AN ADVENTURE IN MIDSTREAM
Beth had left the door of her stateroom wide open. When she went into
the passage out of which it opened, she saw a girl looking in at the
flowers, admiringly.
She was a merry-eyed girl, with short, fine, brown hair that had been
blown about her face by the fresh, river breeze. This fact made her
seem a little untidy; but she had a winning smile, was well dressed,
and Beth found herself interested in the stranger even before the merry
one spoke.
“How jolly!” she cried. “You certainly must have heaps and heaps of
friends.”
“Why so?” asked Beth, demurely.
“Because they’ve just about filled your room with flowers. Or were they
so glad to see you go that they over-speeded the parting guest?” added
the girl, roguishly.
Beth laughed as she went by the other into the room and seized a bunch
of roses. “Here,” she said, thrusting the flowers into the strange
girl’s hands. “I must divide with somebody. And my friends were not
speeding the parting guest. I am going to school.”
“Bless us! so am I,” said the other, burying her rather retroussé nose
in the fragrant blossoms. “But they didn’t waste any lovely flowers on
poor little Molly--nay, nay, Pauline!”
“My name is not ‘Pauline,’” interposed Beth, her eyes dancing. “It’s
Beth.”
“Oh, how jolly!” cried the other. “I never knew a girl named Beth
outside of a story-book.”
“It’s my real name,” Beth said demurely.
“And are you going to school?”
“Yes.”
“Not to Rivercliff?”
“Yes; I am,” Beth said, her own eagerness increasing. “Are you?”
“How jolly!” ejaculated this rather exclamatory girl. “I certainly am
going to Miss ’Ammersly’s hestablishment, as it would have been called
in ‘dear hold Hengland,’ had she remained there to conduct her school.”
“Oh! is the principal English?” asked Beth.
“The nicest kind. And Madam Hammersly! Wait till you see her! She wears
the cunningest caps.”
“Who is she?” asked the puzzled Beth.
“Miss Hammersly’s mother. And such a dear! She is really the
housekeeper and general manager--and, oh! so particular! No end! But
she’s a jolly old dear, at that.”
Beth saw that this girl overworked at least one word in the English
language. But it was impossible to look at her without thinking of that
very word. She was jolly, indeed.
Naturally, Beth Baldwin was greatly interested in this, the first of
her future schoolmates whom she met and not a little curious about her.
She learned at once that Molly Granger had been to Rivercliff for two
years already, having entered what Miss Hammersly called the “primary
department.”
“But I shall be a full-fledged first-grade with you ‘freshies’ this
fall. I shall be in your classes,” she said cheerfully. “I believe I am
going to like you a lot, Beth. And that’s more than I can say for some
of the girls who have been with me as ‘primes’ and now will be in our
grade too. There’s Maude Grimshaw, for instance. _That_ girl would try
the patience of a Jobess.”
“A _what_?” gasped Beth.
“A Jobess. Female for Job. Isn’t that right?” asked Molly, her eyes
dancing.
Beth laughed. Then she said suddenly:
“Oh, wait!” and, seizing some more of the flowers from Mrs. Euphemia
Haven’s garden, she darted out of the stateroom. She had been watching
for several moments a girl who stood in plain view in the cabin and who
had been staring at the flowers.
She was a slim, freckled girl, rather oddly dressed, Beth thought; but
her big, dark eyes expressed a longing for the flowers that could not
be mistaken.
“You’ll have some, won’t you?” demanded Beth, offering the flowers to
this stranger, as she had to Molly Granger. “I have so many of them!”
Then she realized that the freckled girl’s eyes were blue. A shadow
seemed to lift from them as she smiled. Whereas they had been dusky
before, they shone as she looked first at the flowers and then at Beth.
“Oh, thank you!” she said, and her voice was delightfully
gentle--“cultured,” Beth would have said, had that expression not
so badly fitted the strange girl’s appearance. She wore a very odd
combination of garments.
Her smile and her speech repaid Beth for her act. The freckled-faced
girl crossed the cabin--she walked gracefully--and sat down upon a
divan with the flowers. Before Beth turned back to her new friend,
Molly Granger, the blue eyes had become clouded again and the tall
figure of the girl drooped over the handful of flowers. Beth whispered
to Molly:
“I wonder who she is?”
“Haven’t the first idea,” said the jolly girl, carelessly.
“Do you think she is going to school with us?”
