THE DOGTOWN TRIBE
Burd said, later, with a chuckle, that at this speech Amy sputtered
worse than the _Water Thrush_ itself. But Jessie pinched her chum’s
arm and warned her to be still.
“What does it matter, Amy?” she said. “Belle says it because she
knows we have the best of the argument. We have deliberately put
ourselves up as a target for her sharp tongue. We knew we were doing
it, didn’t we?”
“All right,” grumbled Amy. “But I do hope we will get the best of
Belle some time.”
“We have now,” said her chum.
“Pooh! We are only saving these foolish boys. I hope Darry and Burd
will appreciate our efforts,” Amy sighed. “But of course they will
not.”
They went ashore with the rest of the young folks, and Amy and Jessie
were at once surrounded by a crowd of girls and boys, showing that,
if they were disliked by Belle Ringold and her immediate clique, they
were popular with a large circle of friends.
Darry and Burd need not have been so afraid of the occasion being a
“kid picnic.” There were several young fellows of near their own age;
and if most of the girls were of the age of Jessie and Amy they were
a bright, fun-loving and companionable lot.
A very good talking machine had been brought from the Ringold
house, and the selection of dance records was good. Jessie and Amy
introduced Darry and Burd to the nicer girls of the party—those
whom the young men did not already know. The Roselawn radio chums
particularly aided the collegians in escaping the wiles of Belle and
Sally Moon.
That the latter two were angry and disappointed could only be
expected; but it was their own fault. Darry and Burd enjoyed
themselves dancing with the girls with whom Amy and Jessie were
intimate.
Naturally there was bred a little friction. Belle Ringold was not a
girl who could complacently endure anything which she considered in
the nature of a slight. She was angry with Darry Drew and his chum,
but her flashing looks were aimed at Darry’s sister and Jessie.
“We know whom to thank for the frost we got,” she said angrily to
Sally Moon. “That Drew fellow hasn’t offered to dance with me but
once. And you know, as well as I do, Sally Moon, that it was I who
first invited him to this box party. Say! Where did those ragamuffins
come from? Who invited them to this party, I’d like to know?”
“Why,” drawled Sally, her closest friend, “those are some of that
Dogtown tribe.”
“They must be friends of Jess Norwood. I understand she invites them
to her house and her mother lets them stay to dinner,” was Belle’s
scornful observation.
Jessie did not chance to hear these remarks; she was dancing with
Darry Drew at the time and that fact was what made Belle Ringold so
angry. But Jessie caught sight of Henrietta and several of her little
friends standing at the edge of the wood that fringed the old Carter
lawns.
She, too, asked: “How did they get here?”
“Who?” the college youth asked. “Oh! Is that little Hen?”
“It most certainly is. Come, please, Darry; I want to speak to her.”
“Hullo!” exclaimed Darry under his breath; “somebody else is going to
say something to the little Dogtownites, if I’m not mistaken.”
He had seen Belle and Sally Moon, who had been dancing together
because there was a shortage of male partners, approaching the group
of spectators. But Jessie did not pay Belle and the other girl any
attention.
“Oh, Henrietta!” she cried. “How did you get over here from your
house?”
“Charlie Foley and Montmorency Shannon fixed up your canoe like you
said they could, and we paddled across. Gee! Ain’t that dance music
fine? I’m going to learn to dance some day. Bertha says I shall.
_She_ dances.”
Just then Belle broke in angrily: “I suppose these are some of your
friends, Jess Norwood. But if you invited them here I want to tell
you and them, too, that I got up this party and I don’t want the
offscourings of Dogtown here. You can send ’em away, Jess Norwood.”
At that Jessie fired up, meek as her spirit usually was.
“I shall do nothing of the kind,” she said sharply, as Henrietta
and her friends drew away. “Don’t go, Henrietta—and the rest of you
children. She does not own this place. You have quite as much right
here as we have.”
“I—want—to—know!” sputtered Belle.
“It is the truth. You children can stay and look on. And at supper
time I think we have brought enough lunch for you all to have a
bite.” She turned her back on Belle Ringold and spoke to the other
boys and girls with Henrietta: “Is that you, Monty Shannon? Have you
got your radio fixed yet?”
“Got the antenna all strung. Just waiting for the set now. I’ve sent
for it,” said the young radio enthusiast with promptness.
“Oh!” said Jessie, thoughtfully. “Then you’ve bought and paid for it?”
“Well, I’ve bought it. I don’t pay for it till they deliver it. Oh,
I’m going to have it all right.”
“Come on,” said Darry, breaking in. “There’s the encore of that
dance. Let’s finish it, Jess. See you later, Hen,” and he whirled the
Roselawn girl away.
