A TASTE OF “THE SEASON”
The Bentleys were living on their yacht at present. Jack Hudson was
with them and they straightway invited Suzanne, Ann and Maurice to join
them. But as the Sterlings were driving to Miami for a short stay, it
was arranged to meet at Fort Lauderdale, twenty-five miles north of
Miami, where the Bentleys expected to “park” their yacht, as Jack said.
Mr. Sterling would have the young folks there, on the drive back to
Palm Beach. The youngsters, as Mr. Sterling called them, were to have
their chance first at all the trips, because of their limited stay.
Their elders, with the exception of Mr. Sterling, would remain until
May. Mr. Sterling, indeed, could prolong his stay as long as he chose,
or thought best.
It was fun to shop in Miami, full of tourists as it was. They drove to
the beaches, for they were obliged to try out the winter bathing, they
said, at every place, if only to prove that they could. Ann was deeply
interested in the variety of people that they saw, people of every
degree of culture, or its entire lack, occasionally. There were “lovely
people”, she told her father, and some with hard faces, who did not
seem to be happy in spite of the money which they evidently possessed.
Wherever he could, Mr. Sterling drove on the roads by the sea, where
they all filled eyes and hearts with the beauty of the southern waters
and sky.
“Don’t you hope that Grandmother will buy a home down here somewhere?”
said Suzanne, as they were on their way back to join the Bentleys.
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Ann. “Do you really suppose that she will? What do
you think, Mother?”
“I should not be surprised,” answered Mrs. Sterling. “Mother begins to
feel the winters very much. She would enjoy escaping the worst part of
them, the long stretch from the first of January, say. Where would you
choose the place for her, children?”
“Either Palm Beach or Miami,” declared Suzanne at once.
“I would rather be a little farther away from so many people,” said
Ann. “I loved the looks of Fort Lauderdale as I went through. All those
yachts and launches on New River were so wonderful. I like some of the
other places that we passed through, too. In the northern places there
were those immense old live oaks; down here are the palms. I wouldn’t
know which to choose!”
“Probably you couldn’t get Mother to settle north of Palm Beach. You
haven’t said where you are going to put your vote, Maurice.”
“Me? Oh, I’m going to have a river front place on New River, so I can
dock my yacht at my own front yard.” Maurice gave a smiling look at Ann
as he said this. “Don’t you think, Ann, that my plan is good?”
“Very good, if you know where the yacht is coming from.” Ann said this
gaily, as usual, but wished that she had not, for Maurice’s face fell
and he looked sober for some time.
“Now he is worrying again,” she thought. “It seems that I can not have
any sense!”
* * * * *
The new car sped along the Dixie highway from Miami in fine shape.
Maurice drove for Mr. Sterling and Ann sat by him, at his suggestion.
They drove into Wyldewood to look at the “two million dollar” banyan
tree and other things; but that did not take long. It seemed a short
ride, compared to those which they had been taking, when they crossed
the bridge at Fort Lauderdale and turned down the street by the river,
where they saw the pennants of the Bentley yacht.
Mrs. Bentley saw them and beckoned from the yacht. A young fellow in
sailor costume came to help them aboard. “Isn’t it great?” whispered
Suzanne to Ann. “I did not know that they had so fine a yacht, nor one
so big as this. It is a good thing the river is so deep, for these
large boats.”
The wood seemed to be mahogany, shining and clean, as everything
was, indeed. On the deck there were comfortable seats, mostly wicker
furniture. It was the first time that Ann had ever been on a yacht, an
occasion to be remembered.
“I am all alone,” said Mrs. Bentley, when her guests were seated on
deck. “My men all went deep sea fishing this morning. Ron promised to
bring me a whale and Jack said that he might catch a shark. Mr. Bentley
made no promises.”
Ann wondered if this were fun or earnest, probably fun, she thought.
Whaling, she knew, was an undertaking by itself. But she did not
pretend to know what they did catch in “deep sea fishing,” so kept
still and listened.
“They thought that you would not get here so early, though I really
expected them before this.”
“You are ready, are you, to undertake the addition to your family?” Mr.
Sterling asked.
“Indeed I am. We have all been anticipating the fun. I wish that you
and Mrs. Sterling might join us, too.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Bentley,” replied Mrs. Sterling, “we are sorry not to
see Mr. Bentley, but I promised Mother to reach Palm Beach early. We’d
better not wait.”
“Then you must see our yacht, at least,” said Mrs. Bentley, rising.
“After the young folks go back to school, perhaps we can persuade you
to a little cruise with us.”
“It would not take any persuading in our case, would it, Ann?” remarked
Suzanne, as they followed the rest on a tour of the yacht.
“I don’t know how good a sailor I’ll be,” said Ann, “but I wouldn’t
miss this for a good deal!”
