The on the March Part 6 (1/2)
”Then you used to like to read?”
”Oh, yes, I always did. The Sunday School had a sort of library, and I used to be able to get books from there. I love to read, and you would, too, Dolly, if you only knew how much fun you have out of books.”
Dolly made a face.
”Not the sort of books my Aunt Mabel wants me to read,” she said decidedly. ”Stupid old things they are! It's just like going to school all over again. I get enough studying at school, thanks!”
”But you like to know about people and places you've never seen, don't you!”
”Yes, but all the books I've ever seen that tell you about things like that are just like geographies. They give you a lot of things you have to remember, and there's no fun to that.”
”You haven't read the right sort of books, that's all that's the matter with you, Dolly. I tell you what--when we get back to the city, we '11 get hold of some good books, and take turns reading them aloud to one another. I think that would be good fun.”
”Well, maybe if they taught me as much as you seem to know about places you've never seen I wouldn't mind reading them. Anyhow, books or no books, you're going' to love the seash.o.r.e. Oh, it is such a delightful place--Plum Beach.”
”Tell me about it, Dolly.”
”Well, in the first place, it isn't a regular seaside place at all. I mean there aren't any hotels and boardwalks and things like that. It's about ten miles from Bay City, and there they do have everything like that. But Plum Beach is just wild, the way it always has been. And I don't see why, because it's the best beach I ever saw--ever so much finer than at Bay City.”
”I'll like the beach.”
”Yes, I know you will. And because it's sort of wild and desolate, and off by itself that way, you can have the best time there you ever dreamed of. Last year we put on our bathing suits when we got up, and kept them on all day. You go in the water, you see, and then, if you lie down on the beach for half an hour, you're dry. The sun s.h.i.+nes right down on the sand, and it's as warm as it can be.”
”I suppose that's why you like it so much--because you don't have the trouble of dressing and undressing.”
”It's one reason,” said Dolly, who never pretended about anything, and was perfectly willing to admit that she was lazy. ”But it's nice to have the beach to yourselves, too, the way we do. You see, when we get there we'll find tents all set up and ready for us.”
”Is there any fis.h.i.+ng?”
Dolly smacked her lips.
”You bet there is!” she said. ”Best sea ba.s.s you ever tasted, and about all you can catch, too! And it tastes delicious, because the fish down there get cooked almost as soon as they're caught. And there are lobsters and crabs--and it's good fun to go crabbing. Then at low tide we dig for clams, and they're good, too--I'll bet you never dreamed how good a clam could be!”
”How about the other things--milk, and eggs, and all those!”
”Oh, that's easy! There are a lot of farms a little way inland, and we get all sorts of fine things from them.”
”I wonder if Mr. Holmes will try to play any tricks on us down there, Dolly. He has about everywhere we've been since Zara and I joined the Camp Fire Girls, you know.”
”I'm hoping he won't find out, Bessie. That would be fine. I certainly would like to know why he is so anxious to get hold of you and Zara. I bet it's money, and that there's some secret about you.”
”Money? Why, he's got more than he can spend now! Even if there is a secret, I don't see how money can have anything to do with it.”
”Well, you remember this, Bessie: the more money people have, the more they seem to want. They're never content. It's the people who only have a little who seem to be happy, and willing to get along with what they have. How about your old Farmer Weeks?”
”That's so, Dolly. He certainly was that way. He had more money than anyone in Hedgeville or anywhere near it, and yet he was the stingiest, closest fisted old man in town.”
”There you are!”
”Still I think Mr. Holmes must be a whole lot richer than Farmer Weeks, or than all the other people in Hedgeville put together. And it doesn't seem as if there was any money he could make out of Zara or me that would tempt him to do what he's done.”
”Do you know what I've noticed most, Bessie, about the way he's gone to work?”
”No. What?”
”The way he has spent money. He's acted as if he didn't care a bit how much it cost him, if only he got what he wanted. And people in the city never spend money unless they expect to get it back.”
”Who's the detective now! You called me one a little while ago, but it seems to me that you're doing pretty well in that line yourself.”
”Oh, it's all right to laugh, but, just the same, I'll bet that when we get at the bottom of all this mystery, we'll find that the chief reason Mr. Holmes was in it was that he wanted to get hold of some information that would make it easy for him to get a whole lot more than it cost him.”
”Well, maybe you're right, Dolly. But I'd certainly like to know just what he has got up his sleeve.”
”I think he'll be careful for a little while now, Bessie. He never knew that Miss Eleanor had that letter he'd written to the gypsy. And it must have damaged him a lot to have as much come out about that as did.”
”I expect a lot of people who heard it didn't believe it.”
”Even if that's so, I guess there were plenty who did believe it, and who think now that Mr. Holmes is a pretty good man to leave alone. You see, that proved absolutely that he had really hired that gypsy to carry you off, and that is a pretty mean thing to do. And people must know by this time that if there was any legal way of getting you and Zara away from the Camp Fire and Miss Mercer, he would do it.”
”But he didn't get into any trouble for doing it, Dolly.”
”He's got so much money that he could hire lawyers to get him out of almost any sc.r.a.pe he got in, Bessie. That's the trouble. Those people at Hamilton were afraid of him. They know how rich he is, and they didn't want to take any chance of making him angry at them.”
”Yes, that's just it. And I'm afraid he's got so much money that a whole lot of people who would say what they really thought if they weren't afraid of him, are on his side. You see, he says that I'm a runaway, just because I didn't stay any longer with the Hoovers. And probably he can make a whole lot of people think that I was very ungrateful, and that he is quite right in trying to get me back into the same state as Hedgeville.”
”They'd better talk to Miss Eleanor, if he makes them think that. They'll soon find out which is right and which is wrong in that business. And if she doesn't tell them, I guess Mr. Jamieson will--and he'd be glad of the chance, too!”
”Let's not worry about him, anyhow. I hope he won't find out where we are, too. We haven't seen or heard anything of him since we went back to Long Lake from Hamilton, so I don't see why there isn't a good chance of his letting us alone for a while now.”
They reached Windsor, the little town at the other end of Indian Gap, late in the afternoon, having cooked their midday meal in the gap.
”I know the people in a big boarding-house here,” said Eleanor, ”and we'll be very comfortable. In the morning we'll take an early train, so that we can get to Plum Beach before it's too late to get comfortably settled. I've sent word on ahead to have the tents ready for us, but, even so, there will be a good many things to do.”
”There always are,” sighed Dolly. ”That's the one thing I don't like about camping out.”
”I expect really, if you only knew the truth, Dolly, it's the one thing you like best of all,” smiled Eleanor. ”That's one of the great differences between being at home, where everything is done for you, and camping out, where you have to look after yourself.”
”Well, I don't like work, anyhow, and I don't believe I ever shall, Miss Eleanor, no matter what it's called. Some of it isn't as bad as some other kinds, that's all.”
Eleanor laughed to herself, because she knew Dolly well enough not to take such declarations too seriously.
”I've got some work for you to-night,” she said. ”I want you and Bessie to go to a meeting of the girls that belong to one of the churches here, and tell them about the Camp Fire. They found out we were coming, and they would like to know if they can't start a Camp Fire of their own.
”And I think they'll get a better idea of things, and be less timid and shy about asking questions if two of you girls go than if I try to explain. I will come in later, after they've had a chance to talk to you two, but by that time they ought to have a pretty clear idea.”
”That's not work, that's fun,” declared Dolly.