A DIVERSION NOBLY EARNED
Ted's pleasure, shown when Nora's transformation was revealed to her in
a dripping little "pond lily" on the edge of Mirror Lake, was not to be
compared with Jerry's joys when he first beheld his Bobbs in the Girl
Scout uniform. They were waiting for Nora when she returned at lunch
time.
"Pretty kipper, nifty, all right and no kiddin'." These were some of the
exclamations he gave vent to.
"But I thought you didn't like little girls in anything but skirts," Ted
reminded him.
"I didn't but I do," he replied Jerry-like. "Now what do you say Bobbie,
to a try at horse back ridin'?" He always dropped his g's when perfectly
happy.
"I'd like to try it," admitted Nora proudly. She might not have realized
it but the trim little service costume had already emancipated her. She
was no longer the creature of catalogued toilet accessories, "send no
money" and "we guarantee money's worth or money back," etc. The new Nora
was like a butterfly leaving its cocoon--although the drying process had
been facilitated by the loan of a new blouse and bloomers from the
Chickadees' wardrobe.
Vita came out to announce lunch and she stood dumbfounded. Vita was not
Americanized to the point of diplomacy.
"You lose your good clothes? Those t'ings not yours?" she asked blandly.
"I have one like this," replied Nora. She did know how to respond to
interference, and had not yet quite forgiven Vita for the attic episode.
"Don't you like it, Vita?" asked Jerry, his brown eyes twinkling. "We
were thinking of getting you one like it--for your tramps through the
woods, you know."
The Italian woman scowled. She lacked a sense of humor as well as some
other details of Americanization.
"Don't tease her, Jerry," Ted ordered. "He is only fooling, Vita," she
assured the perplexed maid, while visions of the fat woman in a jaunty
little Scout uniform filtered through the brains of both Ted and Nora.
During lunch time conversation ran to the important occurrence of the
morning, but Ted did not know all about the ducking in the Lake, and
since Betta had cautioned Nora to keep secrets and if necessary to make
them, it seemed unwise to tell every single detail: thus Nora reasoned.
So it happened neither Ted nor Jerry knew whether the first swim was
intentional or accidental, and both respected the "secrets of the
order," as Jerry put it.
"The girls are coming over this afternoon with a manual," the candidate
said as tea was finished, "and then I'll have to do some studying."
"I see where Cap and I will have to paddle our own canoe hereafter,"
lamented Jerry. "That's just the way with you girls. I get you all broke
in and you race off and join up with the Indians. Well," he sighed
deeply, "I suppose Ted and I and Cap will have to go on our picnics
alone, in spite of all our plans."
"Oh, Cousin Jerry! Did you have a picnic planned!" eagerly asked Nora,
leaving her place at the table to join Jerry on the big couch.
"I did but I haven't," he replied, with pretended disappointment. "What
good are picnics for Girl Scouts? They want big game with real guns and
elephant meat for supper," he finished pompously.
"Oh, Cousin Jerry!" pouted Nora. "If you really had a picnic planned
couldn't we have it, and couldn't I invite my Scout friends?"
"'Course you could, Kitten," Jerry gave in. "I'll fix up the finest
little picnic those Scouts ever heard tell of. Just you wait and see."
"But we are going to celebrate privately this evening, Nora," Ted added.
"How would you like to go to a picture play?"
"Oh, I'd love it, of course. I do so love motion pictures, and the
Misses Baily are so fussy about letting any of us go."
"I'll bet," agreed Jerry. "Want you to see Mother Goose and Little Jack
Horner----"
"Both of which are each," interrupted Ted. "Guess you had better read up
your nursery rhymes, Jerry."
"Well, I didn't take your college course, Theodora, but I went to Sunday
School a lot--had to," he admitted, shamelessly.
"Then, it's all settled for this evening," continued Ted, quite as if
there had been no break in the conversation. "We will ride into Lenox
and see the 'movies.' I know it's a good picture this week and it isn't
Mother Goose either."
"Glad of that. I hate the old lady myself," scoffed Jerry. "This
afternoon I must go out to moorlands, Ted," he said next, seriously.
"Suppose you and Nora take the day off and loaf? You did a lot of hard
work this morning----"
"But I want to finish pegging off the west end," Ted interrupted.
"Oh, could I help you, Cousin Ted?" begged Nora. "I would just love to
do some real surveying."
"And I would love to have you, certainly. We will rest for one full
hour, then I'll let you carry the chains and drops, and off we go to the
West End. How's that?"
"Lovely. Will Cap come?"
"Sartin sure," declared Jerry. "I never let the youngsters go out on
location without the big dog, do I Cap?"
Cap brushed his plumy tail against Jerry's elbow and made eyes at his
master, agreeing with everything he said, as usual.
