SOME OLD FRIENDS
Polly was down on her knees, flinging handfuls of sand behind her with
feverish energy.
"What's the matter?" Jess demanded. "What's underneath?"
Polly never stopped scooping up the sand.
"I don't know," she flung over her shoulder, with a flurry of sand. "I
don't know for sure, but I think the boys are buried in this."
That roused Margy and Jess to action, and they began, too, to dig. A
few feet behind the mound there was an upheaval and Fred's face and
shoulders came into view. Polly never stopped digging, though Jess and
Margy paused and stared.
"I've got Ward," sputtered Fred, and he pulled the younger boy up
beside him.
Then they all rushed to Polly, who had uncovered the sturdy legs in
their brown socks that belonged to Artie. A frenzied and concerted
effort uncovered the whole boy in less time than it takes to tell
it--a purple-faced Artie who was several minutes recovering his breath,
but who was all right as soon as he found he could breathe.
"Gee," said Fred, "I never thought the thing would bust in like that!"
"I couldn't tell what hit us," Ward observed, trying to rub the sand
out of his hair.
"You didn't see our cave, did you, Polly?" asked Artie, apparently
unaware that he had been nearly suffocated.
"Is that a cave?" Margy's tone was scornful. "Is that what you've been
doing all this time? It didn't look like much."
"That's because you didn't see the inside," said Fred. "You could
almost stand up in the main room, and we had a lot of tunnels and
passages we were building."
"It was great," and Artie nodded. "We were going to have the largest
cave any one ever made at Sunrise Beach."
"It looks as though there'd been an earthquake, doesn't it?" giggled
Jess.
All the tunnels and passages the boys had labored so faithfully to
dig had caved in, together with the mound which had been the roof of
the main room. As Jess said, the depressions did look as though an
earthquake, or some such havoc-maker, had visited that section of
beach.
"Well, I don't think you'd better build any more caves," Polly said,
with decision. "It isn't safe. Artie might have choked before we dug
him out."
"You mean, you dug him out," Fred declared. "You're the one who had
your wits about you, Polly. What made you think we were in the cave?"
"I wasn't sure," admitted Polly. "But when the sand began to break
down, I thought 'maybe the boys are under it somewhere,' and if you
were, I knew the only thing to do was to dig you up."
"We figured out it was wet enough to pack and make firm walls," Fred
explained. "But I guess it wasn't. Of course, if we had had boards we
could have fixed up a good cave--shored it up as they do in mines, you
know."
"Come on and let's go swimming," suggested Margy, anxious to get away
from the talk of cave-building.
The boys, too, had had quite enough of their secret, and they abandoned
the scene of their labors without a protest. When the three mothers
heard what had happened, they declared that no more sand caves were to
be thought of, as long as they remained at Sunrise Beach.
Artie and Ward went over for the mail that afternoon, and when they
returned they were filled with news of a carnival that had come to the
edge of the town and set up its tents on the vacant lots bordering the
village limits.
"It's exactly like a circus, only different," said Ward, and then
wondered why the others laughed at him.
"There's a merry-go-round," Artie announced, looking at Jess, who had a
weakness for that form of amusement.
"And fat ladies and snakes and everything, probably," contributed Fred.
Mrs. Marley laughed and said that if Fred liked fat ladies he need not
go so far from home.
"You're not fat, Mother!" Polly protested indignantly.
Pretty Mrs. Marley laughed again and declared that if she wasn't, it
was not Mrs. Williamson's fault.
"For she will persist in giving us berry short-cakes, and I cannot
refuse them," said Mrs. Marley regretfully. "Well, chicks, I suppose
we'll have to go over and see this wonderful carnival some day."
"They don't stay very long in one place," hinted Artie.
"My goodness, won't it be there to-morrow?" his mother asked, in
seeming alarm.
"It would be safer to go to-night," Ward assured her earnestly.
As eager as the other children were to go, they couldn't help laughing,
and Mrs. Marley said she thought that the next afternoon would be time
enough.
"I do, too," agreed Mrs. Larue decidedly. "If your fathers were here,
we might go over at night, though I think it is far better to go to
bed early. But we wouldn't find it pleasant going about in a crowd at
night, so the afternoon will be much better in every way."
"I'll have lunch early, and we will go as soon as it is over," Mrs.
Williamson promised. "Then we can have a long afternoon there and you
will have a chance to go into everything and see everything."
Mrs. Williamson was "cook" that week. The mothers took turns so that
the work might be evenly divided.
They were down on the beach--where Ward and Artie had brought the
mail--and now the active mind of Jess suggested that they might go
wading and pick up shells. So they took off their shoes and stockings
and left them under the tent where the three mothers were comfortably
established with their book and sewing, and off they went to walk and
wade along the edge of the ocean.
"Here comes Joe Anderson and Albert Holmes," said Fred, looking up the
beach. "I wonder where they're going?"
"Hello!" was Joe's greeting. "Been over to the carnival?"
