A Girl and a Bracelet
By afternoon the sun was warmer, and the girls, dressed in bathing suits,
were lying on the caressing sand of the little beach not far from the
house. They had spread their beach coats out beneath them and were
sprawled in favorable attitudes to acquire the all-important tan. At
intervals one of the girls sat up and coated herself liberally with
cocoanut oil. They did not seem to feel exactly like talking, as the sun
made them deliciously lazy. Perhaps they were thinking of their adventure
at school when, as told in the first volume of this series, _The Orchard
Secret_, many surprising things happened. Or they may have been letting
their minds wander to more surprising occurrences, as told in the
_Mystery of Jockey Hollow_.
Sim, Arden, and Terry had been chums and schoolmates ever since they
first began to acquire knowledge in Vincent Prep, and their friendship
and loyalty continued until the present time, when they were just
finishing their freshman year at Cedar Ridge, the well-known college for
girls at Morrisville. This small city was not very distant from
Pentville, where the three lived.
As Sim sat up to apply the oil again, she saw a dark object bobbing up
and down far out on the ocean.
“Look, girls,” she cried, “does that look like someone to you, or is it
just a log?”
“Where?” Arden asked, squinting at the bright water toward which Sim
pointed, and then they were left in no doubt, for the bobbing dark spot
began to swim. With long, sure strokes it came nearer to them, and they
could see the white foam where the thrashing feet churned it up in
perfect timing.
“Some swimmer,” Sim said admiringly. “Wonderful form. I wonder who it
is?”
“We’ll soon see,” Arden replied, and Terry nodded in agreement.
The figure was making rapid time, and as it neared the beach, waited for
just the right minute and then coasted in on a blue-and-white breaker.
The girls watched while the swimmer crawled a stroke then sprang upright
and shook off water like a happy young animal.
“Why, it’s the girl who looked in at the window last night,” Terry
exclaimed. “She can swim, can’t she?”
The girl saw them suddenly and was about to run up the beach and away
when she hesitated. Sim saw an old gray sweater on the sand near them. It
obviously belonged to the swimmer, and she would have to come quite near
them to get it.
Sim smiled at her as she looked at them in an almost frightened way.
“You swim beautifully,” Sim remarked to relieve the shy girl. “Did you
learn in the ocean?”
“Yeah,” she drawled, stooping for her sweater. “I learned in the ocean.”
That was all she said.
“Do you live here, at Oceanedge?” Arden asked next.
“Not right here,” replied the swimmer. “I live on the other side of the
bay with my father, but I come here to swim.” After such a long speech
she again seemed ready to run away.
“We live up there,” Terry volunteered, indicating the house, the roof of
which could be seen above low pines. “We’re just here for the summer. Do
you live here all year?”
“Yes, I’m a native,” their new friend went on in a rather bitter tone. “I
live, if you can call it that, with my father. He’s a crabber and a worn
crab himself. What’s that oil for?” Arden was dabbing a bit on a rather
red arm.
“To make us tan; want some?” asked Sim kindly.
The girl gave a little laugh. “My father would tan me if he caught me
using anything like that. He says I’m so homely now, there’s no use
making me worse.”
“Oh, but you’re a marvelous swimmer. I wish you’d swim with me some day,”
said the sympathetic Sim. “What’s your name? Mine is Bernice Westover,
but everyone calls me Sim,” she finished affably.
“Melissa Clayton,” the girl answered. “That’s a pretty thing.” She
indicated a brilliantly painted wooden bracelet on Sim’s arm, the kind
sponsored by the large department stores as being just the thing for
beach wear because, perhaps, you couldn’t forget you had it on.
“Do you like it? You may have it,” Sim replied and slipped it off her
arm. “Here, I’ve got lots of things like these, and you might like to
have this.”
“Oh, can I really? I’d love it! I’ve never had a pretty thing like this
in my whole life. My father thinks such things are no good and only give
me wrong ideas. But I’ll take care of it always.” Melissa took the
bracelet and slipped it on her tanned muscular arm, looking at it
pathetically.
She wore an old, dark-blue jersey bathing suit, a little too large for
her, and a white canvas belt. She had no bathing cap on, and her wet hair
was beginning to curl a little as it dried in the sun. She looked at the
wooden bracelet as though it were as precious as a diamond circlet,
turning it around and around to admire it. A slow smile spread over her
tanned face.
“Do you go to school here in the winter, Melissa?” Arden asked. This wild
creature who swam like a sea nymph and smiled at a cheap wooden bracelet
was something different and “terribly interesting,” in Arden’s opinion.
“I did go to school, but my father took me out last year when I turned
fourteen; said I’d be getting ideas. So I don’t go any more,” Melissa
replied, her white teeth gleaming and sparkling in her darkened face.
“But what do you do all winter when it’s cold and there’s no crabbing?”
Sim inquired. “We’re asking you an awful lot of questions; do you mind?”
“No, I don’t mind. I don’t very often get a chance to talk to anybody. Pa
never says a word, hardly,” the girl went on.
Arden, Terry, and Sim watched her sympathetically as she stood first on
one foot then on the other in a nervous way, smoothing out the sand
beneath her feet. They had never met a girl like her, and pitied her at
once when they learned of her lonely life. But, sorry as they were, they
realized that there was something about her that was different, a hint of
a mind not as keenly alert as theirs. She was so slow to respond to their
advances.
“Why did you run away the other night in the storm?” Terry bravely asked.
“We wanted you to come in.”
“I was afraid. I just wanted to look at you all in the nice bright room,
but when you saw me——”
“Melissa!” thundered a voice behind them.
They all started and turned. A shabbily dressed man was standing back of
them on the sand. They had not heard his footsteps. Had he purposely
crept up on Melissa?
“What are you doing there?” he asked roughly.
“Nothing, Pa—I was just swimmin’.” Melissa seemed to swerve visibly, and
she looked nervously down at the bracelet Sim had given her.
“What’s that you got? Haven’t I told you not to take things?”
“I didn’t take it, Pa. She gave it to me. I never even asked.”
“Give it back, right away, and come along home! You’ve been fooling
around here long enough. Quick, now!”
Melissa’s childish blue eyes pleaded to be allowed to keep the bracelet,
but her father, reading her thought, stepped forward and pulled it from
her arm.
“Here, miss—I don’t allow Melissa to take things,” the gruff man growled.
“Oh—but it’s nothing,” faltered Sim. “Please——”
Clayton ignored her entirely, as he did Arden and Terry. They might not
have been there, for all the attention they were given. Their attempt at
helping Melissa went for naught.
Melissa pulled the gray sweater on over her still wet bathing suit and,
smiling ruefully, followed her father, who had begun plodding up the
beach. She did not look back but plodded along herself, trying to keep up
with his big steps but, apparently, not intending to walk beside him.
The girls watched the retreating figures. Clayton was talking earnestly,
now and then flinging out a hand in gesture and turning to shake his fist
at his daughter, watching her closely as he tramped on.
“What a mean man!” Sim exclaimed, fingering the returned bracelet. “That
poor child must have a rotten time.”
“He certainly was a gruff old fellow,” Arden agreed. “But did it strike
you there was anything strange about that girl?”
“Only that she seemed so awfully scared. Like a kitten or stray dog. And
I imagine she wanted to make friends,” Terry replied.
“I hope that man is kind to her. I hate people to be unhappy,” Sim
remarked. “I’d better not begin to pity her, or I won’t enjoy myself, and
I so want to do that.” She smiled appreciatingly at Terry, and then,
taking the cork from the bottle of cocoanut oil, coated her pink skin
again before starting for another dip.