Later, when the hour's rest had been taken, Nora and Cousin Ted made
their way to the grounds that were to be surveyed. Nora carried the
"chain" which she wanted to call a tape line until Ted explained that
carpenters had tape lines and surveyors used "chains," and the term
really meant an exact land measurement. The heavy instruments were
already in position, and when the work of measuring the land with her
eye, as Nora declared the process to be, was actually begun, the
apprentice was quite fascinated.
"Now, show me the cobweb," she insisted as Ted adjusted the delicate eye
piece.
"There. Do you see that mark outside the little drop of alcohol?" asked
Ted.
"The very small line like that on Miss Baily's thermometer?"
"Yes, the line that frames the drop," explained Ted, "that's the finest
substance we can get, and it's cobweb."
Nora peered through the telescope. She was seeing a drop of alcohol
shift from level to level as Ted moved the transit, but she was thinking
of the night she discovered the cobwebs in the attic. Somehow attic
fancies clung to her, tenaciously, and had she been at all superstitious
she surely would have called the attic unlucky. Just see the trouble
that Fauntleroy acting got her into.
"It wouldn't take many webs to make such tiny marks," she said finally,
as Ted moved off to "spot a tree." "I guess I won't have to gather many
for Cousin Jerry for that little marking."
Ted had moved off and with her small hatchet was hacking a piece out of
the bark of a tree--spotting it, as she termed it. Then she returned to
the telescope and sought the level.
"What's the little weight on the string?" Nora next asked.
"Oh, that's our plumb-bob," replied the surveyor. "Bob shows us just
when a line is straight. Now watch."
Over a peg in the ground Ted swung the heavy little pendulum, first to
right then to the left, and so on until it fell directly on the mark.
"Now see, that is plumb," said Ted.
Nora gazed intently at the drop. "Everything has to be just exactly,
hasn't it?" she queried, wondering why. "First, you strain your alcohol
with cobwebs, then you drop your bob on the little peg straight as the
string----"
"That is just where we get the expression from," her companion assured
her. "Nothing can be straighter."
"And how do you get the mark on the tree?"
"Look through the glass again."
So the first lesson in surveying went on. It was fascinating to Nora,
and when Ted decided enough land had been "chained off" Nora wanted to
mark a few trees for her own use.
"Couldn't I chop a nick in this one? It is so beautiful, and when we
come another day I can add another nick--just like a calendar."
Mrs. Manton readily agreed, so long as Nora did not use a mark that
might confuse the surveyors; and so interesting was the work, time flew
and the afternoon was soon waning.
While in the woods more than once Nora had reason to be thankful for her
practical Scout uniform, for she climbed trees, sought wild grapes from
high limbs, gathered wild columbine and enjoyed the wildwoods as only a
novice can. Birds scarcely flew from the path, and she marvelled they
were so tame, but Ted explained they had no cause for fear, as the woods
were their own and danger would be a new experience to them.
When finally Cap came back from his rambles and it was decided that no
more surveying nor "play-veying" should be indulged in, instruments were
gathered again, and reluctantly Nora followed Mrs. Manton out into the
path, newly beaten down by those who had been following spots, bobs,
cobwebs, chains, telescopes, compasses, transits and all the other
skilled implements used.
"Are you really a surveyor?" she asked Ted, just wondering what she
would call herself in Barbara's letter.
"Yes, that or a civil engineer," replied Ted. "That is really what I
studied in the famous college course Jerry is always teasing about."
"It is sort of artist work, isn't it?"
"A wonderful sort. Just see what good times I have out among birds,
flowers, wildwoods, and the whole clean, untamed world," said Theodora
Manton. "Some women may like indoors, but give me the woods and the
fields and all of this," she finished, sweeping her free brown hand
before her with a gesture that encompassed glorious creation.
Nora pondered. How many worlds were there after all? How different this
was from that which she knew at school? Would she ever enjoy the other
now, after all this? She glanced at her scratched hands and smiled. What
manicuring would erase those, and yet how precious they would seem when
Cousin Jerry would hear what she had done to help with his wonderful
surveying?
"And we must fix up and look pretty for tonight," said her companion, as
if reading Nora's thoughts. "I so seldom want to go out evenings I
really have to think what to wear."
"Do we dress up?" queried Nora.
"A little, that is we don't wear these," indicating the khaki. "But all
the Lenox folks are professionals in one line or the other, and you know
dear, they always claim a social code of their own."
Nora was not positive she entirely understood, but she guessed that
professionals, if they were anything like her Cousin Ted, would wear
just such clothes as they liked best and felt most comfortable in, and
she wondered how such would look in a theatre.
"Another rest, then an early dinner and we'll be off," announced Mrs.
Manton when they reached the Nest. "Nora darling, you have made me very
happy today," the brown eyes embraced Nora while the hands were still
burdened with instruments. "I will write at once to your mother and ask
her----"
But a shout of Jerry's interrupted the most interesting clause.