Not long after the Sterlings’ departure, a small launch came past,
carrying the fishermen and their catch. They had gone out with friends
in the early morning.
A little further along the docks the launch found a place to dock. Here
came the boys, followed by Mr. Bentley and another of his small “crew”
that ran the boat for him. “We’re leaving our catch, Mother,” said Ron,
“to be attended to at the launch. I’m going to have the sail-fish I
caught mounted!”
“Ronald! Where will you put it?”
“Haven’t thought that far yet, Mom!”
The fishermen boarded the yacht and made many excuses for their
somewhat disreputable appearance. Jack looked rather pale. Deep
sea fishing had been a trifle strenuous for him, but he disclaimed
seasickness. With more excuses, they withdrew, to appear some time
later in the garb of civilization, as they said, though not evening
dress by any means. Mrs. Bentley had told the girls that it was not
necessary to change their costume, though they had brought suitable
frocks. “We shall be very informal tonight,” she said. “Indeed, I think
that we shall take our evening meal ashore at some pleasant place.”
It was like living in a house, Ann thought, so convenient to
everything. “I always did think that I would like to live in a
house-boat,” she confided to Suzanne, to receive a well-bred stare.
Suzanne had never thought house-boats had anything to do with her!
“You do say the funniest things sometimes, Ann,” she said.
As the boys had planned it, the young people went off to a moving
picture after their rather early dinner, Ronald calling for a young
friend on a neighboring yacht, which gave each lad a lass. This young
lady was one they had met several seasons at Daytona, where the
Bentleys often stayed. Quite accidentally the girls found that she
knew Eleanor Frost and lived not far from her home on the Hudson.
This was enough of a recommendation for Suzanne, who was friendly
at once. Ann liked the appearance of Ronald’s friend, Louise Duncan
by name, who had met Maurice before and remembered him. It was a
“happy-go-lucky” affair, not planned except for the movie, which was
rather disappointing. They left before it was over and drifted into an
ice-cream parlor, where they sat to visit as much as to eat the cool
refreshments. Ann could not get over its being winter. “Someway, I keep
thinking that I have the dates all wrong,” she said to Maurice, who
remained her special cavalier. “I started to put June on a letter I
began to Marta this morning.”
“You are not the only one who gets mixed in Florida. ‘It is always June
in Miami’ is a favorite saying down here, you know.”
“We’ll all go up on our deck,” announced Ronald, “and we’ll get out our
little banjos for some music.”
There was no dissenting voice. In a short time Ann was sitting with a
light wrap around her shoulders, as in summer time at home, listening
to the music of guitar, mandolin and banjo, the instruments that the
boys happened to play. Theirs was not the only yacht that boasted
music. Voices and instruments mingled their sounds over the river’s
reflections. Stars and moon were bright. An occasional boat passed.
Strains from a band concert in the park reached them occasionally, till
the boys said that there was too much competition and stopped. “Wait
till we get out upon the bounding billow, girls,” said Ronald.
“Then we shall show what we can do!” added Jack. “Tomorrow we are
going to take you up New River, though, and perhaps around ‘Alligator
Circle’.”
“What is ‘Alligator Circle’?” asked Ann. “Do you mean that we may
really see some alligators?”
“If it is a sunny day, I think that you may see quite a number on the
banks. We are going in Dick Bell’s launch, provided that you young
ladies will accept our plan.”
“We are in for any fun that you suggest,” declared Suzanne.
Ronald took Louise home to her floating mansion, which was conveniently
located on the same side of the river. Mrs. Bentley, who, if the truth
were told, had been yawning for some time, as she and her husband sat
forward and listened to the various harmonies, showed Suzanne and Ann
to their quarters. From the deck came the strains of “Good Night,
Ladies,” the college song immemorial.
The girls looked at each other with smiles as they listened, but had
no way of acknowledging the message. “Isn’t this a cutey cabin, Ann?”
asked Suzanne as she surveyed the little stateroom.
“Not only cutey, but ducky. I’m rather glad that my first experience is
on a stationary boat. With all the fun we’ve had, and the candy we ate,
I’m afraid that I’m due for dreams tonight.”
“May they be pleasant ones,” said her cousin. “I’ve had such a glorious
time that mine ought to be. Jack is such a dear! Do you know that he
and Maurice are both planning to get a position in the mills after they
graduate? Jack told me tonight. Father has said that he will start them
in, though they may not get what they want at first. I think that he
and Grandmother both want Maury to learn the business from the ground
up.”
“Maurice told me that he was planning to begin there, but you don’t
suppose that they will handle the machinery, do you?”
“No. They would not be of much help there, I suppose, though Maurice
likes that sort of thing. He was always taking everything to pieces
when he was little. And till he smashed his car he had a lot of fun
doing almost the same thing with that.”
