IN THE DUSK
The girls had crept closer and were near enough to hear what the men
said.
The latter seemed to be on the far side of the boathouse. They had
evidently neither seen nor heard the girls.
"I tell you, Jim, it was a slick job," came the low, gruff voice of one
of the men.
"They _are_ the thieves!" whispered Sadie, and tugged at the arm
that was still in Jo's grasp.
"Oh, hush!" cried the latter. "Listen!"
"It sure was," responded a second voice, lighter in timbre and less
guarded, as though the speaker were a younger man than his companion.
"It was so well done that Miss Romaine thinks it the work of some
mischievous girls."
Both men laughed and the girls looked at each other inquiringly.
"That voice doesn't sound like a thief's voice to me," remarked Nan.
"Listen!" cried Jo again.
"The crooks are slick ones and they're probably responsible for some
other small robberies in town," came the voice of the first speaker.
"But we'll find 'em yet, you bet!"
"Sure--with Old Hawkeye on the job!" responded the younger voice in a
chaffing way. "Well, we might as well go up to the Hall and report on
what we've found."
"You mean what we haven't found!" retorted the other voice disgustedly.
The girls shrank back against the boathouse as two shadows detached
themselves from the farther side of it and went off in the direction of
the Hall.
Jessie began to giggle, and her merriment was contagious.
"Of all the idiots, we are the worst!" laughed Jo. "They are detectives
or policemen or something or other on that order, and we took them for
burglars!"
"That was the sheriff from Laurelton and his helper," Gladys explained.
"My father knows the sheriff. His name is Ebenezer Crabb and Dad told
me once he's so stupid he wouldn't know a crook if he saw one."
"That looks fine for our chance of catching the thieves," remarked
Sadie, as they started toward the Hall again.
"Meanwhile everybody in the school is suspected of playing practical
jokes," said Doris with a discontented shrug of her shoulders. "I
declare, I'm beginning to feel guilty about it myself!"
"Anyway, there's one bit of luck for us," remarked Nan. "And that is
that we didn't get here until after the robbery was committed."
"Yes," said Jo, looking very innocent. "We, at least, are above
suspicion!"
Tired as they were, the three chums were so fascinated with their new
surroundings and their new friends that the preliminary bell for "all
lights out" found them still unwilling to go to their room.
"To-morrow's Sunday so we shall be expected to go to church in the
morning," said Jessie, as they lingered in the hall for a last word.
"But in the afternoon after dinner we'll show you all about the place."
"I want to see the tennis courts. _Don't_ forget the tennis
courts," begged Nan.
"We won't forget the tennis courts," their new friends laughed, and
with a last gay wave of the hand went off toward their own rooms.
The three girl chums were so full of the crowding experience of
the day that they had expected to stay up for the best part of the
night--surreptitiously of course and ready to jump into bed at the
first sound in the corridor--discussing them.
But they had counted without the comfortable beds at Laurel Hall and
their own complete exhaustion. Three heads had scarcely touched three
pillows before three pairs of eyes closed in dreamless sleep.
That was the end of the first day at Laurel Hall.
After that several days flew by in rapid succession, each so crowded
with pleasant experiences that the girls scarcely noticed their going.
Long letters were written home, fairly bulging with news. Jo started
something which interested Sadie and was heartily approved by Nan.
This was a diary--or, as Jo preferred to call it, a journal in which
she recorded daily the most interesting doings of that day. Jo could
write amusingly. Her wit always sparkled more on paper than in speech.
The journal that she prepared for that first week was so funny when
read aloud to a roomful of girls that she was unanimously acclaimed a
"coming literary light."
"We have been harboring a genius in our midst," Gladys Holt declaimed
with full dramatic effect. "I'm going to speak to Gerry Middleton about
you, and if she doesn't get you a job on the _Pied Piper_ she
hasn't as much sense as they give her credit for."
Jo giggled, but looked pleased just the same. Geraldine--familiarly
known as Gerry--Middleton was editor-in-chief of the school paper,
_Pied Piper_. Besides holding this exalted position, Gerry was a
senior and one of the most popular girls at Laurel Hall.
"I don't believe I could write like this for the public eye--" Jo said
modestly.
"The vulgar public," interposed Nan.
"Anyway, this is strictly for private consumption," finished Jo,
gayly tapping the journal on the fluffy head of Doris who was sitting
directly beneath her on nothing more comfortable than the floor. "I
wrote it to cheer up an invalid." She looked over intervening heads
until her eye met Nan's. "It's for your Aunt Emma, Nan. I thought she
might like it."
