THE START
"What do you girls want?" drawled the lean girl, resting her red
elbows on the well-shelf and looking down at Laura and Jess Morse.
She did not speak unpleasantly; but she was very abrupt. Laura saw
that Lizzie Bean's flat, shallow appearing eyes were of a greenish
gray color--eyes in which a twinkle could not possibly lurk.
"We understand that you are not going to help Alice much longer,"
Laura said, pleasantly. "So we have come to see if you would like
another position for a few weeks?"
"What d'ye mean--a _job_?" proposed Liz-Bean, bluntly.
"Ye-yes," said Laura, rather taken aback.
"What doin'?"
"Why, we girls are going camping. There are seven of us--and Mrs.
Morse. Mrs. Morse is the mother of my friend, here, Josephine
Morse----"
"Please ter meet yer," interposed Liz, bobbing a little courtesy at
the much amused Jess.
Laura went on steadily, and without smiling too broadly at Liz:
"There are seven of us girls and Mrs. Morse. We shall live very
simply--in tents and in a cabin, on Acorn Island."
"Eight in fam'bly, eh?" put in the thin girl. "Eight is a bigger
contract than I got here."
"Oh! in camping out we don't expect anything fancy," Laura hastened to
say. "We want somebody to make beds, and wash dishes, and clean up
generally. Of course, the cooking will not _all_ fall on your
shoulders----"
"I sh'd hope not," said Liz, briskly. "Not if it was as solid as some
folkses' biscuits. One woman I worked for once made her soda-riz
biscuits so solid that if a panful had fell on yer shoulders 'twould
ha' broke yer back."
Jess _had_ to explode at that, but the odd girl did not even smile.
She only stared at the giggling Jess and asked:
"Ain't ye well?"
"Oh, yes!" gasped Jess.
"Well, I didn't know," drawled Liz. "My a'nt what brought me up useter
keep a bottle of giggle medicine for us gals. An' it was nasty tastin'
stuff, too. She made us take a gre't spoonful if we laffed at table,
or after we gotter bed nights. There was jala inter it, I b'lieve. I
guess I could make ye some."
Jess stopped laughing in a hurry. Laura tried to ignore her chum's
indignant look; but it was quite plain that Lizzie Bean "had all her
wits about her," as the saying is.
"Then you can cook?" Laura observed.
"Well, I can boil water without burnin' it," declared the odd girl.
"But I ain't no Woodruff-Wisteria chef." Afterward the chums figured
it out that Liz meant "Waldorf-Astoria."
"Do you think you would like to go with us?" Laura asked.
"I dunno yet. Where is it?"
Laura explained more fully about the camping site, how they were to
get there, and other particulars of the project.
"It listens good," Liz said, reflectively. "Though I ain't never
cooked nothin' but soft-soap over a campfire."
"Oh! there will be a portable stove," Laura said.
"When ye goin'?" asked the girl.
"Day after to-morrow."
"What'll ye pay?" was the next bluntly put question.
Laura told her the weekly wage Mrs. Pendleton had guaranteed. Although
Lizzie Bean's face was well nigh expressionless at all times, the
girls saw at once that something was wrong.
"I dunno," said Liz, slowly. "I have worked mighty cheap in my
life--and I ain't got no job when I leave here--an' I gotter eat. But
that _does_ seem a _naw_-ful little wages."
"Why! I think that is real liberal," declared Jess, with some warmth.
Liz eyed her again coldly. "You must ha' worked awful cheap in your
life," she said.
"I know," Laura explained, quietly, laying an admonitory hand upon her
chum's arm, "You know, that is what you will receive each week."
"What's _that_?" demanded Liz, with a jump, "Say that again, will
ye?"
"We will pay you that sum weekly," repeated Laura.
"Say--say it by the month!" gasped the lean girl, her eyes showing
more surprise than Laura had thought them capable of betraying.
Laura did as she was requested. A slow, faint grin dawned on Liz
Bean's narrow countenance.
"I been useter gittin' paid by the month--and sometimes not _then_.
Some ladies has paid me so little for helpin' them that I wisht
they'd paid me only every _three_ months, so's 'twould sound bigger!
"I gotter take ye up before somebody pinches me."
"Pinches you? What do you mean?" asked Jess, doubtfully.
"I don't want to wake up," declared Liz. "I never got so much money
since I was turned adrift when my a'nt died. Don't _you_ wake up,
neither, and forgit to pay me!"
"I promise not to do that," laughed Laura. "Then you'll come with
us?"
"If I don't break an arm," declared Lizzie Bean, with emphasis.
They told her how to meet them at the dock, and the hour they expected
to start. "And bring your oldest clothes," warned Jess.
"What's that?" demanded Liz.
"We just about live in old clothes--or in a bathing suit--in camp,"
explained Laura.
"Bless your heart!" exclaimed Liz. "I ain't never had nothin' but old
clo'es. Been wearin' hand-me-downs ever since I can remember."
"My goodness gracious!" said Jess, and she and Laura hurried off for
school. "Did you ever see such an uncouth creature? I don't wonder
Billy Long says she's cracked."
"I don't know about her being cracked, as you call it," laughed Laura.
"Just because she's queer is no proof that she is an imbecile. You
know the old parody on 'Lives of Great Men All Remind Us,' don't you?"
and she went on to quote:
"'Lives of imbeciles remind us
It may some day come to pass,
We shall see one staring at us
From our trusty looking-glass!'"
"Shucks!" responded Jess. "You'll get to be as bad as Bobby Hargrew
with those old wheezes. But, did you _ever_ see such a girl before?"
