VACATION DAYS
Carrie Pepper did not allow the berry stain on Margy's blouse to chill
her greeting to the Riddle Club.
"Well, for goodness' sake!" she said most cordially. "Where are you
going?"
"To the post-office," Polly explained. "Hello, Mattie. Hello, Joe," for
Joe Anderson had stopped skipping stones into the water and had come up
to them.
"We got here this noon," volunteered Carrie. "Joe Anderson is going to
stay with Albert Holmes for two weeks--they have the bungalow next to
Mrs. Helms'."
"Where is your bungalow?" Mattie asked curiously.
Fred glanced at Polly and laughed.
"Have to be some bungalow to get us all in," he said. "We have a large
cottage and it's none too big. Guess you don't know it--the Meeker
Cottage, they call it."
"We have balconies to spare," Polly chimed in. "Regular little porches
and stuck wherever there is a window."
"Oh, those old-fashioned places are so queer," said Mattie, with a
smile. "Daddy wanted Mother to take a cottage over where you are, but
she says no one goes there any more. Our bungalow is awfully pretty,
but the rooms are a little small and we have to keep the shades down
all the time because the houses on either side are built so close every
one looks right in our windows. But it's a lovely house, isn't it,
Carrie?"
"I should say it was!" Carrie responded enthusiastically.
"Have you been in the water yet?" asked Fred, speaking to Joe Anderson,
who seemed strangely silent.
Usually Joe was more than willing to tell what he had done or intended
to do.
"Went in right away, had a cramp and had to come out," Joe said briefly.
Polly saw that he looked pale and instantly excused him for seeming
rather sullen.
"I guess I'll go on to the post-office with you," announced Carrie,
quite as though she had been considering this plan, as indeed she had.
Mattie stared and Polly at once asked her to come, too.
"I can't go so far in these slippers," Mattie answered. "Besides, the
sun is too hot. I hate to get tanned. Polly, your nose is red this
minute."
Joe Anderson said he was going to sit under the fishing pier in the
shade and Mattie made for the boardwalk, which would be kinder, she
had no doubt, to her patent leather slippers than the hot sand. Carrie
slipped her arm through Margy's as the Riddle Club resumed its tramp.
Carrie did most of the talking on that walk, and it did not seem
to exhaust her at all. When the Riddle Club reached the town, she
accompanied them to the post-office, and when Fred said something to
Polly about going home another way, she declared that she would love to
go.
"I like to walk; and, anyway, you'll have to take me home for I don't
know my way," she said. "I'll tell you--let's go as far as your cottage
and I'll see your folks and then you can walk back to the bungalow with
me."
No one was especially pleased with this plan, but there did not seem
to be any reason for rejecting it. So, a little glumly, the Riddle
Club members marched home again, Carrie going with them. Fred was a
bit ashamed of himself when he saw how pleasantly his mother greeted
Carrie. Mrs. Marley brought out ice-cold ginger ale for them, and Mr.
Larue, who was going to run the car out to a farm and back, to make
arrangements for the delivery of vegetables, offered to take Carrie
back to the bungalow colony.
"It's a kind of nice house," said Carrie wistfully, when she was ready
to go. "I suppose a crowd can have lots of fun in a place like this.
You can't make a bit of noise in Mrs. Helms' bungalow, because the
neighbors can hear you. And they play their phonographs sometimes till
midnight, Mr. Helms says. I like this big yard."
"Come and see us whenever you feel like it, Carrie," Mrs. Williamson
said, as Carrie went down the steps.
"Oh, Mother!" Margy hardly waited till the car had rounded the corner.
"Oh, Daughter!"
"What made you say that?" wailed Margy. "Now she'll be here all the
time and spoil all our fun."
"No, she won't, Margy," Mrs. Williamson comforted her. "She will be too
busy with Mattie to bother you very much. But her mother is a neighbor
of ours, and Carrie might be lonely or home-sick down here and need old
friends. You wouldn't want to be away from home, would you, and have
old friends treat you unkindly?"
