A NUMBER OF THINGS
There may have been good reason for the teacher to be horrified, but how
else was the mustang to be ridden? Ann was a big girl to go tearing
through the roads and 'way into Lumberton astride a horse. Without a
saddle and curb, however, she could not otherwise have clung to him.
Just now haste was imperative. She had a picture in her mind, all the way,
of that boy lying in the snow, his face so pallid and the bloody foam upon
his lips.
In twenty-five minutes she was at the physician's gate. She flung herself
off the horse, and as she shouted her news to the doctor through the open
office window, she unbuckled the bridle-rein and made a leading strap of
it.
So, when the doctor drove out of the yard in his sleigh, she hopped in
beside him and led the heaving mustang back into the woods. Of course she
did not look ladylike at all, and not another girl at Briarwood would have
done it. But even the English teacher--who was a prude--never scolded her
for it.
Indeed, the doctor made a heroine of Ann, Old Dolliver said he never saw
her beat, and the boy, who was so sadly hurt (but who pulled through all
right in the end) almost worshipped the girl from Silver Ranch.
"And how she can ride!" the very girl who had treated Ann the meanest said
of her. "What does it matter if she isn't quite up to the average yet in
recitations? She _will_ be."
This was after the holidays, however. There was too short a time before
Belle Tingley and her friends started for Cliff Island for Ann to
particularly note the different manner in which the girls in general
treated her.
The party went on the night train. Mr. Tingley, who had some influence
with the railroad, had a special sleeper side-tracked at Lumberton for
their accommodation. This sleeper was to be attached to the train that
went through Lumberton at midnight.
Therefore they did not have to skip all the fun of the dance. This was one
of the occasions when the boys from the Seven Oaks Military Academy were
allowed to mix freely with the girls of Briarwood. And both parties
enjoyed it.
Belle's mother had arrived in good season, for she was to chaperone the
party bound for Logwood, at the head of Tallahaska Lake. She passed the
word at ten o'clock, and the girls got their hand-baggage and ran down to
the road, where Old Dolliver waited for them with his big sleigh. The boys
walked into town, so the girls were nicely settled in the car when Tom
Cameron and his chums reached the siding.
Belle Tingley's two brothers were not too old to be companions for Tom,
Bob, and Isadore Phelps. And they were all as eager for fun and
prank-playing as they could be.
Mrs. Tingley had already retired and most of the girls were in their
dressing gowns when the boys arrived. The porter was making up the boys'
berths as the latter tramped in, bringing on their clothing the first
flakes of the storm that had been threatening all the evening.
"Let the porter brush you, little boy," urged Madge, peering out between
the curtains of her section and admonishing her big brother. "If you get
cold and catch the croup I don't know what sister _will_ do! Now, be a
good child!"
"Huh!" grunted Isadore Phelps, trying to collect enough of the snow to
make a ball to throw at her. "I wonder at you, Bobbins. Why don't you make
her behave? Treatin' you like an over-grown kid."
"I'd never treat _you_ that way, Master Isadore," said Madge, sweetly.
"For you very well know that you're not grown at all!"
At that Isadore _did_ gather snow--by running out for it. He brought back
a dozen snowballs and the first thing the girls knew the missiles were
dropping over the top of the curtains into the sheltered spaces devoted to
the berths.
There _was_ a great squealing then, for some of the victims were quite
ready for bed, and the snow was cold and wet. Mrs. Tingley interfered
little with the pranks of the young folk, and Izzy was careful not to
throw any snow into _her_ compartment.
But the tease did not know when to stop. He was usually that way--as Madge
said, Izzy would drive a willing horse to death.
It was Heavy and Ann, however, who paid him back in some of his own coin.
The boys finally made their preparations for bed. Izzy paraded the length
of the car in his big robe and bed slippers, for a drink of ice water.
Before he could return, Heavy and Ann bounced out in their woolen kimonas
and seized him. By this time the train had come in, the engine had
switched to the siding, picked up their sleeper, and was now backing down
to couple on to the train again.
The two girls ran Izzy out into the vestibule, Heavy's hand over his
mouth so that he could not shout to his friends for help. The door of the
vestibule on the off side was unlocked. Ann pushed it open.
