"I go now," repeated the strange old creature, pretending not to understand Billie"s offer, and she promptly took her leave without another word.
Billie gathered up the tray and the coffee things and carried them into the kitchen.
"It looks like rain, Alberdina. I think we had better eat indoors to-night," she said.
Something, perhaps the east wind charged with wet, had made her feel dispirited and uneasy. She was homesick for her father and she wished that Dr. Hume had not gone away. She almost wished they had never set eyes on Phoebe and her father at all. How complicated life had suddenly become! They were just a party of well-meaning campers taking a summer holiday on the mountainside, meaning no harm to anybody on earth; and having done a little kindness to a poor girl and her half-crazed father, they had obtained the enmity of an entire village. How cruel and ignorant these people were! How warped and uncharitable!
"Have Percy and Ben got back yet?" asked Nancy, appearing at the door of the lean-to in a fresh blue linen dress, her hair all dewy from her bath, her eyes bright and clear from the long rest.
"Heavens, Nancy, you make me feel like a dusty old shoe," exclaimed Billie, realizing for the first time that she was tired and hot and crushed. "No, no one has come and Dr. Hume has gone to look for Phoebe"s father." Then she told Nancy of the experiences of the afternoon.
"If the old woman spoke the truth all we have to do is to lie low and say nothing, like Br"er Rabbit," said Nancy.
"Do you know what I intend to do, Nancy," announced Billie, glancing through the open door at Phoebe in the distance on the divan. "Phoebe"s awake. You see she"s sitting up. I am going to set her fears at rest about her father first. Then I"m going to take her upstairs and after she"s bathed, I"ll dress her in some of my things. She shall swallow her pride. Cousin Helen shall ask her to visit us until her father is able to come back, and to-morrow I mean to take her down to the village in the "Comet." She shall wear my best and only pink linen. Won"t she be stunning? I"m glad I took your advice and brought it along now, and we"ll just show these people that Phoebe is not a poor ragged mountain girl."
"Take anything of mine you want," said Nancy generously. "Phoebe"s taller than I am, but she can wear my "undies," I suppose."
"I think I have plenty," replied Billie, "that is, if Alberdina Schoenbachler ever gets through ironing the pink wash."
Phoebe was a good deal cheered by the message of the old herb gatherer.
"Oh, yes, I know her quite well. She likes me. Once when I had a fever she came and nursed me for several days and gave me herb tea."
Phoebe also submitted to being dressed up, after a good deal of persuasion.
"You know we are under a great obligation to you and you must give us a chance to get rid of a little of it," Billie said. "Besides, Dr. Hume said that on no account were you to leave the camp. You wouldn"t like to disobey him, would you?"
"No, no," Phoebe answered, and finally permitted herself to be led to the women"s quarter of the camp, where for the first time in her life she bathed in a porcelain bath tub, with scented soap and toilet water and sweet smelling talc.u.m powder and violet ammonia and all kinds of women"s luxuries at her service on a hand shelf by the tub.
When Billie proudly led Phoebe downstairs that evening, the others, already gathered around the supper table, were filled with amazement.
Instead of the ragged, disheveled mountain girl, they saw a beautiful young woman in a white duck skirt and a muslin blouse. Her throat rose like a slender column from the lace yoke of the blouse and her soft hair was rolled into a loose knot on her neck.
"I know now she is a princess," said Mary.
Ben and Percy, returned from their search, had brought no news.
CHAPTER XV.
A WARNING.
The next day Billie had much difficulty in persuading Phoebe to put on the beautiful pink linen.
"It is not right," Phoebe kept saying, although her eyes shone with a new l.u.s.ter when she gazed at the pretty frock. "I am very grateful for what you have done but you must not do too much. I am sure my father would not approve of my accepting so many favors."
