SCOUTS IN THE WOOD
“You were wise, dear, not to press the boy further. I think he had
about as much as a small boy’s head could carry, as it was.”
So spoke Dr. Hale to Barbara, late that night, after Barbara had told
him the whole story of her complicated interest in Nicky and his
family. She was sitting on the floor beside him, on the old braided
rug, her head against his knee so that he might stroke it
reassuringly.
“And you’ve forgiven me for not telling you before, Dads? You see, I
knew you wouldn’t want me to bother about such things, and I felt that
once I did get into it I would have to go through with it,” she
explained. “But, you have no idea what a bother it has been. Whew!”
She blew the word out explosively. “I feel like a Sherlock Holmes.”
“Yes, it is surprising what difficulties some poor people have to
struggle against and yet what fine characters they develop. If they
don’t get sour they are sure to remain permanently strong; sort of a
concentrated character, if you know what I mean,” her father pointed
out to her.
“Yes, I think I understand, sort of boiled down,” she answered,
laughingly.
“Exactly.” And they both laughed over the illustration.
“But you see, Dad, I’ve got to find his mother and talk to her. I
couldn’t be satisfied with so small a boy’s word on all this. Besides,
there’s her husband’s pardon. I ought to talk to her about it, don’t
you think so?”
“Yes, decidedly. Nicky is clever enough but as you say, he’s nothing
but an ignorant little boy, and it wouldn’t be right to trust too much
to him,” decided Dr. Hale.
“You see, I couldn’t possibly say another word to him tonight after
the Washington letter and the ship model and everything,” went on
Barbara seriously. “If I had so much as asked where their camp was,
I’m sure he would have run away. He seemed to hate it all, as it was.
Bashful you know, Dads,” Barbara explained.
“Yes, he would be. But I guess you’ve made him happy, just the same,”
her father assured her. “To get that letter from Washington would have
set some boys up proudly for the rest of their lives.”
“Oh, you couldn’t make Nicky proud,” Babs declared. “You see,
he’s—boiled down.” This expression had become Babs’ special joke.
When they settled down to seriousness after that, it was decided that
Babs and Cara should again visit the lighthouse and get from Captain
Quiller what directions they could in hopes of finding the camp in the
woods.
“And I’ll go along with you,” promised her father, “for a number of
reasons.”
But it was actually two days later before the all-important trip could
be made. The doctor had been called out of town, the captain had to
have time to make sure he was divulging no secret that should have
been withheld, and it took him a day to go out to the woods to see
Mrs. Marcusi, as he could only leave his post at a certain hour of the
afternoon. So Babs and Cara lived somehow, and Miss Davis was so
relieved to be assured her model was safe, she really was, as Cara
said, “quite sweet about it.”
All week long the Community House “fair,” as the exhibit was being
called by the country folks, was in progress, and as Cara predicted,
the girls’ committee got together again and worked even more
enthusiastically than at first.
It must be said in all fairness to Esther and Louise that they did all
they could to make amends for their slight to Barbara. They explained
quite frankly that their folks didn’t want them to have anything to do
with the foreigners, because, as Louise put it, “they didn’t know
anything about them.”
This was not unreasonable, Cara made Babs see that, because summer
folks have to be careful whom they associate with. Both Cara and Babs
laughed over the foolish idea that summer folks had to be more
carefully guarded than winter folks—those who lived at Sea Cosset the
year around—but Babs was too busy with other and more important
affairs to worry over such trifles.
Her heart was singing these days, because she was so expectant.
Something wonderful was about to happen. She was going to find out who
carved the beautiful wooden candlesticks, and why Nicky’s folks were
afraid of being known to strangers. This would surely satisfy her
thirst for adventure.
“I feel just as if it were the day before Christmas,” she told Cara,
“and I was waiting for Santa Claus.”
“I feel as if it were the day after Christmas,” Cara put in, “and that
he had brought me a bag of golden promises.”
So the girls flitted from their homes to the Community House, gaily
helping the ladies with the dusting and rearranging of the articles
still left to be voted upon later; and it was all good fun.
Mrs. Brownell’s table was awarded first prize, it had to be or she
would have gone to bed with nervous prostration. But it really was a
fine antique. As to quilts——
“They won’t get them all decided upon before the holidays,” Ruth
Harrison declared, “and maybe they’ll have to hold another Old Home
Week to give the prizes then.”
The smaller articles, in which class Babs’ sampler had been placed,
were to be voted upon on the very last day, Saturday, and Miss Davis
wondered about her model.
“You see,” she confided, “I expect sister home Friday, that’s tomorrow
night. And if ever I lay my eyes on that little boat again I don’t
think I’d risk taking it out of the house. Sometimes I’m just as
worried as ever——”
“I’m sure it’s safe,” Barbara told her again, for times beyond
counting, “and maybe you could get it in the contest after all,” she
cheered the little lady.
“I’d love to. It is so handsome! Well, you’ve done your best and I’m
getting more fond of you every day,” declared the dainty little Miss
Davis, with a pardonable show of affection for her little sampler
relation.
