THE MISSING FRIENDS
Upstairs, in Mary’s room which was furnished as it had been when she had
been there as a child, curly maple set with blue hangings, the two girls
changed from riding habits to house dresses. Mary wore a softly clinging
blue while Dora donned her favorite and most becoming cherry color.
“One might think that we are expecting company tonight.” Mary was peering
into the oval glass as she spoke, arranging her fascinating golden curls
above small shell-like ears.
“Which, of course, we are _not_.” Dora had brushed her black bob,
boy-fashion, slick to her head. “There being no near neighbors to drop
in.” Then suddenly she exclaimed, “Oh, for goodness sakes alive, I
completely forgot that letter. It’s for both of us from Polly and Patsy.
I’ve been wondering why they didn’t write and tell us where they had
decided to spend their summer vacation.”
Dora sprang up to search for the letter in a pocket of her riding habit.
Mary sat near a window in a curly maple rocker as she said dreamily: “If
we hadn’t come West, we would have been with them—that is, if they went
to Camp Winnichook up in the Adirondacks the way we had planned all
winter.”
Dora, holding the letter unopened, sat near her friend and smiled at her
reminiscently as she said, “We plan and plan and plan for the future,
don’t we, and then we do something exactly different, and _most_
unexpected, but _I_ wouldn’t give up being out here on the desert and
living in a ghost town for all the fun Patsy and Polly may be having—”
Mary laughingly interrupted. “Do read the letter and let’s see if they
really _did_ go there. Perhaps—”
“Yes, they did.” Dora had unfolded a large, boyish-looking sheet of
paper. “Camp Winnichook,” she announced, then she read the rather
indolent scrawl. “Dear Cowgirls,”—it began—
“Patsy has just come in from a swim. She’s drying her bathing suit by
lying on the sand in front of the cabin in the sun. Her red hair, which
_she_ calls ‘a wind blown mop,’ looks, at present, like a mop that has
just finished doing the kitchen floor. Last winter, you recall, she had a
_few_ red freckles on her saucy pug nose, but now she wears them all over
her face and arms and even on her back. She’s a sight to behold!”
There were spatters on the paper that might have been water. The type of
penmanship changed. A jerky, uneven handwriting seemed to ejaculate
indignantly, “Don’t you kids believe a word of it. I’m a dazzling
beauty—as ever! It’s Polly whose looks are ruined—if she ever had any.
She won’t play tennis and she _won’t_ swim and she _will_ eat chocolate
drops—you know the finish, and she wasn’t any too slim last year when she
_had_ to do gym.”
The first penmanship took up the tale. “I had to forcibly push Patsy
away. She’s gone in to dress now, so I’ll hurry and get this letter into
an envelope and sealed before she gets back because I want to tell on
her.
“You know Pat has always said she was a boy hater, and the more the boys
from Wales Military Academy rushed her, the more she would shrug her
shoulders and ‘pouff!’ about them, but she’s met her Waterloo. There’s a
flying field near our camp and a boy named Harry Hulbert is there
studying to be a pilot. Pat and I strolled over to the field one day and
ever since she caught sight of that tall, slim chap all done up in his
flying togs, she’s been wild to meet him. I wouldn’t be surprised if
she’s even hoping that his machine will crash some day right in front of
our cabin so that she can bind up his wounds and—”
Once again the jerky, uneven writing seemed to exclaim, “Silly gilly!
_That’s what_ Polly is! It isn’t the flier, it’s the flying that _I’m_
crazy about. I _do_ wish I knew that Harry Hulbert, but not for any
sentimental reasons, believe me. Pouff—for all of ’em! But fly I’m going
to!! In truth, if you girls stay West until the end of vacation, you
_may_ see an airplane landing in your ghost town—me piloting!!!???”
Then came a wide space and when the writing began again, it was dated
three days later and was Polly’s lazy scrawl. “It’s to laugh!” she began.
“But, to explain. If you wish hard enough for anything, it’s _bound_ to
happen. Not that Harry Hulbert’s plane crashed in front of our cabin but
it was forced down when Patsy and I were out in her little green car far
from human habitation. Of course we hadn’t gone riding _just_ because we
_saw_ that particular little silver plane practicing up in the air—oh,
no—not at all!”
