THE CLUE AT THE SPRING HOUSE
Just how Cora did manage to run her car into Chelton, with a stiffened
wrist and a twisted shoulder, she was not able to explain afterward to
the anxious ones at home. Belle rode with her, and was sufficiently
familiar with the machine to take a hand at the wheel now and then,
but it was Cora who drove the _Whirlwind_, in spite of that.
It was now two days since the eventful afternoon at the strawberry
patch, and the girls were ready again to make the trip to Squaton, in
quest of the crate of berries promised to Mrs. Robinson.
Jack argued that his sister was not strong enough to run her car with
ease, so he insisted on going along. Then, when his friends, Ed Foster
and Walter Pennington, heard of this they declared it was a trick of
Jack's to "do them out of a run with the motor girls," and they
promptly arranged to go along also.
Ed rode with Walter, in the latter's runabout, and the twins were, of
course, together in the _Flyaway_, while Cora was beside Jack in the
_Whirlwind_, for, although the girls were speedily turning into the
years that would make them young ladies, they still maintained the
decorum of riding "girls with girls" and "boys with boys," except on
very rare occasions.
As they rode along, an old stone house, set far back from the highway,
attracted Jack's attention.
"Let's stop here," he suggested, "and look over the place. I'll bet it
has an open fire place with a crane and fixings, for cooking."
Word was passed to those in the other cars, and all were glad to stop,
for the afternoon was delightful, and the ride to Squaton rather
short.
As no path marked the grass that led to the old house it was evident
that no one had lately occupied it. The boys ran on ahead to make sure
that no ghosts or other "demons" might be lurking within the moldy
place, while Cora, Bess and Belle stopped to pick some particularly
pretty forget-me-nots, from near the spring that trickled along
through the neglected place.
Just back of the house, over the spring, the boys discovered the
inevitable house for cooling milk, and here they delayed to drink from
their pocket cups.
"What's in the other side?" asked Walter, peering through the broken
boards into a second room or shed, for the shack was divided into two
parts.
"More spring, I suppose," replied Jack, taking his third drink from
the small cup.
Walter and Ed had finished drinking just as the girls came up, and
Jack attended to their various degrees of thirst for pure spring
water.
"What a quaint old place," remarked Belle. "What's in the other little
house?"
"We are just about to find out," said Jack. "The other fellows
couldn't wait, and are in there now."
Hurrying out, they all entered, through the battered door, into the
"other side."
"Well, I declare!" exclaimed Ed. "What does this mean?"
"I also declare, 'what does this mean?'" added Jack, picking up from a
queer sort of wooden platform in the place, the unmistakable blue
bonnet of a child or young girl.
"And this!" exclaimed Cora, picking up a hat. "This is--Nellie's hat!
Nellie from the strawberry patch!"
"They have run away!" gasped Bess, without further investigation, "and
here are the remains of their lunch!" The fragments of a very meager
meal--some crusts of dry bread--and an empty strawberry box, told the
story. "Surely this had been the lunch of the runaways."
"They must have slept here," went on Cora. "Poor little dears! What a
shame! How frightened they must have been to sleep in such a place."
"When you young ladies get through with the allegory, I hope you will
give us the libretto," interrupted Jack. "Who may be the fair maids
who have slept in this shack, and eaten the bread of freedom?"
"Why, the girls from the strawberry patch, of course," said Bess, as
if that explained everything.
"Why 'of course,'" said Jack mockingly.
"Certainly, of course," put in Ed, in the same tone of voice.
"And, to be sure, of course," went on Walter, provokingly.
"Why, we didn't tell you, did we?" spoke Cora finally. Then she did
tell as much as she thought it wise to divulge about Nellie and Rose.
This information "caused a stir," (as Jack put it) among the boys.
Instantly they began up-turning stones, pulling down boards, and doing
all sorts of foolish things searching for the runaways. But no other
evidences were unearthed of the stay of the two girls in the spring
house.
"I hope they hear us," called Jack, finally, raising his voice almost
to a shout. "I must find Rose," he called. "Rose is all the world to
me! My own little garden flower without a thorn----"
Walter interrupted with: "I must see Nellie home! Nellie! Nellie!
Pretty little Nellie!"
"Do be quiet," begged Cora, "you will arouse the ghosts in the old
house."
"Let's," suggested Walter. "Haven't seen a ghost in an age, and a
ghost would be just pie for us in this place."
"Please don't," almost sobbed Belle. "I am really awfully creepy in
here."
Seeing that she was actually nervous, the girls went outside, but the
boys were not yet satisfied with their investigations.
"What on earth is this rig-a-my-gig for?" asked Walter, indicating the
big sloping circular platform which occupied nearly all the space in
the shack. It was on a pivot and could be turned around.
"Why, that's--let me see, that's----" but Jack couldn't just say what it
was.
"I know," exclaimed Ed, suddenly. "That's a treadmill."
"A thread mill?" asked Walter.
"No, a treadmill--a mill that was treaded. They used to make butter in
olden times by having a sheep or a dog travel around on that sort of
wheel, which was geared to a churn."
"See page one hundred and eight Encyclopedia Fosteria," put in Jack,
with a good natured slap on Ed's broad shoulders. "When you don't see
what you want--ask Ed," he finished.
Feeling that they had actually solved the mystery of the circular
platform, the boys spent some time in examining the strange machine.
Meanwhile the girls were peering in the broken windows of the old
house, for Bess insisted that Nellie and Rose might have fallen ill
after their long tramp from the strawberry patch, and that they might
actually be lying within the tottering mass of mortar, beams and
stones. But, of course, the fears of Bess were soon proved unfounded,
and, at the urgent order of Cora, the party started again on the road
to Squaton to get that "much delayed" crate of berries for Mrs. Perry
Robinson.
"Keep a lookout along the road for the girls," Cora directed, as they
started off. "We might spy them resting under a tree."
"You will never spy them," insisted Jack. "I am going to find Rose--my
Rose, and Walter has his heart set on Nellie--_the_ Nellie. So you
girls may go to sleep, if you wish, for all the good your looking will
do."
Only a joke--but many a jest begets a truth!
So the motor girls thought, in their long search for the unfortunate
runaways.