TELLING SECRETS
Determined to wait no longer than the very next afternoon, Grace asked
both Cleo and Madaline over to her front porch directly after school,
assuring their acceptance to her invitation by the lure of "a big
secret to tell them." Needless to say, they came, and there, in the
shadow of the yellow and white honeysuckle blossoms, with busy bees
buzzing in and out of the honey-filled cups, Grace disclosed the story
of her second trip to River Bend Woods.
The girls were fascinated. To think the tied-up man had written a
letter!
"Yes, but," argued Grace. "I am a little timid ever since. See, he says
he hopes he can lasso me some day with my own rope! Just suppose he
does!"
"Oh, I am sure he was just joking there," wise little Cleo ventured.
"He just said that to tease you, for teasing him."
"Maybe," replied Grace rather tonelessly.
"Let me see it again," begged Madaline, reaching for the well-fingered
little sheet of paper. "But he says," she read, "he liked your courage,
and he hated to spoil all your nice scout knots. That must mean he is a
good friend."
"Oh, it might just mean the opposite," gloomed Grace, who had read the
letter so many times every syllable weighed a clause to her. "He may
have meant that merely in sarcasm."
"Who ever do you suppose he was?" asked Madaline foolishly.
"Is, you mean," corrected Grace. "He didn't die, so he still is."
"Of course, that's what I mean. Only he isn't there now, so he was, I
think," insisted Madaline, without taking any offence at the crispness
of Grace's manner.
"Whether he is or whether he was, we might get along better if we tried
to guess who he could possibly be," Cleo assisted. "Have you the least
idea?"
"Not the slightest. You see, that sheet of paper came out of a
notebook, and anyone could own a notebook or even find one," Grace
speculated.
"Let me read the whole letter through?" asked Cleo. "We can't make
sense out of single sentences."
Grace handed over the much-criticized little missive. She read aloud:
"LITTLE SCOUT BANDIT:
"I hate to spoil all your pretty knots, but I can't stay tied up any
longer. I am taking the rope along, and some day I hope to lasso you in
return. You gave me a merry chase after my bag--quite a little runner
you are. When I chance this way again I will look for an answer in our
hollow rock. Good luck, Scout Bandit--
"THE VICTIM."
"There!" exclaimed Madaline, "only an educated man could write that!"
"But many wicked men are wonderfully educated!" Grace insisted on
worrying.
"He seems jolly," mused Cleo.
"All tramps joke," said Grace.
"Well, if you want a tramp, have one," laughed Cleo. "We won't mind,
Gracie."
"I'm not Gracie, and I hate tramps. I tried to be nice to one when I
was a little girl. Mother was giving him pie and coffee, and I said it
was hard for men to be tramps. He turned right around and hissed:
'You're too gabby!' That's the way tramps appreciate kindness."
"And you called him a tramp to his face!" exclaimed Madaline.
"Oh, girls, leave the old tramp alone and let's get to the new
wild-westerner," begged Cleo. "I'll tell you what we'll do. Let's write
an answer to his letter, and explain we only wanted to do something
brave for our Scout honors, but we understand better now, and Grace, do
you want to say you're sorry you tied him up?"
"No, indeed I do not!" snapped Grace. "Why should I, when I was trying
to get Mrs. Johnston's wash!"
"Oh, Cleo doesn't know about that," Madaline reminded Grace. "We forgot
that. You see, Cleo," she continued, "the man had a bag of clothes
beside him, and Grace got a hook made of a good strong stick. She tied
this to her rope (she had a lot of ropes with her to practice her
knots, you know), but when she saw the bag, and thought she saw things
like Mrs. Johnston's wash, why, of course, she just tried to get it."
"And I did, too," insisted Grace, "I dragged it all the way to the big
rock. Then we heard some one coming, but I held fast, I never lost it
until the bag got stuck behind the rock. I wanted so much to get poor
Mrs. Johnston's wash," she lamented.
