WILD ROSES
“We will go into the house,” Mrs. Irving answered to their concerted
cry of “What shall we do?” “Whatever it was that has frightened us has
disappeared now, and we shall certainly be safer inside the house than
out here. Come on, girls, I have the key.”
And so, leaving the cars where they were, the girls approached the
house with shaking knees and hearts that hammered their fear aloud. The
Outdoor Girls were ordinarily afraid of nothing real and human, but to
be held up at the point of a pistol would unnerve almost any one, and
the struggle the girls had made not to give way to their fears at the
time had made them more nervous still. And this thing that had startled
them now, added to what had gone before, seemed a little more than
could be borne. It seemed, in fact, like nothing human.
Mrs. Irving turned the key in the lock, opened the door and stepped
inside the dark place, motioning to the girls to follow her.
Fearfully the chums obeyed and Betty and Mollie pulled out their
electric pocket torches, filling the place with a weird light. Mollie,
being acquainted with the place, naturally took charge of the
situation.
“There are matches over there,” she said, “and candles over the
fireplace. For goodness’ sake, let’s get a regular light, folks.
Perhaps that will make us feel more natural.”
“So say all of us,” echoed Amy. “The dark makes everything worse, when
you are not well acquainted with a place.”
Mollie touched a match to the candles, and in the answering flare
turned to face her chums.
“Girls,” she said, determinedly, “I don’t know how you feel about it,
but I vote that before we do anything else we get something to eat. We
all look like ghosts just now and I’m sure we feel much worse than
that. But a little food makes a monstrous lot of difference.”
“You know it does,” cried Grace, relaxing into one of the big chairs
that were scattered about the room and covering her face with her
hands. “I think if I don’t get something to eat soon, I’ll die, that’s
all.”
“Well, we are none of us going to die,” said Mrs. Irving vigorously, as
she threw aside her coat and hat. “Show us the way to the kitchen,
Mollie, and if there is anything there to eat, we will get it.”
Accordingly Mollie took one of the candles and led the way into a
little room beyond while all the girls but Betty crowded in after her.
For the Little Captain slipped back for a moment and very quietly
closed the door, shutting out definitely the shadow beyond it.
“I suppose it is foolish,” she said to herself, “because if there is
anything out there that really wants to get in there are plenty of ways
that it can do it, without coming in through the door. But,” and she
turned the key in the lock, “it certainly makes one feel more
comfortable to have the door closed.” Then she followed the girls into
the other room, and the sight that met her eyes was certainly more
cheering than anything she could have imagined.
Mollie’s Uncle John had surprised them. In the exact center of a table
set for five lay a young pig, roasted whole and browned to a turn! Nor
was this all. The table was littered with covered dishes of all sizes
and descriptions, and as the contents of each one of these dishes was
disclosed, the girls became more and more excited and hilarious.
There was apple sauce in one, salad in another, mashed potatoes that
had become quite cold in another, and a boat of gravy which had also
become quite cold.
“But we don’t mind,” cried Mollie joyfully, as she took the gravy-boat
in one hand, the dish of potatoes in the other, and ran with them over
to a great stove in one corner of the room. “We need only some matches
to have this blazing hot in a minute. No, not that way, Grace,” as the
latter tried to help by lighting the burner. “This isn’t a gas stove,
you know; it’s an oil stove and you had better look out or you will
blow us all up.
It is small wonder if Betty was so dazzled by this joyful scene that
she could neither move nor speak for the space of two seconds or so.
Then, recovering her powers of locomotion, she went over to the table
and picked up a note that, in their excitement, the girls had
overlooked.
“See what this says,” she called to them, and they looked at her rather
impatiently. Just at that moment the only thing they cared to consider
was food! and more food! and then some more!
But as Betty read they became more interested, and even stopped long
enough to hear her through. It was a brief note. This is what it said.
“My dear young ladies:
“I am a neighbor of Mr. Prendergast,” (this was the dressed-up name
of Mollie’s Uncle John) “and he axed me to get your dinner ready
fer you. I tried to keep it hot but you wus so long comin’ I had to
go home to get dinner fer my old man. Hope things is all right.
“LIZZIE DAVIS.”
“So she is the one who has done all this,” said Betty, looking around
at the good things with dancing eyes. “I bet she is nice and plump and
has rosy cheeks.”
“Lizzie Davis? Lizzie Davis?” repeated Mollie, bringing the steaming
gravy back and plumping the dish triumphantly down on the table.
“Rather a funny name for a fairy godmother, but she sure does know how
to cook. Don’t forget the potatoes, Grace. Come on, girls! let’s sit
down.”
So down the girls sat and acted like ravenous pigs! or so Grace
described their conduct afterward, Mrs. Irving set to work carving the
delicious pork, but they could not wait for her.