* * * * *
Morning brought sunshine and lovely clouds drifting over from the
ocean. Ann looked out upon islands of water hyacinth, floating past
the yacht on their way to the sound and the sea. The tide was going
out. Some of the yachts and launches were already moving, for the day,
perhaps, or to other shores. It was cool enough for a wrap on deck, but
Maurice told the girls that it would warm up as soon as the sun “got
into action.”
It was about nine o’clock when the party left the yacht to go along the
docks and across the bridge to where the little launch lazily rocked
and waited for them. Louise had joined them and told Suzanne that there
was a bit of pleasant news for her. “I’ll tell you when we get on the
launch,--if it is necessary,” she mysteriously added.
Several young people were standing on the dock near the launch as they
approached. “Why, there’s Eleanor!” Suzanne exclaimed. “Where in the
world did you come from, Eleanor?”
“Ann, this is our host, Dick Bell,” Maurice was saying. “This is the
cousin I told you about, Dick.”
For a few moments introductions were in order. Then Eleanor had time
to answer Suzanne’s question. “Mother and I are staying at Miami,” she
said. “I wrote to your address, Suzanne, to let you and Ann know that
we had suddenly decided to come. But you must have started before the
letter reached you. We ran across Dick yesterday, down town, and he
told me about this little trip. I came up on the ’bus a few minutes
ago. We decided to surprise you, though Dick told the boys, I guess.”
Besides Eleanor and Richard Bell, there were two other young friends,
Richard’s chum, Fred Hall, and his sister, Lois Bell. It bid fair to
prove a congenial party, but it would have been thrilling enough to Ann
even without the fun. It was all so different, she told Eleanor. There
were tall, feathery Australian pines and cocoanut palms along the river
bank. In the gardens of the homes near by, the vines and shrubs were of
those varieties with which she was just becoming familiar.
“Wait till we get up toward the Everglades,” said Eleanor. “Then you
will think it ‘different’.”
Ann had never heard of New River till she reached Florida. It was not
like her dashing mountain rivers, but had a beauty of its own. “How
dark the water is,” she said to Maurice, who sat beside her as they
moved up the river, under the two drawbridges, which stood open for
them and some taller boats.
“Yes. I don’t know why, unless there is something about the soil or
what grows along the banks. It is a sluggish river, but the tide comes
up every day to quite a distance.”
“There are some compensations for its not being rapid. I love the
reflections in the water. See how that palmetto is reflected, with
scarcely a ripple to show that it is water!”
The launch chugged along to the accompaniment of light laughter and
conversation. Rounding the curves, they advanced up stream, passing
some beautiful homes on the river front, then reaching the wilder
regions, where there were tangles of beautiful trees and shrubs in the
swamps. As it was yet early in the season, the water birds were not
wary. Herons of all sorts flew ahead of them. A fish hawk crossed the
stream overhead. An American bittern, all streaked with brown, flew
close enough to be distinguished without a glass.
“There!” called Dick. “There, folks, is your alligator! See him?”
But Ann, who had been following the bittern’s course, saw nothing but
the splash with which the alligator took the water and disappeared
from view. “What a shame!” she cried. “Do you suppose that we’ll see
another, Maury?” she asked.
“Certainly we shall. Watch the shores, especially any place where they
would be likely to lie out in the sun.”
“It’s like a circus with several rings, isn’t it? While you watch one
thing, you miss something else!”
But Ann saw the immense tarpon that leaped out of the water and back.
Smaller fishes also disported for their benefit. Finally Ann saw a
dark scaly body, curved around on a little hillock where the sun shone
between two masses of growth on the shore. “Is that an alligator
there?” she asked, pointing to the spot.
“’Tis the very reptile,” replied Ronald, and Dick made the launch move
more slowly, to let every one have a good look. Sleeping peacefully,
his long, hideous mouth in a “grim smile”, as Eleanor had it, the
immense alligator was not disturbed by the passing launch. The deed was
done. Ann had seen an “alligator in the wild”! But after that there
were perhaps a dozen more of various sizes that they saw, one swimming
in the river not far from the launch.
Up the canal at some distance, they stopped at a small place where the
larger boat that takes tourists on this ride always makes a stop. There
they visited an orange grove that Dick told them about, coming back to
the launch laden with the sweet, yellow fruit.
“How do you say we go back, boys?” asked Dick.
“Take the cut-off and go around by the sound and Lake Mabel,” said
Ronald.
“That will give the girls a chance to see more,” seconded Maurice.
“Around the canal we go,” said Dick. “The canal scenery is nothing
remarkable, girls, but when we get along further, there will be a view
worth seeing.”
On the dry slopes of the canal more alligators were sunning themselves.
