[Illustration: INTO THE RIVER THEY PLUNGED.
_Dorothy Dale’s Promise._ _Page_ 179.]
DOROTHY DALE’S
PROMISE
BY
MARGARET PENROSE
AUTHOR OF “DOROTHY DALE: A GIRL OF TO-DAY,” “DOROTHY
DALE AT GLENWOOD SCHOOL,” “THE MOTOR
GIRLS SERIES,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
BOOKS BY MARGARET PENROSE
THE DOROTHY DALE SERIES
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
DOROTHY DALE: A GIRL OF TO-DAY
DOROTHY DALE AT GLENWOOD SCHOOL
DOROTHY DALE’S GREAT SECRET
DOROTHY DALE AND HER CHUMS
DOROTHY DALE’S QUEER HOLIDAYS
DOROTHY DALE’S CAMPING DAYS
DOROTHY DALE’S SCHOOL RIVALS
DOROTHY DALE IN THE CITY
DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE
THE MOTOR GIRLS SERIES
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
THE MOTOR GIRLS
THE MOTOR GIRLS ON A TOUR
THE MOTOR GIRLS AT LOOKOUT BEACH
THE MOTOR GIRLS THROUGH NEW
ENGLAND
THE MOTOR GIRLS ON CEDAR LAKE
THE MOTOR GIRLS ON THE COAST
THE MOTOR GIRLS ON CRYSTAL BAY
_Cupples & Leon Co., Publishers, New York_
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. “THE BAD PENNIES” 1
II. CELIA MORAN, OF “THE FINDLING” 10
III. THE PROMISE 19
IV. A PORCINE PICNIC 28
V. A MOUNTAIN OUT OF A MOLEHILL 36
VI. DOROTHY IS “POUNCED UPON” 45
VII. A RAID 53
VIII. CONDITIONS 61
IX. AN EXPEDITION AFOOT 70
X. AT THE CASTLE OF THE OGRESS 78
XI. SNOWBOUND 87
XII. TAVIA IS MYSTIFIED 98
XIII. TUNNELING OUT 107
XIV. SEVERAL SURPRISING THINGS 115
XV. WHY DID HE DISAPPEAR? 123
XVI. DOROTHY’S WITS AT WORK 132
XVII. TAVIA TAKES A HAND 141
XVIII. THE RUNAWAY 149
XIX. ANOTHER REASON FOR FINDING TOM MORAN 160
XX. BACK TO DALTON 170
XXI. “THAT REDHEAD” 178
XXII. ON THE TRAIL 185
XXIII. ALMOST CAUGHT 193
XXIV. “ALIAS JOHN SMITH” 201
XXV. THE WOODCHUCK HUNT 210
XXVI. THE FIERY FURNACE 217
XXVII. THE RING ON MISS OLAINE’S FINGER 224
XXVIII. “JES’ THE CUTEST LITTLE THING” 232
XXIX. WHITE LAWN AND WHITE ROSES 240
XXX. “GOODNIGHT, GLENWOOD--GOD BLESS YOU!” 248
DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE
CHAPTER I
“THE BAD PENNIES”
The train started a second after the two almost breathless girls
entered the half-empty chair car. They came in with a rush, and barely
found their seats and got settled in them before the easily rolling
train had pulled clear of the station and the yards.
“Back to dear old Glenwood School, Doro!” cried Tavia Travers, fairly
hugging her more sober companion. “How do you feel about it?”
“_De_-lighted, Miss,” laughed Dorothy Dale. “After our trying
experiences in New York----Well! a country life is strenuous enough for
me, I guess.”
“But we _did_ have some fun, Doro. And how we got the best of that
hateful Akerson man! I just _hate_ that fellow. I could _beat_ him!”
“Your feeling is not scriptural,” groaned Dorothy, though her eyes
twinkled. “Don’t you know, if you are struck on one cheek you should
turn the other also?”
“But suppose you’re hit on the nose?” demanded Tavia. “One hasn’t _two_
noses!”