"Nonsense," exclaimed Billie. "Can"t one girl lend another a few clothes without its being called "favors"? I shouldn"t hesitate to borrow from you, Phoebe, if I were--well--in your situation. And it seems to me that this dress would be very becoming to you. It suits your complexion better than mine because it matches your cheeks. I usually wear blue but I was over-persuaded by Nancy-Bell to get pink."
In the end, Phoebe was induced to put on the pink dress. It had been wonderful enough to wear a neatly fitted duck skirt and a lace-trimmed blouse, but in this embroidered linen frock the color of wild roses Phoebe was in a dream.
"Oh," she exclaimed, glancing at her flushed image in the mirror, "I never understood that clothes would make so much difference. I feel like someone else." She looked down at her white canvas pumps, which were, as a matter of fact, a shade too long for her, although she had run barefoot over the mountains. "And my feet look really small."
When Billy placed on her head a white Panama hat trimmed with a broad band of black velvet, Phoebe"s eyes filled with tears.
"Am I Phoebe?" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Phoebe without a name, who lives in a log house? Oh, Miss Campbell----"
"Not Miss Campbell," interrupted Billie. "You must call me Billie.
Aren"t you my guest and almost the same age? Besides, I never recognize myself with "Miss" tucked on before my name."
"Billie, then," went on Phoebe, blushing because she had never known a girl before to call by the first name. "Do you think it is right that I should dress up so beautifully when--when my father is hidden away somewhere?"
"But I feel perfectly sure he is safe," said Billie. "Perhaps someone has told him it would be safer to keep away for a while."
"But why? He has never injured anyone in his life."
"It is all Lupo"s doings and that is one reason why we want you to go with us down to the village and show yourself, so that they can see you have a number of very good friends to look after your interests."
The girls all left off their khaki camping clothes and attired themselves in light summer frocks that morning. There was a reason for this unusual "hike" as Percy called it, and it pleased Nancy extremely, who took that opportunity to wear her best blue batiste and her prettiest hat. Billie wore no hat. It annoyed her when she drove the car, she said; but as a matter of fact she had lent her only hat to Phoebe.
From time to time, as the car went down the mountain road, Miss Campbell glanced admiringly at the mountain girl beside Billie in front.
"Dear, dear," she exclaimed in a low voice, "what clothes will do for one. And how well the child wears them. She might have been accustomed to pretty things all her life."
"She puts us all in the shade," whispered Nancy.
If Billie had intended to create a sensation in the village, she succeeded beyond her wildest hopes. At first Phoebe was not recognized, but at the village store where everything was sold from groceries to Indian moccasins, a man loafing at the door exclaimed:
"By golly, that there"s Phoebe from up on the mountains!"
Phoebe blushed scarlet and then smiled.
"I suppose it will be a surprise to them," she said.
They waited some time at the general store for purchases and letters, and by the time the "Comet" had borne them slowly onward to the small hotel, the news had spread down the street. At the water trough, they came to a full stop. They had no errands at the hotel, but Billie pretended to examine the "Comet"s" interior mechanism with careful interest. Pretty soon, nearly two dozen people had gathered at the trough. The innkeeper himself appeared, pale-eyed and sly; and Lupo made bold to show his face.
"Look at Crazy Frenchy"s gal diked out in all them duds," one of the company exclaimed.
"She do look good, crazy or no crazy," remarked a swarthy-faced guide eying Phoebe with admiration.
The young girl seemed entirely unconscious of all the attention she was attracting. She looked straight ahead down the village street and never even glanced at the group of rough men gathered near the car.
"How do we know but she didn"t aid and abet Frenchy?" burst out the innkeeper. "How do we know but she didn"t help him start them fires on Razor Back? The two is always together, "ceptin" now when he"s a-hidin"
and she"s put on fine clothes to drive around with her rich friends."
Phoebe turned her startled gaze on the man. Her lips parted.
"Don"t answer them," whispered Billie, and with a grand flourish she swept the "Comet" around in a circle and turned his nose up the street.