_The Picnic_
The figure in white remained motionless in the doorway of Miss Grant's
room. Mary Louise continued to sit rigid in the bed, while Jane, who was
still lying down, clutched her chum's arm with a grip that actually hurt.
For a full minute there was no sound in the room. Then a flash of
lightning revealed the cause of the girls' terror.
Mary Louise burst out laughing.
"Elsie!" she cried. "You certainly had us scared!"
Jane sat up angrily.
"What's the idea, sneaking in like a ghost?" she demanded.
The orphan started to sob.
"I was afraid of waking you," she explained. "I didn't mean to frighten
you."
"Well, it's all right now," said Mary Louise soothingly. "Ordinarily we
shouldn't have been scared. But in this house, where everybody talks
about seeing ghosts all the time, it's natural for us to be keyed up."
"Why that woman doesn't put in electricity," muttered Jane, "is more than
I can see. It's positively barbarous!"
"Come over and sit here on the bed, Elsie, and tell us why you came
downstairs," invited Mary Louise. "Are you afraid of the storm?"
"Yes, a little bit. But I thought I heard something down in the yard."
"Old Mrs. Grant's ghost?" inquired Jane lightly.
"Maybe it was Abraham Lincoln Jones, returning for more chickens,"
surmised Mary Louise. "But no, it couldn't be, or Silky would be
barking--he could hear that from the cellar--so it must be just the wind,
Elsie. It does make an uncanny sound through all those trees."
"May I stay here till the storm is over?" asked the girl.
"Certainly."
If it had not been so hot, Mary Louise would have told Elsie to sleep
with them. But three in a bed, and a rather uncomfortable bed at that,
was too close quarters on a night like this.
The storm lasted for perhaps an hour, while the girls sat chatting
together. As the thundering subsided, Jane began to yawn.
"Suppose I go up to the attic and sleep with Elsie?" she said to Mary
Louise, "if you're not afraid to stay in this room by yourself."
"Of course I'm not!" replied her chum. "I think that's a fine idea, and
your being there will prevent Elsie from being nervous and hearing
things. Does it suit you, Elsie?"
"Yes! Oh, I'd love it! If you're sure you don't mind, Mary Louise."
"I don't expect to mind anything in about five minutes," yawned Mary
Louise. "I'm dead for sleep."
She was correct in her surmise: she knew nothing at all until the bright
sunshine was pouring into her room and Jane wakened her by throwing a
pillow at her head.
"Wake up, lazybones!" she cried. "Don't you realize that today is the
picnic?"
Mary Louise threw the pillow back at her chum and jumped out of bed.
"What a glorious day!" she exclaimed. "And so much cooler."
Elsie, attired in her new pink linen dress, dashed into the room.
"Oh, this is something like!" she cried. "I haven't heard any gayety like
this for three years!"
"Mary Louise is always 'Gay,'" remarked Jane demurely. "In fact, she'll
be 'Gay' till she gets married."
Her chum hurled the other pillow from Miss Grant's bed just as Hannah
poked her nose into the room.
"Don't you girls throw them pillows around!" she commanded. "Miss Mattie
is that careful about her bed--she even makes it herself. And at
house-cleanin' time I ain't allowed to touch it!"
"It's a wonder she let you sleep on it, Mary Louise," observed Elsie.
"_Made_ me sleep on it, you mean." Then, of Hannah, she inquired, "How
soon do we have breakfast?"
"Right away, soon as you're dressed. Then you girls can help pack up some
doughnuts and rolls I made for your picnic."
"You're an angel, Hannah!" exclaimed Mary Louise. To the girls she said,
"Scram, if you want me downstairs in two minutes."
Soon after breakfast the cars arrived. There were three of them--the two
sports roadsters belonging to Max Miller and Norman Wilder, and a sedan
driven by one of the girls of their crowd, a small, red-haired girl named
Hope Dorsey, who looked like Janet Gaynor.
Max had brought an extra boy for Elsie, a junior at high school, by the
name of Kenneth Dormer, and Mary Louise introduced him, putting him with
Elsie in Max's rumble seat. She herself got into the front.
"Got your swimming suit, Mary Lou?" asked Max, as he started his car with
its usual sudden leap.
"Of course," she replied. "As a matter of fact, I brought two of them."
"I hadn't noticed you were getting that fat!"
"That's just about enough out of you! I don't admire the Mae West figure,
you know."
"Then why two suits?" inquired the young man. "Change of costume?"
"One for Elsie and one for me," explained Mary Louise. "I don't believe
Elsie can swim, but she'll soon learn. Will you teach her, Max?"