“Well, Aunt Winnie is well rid of that Akerson,” said Dorothy, with a
little sigh of satisfaction.
“And your cousins, Ned and Nat, have you to thank for the salvation of
their income,” returned Tavia.
“_Us_, you mean,” laughed Dorothy. “You had more to do with the showing
up of that real estate agent than _I_ had, Tavia.”
“Nonsense---- Oh, here’s the station where the girls may join us. Do
let me open that window, Doro! I don’t care if it _is_ cold outside. I
want to see if they are on the platform.”
Tavia was already struggling with the window. But windows in cars are
made to stick, it would seem. Tavia cast a pleading glance from her big
eyes at the trim young brakeman just then coming through the car.
“Please!” Tavia’s eyes said just as plainly as though she had spoken
the word; but the young brakeman shook his head gravely.
“Do you really want it open, Miss?” he asked, hesitating at the chairs
occupied by the two friends.
“I want to see out--just a little bit,” said Tavia, pouting.
“But if anybody objects----” the young brakeman continued, taking hold
of the fixtures of the sash with his gloved hands.
“Isn’t he just a dear?” murmured Tavia to Dorothy, but loud enough for
the young railroad man to hear.
“Do hush, Tavia!” gasped her friend.
The young man opened the window. The exertion seemed to have been
considerable, for he grew red to the very tips of his ears while he was
raising the sash!
“Oh, thank you--so much!” gushed Tavia, perfectly cool. And when the
brakeman had gone, she turned to Dorothy, and demanded:
“Didn’t I say that prettily? Just like a New York society girl would
say it--the one who took us to tea that time in the tea room that used
to be a millionaire’s stable; do you remember?”
“You are just dreadful, Tavia!” groaned Dorothy Dale. “Will you never
learn to behave?”
“There they are!” shrieked Tavia, with her head out of the window.
“There are all the ‘bad pennies’--they always turn up again, you know.”
The train was slowing down and the long platform of the junction came
into view.
“Who’s there?” begged Dorothy, willing to learn the details from her
more venturesome companion.
“Ned Ebony--yes, ma’am! And there’s Cologne. Oh, bully! everybody’s
here. This way, girls!” cried Tavia as the car passed a group of
merry-faced girls of about their own age. “I hope you’ve all got chairs
in this car.”
And, by good fortune, they had! Within the next few moments nearly a
dozen of the pupils of Glenwood School had joined the chums--and all of
these newcomers, as well as Dorothy and Tavia, belonged to the class
that would graduate from the famous old school the coming June.
“Tell us all about New York--do!” cried Ned Ebony, otherwise Edna Black.
“And Miss Mingle!” urged Rose-Mary, whom the other girls called
“Cologne” most of the time. “Is she coming back to Glenwood School to
teach music?”
“Poor little Mingle has had a hard time,” Dorothy said. “But she is
coming back to us--and we must treat her nicely, girls.”
“Oh, we must!” added Tavia. “Better than I treated her feather-bed.”
The girls all laughed at that, for it had been Tavia’s last prank at
Glenwood to shower little Miss Mingle with the feathers from her own
special tick.
“But about New York,” urged one of the other girls who had never been
to the metropolis. “We’re just dying to know something about it, Doro.”
“And if it is as wicked as they say it is,” cried another.
“And as nice,” urged Ned Ebony.
“And as horribly dirty as they say,” went on Cologne.
“And the subways--and elevated trains--and all the rest of it,” came
the seemingly unending demands.
“Help! help! ‘Ath-thith-tanth, pleath!’” cried Tavia. “That’s the way
one of the girls in a big store called the floorwalker--jutht like
that!”
“Now, go ahead and tell us something wonderful,” begged Cologne.
“See here,” said Dorothy, laughing, and diving into her handbag.
“Here’s something that I cut out of the paper. It is how New York
struck the wondering eye of an Arab who visited it recently. He sent
this letter to his brother at home:
“‘People in America travel like rats under the ground, and like
squirrels in the air, and the buildings are so high that people
have to be put in square boxes and pulled to the top by heavy
ropes. In the day the sun furnishes the light as in Morocco. At
night the light is as strong as in the day, but people here do
not seem to have much use for sleep, as the streets are just as
crowded at night as in the day.’
