“DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE?”
Let’s go down, anyway, and see what they are doing,” said Amy
eagerly. “The sun was out for five whole minutes just now.”
“Perhaps it will clear off,” Jessie said. “They will be so
disappointed if it doesn’t.”
“Don’t get mushy about it, Jess,” advised Darry Drew. “They’d be only
too glad if your mother’s affair to-morrow proved to be a failure.”
“Right-o,” said Burd Alling. “I never could forgive and forget as
easy as Jess does. You are too good for words, Jessie.”
“You don’t know how painful it is,” sighed Jessie, but with twinkling
eyes.
“Never mind nagging Jess,” broke in Amy. “I want to go down there to
Carter’s and crow over Belle and Sally and the others.”
“You do your crowing under your breath, Sis,” warned Darry. “We don’t
want to start any neighborhood feud that will disrupt the whole of
Roselawn and New Melford.”
“And the Ringolds and the Moons will certainly have chips on their
shoulders if it starts in to rain again,” admitted Amy.
“Perhaps it will clear,” Jessie, the optimist, said.
“I am still believing in the witch’s curse,” chuckled Amy. “I am
going to give her one of the best dolls out of my collection if the
picnic is spoiled. Henrietta, I mean.”
“Why!” scoffed her chum. “You half believe that the child really
brought about this bad weather.”
“No,” said Amy elfishly. “But I do think little Hen should have a job
in the Weather Bureau when she grows up.”
The two young fellows were quite as curious as the girls about the
outcome of the affair at the Carter place. The entire neighborhood
having been well plastered with bills announcing the entertainment,
and its being given in the name of the new hospital fund, it was
bound to create interest. Busses were advertised to start from the
New Melford post-office as early as two o’clock in the afternoon.
The girls and Darry and Burd boarded the launch, however, and started
down the lake about three o’clock. A long distance away from Carter’s
they could see the strings of flags and other decorations. Mrs.
Ringold and her helpers had spared no expense in making the place
attractive. There were decorated booths and a host of uniformed
servants in view when the _Water Thrush_ came near. But, as far as
the quartette could see, there were not a great number of visitors.
“It’s going to be a frost,” Amy said, with confidence. “I tell you,
our little Spotted Snake is a wonder.”
“Oh, don’t say anything,” begged Jessie, as they prepared to go
ashore. “I hope you’ve brought some money, Amy. We must all spend
some.”
“Darry has got some,” returned her chum. “That is one of the uses of
a brother. And even Burd may have a little.”
“Oh, I know my duty,” grumbled the stocky youth. “I am prepared to
buy George Washington sundaes, or Kewpie dolls, or boudoir caps, or
lollipops.”
They were met at the shore before they landed by two girls with
decorated “tags” which they were asked to buy for the hospital fund.
“And for mercy’s sake buy from me and Mabel and nobody else,” begged
Jennie Pell. “This party is going awfully slow. There haven’t a dozen
people come yet, except those who are working. Mrs. Ringold gave us
each a hundred tags and said we were expected to sell them all at
fifty cents each.”
“We can’t make folks to sell them to,” groaned Mabel Frost, “even if
we can make those we solicit, buy. Thanks ever so much, Darry Drew!”
It could not be said that either Darry or Burd Alling was niggardly
with his money on this occasion; but the poor girls who had things
to sell swooped upon the party from Roselawn like a band of hawks on
four helpless chickens.
“You can’t blame ’em,” said Jessie. “There’s not a handful of people
here yet.”
“And it is going to rain again,” declared Amy. “It’s one solemn
time—I’ll tell the world!” said Burd. “Look at Belle over there.
She’s too unhappy to quarrel.”
That was a misstatement. It was proved later that Belle was quite as
quarrelsome as usual. But just then she was busy on the porch of the
old house with the radio outfit that had been set up there, and Sally
Moon and Mrs. Ringold were with her.
“There is something the matter with that aerial; don’t you think so,
Amy?” Jessie said, looking up at the wires stretched from the corner
of the house to a distant tree.
“What is wrong with it? Didn’t Monty Shannon get it stretched before
he left yesterday?” asked Darry.
“He most certainly did not. And he said he would not come back to
help them.”
“Of course they got somebody to fix it for them,” said Amy. “Anyway,
Belle talked as though she knew all about radio.”
“So do a lot of people,” chuckled Jessie. “But sometimes it’s only
talk. She knows how to use the detector and put on the earphones, and
all that. But I believe that antenna is rigged wrong.”
At that moment there arose high words between mother and daughter on
the porch. Mrs. Ringold suffered the same lack of self-control that
her daughter so often displayed. The Roselawn girls now heard Mrs.
Ringold say in a high-pitched voice:
“You told me you could run this—that you knew all about it. Why, I
don’t get a sound out of it, and when you switch on the amplifier it
is just the same. You seem, Belle, to know absolutely nothing about
it.”
“I guess I know enough,” snapped the girl. “You’ve bought a broken
set, that’s what is the matter.”
“Nothing of the kind. Unless you girls have broken it since it was
set up here. I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to run this radio
just as well as Jessie Norwood ran hers. You don’t have to go to
school to learn how, do you?” added the woman scornfully.
