"When we get to the cottage I am going to ask Cora all about it,"
declared Belle. "It does not seem right that a newspaper should hint at anything that is not plainly stated! That about the young ladies from Chelton who rode in autos--every one will know means us."
The girls were in the _Flyaway_, going along a sea cliff road, only a few miles outside of the pretty summer resort of Lookout Beach. The roaring of the ocean could be plainly heard now, the salt of the spray was in the air, and the sun glinted on the white roads. Bess and Belle, in their car, had gone on ahead, the others followed at a distance.
"Isn"t the air glorious!" cried Bess. "I am sure we are going to have a delightful time down here."
"And wasn"t it lovely of mamma to invite the boys?" added Belle. "Of course she felt perfectly helpless with just us girls; and Jack is so resourceful!"
"Yes, I fancy it might have been rather lonely evenings without the boys. Of course we will have to stay around the cottage evenings, and with them we will have some opportunity for fun."
"Ed says they are going to take a bungalow almost on the beach,"
remarked Belle. "It will be fun to see how they keep house."
The _Flyaway_ dropped back nearer the little procession of other autos that now wended their way along the seaside boulevard to the peninsula that looked out over the bay, across the great noisy ocean, and out--out--it seemed almost to Eternity.
It was here, on this point of land, that the cottages were grouped, and it was this exceptional view that gave the pretty spot its name--Lookout Beach.
"Quite a pretty village," Cora remarked to Jack, as they drove through the center of the place.
"Plenty of fishing around here," said Ed to Walter, as the boys" car slacked along the board sidewalk, and its occupants observed numbers of men and boys slouching along, with baskets, evidently well filled with the night"s catch.
The _Whirlwind_ stopped at the post-office, and Cora stepped out to ask the exact direction to Clover Cottage. She glanced in the box, the number of which Bess and Belle had given her as the one that "went with" their cottage. Two pieces of mail had already arrived and these were handed to Cora by the old man who made it his particular business to welcome every "box holder" to Lookout Beach.
"The first road to the left," the postmaster told her as she emerged from the office, and the _Whirlwind_ again led the way to the cottage.
The hanging sign "Clover" left no doubt as to which was the particular cottage and here the four cars and their merry pa.s.sengers pulled up, and stopped.
"Welcome to Clover!" exclaimed Bess and Belle in chorus.
"Three cheers for the welcome!" replied Jack, in as loud a voice as the proximity to other cottages would allow.
"But the house is not open!" declared Bess, who was first to reach the porch. "Nettie was to have come down yesterday."
"Why, yes," added Belle. "Mother will be dreadfully put out if she gets here and we have no maid----"
"Oh, don"t worry about that," Ed interrupted. "Since we have been invited, we will attend nicely to any little thing like opening up house, and setting up housekeeping," and without further ceremony he undertook to explore each window on the broad veranda, and soon he had one pair of shutters unfastened, and was opening a sash without the slightest difficulty.
"Was that window unlocked?" asked Belle. "Why, our things might have been stolen!"
"Just wait until I open the door," ordered Ed, "then you there--Walter and Jack--you may take the job of portering."
"I"d rather "b.u.t.tle,"" objected Walter. "There"s more in it. First shot at b.u.t.tling!"
It seemed jolly already. The door was thrown open, and Ed made all sorts of bows and bends in inviting the ladies to enter.
In the sitting room a paper dangled from the lamp that hung in the center of the apartment.
"Directions!" announced Jack. "Don"t blow out the gas! Don"t waste the water! Don"t break any dishes!"
He had taken the paper down. The room was rather dark, and he stepped to the door to read the penciled words.
"It"s for--Cora," he announced. "Now who on earth knew that Cora Kimball was coming down to Clover!"
They all stood spellbound!
That a letter for Cora should hang there in a cottage closed up--certainly the doors had not been opened!
Cora took the folded paper from Jack"s hand.
"More--ghosts!" sighed Belle. "Somehow this whole trip has been----"
"Ghost-bound!" interrupted Walter. "Well, what does this particular ghost want, Cora?"
"It"s a note--from Rose and Nellie," she announced. "They have been here--and--wait, let me read it."
"Dear Miss Kimball," she read aloud.
"We came to your cottage last night. I hope you will forgive us. We did not sleep in any bed, but slept on the floor. We washed all the dishes this morning, and cleaned down the pantry shelves to pay for our night"s lodging. We are dreadfully discouraged, and when you see Aunt Delia will you just tell her we have drowned ourselves on account of that piece she put in the paper about us. We did not take Miss Schenk"s earrings.
Your true friends, Rose and Nellie Catron."
"Oh!" gasped Belle. "Isn"t that perfectly dreadful!"
"Do you really think--they have drowned themselves?" asked Bess.
Jack was reading the letter over, and the other boys were helping him decipher it. Cora waited their opinion.
"Isn"t it strange," she said, as Jack laid the paper on the table, "every place we go they leave some clue, and yet they are just clever enough to escape us."
"But are they dead, do you think?" asked Belle, sobbing.
"Not much," declared Ed firmly. "They only threw that in to put Ramsy off their track. You know that account in the Chelton paper claimed that Mrs. Ramsy said she would put the girls in the Reform School when she found them. Now what girl is going to walk into that sort of trap?"
"Wasn"t it good of the poor things to wash all the dishes," remarked Bess, who was now looking at the clean porcelain on the closet shelves. "If they had only waited we might have hired them, since, for some unknown reason, Nettie has not arrived."
"And we could have helped them keep out of sight, too," added Belle, to whom any thought other than that of suicide was a welcome change.
"I do wish we could find them! Don"t you think we ought to search, before they get away--to the ocean?"
"Now, my dear young ladies," began Ed, a.s.suming a comical air, "since I am to be head waiter, steward and all but butler here, I insist that the thought of foreign affairs, tinged with suicide and desperation, be tabooed from--our midst," and he actually opened the piano. "Please get your partners for----"
But the melody he struck up was not intended for a dance. It was the old, familiar: "No Place Like Home!"
In something between a wail and a howl, the three boys took up the refrain, and kept at it until the girls begged them to stop. Then Ed fell in a heap on Walter"s neck, and the two foolish young men pretended to cry, and moaned aloud without pretense.
Jack found a big dishpan and he struck up a tattoo on that with a carving knife and fork. Cora was not going to let the boys make all the noise so she procured the dinner bell and rang it violently.
When the din subsided, the boys suggested that the windows be opened, and the place aired before the arrival of the train that was to bring to Lookout Beach Mrs. Robinson and Miss Steel.
What fun it was to be in actual possession of a house!