Jessie waved her hand at the little group of Dogtown children.
Her warm speech had defended Henrietta and her friends from the
unpleasant tongue of Belle Ringold. Perhaps the latter might really
have succeeded in driving the Dogtown children away; while in the
music and dancing of the New Melford and Roselawn young folks,
Henrietta and her party took pleasure.
“Isn’t it kind of pitiful,” Jessie ventured before the dance
concluded, “that those children should have to take their pleasure by
proxy?”
“My goodness!” gasped Darry, “you’re a funny girl, Jess. Do you want
to give Hen and those others dancing lessons?” and he chuckled.
“Well, why not?” she asked pluckily. “We like dancing. Why shouldn’t
they like it in Dogtown just as much?”
“Unanswerable, I’ll say!” Darry rejoined, but smiling broadly. “I
believe you were born to be a ‘Miss Fixit’ for all mankind. You’ll go
in for settlement work and all that when you get through school.”
“Nothing of the kind!” Jessie cried, in some heat. She did not like
to have Darry poke fun at her. Somehow that hurt. “But I’d be ashamed
if I did not want little children like Henrietta to have a good time,
and have it while they are young enough to enjoy it.”
“Hullo!” exclaimed the college youth. “You’ll stand well in ‘psyche’
when you become a co-ed, Jess. I can see that.”
At that Jessie laughed again. She did not think she was interested
in psychology at all; but she knew she was very much interested in
Henrietta and her little friends. Especially was she anxious to learn
all about Montmorency Shannon’s radio set.
“He’s going to get it, he says,” she whispered to Amy when they next
were together. “Says he’s ordered it from the factory. Montmorency
and his radio set, I mean.”
“Oh!” said Amy. “Whom is he buying it from? Do you know?”
“Let’s ask him,” said Jessie. “I do want to know just how he is going
to pay for it. Think! Fifteen dollars is a lot of money for those
Shannons. Why, Monty’s jacket is in rags.”
Amy began to giggle. “Radio is certainly becoming more important than
jackets and shoes.”
But Jessie sighed worriedly. “I do wish we knew about Mark’s watch
and what became of it. I hate to suspect those children.”
Belle Ringold and her friend let Henrietta’s party alone for the time
being. Belle seemed to wish to behave before Darry and Burd in a more
ladylike manner than was her usual custom.
But it was difficult for her to quell her dislike of the Dogtown
“tribe” when Jessie and Amy ushered the children into the great
farmhouse kitchen at supper time and placed Henrietta and her friends
at one end of a long table, making them members of her own party.
There was much merriment at that end of the table, too, for Darry
and Burd, as well as others of the radio girls’ friends, cheerfully
entered into the spirit of the occasion.
“Lucky you brought this hatbox full of good things, Amy,” Burd said.
“I can see right now that we are going to be able to get outside the
whole of it. Let’s see if we can fill up these kids. I believe they
are hollow all the way down.”
“Mrs. Foley says I am,” said Henrietta, complacently. “It takes as
much to fill me up as it does a lots bigger girl. Bertha can’t eat as
much as me.”
“Where is Bertha?” Jessie asked.
“She’s gone to Stratfordtown to work for a lady. And if the lady
likes little girls I’m going to live with her too. Bertha says so.”
Just about then the crowd had all become seated and the various boxes
were opened. A little quietness fell for a moment. Instantly they
heard overhead a strange tapping and scratching sound. The loft over
the kitchen was supposed to be empty.
“Oh! Do you hear that?” gasped Amy, staring at Jessie Norwood.
“Who is up there, do you suppose?” demanded one of the other girls.
“’Tisn’t _who_; it’s _what_,” declared Burd Alling.
“What do you mean, Burd?” Sally Moon demanded from the other end of
the table.
“There is nobody missing,” explained Burd. So——”
Just then little Henrietta offered her contribution to the
discussion. She gulped her first mouthful of sandwich and declared
hoarsely:
“Snakes!”
“O-o!” shrieked several of the girls.
“Snakes, indeed!” gasped Belle Ringold. “You horrid little thing! How
would snakes come to be upstairs in this house?”
“They was here,” said Henrietta with confidence, looking at Jessie
and Amy. “You ’member ’em, don’t you, Miss Jessie? They was Carter’s
ha’nt, wasn’t they?”
“There used to be a ghost here, everybody said,” called out some one
in the crowd. “Do you suppose it is a ghost up there?”
Just then the scratching on the floor was repeated. Something not at
all ghostly, it seemed, was moving about in the garret of the old
house.