JOHN JARLEY, EXILE
This could be no day of leisure for the Go-Ahead Club. To get settled in
camp was the first task--and that no small one.
There was the plank flooring to be laid in the big tent, the cook-tent
to be erected, and the floor laid in that. There was a sheet-iron stove
to erect, with a smoke pipe to the outside, and an asbestos "blanket" to
wrap around the pipe to keep the canvas of the tent-top from scorching.
There were the swinging shelves to put up, fastened to the ridge-pole of
the cook-tent, on which certain supplies could be kept out of the reach
of the wood mice and other small vermin. Indeed, there were a dozen and
one things of moment to see about, beside bringing over to the camp a
selection of the stores--and their extra clothes--from John Jarley's
shack by the boat landing.
Wyn was a competent girl and knew something about using a hammer and a
saw. The flooring planks for both tents had been assembled at Denton,
and were numbered; but after they got the sleepers laid Wyn realized
that she and her mates had tackled more of a task than they had
expected.
"And the boys will be just as busy as they can be to-day," she said to
the other girls. "It's a wonder if everything they owned didn't get
soaked last evening.
"Now, we can't depend upon the Busters to give us any assistance just
now. Doubt if we see 'hide nor hair' of them to-day. But we need
somebody to make these floors properly. There! Bess has stuck a splinter
into her hand already."
"Plague take the old board!" snapped Bess, dropping it and sucking on a
ragged little wound in her hand.
"You see," Wyn said, quickly. "I'm going to get some help. Anybody want
to walk over to Jarley's with me?"
"Are you going to get that man to come here?" demanded Bess, sharply.
"Don't see what else there is to do--do you, Bessie?"
"Isn't there anybody else to help us around here? There must be other
squatters."
"I do not know of any. We chance to know the Jarleys----"
"Not I!" cried Bess, shaking her head. "_I_ don't know them--and I
won't know them."
"All right. You and Grace and Percy take the pails and try for some
berries in the woods yonder. I saw some ripe ones this morning. Fresh
picked berries will add nicely to our bill-of-fare; isn't that so, Mrs.
Havel?"
"Quite so, my dear," replied the widow, and buried herself in her book
again, for, as she had told the girls, she had not come here to work;
they must treat her as a guest.
"Are you going to stop with Mrs. Havel, Mina?" continued Wyn. "Then come
along with me, Frank. We'll go over and see if the Jarleys bite. Bess is
afraid they will!"
"She was telling us all about John Jarley," said Wyn's chum, as the two
left the camp on the green knoll. "Do you suppose he stole that motor
boat and the box of silver statuettes?"
* * * * *
"I don't _know_ anything about it," said Wyn, briskly. "But I know
that he and Polly are very poor, and with a motor boat and five thousand
dollars' worth of silver, it looks to me as though they would be very
foolish to suffer the privations they do. It's nasty gossip, that's all
it is."
"Well, Bess says the man stole from her father years ago----"
"I don't know much about _that_, either," interrupted Wynifred.
"But I think Bess is overstepping the line of exact truth when she says
John Jarley stole from her father. They were doing business together,
and Mr. Lavine accused Jarley of 'selling him out' in a real estate
deal.
"I asked my father about it. Father says the whole business was a little
misty, at best. If Jarley did all Lavine said, he merely was guilty of
being false to his friend and partner. It is doubtful if he made much
out of it. But Lavine talked loudly and long; he had lots of friends
even then. The talk and all fairly hounded the Jarleys out of town.
"And now," said Wyn, warmly, "the Lavines are rich and the Jarleys have
always been poor. Mr. Jarley is an exile from his old home and such
friends as he had in Denton. It is really a shame, I think--and you'll
say so, too, when you see what a splendid girl Polly is."
The two girls had followed the edge of the lake toward the landing,
instead of taking the path through the wood. Suddenly they came in sight
of the float and shack, with the several boats in Mr. Jarley's keeping.
Back from the shore was a tiny cottage, painted red, its window sash and
door striped with yellow. It was a gay little cot, and everything about
it was as neat and as gaily painted as a Dutch picture.
As Wyn and Frank came down the hill they saw Polly Jarley run out of the
house and down to the landing. Her father was busy there at an
overturned boat--evidently caulking the seams.
The boatman's girl did not see her visitors coming; but Wyn and Frank
got a good view of her, and the latter exclaimed to Wyn:
"Why! she's as pretty as a picture! She's handsome! If she only had on
nice clothes she would be a perfect beauty."
"Wouldn't she?" returned Wyn, happily. "I think my Polly Jolly is just
the _dearest_ looking creature. Isn't she brown? And what pretty
feet and hands she has!"
Polly wore a very short skirt, patched and stained. Her blouse was open
at the throat, so that the soft roundness of the curve of her shoulder
was plainly visible.
Out of the open neck of the blouse her deeply tanned throat rose like a
bronze column; the roses in her cheeks and on her lips relieved the
sun-darkened skin. Her hair was in two great plaits and it was evident
that she seldom troubled about a hat. She was lithe, graceful as she
could be, and bubbling over with good health if not good spirits.
And this was a morning--after the rain--to make even a lachrymose person
lively. The smell of all growing things was in the nostrils--the warmth
of the sun lapped one about like a mantle--it was a beautiful, beautiful
day,--one to be remembered.