"Say, Jo, that's a bully scheme!" Nan was radiant. "It will be the best
tonic in the world for her!"
So it happened that the new friends of the chums from Woodford came
to hear about Nan's invalid aunt. Being kind-hearted girls, they took
a genuine interest in the unfortunate woman. And, knowing of Jo's
"journal," they saved up scraps of interesting or funny happenings of
the day and brought them to lay in the lap of the "literary light."
Miss Emma wrote back cheerfully and affectionately, and her genuine
and enthusiastic appreciation of the journal spurred Jo on to fresh
efforts.
Meanwhile, the girl chums were becoming well accustomed to the pleasant
routine of classes and recreation at Laurel Hall. On Sundays most of
the girls put on their best frocks and went in automobiles to Laurelton
and church.
This was both pleasant and sad to Jo, who thought more of her parents'
troubles on Sundays than on other days--perhaps because then she had
more time to think.
She gathered from her mother's letters--which arrived far more
regularly and voluminously than the brief and hastily scrawled missives
of her father--that nothing had as yet been heard of Andrew Simmer.
"Your father is striving frantically to save something from the
wreck," wrote Mrs. Morley. "If anybody could do it, he will, you
may be sure, for his energy and courage are remarkable. He is a
father to be proud of, Jo, but I sometimes wonder if his health
will bear the strain."
Portions like this from her mother's letters repeated themselves over
and over again while Jo attended church. She would be overwhelmed with
a great melancholy and accuse herself, illogically enough, for having
deserted her parents in their hour of need.
"It is wicked of me to be living here at Laurel Hall, surrounded by
all sorts of comforts, luxuries, almost, while they are struggling at
home. I'm going home! I'm going home to-morrow!"
But with to-morrow would come a saner mood, Jo realizing that she would
only increase the worries of those at home by yielding to her impulse.
She could help them more by staying where she was.
The members of the faculty at Laurel Hall were almost all liked by the
girls. If there was an exception to this rule it was Miss Tully, the
English teacher. It was rumored that Miss Tully was a snob, that she
favored Kate Speed and Kate's chum Lottie Sparks because they were by
far the richest girls in Laurel Hall.
"Anyway, she listens to everything those girls say when they come
running with tales about the others," Doris Maybel said, with a shake
of her curly head. "And if you notice, she generally decides in their
favor. You just watch out and see if it isn't so!"
It was not long before the girls had an opportunity to test the truth
of this statement.
By the end of the first week at Laurel Hall the three chums were well
established in classes. They enjoyed their studies and liked their
teachers--with that one exception.
Laurel Hall had been built originally by a wealthy Englishman. In this
summer home he had copied as closely as possible the architecture of
feudal England. Except that it was built of wood instead of stone,
Laurel Hall might have been a miniature castle out of a story book.
Having built this ostentatious home for himself, the Englishman was
called back to his native country and was forced to sell his property
at a sacrifice. Miss Romaine, looking for just such a place at the
time, had unhesitatingly closed the deal that was most satisfactory to
both parties.
Of course all this had happened years before the three chums were ready
for school, but Laurel Hall remained substantially as it was when the
sale took place.
One entered a great square hall from which a broad stairway ascended
to a gallery above. Numerous rooms opened from this gallery and formed
the dormitories of the students. There was a third floor, but only a
few rooms were finished off here, and they were mostly occupied by
servants. There was a great open attic also, and from this ran tiny
fascinating stairways--scarcely more than ladders--ascending into
turrets, and tower rooms from which one could gain a view of the
countryside.
On the first floor were the classrooms, a large drawing, and a
reception room, the dining hall already described and the rooms
occupied by members of the faculty. The kitchen, presided over by a
Negro cook named Nora, had been built on later and never seemed quite
in keeping with the rest of the place. The girls liked it, however,
as Nora often slipped them handfuls of fresh cookies out of the side
door and never objected to making up picnic lunches whenever they were
required. The kitchen was, the students thought, the pleasantest and
most homelike place at Laurel Hall.
Now, for the members of the faculty.
Miss Travers, the teacher of mathematics, a slight energetic woman with
an intellectual face, was well on in her fifties, yet carried with her
a heart that was eternally young and in complete sympathy with the
moods and caprices of her young charges.
