"Never mind!" I hastened to console, "you are out of the woods now, and you won"t have to go in again. I presume they have an antidote up at the house. I"ll give you and Diogenes first aid and then we will all go down to the lake sh.o.r.e. You can both sit on the dock and watch me swim."
They both brightened up, and when we reached the hotel the landlady provided a soothing lotion for the bites and stings.
By the time we had started for the lake, the afflicted two were in holiday spirit again.
I sought cover in a small shed called a bath-house and got into my swimming outfit and shot out from the dipping end of the diving-board into the water. When I came to the surface, Silvia, sitting beside Diogenes on the dock, shrieked wildly.
"Oh, Lucien, there are snakes all around you! Come out, quick!"
"They are only water snakes," I a.s.sured her.
"I don"t care what kind they are. They are snakes just the same."
Diogenes instantly began to bellow for me to hand him a snake to play with.
"He recognizes his own," I told Silvia, who, however, saw nothing amusing in my implication.
When I came out of the water, the temperature had climbed several degrees and we were glad to seek the hotel parlor, which was cool and damp.
After dinner Silvia put Diogenes to bed and we sat out on the veranda.
I was enjoying my evening smoke and the feel of the night wind in my face. Silvia had just finished telling me that merely to be away from the Polydores was Paradise enough for her, and that she didn"t care very much about the woods, anyway--the lake was sufficient, when her optimism was rudely jolted by the shrill, shudder-sending song of the festive mosquito.
She fled into the parlor. The landlady, who seemed to have a panacea for all ills, suggested that she might tack mosquito netting around the little balcony extending from our bedroom, and then she could sit there in comfort when the mosquitoes bothered.
"That"s what the last lady that had that room did," she said, "but when she left, she took the netting with her. We keep a supply in our little store."
Silvia immediately sought the hotel store and bought a quant.i.ty of the netting and a goodly stock of the mosquito lotion.
That night as I was drifting into slumber, Silvia remarked: "Only one of the things I heard and read about this place is true."
"Which one?" I asked between winks.
"That it was unfrequented. I have seen only three guests besides us so far. How do they make it pay?"
"The hotel is evidently only a side issue," I replied.
"To what?"
"To the store. Think of the quant.i.ties of lotion and netting they must sell in the season, which, you must know, is in the fall. The hunting, the landlord tells me, is very good, and his hotel is quite popular in October and November."
"I think we had better stay, Lucien. Mosquitoes don"t poison you."
"Even if they did," I declared, "as a choice between them and the Polydores I would say, "Oh, Mosquito, where is thy sting?""
CHAPTER VI
_A Flirt and a Woman-Hater_
The next morning I arose early and screened in the little birdhouse balcony. There was a large piece of netting left and Silvia converted it into a robe and headgear for the swaddling of Diogenes.
"He looks like the Bride of Lammermoor," I declared, as he went forth in this regalia.
"Well, that"s preferable to looking like a pest-house patient, as he did yesterday."
His first-aid costume didn"t find favor with the landlady, as it would seem indicative to the newly arrived of the features of the place.
However, before another stage-coming was due, Di had rent his garment sufficiently to make it useless is a "skeeter skirt."
During the morning I enjoyed my solitary swim with the snakes.
Diogenes played football with the croquet b.a.l.l.s and bruised one of his toes, besides. .h.i.tting the landlady"s child in the eye. Silvia went for a walk which had been pictured in the advertis.e.m.e.nts. She speedily returned, her ardor dampened.
"There are so many sticks and stones and rocks," she said in a discouraged tone, "that there was no pleasure in walking. I nearly sprained my ankle."
"Well, the real sport we haven"t tried yet," I said. "We"ll get a boat and take Diogenes and go for a row on the lake."
This proposition met with instant favor. I put Silvia and Diogenes in the stern of the boat and pulled for the opposite sh.o.r.e. My endeavors to gain this point were balked by Silvia"s remarkable conceptions of the art of steering craft. She was so serenely satisfied, however, with the way she performed her duties and the aid she thought she was giving me, that I forbore to criticize.
In order to achieve a few strokes in the right direction, I asked her to get me a cigar from an inside pocket of my coat, which was on the seat in front of her. Then came the blight to our bliss. She looked in the wrong pocket and instead of producing a cigar, she extracted two letters with seals unbroken.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Lucien Wade!" she gasped. "Here are our letters to Beth and Rob."]
"Lucien Wade!" she gasped. "Here are our letters to Beth and Rob.
Well, it is my fault. I should have known better than to give them to you."
"The plot thickens," I replied thoughtfully.
"This is Monday. They must both be at the house now. What will they think!"
"They will think we didn"t receive their letters."
"Isn"t it unfortunate--" she began.
"No," I replied. "I am not sure but what it is a good thing. It will give Rob a jolt to see that girls can be as nice as Beth is, and as for her, she is quite able to take care of the situation where a man is concerned."
"But we must have Beth here. Maybe you"d better telegraph her."
"Huldah understands conditions. She will send Beth on here."
The next morning we took Diogenes and went down the road to meet the stage. As it came around the curve, we saw there were three pa.s.sengers.
"Tolly!" cried Diogenes with an ecstatic whoop.
"Beth!" recognized Silvia.
"Rob!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.