Part 11 (1/2)
”I'm afraid not, thank you. I'd give anything to go, but I can't spare the time from college. Some other occasion, perhaps.”
As Walter had predicted, Jack took fire at once oh hearing the proposal.
”It'll be great!” he declared. ”I've always wanted to go. I wonder what sort of a boat we could get down there, Wally? It would be immense to go on a cruise, among those hundreds of islands.”
”Time enough to think of that when we get there, old man. Then you'd like to go?”
”I sure would. Tell Mr. Robinson thanks--a hundred times.”
”I'll save some of them for to-morrow; it's getting late. Now turn over, and go to sleep.”
”Sleep! As if I could sleep with that news! Let's talk about it!”
And they did--the girls coming up with Mrs. Kimball for a brief chat.
Then the invalid was ordered to quiet down for the night.
Walter, with Harry, who was to remain at the Kimball residence for a few days, went home with the Robinson twins in their car, Cora trailing along in her automobile to bring back the boys.
The next day nothing was talked of but the prospective trip.
Walter wired his people and received permission to absent himself from college, ostensibly to help look after Jack. As Harry had said, he could not go, but Mrs. Kimball and Cora fully made up their minds to make the journey with Jack, and close up the Chelton home for the winter months.
”But what about Inez and her political problem?” asked Belle, when this much had been settled. ”She doesn't want to stay and be, as she says, a burden on you any longer, poor little girl.”
”She's far from being a burden,” spoke Cora. ”Why, mother says the lace she sold us was the most wonderful bargain, even though we did give her more than she asked for it. And as for making pretty things, why she's a positive genius. My pretty lace handkerchief that was so badly torn, she mended beautifully. And she is so skillful with the needle! Mother says she never need go out peddling lace again. There are any number of shops that would be glad to have her as a worker.”
”It's so good she fell into your hands,” murmured Bess. ”But, as you say, what about her? Papa has looked over her papers, and he says there is really enough evidence in them to free Mr. Ralcanto. Papa even cabled to some business friends in San Juan, and they confirmed enough of Inez's story to make him believe it all.
”Of course I don't understand--I never could make head nor tail of politics, but there seems to be a conspiracy to keep Mr. Ralcanto in jail, and treat him shamefully. Inez did accidentally find the evidence to free him, and her father's enemies tried to get it away from her.”
”Then that man whom Walter saw,” began Cora, ”was--”
”He might have been after the papers,” interrupted Bess, ”and again, he might have been only a tramp, hoping to get a valise full of lace.
At any rate, he hasn't been around again.”'
”Mother told our man John to be on the watch for him,” said Cora.
”And now lets consider what we are going to do. What shall I need to take in the way of clothes?”
”Only your very lightest, my dear,” suggested Belle. ”Of course the trip down on the steamer will be cool--at least the first day or so.
Well start in about two weeks. That will bring us to Porto Rica about, the beginning of the dry season--the most delightful time.”
”And is your father really going to try to have the Spanish prisoner released?” asked Cora.
”He says he is, my dear. And when papa makes up his mind to do a thing, it is generally done,” said Bess. ”Besides, he has learned that Mr. Ralcanto did some political favors for friends of papa's.
That is before the poor man was put in prison. Which brings us back to Inez--what about her, Cora?”
”I have just thought of something,” murmured Jack's sister. ”As I said, she has several times suggested going, now she is practically a.s.sured that something will be attempted for her father. But I was just wondering why we couldn't take her with us?”