A SPELL OF THE “GLUMPS”
Whizzing along the road Nat tried to decide how it would be best to break
the disappointing news to Dorothy. Of his escapade with Urania he had
fully determined not to say a word. Dorothy had enough girls to worry
about, he argued, and if she heard of this one she would form a searching
expedition, and set out at once to hunt the Gypsy who, Nat thought, was
like a human squirrel and able to take care of herself.
The return trip seemed shorter than that which took Nat out to Dalton,
and as the Fire Bird swung into the Cedars’ entrance somewhat later than
the youth expected to get back, Dorothy was at the gate awaiting to hear
news of Tavia.
“Buffalo,” announced Nat sententiously, as Dorothy came up beside the car
which jerked to a stop amid a screeching of the brake. “She went there
some time ago. She’s at Grace Barnum’s. Wait. I have the address.”
Without delaying to put the machine up, Nat produced a slip of paper upon
which he had written, at Mrs. Travers’s direction, the street and number
of Miss Barnum’s residence. He handed it to Dorothy.
“Do you think it’s all right?” asked Dorothy, looking at the directions.
“’Course it is. Everybody in Dalton is as chipper as possible. You’re the
only one who’s worrying. Now, if I were you, I’d just let up, Doro.
You’ll be down sick if you don’t.”
“Perhaps I am foolish. And I have given you a lot of trouble,” spoke up
the girl a little sadly.
“Trouble? Nothing!” exclaimed Nat. “I just like the lark. When you want
any more sleuthing done apply at headquarters. I’m the gum-shoe man for
this section,” and at that he turned his attention to the Fire Bird,
while Dorothy walked thoughtfully back to the house.
Poor Dorothy! An instinctive foreboding of danger had taken possession of
her now, and, try as she did to dispel it, an unmistakable voice seemed
to call out to her:
“Find Tavia! She needs you, Dorothy Dale!”
“Perhaps,” thought Dorothy, “she has run away and is really with some
circus troupe, as the Gypsy girl said. Or perhaps she is at some watering
place, taking part in a play—”
This last possibility was the one that Dorothy dreaded most to dwell
upon. Tavia must have loved the stage, else why did she constantly do the
things she did at school, so like a little actress, and so like a girl
“stage-struck,” as Aunt Winnie called it?
These and similar fancies floated through Dorothy’s brain hour after
hour, in spite of whatever diversion presented itself for her amusement.
The afternoon, following Nat’s trip to Dalton, Dorothy, with her
brothers, Roger and Joe, went to gather pond lilies near the waterfall.
It was a delightful day, and the sun glistened on the quiet sheet of the
mill pond, making liquid diamonds. The lilies, of which there was an
abundance, looked like carved wax that had frozen the sun’s gold in each
heart. But, somehow, Dorothy, could not work up her usual enthusiasm in
gathering the blossoms.
It was delightful to dip her hands into the cool stream and surely to
hear little Roger prattle was an inspiration, but all the while Dorothy
was thinking of crowded Buffalo, and wondering what a certain girl might
be doing there on that summer afternoon.
In the evening Major Dale and Mrs. White, taking Dorothy with them, went
for a drive along the broad boulevard that was the pride of that
exclusive summer place—North Birchland. Dorothy tried bravely to rouse
herself from her gloomy reveries but, in spite of her efforts, Mrs. White
complained that her niece was not like her usual self—“Perhaps not
feeling well,” she ventured.
“I’m ‘glumpy’ ever since I left Glenwood,” admitted Dorothy. “Not because
I want to be, nor that I am not having a most delightful time, but I
simply have the ‘glumps.’ At Glenwood they prescribe extra work for an
attack like this,” and the girl laughed at her own diagnosis.
“You certainly should dispel the ‘glumps,’” said Mrs. White. “I can’t
imagine what could produce an attack here at the Cedars, with all your
own folks around you, Dorothy, dear. I do believe you are lonely for
those impossible girls. What do you say to paying some of them a little
visit, just to break in on your holiday?”