But these were all shy of being seen. One scarcely saw them, Ann
thought, before they were in the river and out of sight entirely. “The
Indians hunt them, you know,” Dick explained. “But there are not so
many to get any more, they say. A man who has been coming here for
the last twenty-five years told me that there used to be thousands of
alligators where there are only a few now.”
“So far as I am concerned,” said Ann, “there are enough.” This remark
brought a laugh from the boys and similar sentiments from the girls.
“Don’t worry, Ann,” said Ronald. “There aren’t any around the towns.”
But just then, something was the matter with the engine, which finally
stopped, to the inward distress of at least the feminine portion of
the passengers. To their credit it may be said, however, that nobody
screamed.
“Steady, folks,” said Dick, working away. “I’ll get her to going in a
minute.”
The boat swung around, without direction, and Ann thought that they
were going to bump into the bank. Would they upset? So far as she knew,
everybody could swim. But how about the alligators?
“Take that pole, Ron,” called Dick, nodding toward where a long pole
was fastened. “If we swing around to the bank, hold her there, if you
can. I can’t find out what is the matter with this double-jointed and
twisted old engine!”
“I bet I can, Dick,” offered Maurice, who gave a look at Ann to see
if she were frightened and rising, made his way to the engine. How
handsome Maurice looked in his white flannels, Ann thought.
“Scared, Suzanne?” asked Eleanor, noticing that Suzanne looked pale.
Suzanne shook her head in the negative.
“Maury will fix it,” said Suzanne. “Still, I imagine that nobody feels
real comfortable. It was a mighty big alligator that splashed in last!”
“Sh-sh! Don’t mention it, Suzy. The boys would get us to shore with
that pole.”
“Chug! Chug-chug!”
“Good for you, Maurice, you’ve got it!”
But no; the chugging stopped. Both Dick and Maurice were working away
at the engine. “For pity’s sake, Lois,” said Dick Bell in a low tone
to his sister, “get ’em to doing something besides watching us. It’s
getting on my nerves!”
Maurice, whose white flannels were not quite so white by this time,
laughed as he worked and started up the old round, “Row, row, row your
boat, lightly down the stream.”
With some laughter, the rest joined in. “Better change it to ‘Pole your
boat,’ as the Seminoles do, if we don’t get this thing started pretty
soon,” growled Dick, who was nervous from his responsibility.
“Easy, Dicky,” said Maurice. “I think that I have found out what is the
matter. There! hand me that oil can, Dick.”
In a few minutes the engine was going merrily, while Ann declared that
its sound was the best music she had heard in some time.
“Fie, cousin,” said Maurice, climbing around to his seat by Ann again,
“better than those dulcet strains I started you all with a while ago?”
“Your voice was all right, Maury,” laughed Ann, “but starting the
engine was better yet. Did you find the trouble, or may we have a
repetition of the act?”
“I found it, and unless something else goes wrong we’ll be home as
usual!”
It was worth the trying time in “Alligator Circle” to see the exquisite
sky and water of sound, ocean and the little body of water known as
Lake Mabel. Then came the windings of the New River, past Tarpon Bend
and into the passage between the well-known shores where the Bentley
yacht was docked.
Owing to the long delay in the canal, they were late for lunch and
not even the juicy oranges had dulled the edges of their youthful
appetites. The boys took them to the best hotel this time, where
they were served at a table of their own, decorated with flowers
for the occasion, with special favors of hibiscus blossoms at each
plate, a hurried order, telephoned after their arrival, but eminently
satisfactory to all the girls.
They were just finishing when Mr. Tyson entered the dining-room and
came over to the table, whereupon all the young gentlemen rose at once.
“Sit down, boys,” said Mr. Tyson. “Don’t let me interrupt you. I just
want to tell Maurice that I want him to accompany me on a little trip
after lunch, if he can excuse himself. Have you any special plans,
Maurice, that will be upset?”
“None at all, Father. I think that there was some plan about going to
the beach this afternoon,--Las Olas Beach. I can be spared as well as
not.”
“I stopped at the yacht and Mrs. Bentley told me where you are. I have
had my lunch and will wait for you in the lobby. Mother wants me to
look up a little property for her.”
When Mr. Tyson walked away, as he did immediately, with a salute to
all, the boys sat down again to finish dessert. “It will be a good
chance, Ann,” said Maurice in a low tone to his cousin. He did not
explain what sort of chance he meant, but Ann understood.
“I think so, too, Maury. Good luck.”
Maurice thought that it was a very sweet look with which he was
favored, as Ann looked up at him to wish him good luck. They walked to
the lobby together, with the rest of the party; then Maurice joined his
father and they drove away at once.
“I wonder where the property is that Grandmother wants Dad to look up,”
said Suzanne.
“I don’t know,” replied Ann, much preoccupied.