A SIGNAL FOR HELP
"Didn't scare you, did I?" said Mr. Harley, walking into the circle
and smiling at the perplexed faces.
"We didn't hear you coming," answered Bobby. "Did you row over?"
"Yes, I came over to tell your mother that your father couldn't
get back till the afternoon boat," Mr. Harley explained. "Your
mother wanted to know if I'd come and fetch you."
"Does she want us?" asked Meg quickly. "Oh! What was that?"
"Thunder," answered Mr. Harley, shortly. "Your mother sent you two
umbrellas, but I don't think we'd better start now; the storm is
'most ready to break. Guess you were having such a good time you
never heard the rumbling."
It was true. The children had never glanced up, or they would have
seen the great white clouds that, mounting higher and higher,
gradually darkened and then shut out the sun. They would have
heard the angry mutterings of thunder and seen the sharp streaks
of lightning, but the game of hunting for treasure had completely
absorbed them.
"It will rain on us," remarked Meg nervously. "There isn't any
roof, you know."
Then she blushed. She wondered if Mr. Harley thought they were
selfish to amuse themselves in his tumble-down home, and whether
it was polite of her to mention that the roof was gone.
"We'll have to make a roof," said Mr. Harley capably. "Let's see;
if we take that door and put it across these two barrels, that
will keep the rain off. Here's a piece of oilcloth we can use for
a curtain to shut the lightning out. Now we're as comfy as we
would be in a regular house."
While he spoke, he had lifted what had once been the front door of
his house, placed it across two barrels and draped across the open
side a large square of oilcloth that was cracked and creased in
many places but still waterproof. The barrels were against the one
wall of the house left standing, so that, when all was fixed, the
small shelter was fairly comfortable.
Bobby, feeling in his pocket for a nail to pin the oilcloth more
securely, touched the queer object his shovel had unearthed that
morning.
"Look what I found," he said eagerly, holding out the little
pointed specimen.
"Arrow head," said Mr. Harley. "Indians once lived on this island,
and you're likely to turn those things up most anywhere. Will your
mother be afraid alone in the bungalow?"
"Mother's never afraid," declared Bobby confidently, putting the
arrow head back in his pocket to show his father. "Oh, that
lightning went right into the lake!"
"Better get in now," Mr. Harley told them, holding up the oilcloth
so that they could creep in under the door-roof. "All in? Then
here I come."
The rain was coming down in great, dashing torrents in another
moment and the four little Blossoms were thankful for their dry
corner.
"It's a good thing we didn't start out," shouted Mr. Harley above
the noise of the rain. "We never could have made the bungalow
before the rain caught us. This will knock the apples off. That's
a pity because they're fine when they're left to ripen."
"Meg said they weren't ripe yet," said Bobby.
"I hope you didn't try to eat any," answered Mr. Harley earnestly.
"Green apples are not good for you."
"Oh, we didn't touch one," Bobby assured him, trying to punch
Twaddles, who was tickling him. "Meg said they belonged to you."
"I want you children to eat 'em, but not till they are ripe," Mr.
Harley shouted back. "Along about the first week in July, you come
up here and you'll find the best sweet apples you ever tasted.
That is, if the storms leave any on the tree, and I guess they
will. You eat all you want--I never want to taste one of those
apples again!"
Twaddles stopped trying to tickle Bobby, and Meg squeezed Dot's
hand excitedly. Poor Mr. Harley!
"Then--then you haven't heard about your little boys?" asked Bobby
hesitatingly.
"Not a word," groaned Mr. Harley. "It's as though the earth had
opened and swallowed 'em. I can't, for the life of me, figure out
where they could have gone. Sometimes I get to thinking they're
here, and I can't rest till I get a boat and row over. One night I
got up at one o'clock and rowed here; but Lou and the boys were
just as far away as ever."
The rain was coming more gently now, and the heaviest clouds had
passed over the island. Mr. Harley lifted the oilcloth flap, and
the four little Blossoms felt a refreshing breeze sweep in upon
them.
"We can start in a minute or so," announced Mr. Harley, opening
the umbrellas.
A few minutes later they started in a fine drizzle of rain. That,
however, soon stopped and the sun came out, and by the time they
had reached the bungalow, to find Father Blossom just coming up
from the wharf and Mother Blossom, not a bit frightened by the
storm, on the porch, the only trace of the thunderstorm was the
wet grass and the dripping eaves of the pretty bungalow.
May swept into June and June was nearly gone when one morning
Father Blossom announced that he wanted to take Mother Blossom
over to Greenpier in the rowboat and that he hoped the children
could persuade her that they would be all right if left to
themselves for a little while.
"I don't think we'll be gone more than two or three hours," said
Father Blossom seriously; "and while I don't suppose this day
means anything to you, it does mean a good deal to Mother and to
me. And if you children will take care of each other, we'll be
back before you have time to miss us."
"I know what day it is," Meg cried proudly. "It's the day you and
Mother were married!"
She remembered from the last June, and Mother Blossom had not
thought any of the children would remember.
