"How ridiculous!" Jessie cried. "That surely cannot mean you, Bertha."
"Hush!" begged Amy. "It's uncanny."
Again the slow voice enunciated: "Bertha Blair will come home at once.
This is serious--a serious call for Bertha Blair."
"Criminy!" shouted Monty Shannon. "I know who that is. It's Mr. Mark
Stratford."
"He is calling for you, Bertha," said Jessie. "Can it be possible?"
"Something has happened!" gasped Bertha, starting for the door of the
cottage. "Where is that child?"
"Never mind Henrietta. We will take care of her," Jessie called after
the worried girl, wishing to relieve her anxiety.
Bertha ran out of the house, and the next moment the Roselawn girls
heard the car start. Bertha was being whisked away to Stratfordtown. The
voice of Mark Stratford continued to repeat the call several times. Then
he read the weather report, as expected.
"I can tell you one thing," Jessie said eagerly to her chum and the
Shannons. "Mark Stratford does not usually give out the announcements
from that station. Now, does he, Monty?"
"No, ma'am, Miss Jessie. Only once in a while."
"Then something has happened at the Blair house, or to Mr. Blair
himself. That is why they send out this call, hoping that somebody down
here would get it and tell Bertha."
"Think! How funny it must feel to hear your name called out of the air
in that way," Amy remarked.
"Why, we had that experience ourselves," Jessie said. "Don't you
remember? Mark thanked us publicly for finding his watch."
"But that was not just like this," replied Amy. "Anyway, there is
something unsatisfactory about radio--and always will be--until we can
'talk back' as well as receive. See! If Monty had a sending set as well
as a receiving, he could have answered Mark Stratford, and told him
Bertha had heard the call and was starting home without any delay."
"I am afraid something really serious has happened," Jessie said. "Let's
go back home and call up Stratfordtown on the telephone."
"We'll take Hen along with us," agreed Amy. "You said we'd take care of
her."
This the Roselawn girls did. When they set out from Dogtown in their
canoe, Henrietta sat amidships. She was delighted to visit the Norwoods.
She had stayed over night with Jessie before.
They passed the flotilla of tubs and barrels that the Dogtown children
had set afloat. Mrs. Shannon would never see her washtubs again.
Meanwhile the Costello twins and Charlie Foley had set out to walk
around the lake and recover the big canoe from the place where it had
drifted ashore on the other side.
"They certainly are the worst young ones," commented Amy Drew. "Always
in mischief of some kind."
"There ain't much else to get into at Dogtown," said little Henrietta
soberly. "We don't have any boy scouts or girl scouts or anything like
that. They have _them_ at Stratfordtown. Mrs. Blair told me about 'em. I
guess I'll join the girl scouts and take 'em all out on my island."
Little Henrietta was still intensely excited about "her island." What
the Roselawn girls heard over the telephone when they got home again was
not encouraging. It seemed at first that Henrietta must be disappointed.
Jessie ran in to the telephone as soon as they arrived. She did not know
the number of Mr. Blair's private telephone--if he had one. But she knew
how to get in touch with Mark Stratford whether he was at his home or at
the offices of the Stratford Electric Company. She was able to speak
with the young man almost at once, and questioned him excitedly.
"Yes. I know that Bertha has got home. I took a chance to reach her at
Dogtown when I heard where she had gone," Mark Stratford said. "You know
Monty Shannon is a protégé of mine, and I have an idea he is listening
in most of the time at that set he has built."
"But what is the matter? Has Mr. Blair been hurt?"
"It is Mrs. Blair. She fell downstairs and has hurt herself severely.
Did it not ten minutes after Bertha went out. Broke her leg. She will be
in bed for weeks. I understand that they were planning to go away for
the summer," said Mark, sympathetically. "But that cannot be now. At
least, I suppose Bertha will have to remain to take care of her aunt."
"Sh! Don't tell little Hen," begged Amy Drew, when she heard this. "The
child will be heartbroken. Without Bertha and Mrs. Blair Hennie can't go
to her island."
Jessie made no audible reply to this. And she certainly had no intention
of telling Henrietta the very worst. She discussed the situation with
Momsy, and before Daddy Norwood returned from town that afternoon mother
and daughter had just about perfected a very nice plan for little
Henrietta.
"Well, you are to go to Hackle Island, Momsy," Mr. Norwood said, when he
first came in. "I have signed the agreement. You can send the people
down to make the house ready to-morrow, if you like. I understand there
will not be much to do about the place. We can all go by the end of the
week."