"No," admitted Laura. "I honestly never did. But I am quite sure she
is in the possession of all her senses----"
"She may be; but I bet her senses are not like other folks'," chuckled
Jess.
"She surely won't _bite_, Jess," responded Laura, smiling.
"Hope not! 'Boil water without burning it!' What do you know about
_that_?"
"I think it's funny," said Laura.
"Well! I only hope we get something to eat in camp," murmured Jess.
"We can't expect her to do all the cooking," Laura said. "And I shall
tell the girls so."
"Goodness! I don't know whether I want to go camping with this bunch,
after all," said Jess. "What some of them will do to the victuals they
have to cook will be a shame!"
However, the prospect of indifferent cookery made none of the girls of
Central High less enthusiastic in the matter of the preparations for
camping out on Acorn Island, in the middle of Lake Dunkirk.
They were all as busy as bees the next day, packing their bags and
flying about from house to house, asking each other: "What you going
to take?"
"Goodness me!" cried Laura, at last; "it isn't what do we _want_, but
how little can we get along with! Discard everything possible,
girls--do!"
Bobby Hargrew declared Lil Pendleton had started to pack a Saratoga
trunk, and that she had been obliged to point out to Lil that neither
of the motorboats was large enough to ship such a piece of baggage.
Their gymnasium suits would be just the thing in camp. And of course
they all had bathing suits. Otherwise most of the girls got their
apparel down to what Jess Morse called "an insignificant minority."
"If the King of India, or the Duke and Duchess of Doosenberry, comes
calling at our camp, we shall have to put up a scarlet fever sign and
all go to bed," said Bobby. "We'll have nothing to receive them in."
"But not Purt Sweet," chuckled Billy Long. "Purt's packed a dinner
jacket and a pair of spats. How much other fancy raiment he proposes
to spring on us the deponent knoweth not. He'll be just a scream in
the woods."
"He asked me if there were many dangerous characters lurking in the
woods around Lake Dunkirk," chuckled Lance. "Somebody has been
stringing him about outlaws."
"Short and Long looks guilty," said Chet, suspiciously. "What you been
stuffin' Purt with, Billy?"
Billy Long, who straddled the piazza rail, swinging his feet, showed
his teeth in a broad smile. "You read about that Halliday fellow,
didn't you?" he asked.
"Oh! the chap they say stole the money from that Albany bank?"
responded Lance.
"It was securities he stole--and forged people's names to them so as
to get money," said Laura. "The Lockwood girls' Aunt Dora lost some
money by him."
"That is--if he did it," said Chet, doubtfully.
"Well, the newspapers say so," Jess observed.
"What if they do?" demanded Billy, belligerently. "They all said _I_
helped burglarize that department store last summer--didn't they? And
I never did it at all."
"No. It was another monkey," chuckled Lance.
The others laughed, for Billy Long had gotten them into serious
trouble on the occasion mentioned, and it was long enough in the past
now to seem amusing. But Chet added:
"It's a wonder to me that Norman Halliday had a chance to get hold of
all those securities and forge people's names to them. And he knew
just which papers to take. Looks fishy."
"Well, he ran away, anyhow," Lance said.
"So did Billy," Bobby said. "And for the same reason, perhaps. He was
scared."
"My father says," Chet pursued, "he has his doubts about Halliday's
guilt. He believes he is a catspaw for somebody else."
"Anyhow," said Billy, "the papers say he's gone into the Big Woods
south of Lake Dunkirk. And Purt wants to carry a gun to defend himself
from outlaws."
"If he does," Chet said, seriously, "I'll see that there are no
cartridges in the gun. Huh! I wouldn't trust Purt Sweet with a
pop-gun."
Bobby, meanwhile, was saying to Laura: "I wonder why Old Dimple was
interested enough in that Albany bank robbery to carry around that
clipping out of the paper?"
"Maybe he lost money, too," Laura suggested.
"What's that about the old Prof?" put in Chet. "Do you know he's gone
out of town already?"
"No!" was the chorus in reply.
"Fact. I saw him with his suitcase this forenoon. He took the boat to
Lumberport."
"Well, as we shall all start in that same direction to-morrow morning,
bright and early----"
"Not all of us bright, but presumably early," put in Bobby, sotto
voce.
"Anyway, it's time we were in bed," finished Mother Wit. "Off with you
all!"
Whether Laura's advice had a good effect, or not, nobody was really
late at the rendezvous the next morning. Prettyman Sweet's motorboat
_Duchess_, a very nice craft, and the larger powerboat belonging to
Chet Belding and Lance Darby, named _Bonnie Lass_, were manned by the
boys before the girls appeared.
These two boats were large enough to transport both parties of
campers, and would likewise tow the flotilla of canoes. The _Duchess_
tailed behind it three double canoes belonging to the girls and the
_Bonnie Lass_ towed five belonging to their boy friends.
It was a fine day and the lake was as blue as the sky--and almost as
smooth to look upon. A party of parents and friends came to see the
campers start. The girls and Mrs. Morse went aboard the _Bonnie Lass_.
Lizzie Bean, with a bulging old-fashioned carpet-bag, appeared in
season and joined the girls.
In the bustle of departure not many noticed the odd looking maid. The
girls and boys were too busy shouting goodbyes to those ashore, and
the crowd ashore was too busy shouting good wishes, or last
instructions, to the campers.
Mrs. Pendleton had been driven down to the wharf, early as the hour
was, to see her daughter off.
"And be sure to wear your rubbers if it rains, Lily!" the lady
shrieked after the departing _Bonnie Lass_.
"Gee!" whispered Bobby, to Jess. "I s'pose somebody'll have to hold an
umbrella over her, too, if it starts to shower."