OFF ON THE “WATER THRUSH”
That evening the Norwoods had unexpected company to entertain—three
motor cars filled with guests. Aunt Ann, who lived near Riverside
Drive, brought the crowd; and although they arrived after dinner,
Momsy and Mr. Norwood were rather put to it to amuse the guests.
They were not a card-playing crowd, nor did they care for dancing.
Somebody spoke of radio, having noted Jessie’s aerial when they drove
into the grounds.
“I do wish you had placed your set downstairs here in the
drawing-room, as I suggested, Jessie,” Mrs. Norwood observed in
secret to her daughter. “You see, large and comfortable as your room
is, we could not squeeze them into it on this hot night.”
“Hold on, Momsy! Wait!” said Jessie eagerly. “I believe I can do
something to help you out. There is a fine nine o’clock entertainment
to-night from Stratfordtown and another from a New York station at
ten. Now wait! Let me call Amy on the telephone.”
“But, child, you cannot restring all that wire and replace those
things, for just this evening.”
“Don’t you say a word, Momsy. Leave it to me,” cried Jessie gaily,
and ran off to call her chum.
Amy came over at once, and for half an hour and more the two girls
were very busy. Mr. Norwood had purchased at the time of the church
bazaar a loud speaker and horn, as well as a lot of flexible cord.
Jessie and Amy reconnected the radio set, strung the cord carefully
down the stairway and along the hall and into the big room. They
linked up the upstairs set with the loud speaker and horn, and just
as conversation was lagging and Mrs. Norwood began to wonder what
general topic might interest her visitors, signals from the radio
began to be heard.
The visitors gathered from the library and porch, took the chairs the
girls had arranged, and for two hours enjoyed to the full the music
and recitations broadcasted from the two sending stations mentioned.
“Isn’t that a great idea!” said Aunt Ann. “I’m going to have a set
put in my place. Jessie, you and Amy come to town and tell me what to
buy and how to rig it, and I’ll take you to a matinee to pay for it,
and afterward to dinner at the nicest restaurant I know of.”
“You will have your work cut out for you, girls,” said Momsy,
laughing. But she really was proud of her daughter’s ability. Daddy
Norwood said:
“How are you going to string the aerial on top of Aunt Ann’s house?
You know it is nothing but a slice of brown stone.”
“Why,” said Jessie, composedly enough, “we’ll have a loop antenna,
instead of long wires like these I have here. Of course it can be
done, Aunt Ann.”
“And we will come for that matinee and the dinner,” cried Amy
eagerly. “Think, Jess; what are you going to wear?”
The next day the hospital fund committee arranged the further details
of the radio concert that the Stratford Electric Company had agreed
to broadcast. The time limit was two hours and the professional
numbers were to be interspersed with amateur efforts.
“At least, we’ll get a place on the same program with Madame Elva,”
Amy said, but with a sigh. “But do you know, Jess, I am just stingy
enough to wish that the committee had not given so much space to
Miss Allister’s girls’ chorus. Those songs will take from seventeen
to twenty minutes, the best they can do. They did at the school
exercises, you know.”
“That is true,” said Jessie. “And Momsy says that she doesn’t see how
they can give me time for more than one song, and that a brief one.”
“And my recitation takes only four minutes. Oh, dear! That Belle
Ringold will crow over us unmercifully. She will think she is the
whole show if they let her sing in that chorus.”
“Well,” admitted Jessie, “she really has a loud voice, you know, Amy.”
“You said something,” her chum said gruffly. “She can yell loud
enough to broadcast from Stratfordtown without any radio-sending
machine at all!”
“Why, Amy! Belle hasn’t a bad voice, I’m sure.”
“Humph! Yes, I know,” sniffed Amy. “It’s the way she uses it.”
Jessie entered heartily into the scheme she had herself suggested
by which Darry and Burd were to escape the wiles of Belle and her
particular chum, Sally Moon. With the help of Alma, her mother’s
good-natured cook, Jessie arranged a dainty and tasty lunch for
herself and Darry. Amy said she was prepared with a big square hatbox
of sandwiches and cake for Burd.
“I bet you eat your share,” said the stocky fellow, grinning. “A
gnat’s table d’hote never would satisfy you, Miss Amy.”
Of course, Jessie and Amy had not merely “declared themselves in” on
the moonlight box party. It was something that Belle and her clique
had been planning for some time and practically everybody had been
invited.
The day wore to a soft and lovely evening, and at eight o’clock there
were many boats on the lake. Roselawn folk for the most part used a
public boathouse not far from the Norwood landing. But Darry Drew
kept his _Water Thrush_ under a little hut near by. He had been so
busy with the _Marigold_ since commencement that he had scarcely
touched the little launch. But Bill, the Norwoods’ gardener’s boy,
had polished up the engine and kept the launch in good trim.
