Part 11

Again she rang the bell, and could hear for herself its long, buzzing ring. But nobody answered it, and though she felt sure everything would soon be all right, yet she began to feel a little queer.

“I know it’s the right house,” she thought, “for here’s Lena’s fan in the hammock. That’s the fan I gave her, so she must have left the house lately.”

Greatly puzzled, Betty went around to the back part of the house.

She knocked and banged on the kitchen door, but received no response of any sort. She tried the door, but it was evidently locked and would not open.

She peered in at a window, but all she could see was some dishes piled on the kitchen table.

“Well, I do declare!” she said aloud, “if this isn’t a lovely way to receive an invited guest!”

Though unwilling to admit it, even to herself, Betty was feeling decidedly disturbed. There was a mistake somewhere, that was quite evident. She knew the mistake was not hers, for Lena had written careful directions about her journey, and had said the motor would meet the train.

Resolving to ring the bell again, Betty went slowly back to the front door.

The landscape did not appear quite so attractive as it had at first, and Betty was conscious of a queer depression about her heart.

“I’m not scared!” she assured herself; “I won’t be scared! They _must_ be in the house. Perhaps they’re—perhaps they’re cleaning the attic!” Though not very probable, this seemed a possibility, and Betty pushed the bell with force enough to summon even people busily absorbed in work. But nobody came, and in despair Betty gave up the attic theory.

Half involuntarily, for she had no thought of its being unlocked, she turned the knob of the front door. To her surprise, it opened readily, and she stepped inside.

“Well, for goodness’ sake!” she exclaimed. “Now, they must be at home, or they would have locked the front door.”

Then she called: “Lena! Lena, where are you?”

But no one answered, and her voice reverberated in what was unmistakably an empty house.

Betty gave a little shiver. There is something uncanny in being the only occupant of a strange house.

An undefined sense of fear took possession of her, and she stood hesitating in the hall, almost determined to go no farther.

Had it been a dull, cloudy day, or nearing dusk, she would have scurried out, but in the bright, cheerful sunlight it seemed absurd to feel afraid.

Still, it was with a loudly beating heart that she stepped into a large room opening off the hall.

It was evidently the family living-room, and the familiar things about reassured her somewhat.

Several books which she looked into bore Lena’s name on the fly-leaf, and a light shawl, which she recognized as Mrs. Carey’s, was flung carelessly over a chair-back. Somehow these homelike touches comforted Betty, and she ventured further explorations.

The dining-room was in order, and Betty could not tell whether any one had eaten recently or not. But in the kitchen pantry she noted remnants of breakfasts, which were fresh enough to denote having been placed there that morning. The ice-box showed fresh milk and various cold viands, and when Betty discovered that the kitchen clock was ticking, she concluded that all was well.

“For it’s one of those little tin clocks,” she observed, “that have to be wound every day. So the Careys have just stepped out since breakfast, but why they took all the servants with them, I don’t know. Family picnic, I suppose, with no thought of their arriving guest!”

Wandering back to the front rooms, Betty started to go up-stairs, and then stopped. Suppose something awful had happened!

She paused with her foot on the lowest stair.

“Lena!” she called again, “Lena!”

But there was no answer, and, with a sudden impulse of bravery, Betty ran up-stairs and peeped into the first bedroom she came to. It was, without doubt, Lena’s own room.

She recognised her kimono flung on the bed, and her little Japanese slippers, which had evidently been kicked off across the room. Surely Lena had dressed in a hurry.

Cheered by these visible signs of her friend’s recent presence here, Betty went on through the other rooms.

She found nothing unusual, merely the sleeping-rooms of the Carey family, fairly tidy, but by no means in spick-and-span order.

In fact, they looked as if the whole family had gone away in haste.

“To meet me at the station, I suppose,” cogitated Betty. “Well, I’m here, and I can’t help it, so I may as well make myself at home. I think I’ll bring my suitcase up, and select a room, and put on a cooler dress.”

She went down-stairs more blithely than she had come up. It was all very mysterious, to be sure, but there had been no tragedy, and the Careys must come back soon, wherever they might have gone.

She paused again in the living-room, and sitting down at the open piano, she sang a few lively little songs.