"I could stand her if she was lonely or home-sick," the rebellious
Margy protested. "But all she does is to talk about Mattie's clothes."
Margy spoke with such energy that every one laughed and, after a minute
or two, she had to laugh at herself.
"Take my advice, Margy," said Mr. Marley, from the railing where he was
tying up a trailing vine, "and be so busy you won't have any time to be
annoyed."
Meeker Cottage was so comfortable and so convenient that by the time
they had occupied it three days, the three River Bend families began
to feel as though they really lived there. They soon settled down to
a more or less regular program, and as Sunrise Beach was one of those
excellently managed shore towns where every one likes to know every
one else and friendly courtesy seems to be part of the atmosphere, the
children were allowed to come and go pretty much as they pleased. They
had certain tasks to do each morning, as their contribution to the work
of running the house, and some older person was always on hand when
they went bathing. But they took long walks up and down the beach,
explored the country back of the town with fair thoroughness, and,
inside a week, knew, so Mr. Marley declared, the name of every cottage
and bungalow resident.
"Artie speaks to all the dogs," said Mr. Marley. "Fred knows all the
fishermen. And Ward, I notice, likes to do the errands. I hope he
doesn't wheedle cakes from the fat bakery lady."
For the first week the three fathers enjoyed a rest and a real
vacation, and then one morning they went back to River Bend in Mr.
Larue's car, promising to return the following Friday.
"Polly, do you know what the boys are doing?" Margy asked, squinting a
little, which gave her a wise look.
The sun was in her eyes, for she and Polly and Jess had ridden to the
crossroads in the car and were now walking back to the cottage. The
boys had declined the invitation to go.
"No, I don't, but it's something mysterious," said Polly promptly.
"I think they're mean not to tell us," Jess declared. "I met Carrie
Pepper in the post-office yesterday and she said she saw them 'way up
past the fishing pier. There's nothing to see up there."
"We might go and look," suggested Margy. "Maybe they're building that
raft they're always talking about."
Polly giggled. Artie had been responsible for the idea of a raft.
He had read of a raft--in a book--and nothing would do but that
he must make one this summer. Fred and Ward had discouraged him
good-naturedly, but at intervals Artie voiced his desire to build a
raft.
"Let's go see if we can find what they're up to," Margy suggested.
"They always want to know our secrets, and yet they have dozens they
never tell us."
Margy was exaggerating slightly. Indeed, Fred had once declared that
she found out everything he ever tried to hide from her, so it was
safer to tell her and let her help.
Polly and Jess had no objection to walking as far as the fishing pier.
They would cause no worry at the cottage if they did not come back till
lunch time and they were quite as curious as Margy to see what the boys
were doing. For three mornings the boys had vanished from the breakfast
table and, turning up at bathing time, had resolutely declined to give
a hint as to how they had been spending the hours.
"I don't see them anywhere," said Jess disappointedly, when they had
walked to the pier.
"We'll walk under it and look on the other side," Polly replied. "They
may be further down the beach."
Margy and Jess scrambled under the heavy iron beams, absorbed in
getting through quickly. But Polly's quick eyes spied something that
she had never seen before, though she had been under the pier a dozen
times.
"Look!" she cried, stopping suddenly. "Somebody's been digging here."
There was a huge mound of sand heaped up between two beams and a
circular pit dug carefully around it. A board was laid across a hole in
the mound.
"That's Artie's shovel," Polly whispered. "I'll bet this is what
they've been doing."
"But what is it?" said Margy, puzzled. "It looks like a--a--grave."
Polly clutched her arm and Jess shrieked. Before their fascinated eyes
the mound was sinking. It slumped in the middle, cracks appeared in the
sand far behind it, and without a sound the mound caved in.
"Dig!" commanded Polly furiously. "Dig! Don't stand there and do
nothing!"