"You take my breath away--as usual," laughed Jessie's mother. "You are
always so prompt, Robert."
"And you will have a house full of company, I suppose?" he rejoined, but
looking at Jessie with a smile.
"We are going to have one guest you didn't expect, Daddy," rejoined his
daughter. She told him swiftly of what had happened at the Blair home in
Stratfordtown. "So that spoils it all for little Henrietta, you see,
Daddy, if we don't take her. And you know she is crazy to see what she
calls her island."
"Sure that she won't make you and Momsy crazy, Jess?" he asked, his eyes
twinkling. "That child is as lively as an eel and as noisy as a
steam-roller."
"How can you say such things, Daddy?" cried Jessie, shaking a reproving
head. "We have agreed to take her if you and the Blairs are willing. And
Momsy and I will try to teach her the things she'll need to know."
"M-mm. Well, perhaps you will have success. You have done pretty well
with me," laughed Mr. Norwood, who made believe that his wife and
daughter had "brought him up by hand." "Being guided in any way will be
a novel experience for little Hen, that is sure."
He agreed so well with his wife's and Jessie's plans, however, that he
called Mr. Blair up that evening and proposed to keep little Henrietta
and take her to Hackle, or Station, Island, while Mrs. Blair was
confined to her house. As Jessie's father, along with Mr. Drew, had
taken legal charge of Henrietta's affairs for the time being, it was
right that the orphan child should be in Mrs. Norwood's care.
"There is an almost certain chance the child is going to be very
wealthy," Mr. Norwood said seriously, to Jessie's mother. "Her education
and improvement cannot begin too soon. She is as wild as a hawk and she
needs encouragement and government both."
Henrietta took quite as a matter of course every change that came to
her. She had no particular affection for Mrs. Blair, for she had not
known her long enough. She was delighted to go to "her island" with
Jessie and her parents. As long as she got there and could survey her
domain, little Henrietta was bound to be satisfied. But Jessie knew she
would have to restrain the child in her desire to invite everybody she
knew and liked to come to the island while she was there.
The Norwood family had not even discussed how they were to travel to the
island--by what route--when Amy Drew bounded in. Jessie and Henrietta were
upstairs in Jessie's room listening to the bedtime story. A little girl
not much older than Henrietta was telling the story, and Henrietta
thought that was quite wonderful.
"I know that Bertha and you other big girls sing into the radio," the
freckle-faced child said, when it was over. "Do you suppose Mr. Blair
would let me recite into it like that?"
"What would you say?" asked Amy, laughing as her chum and the smaller
girl removed their earphones.
"Why--why," said Henrietta eagerly, "I would tell stories, too. Spotted
Snake, the Witch, used to tell stories to Billy Foley and the other
Dogtown kids to keep them quiet. And they liked 'em."
"We'll see about that when we come back from your island, Henrietta,"
said Jessie, smiling.
"And listen!" exclaimed Amy. "You remember I said I had a great idea
about our going to Hackle Island. I didn't finish telling you, Jess."
"That is right," her chum rejoined. "And no wonder, when we spied that
crew of crazy ones venturing to sea in tubs!" and Jessie laughed.
"Listen here," Amy said more seriously. "The boys have come home. I told
you they were due. The _Marigold_ is all right now. Her engines and
everything are working fine. So, why don't we take this opportunity to
see what she is like. Darry has promised us long enough."
"Oh, but we are going to Hackle Island!" cried Jessie.
"Station Island," put in Henrietta. "My island."
"Of course. That is what I mean," Amy hastened to say. "Instead of
taking the train and then the regular boat, why not get the boys to take
us all the way from the yacht club moorings to Station Island, or
whatever it is called?"
"Why, Amy, that would be fine!" cried Jessie. "Will Darry do it?"
"He will or I shall disown him as a brother," declared her chum, with
vigor.
"Let's run and see what Momsy says!" exclaimed the eager Jessie.
"We'd better go and _hear_ what she says," laughed the irrepressible
Amy. "Come on, Hen! You want to be in it. Wouldn't you like a boat ride
to your island?"
"Why, how do you suppose I was going to get there?" demanded the little
maid. "Automobiles don't run to islands--nor yet steam trains. But I hope
the boat won't leak as bad as that trough me and Charlie Foley sailed in
this morning," she added thoughtfully.