The snow was falling heavily--it was impossible to see even the fence that
bounded the railroad line on this side. The cars came together with a
slight shock and the three were thrown into a giggling, struggling heap on
the platform.
"Lemme go!" gasped Izzy.
"Sure we will!" giggled Heavy, and with a final push she sent him flying
down the steps. Then she shut the door.
She did not know that every other door on that side of the long train was
locked. Almost immediately the train began to move forward. It swept away
from the Lumberton platform, and it was fully a minute before Heavy and
Ann realized what they had done.
"Oh, oh, oh!" shrieked the plump girl, running down the aisle. "Busy Izzy
is left behind."
"Stop your joking," exclaimed Tom, peering out of his berth, which was an
upper. "He's nothing of the kind."
"He is! He is!"
"Why, he's all ready for bed," declared one of the Tingley boys. "He
wouldn't dare----"
"We threw him out!" wailed Heavy. "We didn't know the train was to start
so quickly."
"Threw him off the train?" cried Mrs. Tingley, appearing in her boudoir
cap and gown. "What kind of a menagerie am I supposed to preserve order
in----?"
"You can make bully good preserved ginger, Ma," said one of her sons, "but
you fall short when it comes to preserving _order_."
Most of the crowd were troubled over Isadore's absence. Some suggested
pulling the emergency cord and stopping the train; others were for
telegraphing back from the next station. All were talking at once, indeed,
when the rear door opened and in came the conductor, escorting the
shivering Isadore.
"Does this--this _tyke_ belong in here?" demanded the man of brass
buttons, with much emphasis.
They welcomed him loudly. The conductor shook his head. The flagman on the
end of the train had helped the boy aboard the last car as the train
started to move.
"Keep him here!" commanded the conductor. "And I've a mind to have both
doors of the car locked until we reach Logwood. Don't let me hear anything
more from you boys and girls on this journey."
He went away laughing, however, and bye and bye they quieted down. Madge
insisted upon making some hot composition, very strong, and dosing Isadore
with it. The drink probably warded off a cold. Izzy admitted to Bobbins
that a sister wasn't so bad to "have around" after all.
While they slept, the car was shunted to the sidetrack at Logwood and the
western-bound train went hooting away through the forest. It was still
snowing heavily, there were not many trains passing through the Logwood
yard, and no switching during the early part of the day. The snow
smothered other sounds.
Therefore, the party that had come to the lake for a vacation was not
astir until late. It was hunger that roused them to the realities of life
in the end. They had to dress and go to the one hotel of which the
settlement boasted for breakfast.
"Can't cross to the island on the ice, they say," Ralph Tingley ran in to
tell his mother. "Weight of the snow has broken it up. One of the men says
he'll get a punt and pole us over to Cliff Island if the snow stops so
that he can see his way."
"My! won't that be fun!" gasped Ann Hicks, who had overheard him.
She had begun to enjoy herself the minute she felt that they were in rough
country. Some of the girls wished they hadn't come. Ruth and Helen were
already outside, snowballing with the boys.
When Mrs. Tingley descended the car steps, ready to go to breakfast, her
other son appeared--a second Mercury.
"Mother, Mr. Preston is here. Says he'd like to see you."
Mr. Preston was the foreman to whom Jerry Sheming had been sent for a job.
Ruth, who overheard, remembered the man's name. Then she saw a man dressed
in Canadian knit cap, tall boots, and mackinaw, and carrying a huge
umbrella, with which he hurried forward to hold protectingly over Mrs.
Tingley's head.
"Glad to see you, ma'am," said the foreman. Ruth was passing them on her
way to the hotel when she heard something that stayed her progress. "Sorry
to trouble you. Mr. Tingley ain't coming up to-day?"
"Not until Christmas morning," replied the lady. "He cannot get away
before."
"Well, I'll have to discharge that Jerry Sheming. Too bad, too. He's a
worker, and well able to guide the boys and girls around the island--knows
it like a book."
"Why let him go, then?" asked the lady.
"Blent says he's dishonest. An' I seen him snooping around rather funny,
myself. Guess I'll have to fire him, Mis' Tingley."