“There!” laughed Dorothy. “That is New York--that, and operas, and
theatres, and ‘tea-fights,’ and automobiles whizzing, and car gongs
banging, and the rattle of steam riveters, and newsboys shrieking,
and----”
“My turn! I’ll relieve you,” interposed Tavia. “There are lots of nice
boys--real _dressy_ boys--and it’s fun to go to the tea-rooms, for you
see everybody--and they dance! And we’ve learned to dance the very
newest dances----”
“Oh, Tavia!” gasped Dorothy. “Only with each other--you know that.
We’ve just picked up some of the steps, seeing others do it--and
practised in our room at Aunt Winnie’s.”
“There! She always spoils everything,” declared Tavia. “I was just
making Ned Ebony’s eyes ‘bulge right out’ at our wickedness. I
think----”
At that moment brakes were put on the train and the girls were suddenly
tumbled together in quite a heap. There was something ahead to cause
this sudden stoppage, and Tavia struggled with her window again. It
went up easier this time. Perhaps that was because there was no good
looking young man--in or out of uniform--near at hand.
“Oh! it’s a fire!” gasped Cologne, looking over Tavia’s shoulder when
the latter got the window open.
“On the tracks!” declared Tavia.
Dorothy got a glimpse of the fire now.
“It’s the bridge over Caloom Creek,” she cried. “It’s all ablaze! I
declare, girls, suppose we are held here all night!”
“Don’t mention such a thing!” groaned Ned Ebony. “It’s only twenty
miles from here to Glenwood.”
“Right,” agreed Tavia; “and Belding is the next station beyond the
creek.”
“Let’s go out and ask the railroad men if we can’t get over the river
and get a train on to Glenwood at once,” suggested Dorothy Dale.
“Let’s!” agreed Tavia, with a giggle. “That nice young brakeman,
Doro--I’ll ask him, if you are bashful.”
But it was the conductor in charge of the train they found when the
hilarious party of school girls got out with their hand baggage.
“How are you going to get across the river, young ladies?” he wanted to
know. “The highway bridge is a mile through the woods.”
“But we know all about this river,” spoke up Tavia. “There are stepping
stones across it right below this old railroad bridge. We’ve been
across them before--haven’t we, Doro?”
“In the summer,” her friend admitted.
“Well, you can try it,” said the conductor. “That bridge is going to
be unstable, even if they get the fire out. A train may not cross from
either side before to-morrow.”
“Oh!” cried Ned Ebony, “we could never wait that long!”
“Come on!” commanded Tavia, leading the way into a path beside the
railroad tracks. “Let’s at least see if the stones are uncovered.”
“You’ll probably find transportation from Belding to the Glen,” said
the conductor, as the girls started on.
“Come on, now,” said Tavia. “Let’s show our pluck. Who’s afraid of a
little water?”
“I’m always seasick on the water,” murmured Cologne.
“Never heard of anybody being troubled by _mal de mer_ going over
stepping stones,” snorted Tavia, in disgust. “Come on!”
There was a fringe of bushes along both sides of the creek. This path
beside the railroad tracks forked, and one branch of it led right down
to the stepping stones. The water was rough; but there was no ice, and
the top of each stone was bare and dry.
Years and years before the people living in the neighborhood had put
these flat-top boulders into the creek-bed, because the light wooden
bridges were forever being carried away by the floods. Of course that
was before the day of the railroad.
Tavia started across the stones, and Dorothy followed her. One after
the other they got over safely. But Ned Ebony’s shoe came untied and
she was last.
Perhaps she was careless; perhaps she tripped on her shoelace; perhaps
she was heedless enough to step on the edge of a certain small boulder
that Tavia warned her was not exactly steady.
However it was, the boulder rolled, poor Edna “sprawled” in the air for
a moment to get her balance, and then the rock turned over and she went
“splash!” into the water.