Jessie Norwood was not tireless. It seemed to her as though her right
arm would drop off, she pressed the key of the wireless instrument so
frequently. They had written out a brief call of distress, and finally
she got it by heart so that Amy did not have to read her the dots and
dashes.
But it was a slow process and they had no way of learning if the message
was caught and understood by any operator, either ashore or on board a
vessel. Hour after hour went slowly by. The _Marigold_ was sinking. The
pumps could not keep up with the incoming water; the fuel was almost
exhausted and the engines scarcely turned over; the buffeting seas
threatened the craft every minute.
Dr. Stanley remained outwardly cheerful. Darry and the others took heart
from the clergyman's words.
"Tell you what," said Burd. "If we are wrecked on a desert island I
shall be glad to have the doctor along. He'd have cheered up old
Robinson Crusoe."
As the evening waned and the sea continued to pound the hull of the
laboring yacht the older people aboard, at least, grew more anxious. The
young folks in the radio room chattered briskly, although Jessie called
them to account once in a while because they made so much noise she
could not be sure that she was sending correctly.
Darry tried to relieve her at the key, but he confessed that he "made a
mess of it." The radio girls had spent more time and effort in learning
to handle the wireless than the collegians--both Darry and Burd
acknowledged it.
"These are some girls!" Darry said, admiringly.
"You spoil 'em," complained Burd Ailing. "Want to be careful what you
say to them."
"Oh, if anybody can stand a little praise it is Jess and I," declared
Amy, sighing with weariness.
Nobody cared to turn in. The situation was too uncertain. The boys could
be with the girls only occasionally, for they had to take their turn at
the pumps. It had come to pass that nothing but steady pumping kept the
yacht from sinking. They were all thankful that the wind decreased and
the waves grew less boisterous.
Towards midnight it was quite calm, only the swells lifted the
water-logged yacht in a rhythmic motion that finally became unpleasant.
Nell was ill, below; but the others remained on deck and managed to
weather the nauseating effects of the heaving sea.
Meanwhile, as often as she could, Jessie Norwood sent out into the air
the cry for assistance. She sent it addressed to "Station Island," for
she did not know that each wireless station had a code signal--a
combination of letters. But she knew there was but one Station Island
off the coast.
The clapperty-clap, clapperty-clap of the pumps rasped their nerves at
last until, as Amy declared, they needed to scream! When the sound
stopped for the minute while pump-crews were changed, it was a relief.
And finally the spark of the wireless began to skip and fall dead. Good
reason! The storage batteries, although very good ones, were beginning
to fail. Before daybreak it was impossible to use the sender any more.
Somehow this fact was more depressing than anything that had previously
happened. They could only hope, in any event, that their message had
been heard and understood; but now even this sad attempt was halted.
Jessie was really too tired to sleep. She and Amy did not go below for
long. They changed their clothes and came on deck again and were very
glad of the hot cup of coffee Dr. Stanley brought them from the galley.
The cook had been set to work on one of the pump crews.
The girls sat in the deck chairs and stared off across the rolling gray
waters. There was no sign of any other vessel just then, but a dim rose
color at the sea line showed where the sun would come up after a time.
"But a fog is blowing up from the south, too," said Amy. "See that
cloud, Jess? My dear! Did you ever expect that we would be sitting here
on Darry's yacht waiting for it to sink under us?"
"How can you!" exclaimed Jessie, aghast.
"Well, that is practically what we are doing," replied her chum. "Thank
goodness I have had this cup of coffee, anyway. It braces me----"
"Even for drowning?" asked Jessie. "Oh! What is that, Amy?"
"It's a boat! It's a boat! Ship ahoy!" shrieked Amy, jumping up and
dancing about, dropping the cup and saucer to smash upon the deck.
"It's a steamboat!" cried Darry Drew, from the deck above.
"Head for it if you can, Bob!" commanded Skipper Pandrick to the
helmsman.
But before they could see what kind of craft the other was, the fog
surrounded them. It wrapped the _Marigold_ around in a thick mantle.
They could not see ten yards from her rail.
"We don't even know if she is looking for us!" exclaimed Dr. Stanley.
"That is too bad--too bad."
"Whistle for it," urged Amy. "Can't we?"
"If we use the little steam left for the whistle, we will have to shut
down the engines," declared Darry.
"This is a fine yacht--I don't think!" scoffed Burd Alling. "And none of
you knows a thing about rescuing this boat and crew but me. Watch me
save the yacht."
He marched forward and began to work the foot-power foghorn vigorously.
Its mournful note (not unlike a cow's lowing, as Jessie had said)
reverberated through the fog. The sound must have carried miles upon
miles.
But it was nearly an hour before they heard any reply. Then the hoarse,
brief blast of a tug whistle came to their ears.
"_Marigold_, ahoy!" shouted a well-known voice across the heaving sea.
"Daddy!" screamed Jessie, springing up and dropping _her_ cup and
saucer, likewise to utter ruin. "It's Daddy Norwood!"
The big tug wallowed nearer. She carried wireless, too, and the
_Marigold's_ company believed, at once, that Jessie's message had been
received aboard the _Pocahontas_.
"But--then--how did Daddy Norwood come aboard of her?" Jessie demanded.
