were looking.
"Why!" she continued, with a desperate effort to control her temper. "I
never knew him to act that way before. He's usually such a--such
a--sweet dispositioned little dear. I don't know what to make of it. He
took me completely by surprise. I don't understand it--I don't know what
to make of it--I can't understand the little--the little--d-dear."
"It is strange, very strange," Miss Ladd agreed, purposing, for policy's
sake, to help the girl out of her predicament.
"Come to sister, Glennie dear," Addie continued, after she had succeeded
in rearranging her hair and restoring her hat to its normal position on
her head. "Don't you know sister loves you just lots? Why did you run
away? Come back home and sister will give you some candy, just lots of
it. Come on, now, that's a good little boy."
"I don't want your candy and you ain't my sister, and I won't go back.
You'll beat me, and mom'll beat me and everybody else'll beat me. Don't
let her take me back, please don't," Glen concluded, turning his face
pleadingly toward Miss Ladd.
"Oh, you must go back, Glen," the Guardian replied, reproachfully.
"That's your home, don't you know? Where in the world will you go if you
don't go back home? Think of it--no place in the world to go, no place
in the world."
There was a tone of awe in the young woman's voice that impressed the
boy. He cooled down considerably and looked meditatively at his monitor.
"They'll beat me," he protested earnestly. "They'll tie me to a bed post
and strap me."
"Why, how perfectly terrible!" Addie exclaimed. "I never heard of such a
thing. I can't understand such remarks."
"I'll tell you what we'll do," Katherine suggested reassuringly. "We'll
all go back to the house with you and fix everything up nice. They won't
beat you, I'm sure. Come on, Miss Graham, we'll help you, if you don't
think we're intruding."
Addie did not know how to reply and did not attempt to. She started
toward home and the Camp Fire Girls followed her, Miss Ladd leading the
battling runaway by the hand.
Glen was considerably bewildered and apparently submissive during the
journey homeward. He said little, and when he spoke, it was only a short
reply to something said to him.
At the door of the cottage, they were met by Mrs. Graham, to whom Addie
introduced them. None of the girls were well impressed by the woman's
appearance or manner. She affected the same ungenuine interest and
affection for Glen that had characterized Addie's manner toward him.
But they managed to bring about a condition more or less reassuring to
the boy and left him, with secret misgivings, in the custody of the
family which they held more than ever under suspicion.
"We've got to do some real spy work now," said Miss Ladd after they had
reached their camp again. "We've got to find out what is going on in
that house when those people have no suspicion that they are being
watched."
CHAPTER XXVI.
AMMUNITION AND CATAPULTS.
The thirteen Camp Fire Girls and their Guardian are hardly to be
censured because they did little more work of a routine nature that day.
One could hardly expect them to fix their minds upon any "even tenor"
occupation while the thrills of recent developments supplied so much
stimulus for discussion of future prospect.
They were careful in these discussions not to leave open any possibility
of their being overheard. Their conversations were always held in low
tones and in places where it would be difficult for any of the members
of the Graham family to find positions of concealment near enough to
overhear what was being said.
One thing decided upon was in line with Miss Ladd's declaration that
they must find out "what was going on in the Graham house," having
reference, of course, to the treatment received there by little Glen in
view of his violent protest against being returned to the care and
custody of the people whom he charged with acts of cruelty toward
himself. A scouting expedition was planned for the evening, the
"official scouts" of the Fire--Katherine and Hazel--being delegated to
this work. Katherine proposed that two others be selected to assist
them, and Miss Ladd suggested that they choose their assistants
themselves.
"We'll think it over and pick them before suppertime," said Katherine
after conferring with Hazel.
The result was that before sundown Azalia Atwood and Ernestine Johanson
had been added to the spy squad. Their selection came as a result of
general discussions of the work in prospect, in the course of which both
Azalia and Ernestine made several suggestions that were regarded as
clever and helpful for the scouting plans.
Shortly after the girls returned from the Graham cottage to their camp,
"Jimmie Junior" of the "treble cleff voice" appeared with the
announcement that he had brought his boat to the Camp Fire landing and
moored it by tying the painter to a projecting rock. They thanked him
and proceeded at once with the task of restoring the safety-guard line
to their bathing place. All put on their bathing suits and went down to
the beach.
With the aid of the boat their work was much easier than it had been the
first time. It is no easy performance for one person to sit on the
shoulders of another and wield a mallet on the upper end of a stake held
by a third person in water arm-pit deep. If you doubt this assertion,
just try it.
Well, this difficult feat was unnecessary this time. The stakes, rope,
and mallet were put into the boat, and three of the girls got in and
rowed out to the point where the southwest stake had been driven before.
Then two of them plunged overboard and, while one of these steadied the
boat and the other held the stake in position, the girl in the boat
drove it firmly into the sand-clay bed of the lake.
This operation was repeated until the supports of the buoy-line were all
restored. Then the rope was stretched from stake to stake and wooden
buoys attached as before.
The work was speedily performed and then the girls all had a good swim.
When they returned to their camp, it was lunch time and the "gastronomic
committee," as Harriet, the "walking dictionary," had dubbed the
commissary department, got busy. During the meal, which they ate on a
"newspaper tablecloth," picnic-style, the subject of organized
self-protection against further depredations was discussed.
"I believe we ought to establish a relief watch system to be kept up all
night every night as long as there seems to be any danger of our being
molested by prowlers like those who paid us a visit last night," Estelle
announced.
"What would we do if we caught anybody at any mischief?" asked Azalia.
"We'd sail right into 'em and give 'em Hail Columbia," declared Hazel
like a vigilance committee chairman.
"Yes, we'd pull their hair," said Marie Crismore.
"And scratch their eyes out," Ernestine chimed in.
"And boo-shoo 'em away," added Julietta Hyde.
"I'm positively ashamed of you for talking that way," Miss Ladd
interposed. "You're laughing at yourselves because you are girls. Now,
you ought not to do that, even in fun. How many of you can do some real
boys' stunts just as well as the boys can?"
"I can swim half a mile," announced Hazel.
"I can do a fly-away from the horizontal bar," declared Violet Munday.
"I can run a hundred-yard dash in thirteen seconds," said Ernestine;
"and that's better than lots of boys can do it."
"I can throw a ball like a boy," said Helen Nash.
"So can I"--this from Marion Stanlock.
"Oh, several of us can do that," Katherine declared. "We've played ball
with the boys. But now you're getting close to what I was driving at.
We'll proceed to gather a supply of ammunition."
"Ammunition!" several exclaimed.
"Surely," Katherine replied. "We'll get it down on the beach."
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