They seized slices of bread, spread apple sauce and butter on them, and
ate like what they were, four famished girls and one equally famished
chaperon who had been out in the open all day and had had nothing to
eat since morning.
It was some time before they showed any considerable signs of slowing
up. Then Grace put down her fork, leaned back lazily, and called for
dessert. The latter was a huge cherry pie, and before the girls were
through with it there was not enough left to color a robin’s egg.
After the pangs of hunger had been satisfied they found to their great
surprise that they were dead tired and sleepy.
“We will get the dishes out of the way and then Mollie can show us
where we sleep,” said Betty. “Oh, girls, did you ever in your life
taste such a dinner?”
It was not till the dishes had all been cleared away and Mollie took up
her candle to show them their quarters that the unwelcome thought of
the thing that had so frightened them again crept terrifyingly into
their minds. Try as they would to forget it, they could not.
There were three small sleeping rooms in the lodge, but, small as they
were, they were comfortable and contained beds that seemed the height
of luxury to the tired girls.
Because of the indistinct and flickering candle light the girls could
make out very little of what the rooms really looked like, and they
postponed any close examination until the morning. Back of the lodge
was a shed for the cars.
The bedrooms were all joined by doors, which gave the girls a safe and
sociable feeling. Mrs. Irving, of course, had one room to herself,
Betty and Mollie slept together and Grace and Amy paired off.
They wasted little time in getting ready! Betty and Mollie had
appointed themselves a committee of two to bring in the grips from
Mollie’s car! and before long they tasted the exquisite restfulness of
comfortable beds after a long nerve-trying day in the out-of-doors.
“I don’t believe I shall close my eyes all night,” said Amy with
conviction. “I’m too horribly nervous.”
But three minutes later she was sound asleep!
The sun had been up a good two hours before any one stirred in Wild
Rose Lodge. Betty was the first to awake, and in fifteen minutes she
had the rest of the sleepy-eyed and protesting girls up and nearly
dressed.
“What’s the idea, anyway?” yawned Grace lazily. “I could have slept at
least a good two hours more.”
“On a day like this?” sang Betty, breathing in deep breaths of the
wood-scented air. “And isn’t this just the dearest room you ever saw?”
she added, wheeling about and regarding the apartment delightedly. They
were in Grace and Amy’s room, for, as usual, Mollie and Betty had been
the first dressed and had gone into their chums’ room to hurry them up!
if such a thing were possible.
Betty’s summing up of the room they were in was indeed well deserved,
for the place was charming. There was a dresser, a bed, and three
chairs, and all of these articles of furniture had been rough-hewed out
of logs, giving the place a delightfully rustic appearance. There was a
grass rug on the floor and in one corner a little table covered with
books.
“Isn’t it darling?” cried Mollie, following Betty’s glance about the
place. “Uncle John built the lodge and made all of the furniture
himself, you know. And he bought the grass rugs from the Indians.”
They were still exclaiming about the place when Mrs. Irving called to
them that breakfast was ready. With a whoop of delight they answered
the summons, and a moment later sat themselves down to a most
satisfying meal of omelet and toast and coffee with real cream in it.
Also Mrs. Irving set on the table a yellow-topped pitcher of milk fresh
from the cow.
“Our friend, Lizzie Davis, brought it,” their chaperon answered with a
smile, in response to the girls’ curious questions. “Also some fresh
butter and eggs, I have an idea,” she added, as she got up to refill
the butter plate, “that we shall live on the fat of the land while we
are here.”
“Lizzie Davis,” repeated Betty, pausing in the act of filling her glass
with fresh milk and regarding Mrs. Irving with dancing eyes. “Tell me,
chaperon dear, Didn’t she have nice red cheeks, and wasn’t she
delightfully plump?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Irving, smiling at Betty’s flushed prettiness. “She
was all of that, my dear. I don’t believe I ever saw a more cozy
looking person in my life.”
“I knew it!” cried Betty triumphantly, adding with a suspicious eye on
Grace: “Hand over that plate of toast, Gracie. You needn’t think you
can eat it all up!”
After breakfast they sallied forth to “view the country o’er.” They
would have stayed and helped Mrs. Irving clear up, but that good woman
declared that she could do better by herself on this first morning.
After she had become better acquainted with the place they could help
her all they liked. Finally, after some protest, they had to let her
have her way.
As they stepped out on the porch, Betty paused and held up her hand for
silence.
“Listen,” she said. “That murmuring sound and the splash of water!!”
“It’s the river and the falls,” explained Mollie. “Let’s go down and
have a look at them.”
But Amy, giving a little gasp of delight, fairly tumbled down the steps
and into a riot of gorgeous pink wild roses. The lodge was fairly
surrounded by them.
“Oh, you darlings!” cried Amy, putting both arms around a bush of the
fragrant flowers as though she would gather in all their beauty at
once. “I never saw anything so wonderful in all my life! Oh, girls, I’m
glad I came!”