Sally Moon looked very much disturbed as she came hastily away from
the porch. She caught sight of Jessie and Amy standing near and came
over to them.
“I don’t know what the matter is with it,” she said abruptly, but
under her breath, to the Roselawn chums. “And Mrs. Ringold is so mad!”
“What’s she mad for?” Amy asked bluntly.
“Oh, everything is going wrong. You can see that, can’t you?”
complained Sally. “Anyway,” she added, “Belle and her mother are
always fighting.”
This sounded pretty bad, Jessie thought; but as the voices of Mrs.
Ringold and her daughter rose higher and they became more angry, the
fact of their “fighting” could scarcely be denied.
“Goodness me!” gasped Amy. “She’ll slap Belle in a minute!”
“Can’t they get any action at all from the set?” Jessie asked Sally
Moon hastily.
“Nothing but a scratchy sound—like a bad record on a talking
machine,” replied Sally.
“Atmospherics,” suggested Amy. “It’s a bad day, anyway. There’s
thunder in the distance.”
“They have been trying for an hour,” said Sally.
“It’s the rigging of the aerial,” said Jessie thoughtfully. “Look,
Amy. The wires are a little twisted, but what is making the real
trouble is the way those porcelain insulators are put on.”
She started for the porch. Amy cried after her: “Better not! You’ll
get your nose snapped off or something.”
“But it will be awful if they can’t give the radio concert after
advertising it,” Jessie murmured, hesitating.
Amy was still opposed to her chum’s offering any help. But Sally had
turned and run ahead. She now called to the angry Mrs. Ringold:
“Oh, wait, Mrs. Ringold! Jessie says maybe it is the aerial that is
at fault. Maybe she can tell you how to fix it.”
The woman turned with some relief in her face, but Belle was by no
means pacified by this interference. She blazed out:
“Tell her to mind her own business! She doesn’t know any more about
this thing than I do.”
“And you don’t seem to know anything at all, Belle,” her mother
joined in maliciously. “Do you know any more? Can you see what’s
wrong, Jessie Norwood?”
This was not very encouraging, but Jessie had been taught to be
respectful in any event. She said quietly:
“I am not positive. But it looks to me as though a mistake had been
made in the stringing of the aerial up there.”
“If there is,” snapped Belle, “you like enough put that Dogtown kid
up to doing it that way. You were here yesterday when he was doing
it.”
“Stop that!” commanded her mother sharply. But Jessie could not
endure this false accusation without defense.
“You know very well, Belle, that Monty Shannon did not finish the
job. He was called home. Whoever rigged the wires after he left made
a mistake.”
“Now, don’t interfere here again, Belle!” commanded Belle’s mother,
and she actually drove her daughter away from the porch. “If you can
help fix this thing I’ll be a thousand times obliged to you,” she
added, turning to Jessie.
Jessie called the boys to help and in half an hour they got the wires
untwisted and the insulators properly placed and Mrs. Ringold heard
plainly through the earphones. It was in good season for the dance
music program that would be broadcasted at four o’clock from one of
the sending stations.
But, unfortunately, there were very few people to dance. The few
busses that had arrived from town were not half filled. And almost
nobody had come in private cars or boats. Just before four o’clock
the thunder became louder and the lightning more threatening. The
quartette of Roselawn young people made for the _Water Thrush_ on the
run.
In the cabin of the launch they could keep dry. The other
pleasure-seekers had to crowd into the kitchen of the old house, or
into the motor busses. The clouds shut down over the picnic ground
and for an hour the rain poured torrentially.
Darry Drew got into oilskins and went out and started the motor.
Before the storm held up they were at the Norwood landing. They had
had a gay time after all.
“But,” said Amy, making a little face, “that Mrs. Ringold didn’t even
thank you, Jess. Her being a thousand times obliged was a joke. And
Belle will never forgive you!”
“What does that matter?” returned her chum cheerfully. “We did our
duty, didn’t we?”
“Believe me,” groaned Amy Drew, “I never could get so much
satisfaction out of doing my duty, and I don’t see how you can, Jess
Norwood!”
As they walked up to the house Jessie suddenly saw something that
brought a cry of dismay to her lips. Amy stared all around, demanding
to be told the worst.
“What is it? Is the sky falling, Chicken Little?” she demanded.
“That aerial! See! Didn’t I tell you when we fixed it after Mark’s
accident that I thought that hook we drove into the tower window
frame was not safe?”
“I believe you! It’s down, Jess. Dear me! We do have the worst luck!
And see!” she added. “It’s broken the branch of that small pear tree.”
“It is that pear tree that has the bad luck,” said Jessie. “It came
near to being squashed when the airplane fell. And now——”
Suddenly Jessie emitted a shriek and started to run across the side
lawn toward the small tree. A branch had been broken by the falling
wires, and now hung half torn from the stem of the tree.
Revealed among the torn foliage was something that likewise brought
from Amy’s lips a loud cry.
“Do you see what I see?” she yelled.
“Is—is it _real_?” gasped Jessie, in wonder.
The two college boys came running up the hill behind them. Darry
demanded:
“What’s struck now—lightning? You girls are enough to give heart
disease to an old fellow like me. What’s the big idea?”
But for the moment neither Jessie nor Amy could reply.