"We're going to-morrow afternoon," Fred informed him. "Have you seen
it?"
"On our way now," answered Albert Holmes. "Don't you want to come? All
of you. Somebody at the hotel said it was pretty good."
"We'll wait, thanks," Fred responded. "Say, isn't that somebody calling
to you?"
Joe did not turn, but he seemed to know that Fred was right.
"It's Carrie Pepper and Mattie Helms," he said hurriedly. "Come on,
Albert, we'll have to hurry. You see, Fred, we said we'd take the girls
to the carnival, and then we changed our minds. Carrie wants to eat
everything she sees and Mattie isn't much better, and we haven't got
money enough to take them and have a good time ourselves. Are they
coming this way?"
"Sure! And waving for you to stop," Fred reported.
Without another word Joe and Albert hurried off up the beach,
carefully refraining from looking over their shoulders.
"Nice unselfish people," remarked Margy sarcastically.
"I think it's pretty mean to invite the girls and then go off and leave
them," Jess said mildly.
"What are you going to say?" Polly asked Fred.
"Tell 'em the truth, of course," that brave young man declared. "Carrie
ought to hear it once in a while."
He looked so determined that Polly and Jess had hard work not to laugh
when, as the red-faced Carrie and the wilted Mattie came up to them and
demanded, "What did Joe say? Where was he going?" Fred began to stutter.
"I--I guess he was going to town," he said, and not another word.
"He and Albert are going to the carnival," chirped Artie, who had a
passion for telling all he knew, as Polly had discovered more than once
when she wished to keep Riddle Club matters a secret.
"They are! Why, they asked us to go!" exclaimed Mattie Helms. "Last
night we had a beach party and we invited them, and Joe said would we
go to the carnival this afternoon? I think that's a funny way to act."
"What did Joe Anderson say, Artie?" said Carrie suddenly, and
flattering Artie with her attention. Usually she ignored him.
Polly and the others stared fascinatedly at Artie. They were all hoping
that he would not remember Joe's remark concerning Carrie' appetite. By
good luck he passed that over, but his memory was appallingly clear as
regarded the rest of Joe's speech.
"He said he and Albert didn't have enough money to take you and Mattie
and have a good time themselves," repeated Artie slowly and carefully
as though he was on the witness stand.
An angry color came into Mattie's face and she opened the elaborate
beaded bag she carried.
"Carrie and I don't need Joe Anderson to take us to any carnival," she
declared loudly. "Daddy gave me five dollars when he heard we were
going. Carrie and I'll have a good time all by ourselves."
"Go to it," advised Fred, in all sincerity. "We're going to take in the
show to-morrow."
Carrie and Mattie plowed on through the sand, and the Riddle Club
members trailed silently back to the water. Polly's eyes were dancing,
and, happening to glance at Fred, she began to laugh. Jess and Margy
snickered, and in a moment all six were laughing uncontrollably.
"Oh dear!" cried Jess, wiping her eyes. "Did you ever hear of anything
so funny! Mattie and Carrie probably have more money to spend than the
boys have."
"I hope Joe and Albert see them coming and dodge them," Fred gurgled.
"Can't you picture those two boys dodging Carrie and Mattie all the
afternoon, afraid they'll be asked to treat them to a soda or take them
on a merry-go-round? And all the time Carrie and Mattie will be having
a grand time and taking in all the sights as fast as they can! I hope
Carrie gets a chance to tell Joe what she thinks of him. Trust her to
do it."
"Mother said you weren't to talk about Carrie Pepper the way you do,"
Margy reproved him.
"I don't think she's so bad," said Artie in a tone that convulsed the
others again.
"She probably thinks you're a wonder," Jess told him.
"The original little information booth, aren't you, Artie?" Fred added.
Artie happened to find an exceptionally large clam shell just then and
wisely forebore to argue. And the Riddle Club spent the rest of the
afternoon amiably, asking and answering riddles, searching for shells,
and watching the fishing boats come in.
"There's a motor boat," said Jess, as a small boat some distance out
turned and sped down the coast. "Look how fast it goes!"
"That's Larry's boat," Fred said. "It's called the _Clara_ and he takes
picnic parties out."
Fred had gone on several fishing trips with his father, and already he
knew most of the boats at the beach and the names of their skippers.
"Who is Larry?" asked Margy idly.
"Oh, he's a native," Fred answered. "Every one calls him Larry. I never
heard his other name."
Artie wanted to know if he was a native.
"Not of Sunrise Beach," Jess told him good-naturedly. "You're a native
of River Bend, Artie."
"Why am I?" insisted Artie, whose thirst for information was remarkable.
"You happened to be born there," Fred told him. "Now I'll ask you a
riddle: What is hung in the middle and wags both ways?"
"My tongue," said Artie, with irresistible sweet temper.
They carried home several additions to Artie's collection of dishes and
were careful not to leave them on the porch railing. The talk at supper
was all of the carnival.