"I don't think I'll get a chance to, from the way I saw Ken making eyes
at her. He'll probably have a monopoly on the teaching."
Mary Louise smiled: this was just the way she wanted things to be.
The picnic grounds near Cooper's woods were only a couple of miles from
Riverside. A wide stream which flowed through the woods had been dammed
up for swimming, and here the boys and men of Riverside had built two
rough shacks for dressing houses. The cars were no sooner unloaded than
the boys and girls dashed for their respective bath houses.
"Last one in the pool is a monkey!" called Max, as he locked his car.
"I guess I'll be the monkey," remarked Elsie. "Because I have a suit I'm
not familiar with."
"I'll help you," offered Mary Louise.
They were dressed in no time at all; as usual the girls were ahead of the
boys. They were all in the water by the time the boys came out of their
shack.
The pool was empty except for a few children, so the young people from
Riverside had a chance to play water games and to dive to their hearts'
content. Everybody except Elsie Grant knew how to swim, and Mary Louise
and several of the others were capable of executing some remarkable stunt
diving.
Before noontime arrived Elsie found herself venturing into the deeper
parts of the pool, and, with Kenneth or Mary Louise beside her, she
actually swam several yards. All the while she was laughing and shouting
as she had not done since her parents' death; the cloud of suspicion that
had been hanging over her head for the past few days was forgotten. She
was a normal, happy girl again.
The lunch that followed provided even more fun and hilarity than the
swim. It seemed as if their mothers had supplied everything in the world
to eat. Cakes and pies and sandwiches; hot dogs and steaks to be cooked
over the fire which the boys built; ice cream in dry ice, and refreshing
drinks of fruit juices, iced tea, and soda water. Keen as their appetites
were from the morning's swim, the young people could not begin to eat
everything they had brought.
"We'll have enough left for supper," said Mary Louise, leaning back
against a tree trunk with a sigh of content.
"If the ants don't eat it up," returned Jane. "We better cover things
up."
"We'll do it right away," announced Hope Dorsey. "Come on, boys! you burn
rubbish, and we girls will pack food."
"I can't move," protested Max. "The ants are welcome to their share as
far as I'm concerned. I don't think I'll ever eat again."
"I hate _aunts_," said Elsie, with a sly look at Mary Louise and Jane. "I
don't want them to get a thing, so I'll help put the food away."
Max and a couple of the other lazier boys were pulled to their feet by
Kenneth and Norman, and the picnic spot was soon as clean as when the
party had arrived. Hope Dorsey suggested that they drive back to her home
later in the afternoon and have supper on the lawn. Then they could turn
on the radio and dance on her big screened porch.
"When do we visit these gypsies you were talking about, Max?" demanded
Jane. "I'm keen to hear my fortune."
"They're back towards Riverside," replied the youth. "About half a mile
from Dark Cedars," he added, to Mary Louise.
"They used to camp at Dark Cedars--at least, some gypsies did," Elsie
informed the party. "If they're the same ones, you'd think they wouldn't
come back, after they were driven away by the police."
"Is that what your aunt did?" inquired Kenneth.
"Yes, so Hannah says--Hannah is the maid, you know. She says Aunt Mattie
hates them."
The young people piled into the cars again, and Max led the way, off the
main highway to a dirt road extending behind Dark Cedars. Through the
trees they could catch a glimpse of the gypsy encampment.
"Has everybody some money--in silver?" inquired Max, after the cars were
parked beside the road. "The gypsies insist on gold and silver."
Mary Louise nodded; she was prepared for herself as well as for Elsie.
"Do we all go in in a bunch?" asked Hope.
"Certainly not!" replied Max. "You don't think we could tell our secrets
in front of the whole bunch, do you?"
"Must be pretty bad," observed Jane.
"All right, then, if that's the way you feel about it, I'll go in with
you!" challenged Norman.
"Suits me," returned the girl, with a wink at Mary Louise.
As the crowd came closer to the gypsy encampment, they saw the usual
tents, the caravan, which was a motor truck, and a fire, over which a
kettle was smoldering. Half a dozen children, dressed in ordinary
clothing but without shoes and stockings, were playing under a tree, and
there were several women about. But there did not appear to be any men at
the camp at the time.
One of the women, who had been standing over the fire, came forward to
meet the young people. She was past middle age, Mary Louise judged, from
her dark, wrinkled skin, but her hair was jet black, and her movements
were as agile and as graceful as a girl's. She wore a long dress of a
deep blue color, without any touch of the reds and yellows one usually
associates with gypsies.
"Fortunes?" she asked, smiling, and revealing an ugly gap in her front
teeth, which made her look almost like a story-book witch.
"How much?" asked Max, holding up a quarter in his hand.