The girls loved her, and, in lieu of mother just then, came to her with
their troubles and problems, always sure of complete understanding and
kindly guidance.
While the girls had a great affection for Miss Romaine, who was always
pleasant and gracious and rigidly just, they could not approach her
as they did Miss Travers, for she seemed to stand aloof from them
surrounded by the wall of her reserve.
Then there was absent-minded Miss Ridley, the teacher of history.
Except when teaching this subject dear to her heart, Miss Ridley seemed
to dwell on a strange and infinitely remote planet all her own. She
could never remember names, and the girls soon learned that a culprit
coming unprepared to one of Miss Ridley's classes, could, by gazing
always demurely at her desk, avoid detection.
For Miss Ridley when she asked a question would invariably point at any
one who happened to be looking in her direction and snap out crisply,
"_You_ tell me!"
Those that did not look in Miss Ridley's direction were seldom called
upon for recitation, since that lady was loath to admit that she could
not remember names.
"Another good way is to get her started talking history," one of these
knowing young ones giggled after a particularly absent-minded session
with Miss Ridley. "She'll talk the period through and forget at the end
of it that she has not called on a single person for recitation!"
Nevertheless, the girls learned history in Miss Ridley's class. Perhaps
it was because the teacher herself was so passionately interested in
the subject that she got her enthusiasm across to her students. At any
rate, her lectures, always started by some innocent, demure-looking
girl with a guilty secret up her sleeve, were more informative and
created a more lasting impression than any amount of class recitation
could have done.
There were the teachers of languages too--Miss Drew whom, the girls
declared, thought and prayed in Latin and Greek and dwelt in spirit
among the early Hellenes, who never tired of telling the girls about
Pelasgic Greece and the marvelous Tyrinthian wall.
"Imagine a wall fifty feet high and thirty feet thick!" interpolated
a wide-eyed girl with an irreverent giggle. "Imagine having to scale
_that_ to get out to a party!"
There was the sweet-faced French teacher, a widow by the name of
Briais, and Miss Handel, the portly German instructress. The music
teacher, Miss Blitz, who wore her hair in a wild bob and was really an
exceptional performer on the piano, provided a great deal of innocent
amusement for her pupils.
The most youthful of all the members of the faculty at Laurel Hall was
Miss Talley, physical culture teacher. She was fresh from college,
hardly more than a girl, and she led her pupils through gymnastic
performances at a stiff pace that they sometimes found rather hard to
match.
They liked her youth and energy, however, and the fact that she
encouraged athletics.
It was Miss Talley who watched the girls at tennis and gave them
points--she played a smashing game herself. It was Miss Talley who
arranged swimming and rowing races among the girls of the different
grades and herself was always ready to out-row or out-swim the best of
them.
It was on the tennis courts that the girls from Woodford had their
first run-in with Kate Speed's crony, the snappy Lottie Sparks.
"I'll say that girl fits her name," Nan had remarked after meeting
Lottie on that first Monday of the opening of school. "Lottie Sparks!
It ought to be 'Lottie Spitfire.' I bet that girl goes off like a load
of dynamite at the slightest provocation."
The words proved prophetic. A few days later the chums were given a
sample of Lottie Sparks' temper that they did not very easily forget.
It happened on the tennis courts. For three days there had been a
maddening drizzle of rain, making the courts too wet for tennis
practice. The lake, too, was uninviting, and Jo and Sadie, eager to try
some work at the oars, gave up all thought of boating until the weather
should take a turn for the better.
At last on the fourth day the sun came out, feebly, to be sure, but
welcomed joyfully by the watching girls.
After lessons they ran pellmell for the gymnasium where their rackets
and balls were kept in individual lockers.
"The court will be pretty wet," Nan said, as she drew her racket from
its case.
"We may need skid chains," Sadie agreed, with a chuckle. "But who
cares? We can bat the ball about a bit, anyway."
The three chums of Woodford were the first to reach the wet and
slippery tennis courts.
Sadie was joyfully trying out her rather uncertain service against
Nan's smashing backhand when Kate Speed and Lottie Sparks came along,
school books in hand.
They stopped to watch the practice, and perhaps it was this unfriendly
inspection that flustered Sadie.
At any rate, she sent the ball spinning across the net in a ludicrously
wild serve. It bounded from the muddy ground and caught Lottie Sparks
squarely on the ear!
"Oh, my goodness!" cried Sadie, in consternation. "Now, what have I
done?"