Barbara loved that feeling of relationship, however remote it was, for
she had been much alone since her Aunt Katherine moved away out West,
and there was after that no woman but the well-meaning Dora to offer
her protection. It was all well enough to be considered different from
other girls, to have her father tell her gallantly that she was almost
as good as a boy, to have boys call her a pal and a chum and flatter
her in their favorable comparisons, not a bit like other girls; but a
girl needs a woman’s sure arm around her; sometimes.
She wants to be told she just must not do things she insists upon
doing. In a word she cannot comfortably carry all her own
responsibility. And Barbara knew this well. She had tried it out and
found the way very lonely. It would be such fun now to have the
Twinnie Davises to run to. Cousins, she would call them of course.
It so happened that this was the week that Dudley Burke and Glenn
Gaynor left for camp. So much always happens in the late summer. The
night before they left the boys took all the girls out, _all_ the
girls that the girls could gather up. And they had a wonderful time,
from sodas at Hills, to movies at the Ritz, after which delightful
hours were spent upon the porch of a Monmouth hotel, where the party
too young and too informal to take part, listened to the orchestra and
watched the dancing, from the great ocean-front porches. In a few more
years they might take part in this, but just this summer Mrs. Burke
was acting as chaperon and they were glad to be allowed to look on.
Otherwise the party might not have remained so late on the wonderful
hotel porch; that is, they could not have done so but for the
all-important chaperonage.
Friday morning came at last, and they were going in search of that
camp in the woods.
“I’m so thrilled,” Cara confessed, “I can hardly breathe. I think I
have real heart disease.”
“Not exactly heart disease,” said Dr. Hale, “but curiosity illness. It
has a choking habit.”
Babs, Cara, and Dr. Hale were in Cara’s touring car, and she was
driving. The dignified doctor tried to spread himself all over the
back seat; for the two girls, of course, were together in front. They
were going to Cosmo Woods. Captain Quiller had not only given them
full and detailed directions, but he had drawn them a map of the
outlying territory.
“You could easily tell he was a sailor,” commented Barbara. “Just look
at the lines. They’re like the zone lines in an old geography.”
It wasn’t far to Cosmo Woods but it was hard to get there. After
leaving the lovely ocean boulevard they took a strip of road that
wound around the lake. Then, they went out on a back road that cut
through a farming district. There were even some hills, uncommon for
ocean territory, and when their car would reach the top of one of
these there wouldn’t be a mark of any kind to distinguish the end of
the hill from the beginning. Such a sameness, so little variety, a few
scattered houses! Assuredly the sea-shore is lovely—just at the sea’s
shore. But not inland.
“Let’s see that chart,” the doctor asked Barbara when Cara turned away
from the main road onto what might charitably be called a lane. “I
expect I’ll need a mariner’s compass, but let’s take a look at it
anyhow.”
Babs handed over the penciled paper.
“Yes, I guess this is right,” the doctor announced, after a brief
survey. “But we’ll probably soon have to get out and walk.”
“Yes, we walk from the scrub pines,” Babs said. “And see! There they
are! They’re the only pines around. These trees are everything else,
but not pines. Why don’t they call them Scrubbys?”
So presently the car had been parked in a little clearance, safely
locked, and the three scouts went on.
“If we see a camp,” said Cara, after they had decided that one way was
a path newly trodden and the other wasn’t, “perhaps Babs had better go
ahead and you and I, doctor, will sort of hang behind. They may still
be so afraid they might take to the trees.”
“Fine idea,” assented Dr. Hale, who loved the woods so thoroughly that
he seemed to care as much about a clump of ferns as about finding the
elusive Marcusis.
Through a little tunnel of wild-grape vines they managed to pass,
while the doctor led and brushed the most impertinent brambles and
vines out of the girls’ way.
Then Babs grasped Cara’s arm.
“Look!” she exclaimed. “There they are! Just look!”
“Oh, how funny!” Cara said excitedly. “Did you ever see anything—so
funny!”
They were looking at the Italians’ camp. It was made up of three old
automobiles, or parts of automobiles that could never be expected to
turn a wheel again. For the wheels were gone. But the tops were there
and in these the little family had taken refuge. Even from the
distance where the scouts had stopped little Vicky could be seen. She
was swinging gaily on a swing made of rope, hanging from a sturdy
tree; and a very good swing it was indeed, for any little girl to
enjoy.
A woman, whom Babs recognized as Nicky’s mother, was cooking something
over a camp kettle. The fire was set in a stone oven and appeared
mighty attractive to Dr. Hale; so he said.
“Not a bad camp at that,” he remarked. “And the best thing in the
world for that family. Just see how they manage. Obstacles become
useful tools in their willing hands.”
“Yes, look at the home-made tent built on to the side of that old
car,” directed Cara. “I should think it would be lovely under that.”
“I wish I could see Nicky,” whispered Babs a little anxiously. They
were behind bushes that hid them completely from any one who might be
looking out at the camp.
“There he is!” declared Cara. “Look! He’s doing something with that
old car, the one with wheels on.”
“Yes, so he is,” exclaimed Babs. “Now I’ll go over and talk to him.
You stay here a few minutes.”
“Look out for dogs,” cautioned her father. But Babs knew that the
Marcusis had no dog when she went to their place over the tracks, and
it wasn’t likely they would have one now to attract attention to their
camp in the woods.
No, they had no dogs.