Wyn shouted and started running down the hill. Polly heard her, turned
to see who it might be who called, and recognizing her friend, set out
to meet her quite as eagerly.
"Oh, Miss Wynifred!" cried the boatman's daughter.
"Polly Jolly! This is Frank Cameron." She kissed Polly warmly. "How fine
you look, Polly! Tell me! will all we girls look as healthy and be as
strong as you are, by the autumn? You're a picture!"
"A pretty shabby one, I fear, Miss Wyn," protested Polly, yet smiling.
"I am in the very oldest clothes I have, for there is much dirty work to
be done around here. We have hardly got ready for the summer yet. Father
has been so lame."
"And you must introduce me to your father, Polly," Wyn said, quickly.
"We have something for him to do--if he will be so kind."
"All you need to do is to say what it is, Wynifred," responded Polly,
warmly. "If either of us can do anything for you we will only be too
glad."
The three girls walked to the spot where Mr. Jarley was engaged upon his
boat. He was not at all the sort of a person whom the girls from town
had expected to see. The boatmen and woodsmen who sometimes drifted into
Denton were rough characters. This man, after being ten years and more
in the woods, savored little of the rough life he had followed.
He was a small man, very neat in his suit of brown overalls, with
grizzled hair, a short-cropped gray mustache, and without color in his
face save the coat of tan his out-of-door life had given him.
There was a gentle, deprecatory air about him that reminded Wyn strongly
of Polly herself. But this manner was almost the only characteristic
that father and daughter had in common.
Mr. Jarley was low-spoken, too; he listened quietly and with an air of
deference to what Wyn had to propose.
"Surely I will come around and do all I can to aid you, Miss Mallory,"
he said. "You shall pick out the stores you think you will need, and we
will take a boat around to your camp. Your stores will be perfectly safe
here--if you wish to risk them in my care," he added.
"Of course, sir. And we expect to pay you for keeping them. If we have a
long spell of rainy weather the dampness would be bound to spoil things
in our tents."
"True. This corrugated iron shack will keep the stores dry, and the door
has a good padlock," returned Mr. Jarley. "Now, you young ladies pick
out what you wish carried over to the camp and I will soon be at your
service."
"Isn't he nice?" whispered Wyn to Frank, when Polly had run into the
house for something, and Mr. Jarley himself was out of hearing.
"Why! he is a perfect gentleman!" exclaimed Frank. "How can Bess talk as
she does about him? I am surprised at her."
"And these other people about here, too!" declared Wyn, warmly. "What an
evil tongue Gossip has! That man--Shelton, is his name?--at the other
end of the lake, who has accused Mr. Jarley of stealing his boat and the
silver statues, ought to be punished."
"Well--of course--we don't _know_ anything more about the Jarleys
than these other people," observed Frank, doubtfully.
"I judge people by their appearance a good deal, I suppose," admitted
Wyn. "And mother tells me that is a poor way to judge. Just the same, I
_feel_ that the Jarleys are being maligned. And I would love to
help them."
"Well! there isn't much chance to do that unless you can prove that he
_is_ honest, after all," remarked Frank.
"I know it. Everything is going to tell against him unless the lost boat
and the images can be found. I wonder where it was sunk? Do you suppose
Polly would tell us just where the accident happened?"
"Ask her."
"I will, if I get a chance," declared Wyn. "And wouldn't it be fine if
we girls could find the sunken boat and the box belonging to Dr.
Shelton, and clear up the whole trouble?"
"Even _that_ would not satisfy Bessie Lavine," said Frankie, with a
little laugh. "You know--Bess is 'awful sot in her ways.' When she has
made up her mind that a thing is so, you can't shake it out of her with
a charge of dynamite!"
"You never tried the dynamite; did you, Frank?" queried Wyn, smiling.
"No! But I've wanted to--at times."
"Bessie is like her father--obstinate. It is a family trait Yet, once
get her turned around--show her that she has been wrong and unfair to
anybody--and she can't do too much for her to prove how sorry she is."
"That's right! look how she talked against the boys--especially against
Dave Shepard. And now you can just wager she won't be able to do enough
for him to show how grateful she is for being pulled out of the water,"
laughed Frank.
Mr. Jarley was ready to load the boat for them, and Polly came back with
the key to the shack. Polly could not go over to the camp, for both she
and her father could not leave the landing at once. Some fishermen might
come along at any time to hire a boat. The season was opening now, and
after the "lean months" that had gone by, the Jarleys had to be on the
watch for every dollar that might come their way.
"It seems an awfully hard life for such a man--and for Polly," whispered
Wyn to her companion. "I'd just _love_ to have Polly for a member
of our club."
"So would I," agreed Frank. "She's just as sweet as she can be. But Bess
would go right up in the air!"
"Oh, I know it," sighed Wyn. "Somehow we have got to make Bessie Lavine
see the error of her ways. Oh, dear! why can't people be nice to each
other all the time?"
"Goodness me, Wyn Mallory!" exclaimed Frank. "What do you expect while
there still remains 'original sin' in the world? That seems to have been
left out of _your_ constitution; but most of the rest of us have
our share."