The quartette found the _Water Thrush_ ready for them. Burd staggered
down to the landing with the hatbox, apparently scarcely able to bear
the weight of the lunch Amy had packed for Burd Alling and herself.
“I’m hungry now,” declared the stocky youth, putting down the box
carefully. “When do we eat?”
“We don’t eat at all till we go ashore at Carter’s,” said Jessie,
with severity. “We heard to-day that somebody had been down there and
had swept and garnished the old kitchen.”
“I hope they went upstairs and cleared out the snakes,” giggled Amy.
“I hope so, too,” agreed her chum. There had been an occasion when
the Roselawn radio girls had had a rather thrilling experience with
some black snakes that had preëmpted the old Carter house. “If those
snakes ever came tumbling down into the kitchen while this bunch of
girls and fellows were eating, mercy! what a row there would be!”
“I never did know what snakes were for,” sighed Amy. “Nature is
wonderfully efficient, we know. But why snakes?”
“So that they can make snakeskin purses for you girls to carry.
That’s easy,” declared Burd solemnly.
“That’s a good one,” laughed Darry, pulling a paper out of his pocket
and unfolding it in the light of the binnacle lamp at the stern. “See
here. I copied this list of startling explanations that Professor
Totten has collected during the course of his long career teaching
the youthful idea to shoot. That snake business of yours, Burd,
ought to go down to posterity in their company. These are selected,
the Profes. says, from many that he has picked out of freshman and
sophomore papers. Listen:
“‘Joan of Arc was the wife of Noah.’
“‘Tobacco was introduced into England by Henry Clay.’
“‘Romulus and Remus were a couple of Siamese twins who made Rome
howl.’
“‘Fratricide is a friend who murders a college student. Insecticide
is a man who kills his aunt.’
“‘The Nihilists are the people of the Nile country.’
“‘Sodom and Gomorrah are the two Hebrew children who were burned in
the fiery furnace.’
“‘A misanthrope is a man who marries his own wife.’
“‘The treaty of Ghent was so called because every man brought his own
drink.’”
“Goodness gracious Agnes!” sputtered his sister. “Do you mean to say
that college students don’t know any better than _that_? Where do
they pick them—out of the infant class?”
“You shouldn’t have read these girls that, Darry,” complained Burd,
when Amy and Jessie had laughed their fill. “They’ll lose all respect
for our erudition. That will never do!”
“You don’t suppose,” drawled Amy, “that we are really impressed by
your superabundance of knowledge and your wonderful brainery? No, no!
We know you too well. Look out, Burd Alling! Don’t run us ashore.”
“Well put,” agreed her brother. “Try to keep your eyes open, old
Sleepyhead. We don’t want to have to walk back from Carter’s.”
The young people from New Melford proper all went by bus and
automobile to the lower end of Monenset Lake, where there was a
landing and a boathouse at which canoes and rowboats could be hired.
The lake, shaped like an elongated comma, swept around to this
point, passing Dogtown on one hand and the old and abandoned Carter
estate on the other.
Belle Ringold and her party were nearer the half demolished dwelling
belonging to the old plantation than were Darry and his party; but
the latter in the _Water Witch_ came into view of the big bonfire on
the shore at the Carter place as soon as the flotilla from the Lower
Landing.
The Ringolds were wealthy people, and Belle could usually do about as
she pleased. She had sent several of her mother’s servants ahead and
preparations had been made for dancing on the smooth yard before the
old house, while inside the long picnic tables were laid for supper.
The moon had come up in wonderful effulgence and now poured its light
over the plaza before the house. But the bonfire served as a beacon
when the various craft, filled with singing and laughing picnickers,
headed for the shore.
“Is that your boat, Mr. Drew?” shrilled a voice that could never
be mistaken for any but that of Belle Ringold. “Was so afraid you
wouldn’t come.”
Darry groaned horribly. Burd, with muffled laughter, replied:
“Don’t know how long we can stay. Something seems to be the matter
here. I think old Darry’s sick. And I never was so hungry in all my
life.”
“Oh, don’t let that worry you,” Sally Moon broke in. “I’ve a nice
lunch which you can share, Burd.”
“That’s fine,” said the cruel Burd. “I guess I sha’n’t starve. Amy,
here, is going to share hers with me too. Always well to be prepared
against famine.”
The _Water Thrush_ was now near enough for the girls from New Melford
to see who was in the launch. Belle Ringold gave voice to her disdain
as usual:
“For the land’s sake! Have Amy and Jess tagged along with you, Mr.
Drew? How perfectly horrid!”