“To Rivercliff? I should say not!” gasped Molly. “Say! you don’t know
what you’re up against there, Beth. Why, we girls of Rivercliff stand
for the ‘acme of style.’ The only magazines we read are the fashion
magazines--and we only look at the pictures in those. Maude Grimshaw
could wear diamonds to each class recitation--and royal ermine, I
presume, too--whatever that is,” and Molly laughed.
“Oh!” exclaimed Beth, greatly taken aback.
“Only, you see, Miss Hammersly won’t have it. She is for plain frocks
in school. What the girls wear in the evenings or on holidays does not
so much bother her. We’re all supposed to be from families who roll in
wealth--whatever that may mean,” and Molly giggled again.
“Are--are _you_?” asked Beth, somewhat timidly.
“Am I what, my dear?” returned Molly.
“From a rich family?”
“Goodness, no! My aunts send me to Rivercliff. I’m a poor, lone orphan.
My poor, dear mother must have taken one look at me, have seen what
an awful, ugly little sprite I was, and thankfully ceased to live.
My father was a missionary and died of fever in Canton. There you
have my history, saving that seven aunts--all my father’s sisters (do
you wonder he went missionarying?)--took upon themselves the task
of bringing up and educating ‘poor lil’ Molly.’ If I hadn’t a well
developed sense of the ridiculous, it would have killed me long ago.”
Molly rattled on so recklessly that Beth was more than a little
startled at first. Then it began to impress the girl from Hudsonvale
that here was a person who had really never had a mother or a father,
and had never learned the actual need of parents. Therefore, she could
talk so indifferently about them.
Another thought was, however, buzzing in Beth’s brain.
“What do you suppose these wealthy girls at Rivercliff will say to my
dresses?” she asked. “I’ve only one better than this--and that’s for
evening wear.”
“Goodness! How long is a string?” demanded the other girl.
“What?”
“How long is a string?” repeated Molly, laughing. “You might as well
ask me that as to ask me how Maude Grimshaw and that tribe will look
on you and your clothes. And I guess there’s no answer to that old
wheeze.”
“Oh, yes there is,” said Beth, laughing too. “My sister Ella says the
answer is ‘from here to there.’”
It did not take much to keep these two new friends laughing. And, at
the moment, it did not seem a great trouble to Beth whether the wealthy
girls at Rivercliff liked her and her clothes or not.
She carried most of Larry’s donation of flowers out into the cabin and
told the stewardess to arrange them on one of the writing tables. Then
she locked her stateroom door and went with Molly on a tour of the boat.
“You see, I’ve been up and down the river on this boat a dozen times,”
said the jolly orphan. “I come from Hambro, ’way down the river.
I started early this morning. We’ll get to the Rivercliff landing
to-morrow evening--if the freight traffic isn’t too heavy. The _Water
Wagtail_ staggers from one side to the other of the river, picking up
freight at the landings, and sometimes the trip is delayed long beyond
sched. But never mind! school doesn’t really open till Monday. We’ve
got three perfectly good days before us.”
Twice Beth noticed the freckled girl as they passed through the cabin.
She still sat in her melancholy attitude, and the flowers had dropped
into her lap. Beth knew she must be in some trouble or sorrow; but she
scarcely saw how she could help the stranger.
Molly Granger kept up a running fire of comment upon everybody and
everything. The steamboat stopped at two small towns before dark, and
the new chums watched the busy scenes on the docks and talked about
the new faces they saw. Beth found Molly the very best of company; for
while she was light-hearted and full of fun and mischief, she was sound
at the root and had no unkindness or meanness in her make-up. Indeed,
Beth Baldwin had never met one of her own age before whom she liked so
well on such short acquaintance.
Left to herself for a short while, Beth was going over in her mind
all the adventures of this busy and exciting day. How much had
happened--and how much unexpected--since she had started from the
little cottage on Bemis Street.
Then, for the very first time since she had slipped it into her bag,
Beth thought of Larry’s present. Something in a jeweler’s box! How had
she forgotten it for so long?
“That proves that this has been an exciting time,” murmured the girl,
getting her bag and opening it. “Ah! here is the box.”
It was neatly wrapped and tied, and her fingers were engaged in untying
the string for a minute or so. Then she opened the box. A puffy mass of
pink cotton met her gaze. She pulled this aside.
“Oh! O-o-o-oh!” she breathed. “The beauty! The _beauty_!”
