"Oh, we know you are always gadding over here," said Sally, laughing.
"You are Jessie"s shadow."
"Ha, ha! and likewise ho, ho!" rejoined Amy. "In this case then, the shadow is greater than the substance. I weigh fifteen pounds more than Jess. We"ll have to see about that."
"And I suppose your brother, Darrington, is over here, too?" asked Belle, her sharp eyes glancing all about the big veranda.
"Wrong again," rejoined Amy, cheerfully. "But if you have any message for Darry you can trust me to deliver it to him."
"Where is he?"
"Just about off Barnegat, if his plans matured," said Amy composedly.
"Oh!" cried Belle. "Did he go out on that yacht? And without taking any of us girls?" and she began to pout.
"No mixed parties until the family can go along," Amy said promptly.
"Jess and I, even, haven"t been aboard the _Marigold_."
"Oh, you children!" scoffed Belle. "I shouldn"t think that Darry and Burd Alling and that Mark Stratford would want little girls tagging them. Why, they are in college."
Belle really was a year older than the chums; but she acted, and seemed to feel, as though she were grown up. Amy stared at her with wide eyes.
"Well, I like your nerve!" said she. "Darry"s my brother. And I"ve known Burd Alling since he and Darry went to primary school. And so has Jess. I guess they are not likely to take strangers off on that yacht with them before they take Jess and me."
Belle tossed her head and laughed just as though she considered Amy"s heated reply quite childish.
"Oh, dear me," she proclaimed. "To hear you, one would think you were still playmates, all making mud pies together. I don"t know that you and Jess, Amy Drew, ever will be grown up."
"Hope not, if we have to grow into anything that looks and acts like you," grumbled Amy.
But Jessie tried to pour oil on the troubled waters. "Just what did you come for, Belle?" she asked. After all, she must play hostess. "Is it anything I can do for you?"
"Some of us older girls are going to have a box party down at the Carter Landing on Lake Monenset the first moonlight night. Sally and I are on the committee of arrangements. We want to talk it over with Darrington and Burd and get them to invite Mark Stratford."
"Humph! You"ll have to use long distance or radio," chuckled Amy.
"Now, don"t interfere, Amy!" said Belle sharply.
"Wait," Jessie said, in her quiet way. "Don"t let us argue over nothing. The boys really are off on their boat. We do not know just when they are coming back. Why don"t you write Darry a note and leave it at the house?"
"Humph! I wonder if he"d get it?" snapped Belle, with her face screwed up as though she had bitten into something awfully sour.
"Well! I like her impudence," muttered Amy, as Belle and Sally disappeared. "I don"t see how her mother ever let her grow up."
"It is not as bad as all that," her chum said gravely. "But it is awfully silly for Belle and those girls who go with her to be thinking of the boys all the time, and trying to get the older boys to show an interest in them. That is perfectly ridiculous."
"You"re right," said Amy, bluntly. "And Darry and Burd think that Belle is foolish."
"Now, let"s finish this letter to Daddy," Jessie said, hastily. "And then, oh, Amy Drew, I have an idea!"
"Another idea?" cried her friend.
"I don"t know whether there is anything in it or not. But listen.
Don"t you think we might get Henrietta, take her over to the Gandy place, and look around again for Bertha?"
"We-ell, I admit that kid has got sharp eyes. But how could she see into those buildings that are all shut up any better than we could when we were over there?"
"You don"t just get my idea, honey. If the girl who radioed her message, and which we heard, is Henrietta"s cousin, she will know Henrietta"s voice. And if Henrietta calls her from outside, maybe she can shout and we will hear her."
"That is an idea!" exclaimed Amy. "It might work, at that." Then she laughed. "Anyway, we can give Hen a ride. Hen certainly likes riding in an automobile."
"And Nell has got an almost new dress and other things for her. Let us go down to the parsonage and get them. And while Chapman goes to town with this letter we"ll paddle around to Dogtown and get Henrietta."
"Fine!" cried Amy, and ran home for her hat.
A little later, when she had returned from the parsonage with the bundle and the chums were embarked upon the lake, Jessie said:
"I hope the poor little thing will like this dress that Nell was so kind as to find for her. But, to tell the truth, Amy, it seems a little old for Henrietta."
"Is it a cape-coat suit?" giggled her friend.
"It is a little taffeta silk, and Nell said it was cut in a style so disgracefully freakish that she would not let Sally wear it. It was bought at one of those ultra-shops on Fifth Avenue where they have styles for children that ape the frocks their big sisters wear."
"Let"s see it," urged Amy, with curiosity.
"Wait till you see it on Henrietta. There are undies, too, and stockings and a pair of shoes that I hope will fit her. But consider!
Taffeta silk for a child like Henrietta."
There could be no doubt that the girls from Roselawn were welcome when they landed at Dogtown and came to the Foley house. The greater number of the village children seemed to have swarmed elsewhere; but little Henrietta was sitting on the steps of the house holding the next-to-the-youngest Foley in her arms.
"Hush!" she hissed, holding up an admonishing finger. "He"s "most gone. When he goes I"ll lay him in that soap-box and cover him with the mosquito netting. Then I can tend to you."
"The little, old-fashioned thing," murmured Amy. "It isn"t right, Jess."
Jessie understood and nodded. She was glad that Amy showed a certain amount of sympathy for Henrietta and appreciation of her. In a few moments the child was utterly relaxed and Henrietta got up and staggered over to the soap-box on wheels and laid the sleeper down upon a pillow.
"He ought to sleep an hour," said little Henrietta, covering Billy Foley carefully so that the flies could not bite his fat, red legs. "I ain"t got nothing to do now but to sweep out the house, wash the dishes in the sink, clean the clinkers out of the stove, hang out a line for clothes, and make the beds before Mrs. Foley and the baby get back. I can talk to you girls while I"m doing them things."
"Landy"s sake!" gasped Amy, horrified.
But Jessie determined to take matters in her own hands for the time being, Mrs. Foley not being present. She immediately unrolled the bundle of things she had brought, and Henrietta halted on the step of the house, poised as though for flight, her pale eyes gradually growing rounder and rounder.
"Them ain"t for _me_?"
"If they fit you, or can be made to fit you, honey," said Jessie.
"Oh, the poor child!" exclaimed Amy softly, taking care that Henrietta should not hear her.
"Silk!" murmured Henrietta, and sat down on the step again, put her arms out widely and squeezed the silk dress up to her flat little body as though the garment was another baby.