This was not explained until later when the six passengers were taken
aboard the tug and hawsers were passed from the sinking yacht to the
very efficient _Pocahontas_.
"And a pretty penny it will cost, so the skipper says, to get her towed
to port," Darry complained.
"Say!" ejaculated Burd, "suppose she didn't find us at all and we were
paddling around in that boat and on the life raft? _That_ would take the
permanent wave out of your hair, old grouch!"
The girls, however, and Dr. Stanley as well, begged Mr. Norwood to
explain how he had come in search of the _Marigold_ and had arrived so
opportunely.
"Nothing easier," said the lawyer. "When the operator at the lighthouse
station got your message----"
"Oh, bully, Jess! You did it!" cried Amy, breaking in.
"Did you send that message, Jessie?" asked her father. "Well, I am proud
of you. The operator came to the house and told me. Although his partner
was sending the news of your predicament broadcast over the sea, he told
me of the tug lying behind the island, and that it could be chartered.
"So," explained Mr. Norwood, "I left Drew to fortify the women--and
little Henrietta--and went right over and was rowed out to the
_Pocahontas_ by an old fisherman who said he knew you girls. I believe
he pronounced you 'cleaners,' if you know what that means," laughed the
lawyer.
"Henrietta, by the way, was doing incantations of some sort over the
wind and weather when I left the bungalow. She said 'Spotted Snake'
could bring you all safe home."
"Bless her heart!" exclaimed Jessie.
That afternoon when the tug worked her way carefully into the dock near
the bungalow colony on Station Island, Henrietta was the first person
the returned wanderers saw on the shore to greet them. She was dancing
up and down and screaming something that Jessie and Amy did not catch
until they came off the gangplank. Then they made the incantation out to
be:
"That Ringold one can't have my island--so now! The court says so, and
Mr. Drew says so, too. He just got it off the telephone and he told me.
It's my island--so there!"
"Why, how glad I am for you, dear!" cried Jessie, running to hug the
excited little girl.
"Come ashore! Come ashore! All of you!" cried Henrietta, with a wide
gesture. "I invite all of you. This is my island, not that Ringold's.
You can come on it and do anything you like!"
"Why, Henrietta!" murmured Jessie, as the other listeners broke into
laughter. "You must not talk like that. I am glad the courts have given
you your father's property. But remember, there are other people who
have rights, too."
"Say! That Ringold one--and that Moon one--haven't any prop'ty on this
island, have they?" Henrietta demanded.
"No."
"Then that's all right," said the little girl with satisfaction. "I'll
be good, Miss Jessie; oh, I'll be good!" and she hugged her friend
again.
"And don't call them 'that Ringold one' and 'that Moon one,' Henrietta.
That is not pretty nor polite," admonished Jessie.
"All right, if you say so, Miss Jessie. What you say goes with me. See?"
It took some time, after they were at home, for everything to be talked
over and all the mystery of the radio message to be cleared up. The
interested operator from the lighthouse came over to congratulate Jessie
on what she had done. After all, aside from the girl's addressing the
station by name, the message had not been hard to understand. And
considering the faulty construction of the yacht's wireless and the
weakness of her batteries, Jessie had done very well indeed.
The young people, of course, would have much to talk about regarding the
adventure for days to come. Especially Darry. When he learned what he
would have to pay for the towing in of the yacht and what it would cost
to put in proper engines and calk and paint the hull, he was aghast and
began to figure industriously.
"Learning something, aren't you, Son?" chuckled Mr. Drew. "Your Uncle
Will pretty near went broke keeping up the _Marigold_. But I will help
you, for I am getting rather fond of the old craft, too."
"We all ought to help," said Mr. Norwood. "I sha'n't want you to scrap
the boat, Darry, my boy. I like to think that it was my Jessie saved her
from sinking--and saved you all. To my mind radio is a great
thing--something more than a toy even for these boys and girls."
"Quite true," Mr. Drew agreed. "When your Jessie and my Amy first strung
those wires at Roselawn I thought they were well over it if they didn't
break their limbs before they got it finished. When we get back home I
think Darry and I would better put up aerials and have a house-set, too.
What say, Darry?"
"I'm with you, Father," agreed the young collegian. "But I won't agree
to rival Jess and Amy as radio experts. For those two girls take the
palm."
THE END
PEGGY STEWART SERIES
By GABRIELLE E. JACKSON
Peggy Stewart at Home
Peggy Stewart at School
Peggy, Polly, Rosalie, Marjorie, Natalie, Isabel, Stella and
Juno--girls all of high spirits make this Peggy Stewart series one of
entrancing interest. Their friendship, formed in a fashionable
eastern school, they spend happy years crowded with gay social
affairs. The background for these delightful stories is furnished by
Annapolis with its naval academy and an aristocratic southern
estate.
The Goldsmith Publishing Co.
NEW YORK, N. Y.
CLASSIC SERIES
Heidi
By Johanna Spyri
Treasure Island
By Robert Louis Stevenson
Hans Brinker
By Mary Mapes Dodge
Gulliver's Travels
By Jonathan Swift
Alice in Wonderland
By Lewis Carroll
Boys and girls the world over worship these "Classics" of all times,
and no youth is complete without their imagination-stirring
influence. They are the time-tested favorites loved by generations
of young people.
The Goldsmith Publishing Co.
NEW YORK, N. Y.