“Really, aunty,” protested Dorothy, “I am perfectly content. What sort of
girl would I be to want to run away and leave you all after being away so
long at school? No, indeed, I’ll stay right here at the beautiful Cedars,
and I’ll try to be a better girl—to get rid at once of my spell of the
‘glumps’ as we used to call them at Glenwood.”
“But girls are girls,” insisted her aunt, “and you have no control, my
dear, over such sentiment as I imagine you are afflicted with at present.
Just plan out a little trip somewhere and, I’ll vouch for it, the visit
to some giggling Dolly Varden of a girl will do you no end of good. And
then, too, you may invite her back here with you.”
Mrs. White divined too well the reason for Dorothy’s “blue spell.” She
could see perfectly how much her niece missed the light-hearted Tavia,
and in advising her to take a little trip Mrs. White was sure Dorothy
would choose to go where her chum might be.
In this she was right, but concerning what Dorothy might do to reach
Tavia Mrs. White had no idea. She merely suggested a “little trip
somewhere,” believing Dorothy would find Tavia, either in Dalton, or
visiting some girl friend, as Dorothy had told her Tavia intended doing.
But circumstances conspired to give Dorothy the very opportunity she
longed for—she would go somewhere—anywhere—to look for her
“sister-friend”—the girl who had been to her more than friend and almost
a sister.
Ned and Nat had planned a trip to Buffalo at the beginning of their
vacation. They were to meet a number of their chums there, and do some
exploring in the neighborhood of Niagara Falls. They were to make the
journey in the Fire Bird, and when Mrs. White suggested a trip for
Dorothy it was the run to Buffalo, in the automobile, that immediately
came into the girl’s mind.
“If I only could go with the boys,” she pondered. “But what excuse would
I have?”
All the next day she turned the subject over in her mind. Then something
very remarkable happened. Persons who believe in thought controlling
matter would not call the incident out of the ordinary perhaps, but, be
that as it may, when Dorothy strolled down to the post-office, having a
slender hope of a letter from Tavia, she did find a letter in the box—a
letter from Rose-Mary Markin, stating that she, and her mother, were
going to Buffalo and Niagara Falls for a few days, and, as Buffalo was
only about a day’s trip from North Birchland, perhaps Dorothy could take
a “run” to Buffalo, and spend a few days with them.
Dorothy’s head thumped when she read the letter. The very thing of all
others she would have wished for, had she been as wise as the unknown
fate that worked it out for her, without any action on her own part!
She felt light enough now to “fly” over the road back to the Cedars, to
show the invitation to Mrs. White. The boys were to leave for Buffalo the
next day, so there was little time to be lost, should Major Dale and Mrs.
White think it best for Dorothy to make the trip. How the girl trembled
while waiting for the decision. What if she should be disappointed? It
was a long ride in the auto—but with her cousins—
Mrs. White read Rose-Mary’s little note a second time while Dorothy stood
there waiting. The aunt noticed how delicately Rose-Mary indicated her
own mother’s anxiety to meet Dorothy, and then with what a nicety the
whole matter was referred to Major Dale and Dorothy’s aunt. This
carefully written note, neither stilted nor indifferent in its tone,
convinced Mrs. White at once that the writer was exactly the girl Dorothy
had described her to be—her very best friend at Glenwood—excepting only
Tavia.
“Well, I don’t see why you can’t go with the boys,” spoke her aunt
finally. “They are always careful, and if you leave here, as they intend
to do, at sunrise (that will be an experience for you) you should get
into Buffalo in time for the evening dinner. I’ll just sound the major,”
giving Dorothy a loving embrace. “Not that a mere man, even be he Major
Dale, can hold out against two such Sampson-like wills as ours.”
From that moment, until the time of her stepping into the Fire Bird next
morning, and waving a good-bye to the little party that stood on the
porch to see them off, it all seemed like the strangest, subtlest dream
to Dorothy. She was going to find Tavia—going herself to look for her,
and find out for herself all the questions that, for weeks, had been
eating away her happiness with dreaded uncertainties.