"I do hope they will be all right, Ralph," she said a little
anxiously, as Father Blossom handed her into the rowboat and took
the oars and the four little Blossoms stood on the wharf and waved
to them.
"Of course they will be all right," Father Blossom asserted
sturdily.
"Daddy, oh, Daddy!" called Bobby after the boat, "may we have your
field glasses?"
"All right, only be careful of them," Father Blossom called back.
"What'll we do?" asked Dot, as they left the wharf and walked back
to the bungalow.
"Go up to the Harley house and see if we can see the pirates'
haunted ships," answered Bobby. "We can look 'way off with the
glasses. Where 'bouts are they, Meg?"
"I know. I'll get 'em," said Meg eagerly.
She ran upstairs and found the glasses hanging on the wall in
their leather case. They were a very fine pair, and the children
were not often allowed to use them.
The "haunted ships" that Bobby spoke of, were another "pretend"
the children enjoyed. Mother Blossom, reading to them one night,
had found a poem that told how the ships of the pirates were
condemned forever to sail the seas. The poem went on to say that
sometimes people saw these ghostly ships and that when they did
some of the buried treasure, part of the ill-gotten gains they had
once carried on their decks, was sure to be unearthed.
"I can't see a single ship," reported Bobby, when, after the four
children had walked to the north end of the island, he adjusted
the glasses and took a long look.
"Let me try," begged Meg.
She stared so long that Twaddles grew impatient for his turn.
"Hurry up, Meg," he urged. "I want to see. Bobby, can't I have 'em
now?"
"Don't bother me," said Meg impatiently. "I see something. Look,
Bobby, isn't that something moving on Kidd's island?"
"Let me look, Meg. Why, it's somebody waving a rag tied on a
pole."
Sure enough, it was. Neither Bobby nor Meg could make out what it
was that held the pole, but it certainly was a pole with a bit of
cloth dipping crazily about from one end of it.
"Isn't that funny?" puzzled Meg, staring at Bobby. "No one lives
on Kidd's Island."
Dot's mind was full of pirates; and no wonder, for the four
children had talked and played pirate games for weeks.
"I'll bet a pirate is there and he wants you to come so he can
kidnap you," said Dot solemnly.
Twaddles was staring through the glasses, his "turn" having come
at last.
"Maybe he's a sick pirate," he ventured.
"Meg," said Bobby suddenly, "I'll bet that's a signal for help; or
if it isn't, some one ought to go to see what it is. It's almost
time for Captain Jenks--let's run down to the wharf and tell him."
It lacked ten minutes of the time the captain's boat was due, and
the four little Blossoms started pell-mell on a run for the wharf.
Meg carried the glasses, remembering even in her hurry that they
had promised to take care of them.
"Captain Jenks! Oh, Captain Jenks!" cried Bobby, hailing the
skipper of The Sarah before it had even begun to turn toward the
shore.
"Oh, Captain Jenks!" quavered Meg.
"Captain Jenks!" squeaked Dot. "Listen, Captain Jenks!"
"What do you suppose--" began Twaddles as The Sarah grated against
the wharf and Captain Jenks surveyed the waving arms brandished
before him.
"House afire?" asked the captain placidly.
"Oh, no!" sputtered Bobby, the words tumbling over each other.
"Nothing like that! But there's somebody on Kidd's Island!"
"There is?" said the captain sharply. "How do you know?"
Meg and Bobby and Dot and Twaddles insisted on all explaining at
once, but somehow the captain succeeded in understanding what they
were trying to tell him.
"Waving a rag, eh?" he said thoughtfully. "Well, I might take a
little run up there, though I wasn't calculating to go so far
north this morning.
"May we go? Please, may we go?" pleaded Bobby.
"Ask your mother--or no, give me the glasses, and I'll have a
squint at this waving rag," answered the captain. "Maybe it won't
be anything you'll want to see."
He took the glasses from Meg and strode off to the Harley shack,
followed by the children, who were now almost beside themselves
with excitement.
Captain Jenks took a long look toward Kidd's Island, then
whistled.
"Well, I never!" he said softly, as though speaking to himself.
"What is it?" asked Bobby. "May we go?"
"I guess it will be all right, Son," replied the captain kindly.
"Run ask your mother, and if she is willing, I'll take you all."
"Mother isn't at home," explained Bobby. "She and Daddy rowed to
Greenpier. She would say yes, I know she would."
"Well--all right!" decided Captain Jenks. "I'll take you to Kidd's
Island and drop you here at the wharf on the way back. I think
we're going to be what the papers call a rescuing party."
The four little Blossoms hurried on board The Sarah before the
captain should change his mind. A rescue! Could anything be more
exciting! As Twaddles remarked afterward, he wouldn't have missed
coming to Apple Tree Island for anything in the world.
The captain took the wheel, and the boat chug-chugged swiftly
toward Kidd's Island. When they were off shore they could see the
rag quite plainly. It was a small handkerchief tied to an oar.
But no pirate was waving the forlorn little signal.
"Look, look!" cried Meg, as though afraid Captain Jenks might not
see. "It's a girl and two little boys!"