Patsy’s jerky scribble interrupted. “She’s a mean, horrid,
misrepresenting person, Polly Perkins is! She knows perfectly well we
_had_ to go to the village to get a pound of butter for our camp mother,
and wasn’t it only _polite_ for us to give that poor stranded boy a lift?
He _is_ a real decent sort, even though the only thing _he’s_ crazy about
is flying, but we _did_ learn something about him. His father has some
sort of a government position in Arizona, where _you_ are, no less. I
mean, in the same state, and when Harry gets his pilot’s license, he is
to be a flying scout, he told us. He said it will be an awfully exciting
life. When there has been a holdup out there on a stage or a train and
the bandits leap on to their horses and flee across the border, Harry is
to pursue them in his little silver plane and see where they go. Then
he’ll circle back to where a posse is waiting, notify them, and so the
bandits will be captured. Won’t that be simply too thrilling for words?
Oh, _why_ wasn’t I born a boy? I could have been Patrick, then, instead
of Patsy. Believe me, when Harry Hulbert gets his license, and it won’t
be long now—he’s _that_ good—don’t I wish I could be a stowaway in his
plane! We’d have to leave Polly here though. She’s so heavy, the plane
wouldn’t be able to get off of the ground.”
The lazy scrawl concluded the epistle. “If Patsy goes West, so do I, but
I’ll go by train. I have no romantic urge to take to the air with slim,
goggle-eyed young men with a purpose in life.
“Our camp mother (nice Mrs. Higgins, Jane’s aunt, came with us this year)
is calling us to lunch, and right after that Pat and I are going to town
to mail this. Pat wants me to say that when _her_ friend Mister Harry
Hulbert _does_ fly West, she’ll give him a letter of introduction to you
two and I calls that right generous of her considering—”
“Pouff!” came a brief interruption. Then “Goodbye. We’re signing off.
Patsy Ordelle and Polly Perkins of the famous Sunnybank Seminary
Quadralettes.”
“What a jolly letter!” Mary said. “Wouldn’t it be fun if the missing
members of our little clan could be here with us. Patsy is as wild about
mystery stories as you are and this ghost town just teems with them.”
A rich, musical voice drifted up from the back porch, “Señoritas!”
“Oh, good! There’s Carmelita calling us to supper, and _am I hungry_?”
Dora tossed the letter on the dresser and slipping an arm about her
friend, she gave her a little impulsive hug.
“I don’t envy Pat and Poll, not the least little mite,” she said as they
went down the broad front stairway together. “It _is_ lovely at Camp
Winnichook as we well know, since we’ve been there with them the past
three summers, but the desert has a lure for me that the little blue lake
in the mountains never did have.”
“I know,” Mary agreed. “Those mountains are more like pretty hills.
There’s nothing grim or grand about them.”
They entered a large, pleasant kitchen, in one corner of which, between
two windows, was a table spread with a red cloth. A good-looking
middle-aged Mexican woman, dressed in bright colors, stood at the stove
preparing to dish up their meal. “_Buenos dias, niñas_,” she said in her
deep, musical voice.
“Good evening, Carmelita,” the girls replied, and then, when they had
been served generous portions of the Americanized Mexican dish which the
girls called “tamale pie,” Dora flashed at the smiling cook a pleased
glance as she said, “_Muchas gracias, Señora_.”
Then to Mary, “It doesn’t take long to use up all the Spanish _I_ know.
Let’s take a vow that when we go back to Sunnybank Seminary next fall we
will add Spanish to—” A wistful expression in her friend’s face caused
Dora to pause and exclaim in real alarm, “Mary Moore, do you think,
because of your dad, that you _won’t_ be able to go back East to school?
You have only one year more before you graduate. You know how we four of
‘The Quadralettes’ have counted on graduating together.”
Mary smiled brightly. “Of course, I expect to go and take Dad with me.”
Her momentary wistful doubting had passed.
They had finished their supper and were rising when Carmelita, who had
been out on the back porch, hurried in and began a rapid chattering in
her own language. The mystified girls could not understand one word. But,
as the Mexican woman kept pointing out toward the road, they felt sure
that someone was coming toward the house, nor were they wrong.