"Well, shall we write the letter?" Cleo followed up.
"I have to say I am afraid to go in the woods now," admitted Grace.
"Suppose he should capture us all!"
"We could make some excuse to bring a lot of girls along," Madeline
suggested. "He couldn't capture a whole troop."
"Wouldn't it be better to get some big strong boy to fetch the letter
out there for us?" proposed the practical Cleo.
"Whom could we trust?" Grace asked.
"I wouldn't depend on brothers. They are too tricky. But how about Hal
Crane? He is always interested in our troop doings, and besides he's a
good scout himself. I think I would ask him," Cleo determined.
"All right," agreed Grace, "and Cleo dear," with her arms around the
girl at the end of the bench, "won't you be a darling and write the
letter?"
"And get lassoed?" laughed her chum. "Well, I don't mind. I think he
must be a very nice man, and maybe I shall adopt him for my hero."
"You may. I would be very glad to get rid of him," Grace confessed. "I
was so worried all this time, and I couldn't get a chance to tell you a
word about it."
"And I can imagine every rope you saw you just imagined was coming your
way," teased Cleo.
"Just about. But say, girls, another thing. Did you see that pretty
girl who came in last night with the lieutenant from Franklin?"
"Oh, yes, the pretty blonde with the blue crocheted tam, I saw her. I
guess everyone did," Madaline replied.
"Well, she was so pretty I couldn't help watching her, and I am sure
she acted awfully nervous when the flowers were sent up to Margaret."
"She went out directly the ushers took up the bouquet," Madaline added.
"And never came back for the ice cream," went on Grace. "Well, what I
wanted to say is, I have seen that pretty girl before and I sort of
think she was the one who used to be with the dark-eyed girl they say
ran away."
"Why, she came with Lieutenant Cosgrove, and surely wouldn't be a
companion to a runaway mill girl!" protested Madaline.
"You forget, newly second class, that we are taking in the mill girls
in our troop, and are all pledged to do our best to help them," Grace
declared. "I know more than one very nice girl in Fluffdown. Daddy is
one of the superintendents there."
"Yes, of course," Cleo acquiesced. "And my daddy is in charge of the
main office."
"I am sure we should be interested in that line, and our scouting is so
practical. I understand Lieutenant Lindsley is going to call a special
meeting of True Tred to make definite plans. Some of our girls need
education in social latitude, quite as much as do the mill girls, she
told us last night, and, judging from the way Hattie Thompson laughed
when a mill girl slipped in the mud the other day, I think some of the
girls need a special course in common politeness," said Madaline.
"There come Ben's boys," Grace announced. "Let's go out on the lawn and
have a game of 'Heel and Toe.'"
"I can't, Grace. I have some shopping to do for mamma, and we have been
talking nearly an hour," Cleo declared, glancing at her wrist watch.
"You stay, Madaline. Don't go because I have to."
"I really must go," Madaline also insisted. "But be sure, Grace, that
Cleo understands all about the letter," she added.
"I will write it and call a meeting of this committee to consider it,"
proposed Cleo. "Isn't it lovely and exciting?"
"You may think so, but I am glad I no longer have to lug that secret
around all alone," said Grace, as the girls were preparing to leave.
"Almost as heavy as Mrs. Johnston's wash," teased Madaline. "Well,
good-bye, Grace. We will do all we can to find--you know."
Benny was almost close enough to hear the parting words, but in his
boyish head, chuck full of sports and frolics, he had little room for
girls' secrets, and even the knowledge thrust upon him by Grace in her
trip to the woods had long ago gone the way of his lost game of "Bear
in the Pit." Boys have a wonderful way of forgetting failures, and it
is that trait which later entitles them to the claims of being good
sports, using the title "sport" in its best and most vigorous
application.
"Well, that's over, thank goodness!" breathed Grace, referring to her
"confession," as she smilingly turned to her piano practice, a duty
indifferently done since her encounter with the writer of the
mysterious letter.