Part 14 (1/2)

”Ready! March!” commanded the masked girl.

”Hold on!” objected Laura Polk. ”These two sawneys ought to be made to eat their lunch.”

Bess fairly snorted, she was so angry. But Nan would not let her pull away. She cried, before her chum could say anything:

”Oh! we promise to eat it all before we go to bed.”

”That will do,” declared the leader. ”Be still, Polk. March!”

Against her will at first, then because she did not know what else to do, Bess Harley went along beside her chum. ”The Procession of the Sawneys”--quite a famous inst.i.tution, by the way, at Lakeview Hall--was begun.

”Where's the next innocent?” demanded one girl, hoa.r.s.ely.

”Number Eighteen, on this corridor,” was the reply. ”That girl from Wauhegan.”

”Wau--what-again?” sputtered Laura Polk.

”There, there, Polk!” admonished the masked leader. ”Never mind your bad puns. Here we are. Attention!”

The procession halted. The leader banged the door three times as she had at Number Seven, with the handle of the broom.

”Come in! don't stop to knock,” called somebody inside.

”There! that's the way to treat us,” grunted Laura, as the door swung inward.

”s.h.!.+” the girls all became silent.

There was a light in the room and a tall, thin girl, with rather homely features but a beautiful set of teeth, scrambled up from the floor where she had been sitting cross-legged, arranging her lower bureau drawer.

”Gracious--goodness--Agnes!” she gasped, when she saw the head of the procession.

Then silence fell again--that is, human voices ceased. But the visiting girls marked instantly the peculiar fact that the room sounded like a clock-shop, with all the clocks going.

There was an alarm clock hung by a ribbon right beside the head of one of the two beds in the room. A little ormolu clock was ticking busily on the bureau, and an easel clock stood upon the work table. In the corner hung an old-fas.h.i.+oned cuckoo clock in one of the elaborately carved cases made in the Black Forest, and just at this moment the door at the top flew open and the Cuckoo jerked her head out and announced the time--nine o'clock.

This was too much for the risibility of the girls crowding in at the door, and no pounding of the broom handle could entirely quell the giggles.

”And she's wearing a watch!” gasped one girl. ”And there's another hanging on the side of the mirror.”

”Why, girls!” burst out Laura Polk. ”We've certainly caught Miss Procrastination herself. You know, 'procrastination is the thief of time,' and this Wau--what-again girl must have stolen all these timepieces.”

”Didn't either!” declared the occupant of the room. ”Pop and I took 'em for a debt.”

”Hus.h.!.+” commanded the girl in the pillow case. ”What is your name, sawney?”

”Amelia Boggs,” was the prompt reply.

”Amelia, you must come with us,” commanded the leader of the sawney procession.

”Oh! I haven't time,” objected the victim.