She took out the pin. It was delicately wrought of platinum and studded
with diamond chips and tiny half-pearls. It was not very expensive; but
it showed skilled workmanship and was an ornament that would surely
attract attention. Yet it was simple enough to look well if worn by a
young girl.
Larry Haven’s taste could not be criticized. If he had selected the
pin himself (and Beth believed he had, from what he had said at
its presentation), it showed that he thought of her--that he still
considered Beth his little friend and comrade.
Yet, if so, why had he neglected coming to the Bemis Street cottage all
summer? This still puzzled and troubled the girl.
At supper time Beth and Molly went up to the saloon deck and the
captain of the waiters found the two friends seats at a pleasant table.
Beth looked for the freckled girl but did not see her. Yet Beth was
sure she had not gone ashore at either of the landings.
While the girls ate and enjoyed their supper, a mist arose and
enfolded the steamboat and enshrouded the face of the river. When they
came out on the open deck again, the clammy breath of the mist fanned
their cheeks, and all they could see of the banks on either hand were
occasional twinkling lights--either on scattered farmsteads or in tiny
villages or ferry-houses.
“B-r-r-r-r! It’s going to be a nasty night,” said Molly Granger. “I
shall go to bed early. No fun sitting up unless the moon shines. Then
it is lovely to be out here and watch the shores. The old steamer won’t
stop again till we reach Marbury--about midnight.”
“I was hoping for a moonlit night,” said Beth, disappointedly.
“Better to get a good sleep, for to-morrow will be a long day,” said
Molly, showing a streak of good sense that Beth had not known she
possessed. “We may not get to bed to-morrow night till late; for we may
be delayed in reaching Rivercliff. I’ve been as late as eleven o’clock
getting off this boat at that landing.”
“I guess you know best, Molly,” agreed Beth.
But she was not sleepy herself--not even when Molly bade her a warm
good-night and went into her own stateroom, which was not far from
Beth’s. The latter encircled the outer main deck again. The _Water
Wagtail_ was in midstream. She was a side-wheeler, and the splashing
of her buckets and the creak of her walking-beam, added to the hiss!
hiss! of the spray from overside, played an accompaniment to Beth’s
thoughts.
Her first night away from home! Never had she slept from under her
parents’ roof before. Her own little room, shared with Ella, was the
only chamber in which the girl had ever spent the night.
Little wonder that she felt nervous, if not apprehensive. There were
two berths in her room--an upper and lower. She would have been glad to
share the stateroom with Molly Granger; but she shrank from admitting
to even that easy-going, jolly chum that she felt the need of company
at night.
She shrank, too, from going to her stateroom and locking herself in.
Instead, she wandered about the boat again. She spent more than two
hours going from deck to deck--sitting a while in one place, then
getting up and wandering about, wrapped well in her raincoat to keep
out the thick mist.
Several times she saw the freckled-faced girl. Either she had no
stateroom, or else, with Beth, she did not feel like going to it. And
her expression of countenance and deeply despondent manner troubled the
girl from Hudsonvale.
“I wish I could do something for her,” thought Beth. “She must be
poverty poor with that get-up. Dear me! I haven’t any too much money
myself; but if a little would help her----”
She finally started toward the strange girl, determined to accost her;
but just then the latter arose from her seat and approached one of the
uniformed officers of the boat, then just passing through the cabin.
“Are we near Brakelock, yet?” Beth heard the girl ask.
“We’re not far from that landing, Miss; but we stop there only on the
down trip unless we’re signalled to take passengers. Nothing doing
to-night, Miss.”
“Thank you,” said the girl, quietly.
The man went about his business. The girl immediately descended the
stairs to the lower, or freight, deck. Beth, hesitating whether she
should speak to her or not, followed unobserved.
Nobody seemed to be about. The way was open aft to the outer deck
behind the paddle-wheels. The tall girl went swiftly to the port side,
slid open one of the doors, and stepped out upon the misty, open deck.
Beth went out by another door. There was nobody aft but herself and
that other girl--not another soul.
The girl did not see Beth and the latter hesitated again. What should
she say to her? How accost her?
And then--the discovery set Beth’s heart to beating madly--she saw that
the strange girl was leaning far over the rail of this lower deck, so
close below which the black water hissed and gurgled. In a moment she
had a knee upon the flat top of the rail, flinging up her tight skirts
with an impatient kick to free her limbs of their entanglement.
She was teetering--almost head downward--on the rail, about--it
seemed--to plunge into the swift current of the river!