The gypsy shook her head. "One dollar," she announced.
Max pulled down the corners of his mouth and looked doubtfully at his
friends.
"There are fourteen of us," he said. "Fourteen at fifty cents each is
seven dollars. All in silver.... Take it or leave it."
The woman regarded him shrewdly; she saw that he meant what he said.
"All right," she agreed. "I'll go into my tent and get ready."
The young people turned to Max with whispered congratulations.
"She certainly speaks perfect English," remarked Mary Louise.
They sat down on the grass while they waited for the gypsy woman to
summon them, and when the tent flap finally opened, Jane Patterson and
Norman Wilder jumped to their feet and walked over to the fortune teller
first.
"She'll think you two are engaged, Jane," teased Hope, "if you go in
together."
"Then she'll get fooled," returned the other girl laughingly.
The couple were absent for perhaps five minutes. When they came out of
the tent Jane dashed down the hill to the road.
"The gypsy told her that her class ring is in my car," explained Norman
to the others. "The one she lost, you remember? She said it's under the
seat."
"I could have suggested that she look there myself," remarked Max. "Only
I thought, of course, that she already had.... Shall I try my luck next,
or will one of you girls go?"
"I'd love to go," offered Hope Dorsey. "I simply can't wait. By the way,
did she think you two were engaged?"
"No, she didn't. She's pretty wise, after all. She told me some
astounding things. One was that a relation had just died--my uncle did,
you know--and that we're going to get some money.... I hope that part's
true.... You have to hand it to her. I don't believe it's all just the
bunk."
Hope ran into the tent, and while she was gone Jane returned triumphantly
from the car with her lost ring. Mary Louise's eyes flashed with
excitement: perhaps the gypsy was really possessed of second sight. Oh,
if she could only solve that mystery at Dark Cedars!
Mary Louise was last of all the group to enter the fortune teller's tent.
The woman was seated on the ground with a dirty pack of cards in her
hands. She indicated that the girl should sit down beside her and gave
her the cards to shuffle.
"I'm really not interested in my fortune half so much as I am in a
mystery I'm involved in," explained Mary Louise. She paused, wondering
whether the gypsy would understand what she was talking about. Perhaps
she ought to use simpler language.
"You mean you want to ask me questions?" inquired the woman.
"Yes, that's it," replied Mary Louise. "I'm staying at Dark Cedars now,
and there are strange things going on there. Maybe you can explain them."
"Dark Cedars!" repeated the gypsy. "I know the place.... You don't live
there?"
"No, I don't live there. I'm just staying there while Miss Grant is in
the hospital."
The black eyes gleamed, and the woman held two thin, dirty hands in front
of her face.
"Mattie Grant is _evil_," she announced. "Keep away from her!"
Mary Louise wrinkled her brows. "I'm not with her," she said. "I'm only
staying at Dark Cedars while Miss Grant is away."
"But why is that?"
"That's just what I want to ask you! Miss Grant's money has already been
stolen, and I thought maybe you could tell me what I'm supposed to be
protecting--by sleeping in her bed every night."
"In the old witch's bed? Oh-ho!"
"Yes." It struck Mary Louise funny that this gypsy woman should call Miss
Grant a witch when she herself looked much more like one.
The gypsy, however, was giving her attention to the cards, shuffling
them, and finally drawing one of them out of the deck. She laid it face
up in Mary Louise's lap and nodded significantly. It was the eight of
hearts.
"Mattie Grant's treasure--is--a ruby necklace," she announced slowly,
staring hard at the card. "With eight precious rubies!" She handed the
card to Mary Louise. "Count them for yourself!" she said.
Mary Louise gazed at the woman in amazement, not knowing whether to
believe her or not. The explanation was plausible, but it seemed rather
foolish to her--that the eight of hearts should mean eight rubies....
Would the ace of diamonds have indicated a diamond ring?
But there was no use in questioning the gypsy's power, no point in
antagonizing her. So, instead, she changed the subject by telling her
that a box of gold pieces had been stolen from the safe in Miss Grant's
bedroom.
"Perhaps you can tell me who took them?" she suggested.
The woman picked up the cards and shuffled them again, muttering
something unintelligible to herself as she did it. Once more she drew out
a card, seemingly at random. This time it was the queen of diamonds.
"A light-haired girl--or woman," she announced. "That's all I can say."
Mary Louise gasped. Elsie Grant had light hair--but, then, so did Corinne
Pearson.... And Mrs. Grace Grant's hair was gray.
The gypsy rose from the ground as lightly and as easily as a girl.
"I think you've had more than your time, miss," she concluded. "Now,
please to go!"