Then, feeling quite merry over her strange experience, she went out to the front porch for her suitcase.

It was just where she had left it. Nobody was in sight. She gazed again over the lovely, serene landscape, and, taking the suitcase, she went, singing, up-stairs.

The guest-room was easily recognized and Betty felt at liberty to appropriate it for her own use. She was an invited guest, and if no hostess or servant was present to conduct her to her room, she must look after her own rights.

“I’m just like Robinson Crusoe,” she chuckled to herself. “I’m stranded on a desert island, with not a human being near. But, luckily, there’s food in the pantry, for really, with all these exciting experiences, I’m getting hungry.”

She opened her suitcase and shook out her pretty dresses. Then she changed her traveling-frock for the light organdie, and having bathed, and brushed her hair, she felt rather better.

“Well, it’s nearly noon,” she said, looking at her watch, “and, as I’ve no one to consult but myself, I may as well have an early luncheon. If the Careys come in while I’m eating, I’ll invite them to lunch with me.”

So down-stairs Betty went, smiling to think of herself as Betty Crusoe.

But as she passed the door of the living-room and glanced inside, her smile faded.

Her eyes grew big with amazement, her cheeks turned pale, and a shiver of fear shook her.

On the table lay a man’s hat!

“It _couldn’t_ have been there when I was in here before,” she thought, “for I looked into those books, and now the hat’s on top of them!”

It was a forlorn old hat, of light-gray felt, but soiled and torn, and Betty’s frightened heart told her that it was the hat of some marauder, and not of any member of the Carey family.

With a sudden scream, which she could not repress, she ran and hid behind a large Japanese screen in the corner of the room.

“Who’s there?” called a man’s voice from the hall. It was a loud, gruff voice, and poor Betty shook and shivered as she crouched behind the screen.

“Who’s there?” repeated the voice, and Betty heard heavy footsteps coming in at the living-room door.

Then there was silence. The man was apparently awaiting Betty’s next move. Then he said again: “Who screamed just now? Where are you?” and somehow this time his voice did not sound quite so ferocious. But Betty had no intention of answering, and she squeezed into her corner, hoping that he would go away.

Then suddenly the whimsical idea came to her that, as she was personating Robinson Crusoe, this was probably the Man Friday who had arrived. This amused her so much that she giggled in spite of her fear. The man heard the smothered sound, and going straight to the screen, he pulled it suddenly away.

Betty, who was sitting on the floor, looked up to see a stalwart young man of a college type staring down at her. His costume of summer outing clothes was informal, but at once betokened he was no marauder. Also, his handsome, sunburnt face and frank blue eyes showed a kindly though surprised expression.

Betty was reassured at once, and, truly glad to see a human being of her own walk in life, her face broke into smiles and merry dimples, as she said:

“Hello, Man Friday!”

“Who are you?” was his bewildered response, and then remembering himself, he added: “I beg your pardon; may I assist you to rise?”

He took Betty’s hand, and in a moment she had jumped up from her crouching position, and stood facing him.

“I’m Betty Crusoe,” she said; “I’m stranded on a desert island, and if you’re Man Friday, I hope you’ll protect me from cannibals or bears or whatever wild beasts abound here.”

“Oh, I know you,” said the young man, smiling. “You’re Miss Betty McGuire.”

“I am. I’m a guest of the Careys—only—the Careys don’t seem to be here!”

“No, they’re not. I’m Hal Pennington, at your service. I’m called Pen or Penny for short,—sometimes Bad Penny.”

“I’m sure that’s a libel,” said Betty, smiling at his kind, honest face.

“It is, I assure you, for I’m good as gold. Well, I, too, am a guest of the Careys, and, as you so cleverly observe, they don’t seem to be here!”

“Where are they?”

“Well, you see it was this way. All the servants took it into their foolish heads to leave at once. They decamped last night. So this morning the Careys started off in the motor-car to bring home a lot of new ones.”

“But why didn’t they come to the station for me, as they arranged?”

“Oh, they telegraphed you last night not to come till next week.”

“And I didn’t get the telegram!”

“Thus that explains all! How did you get here?”

“In a rumbly old wagon of a kind farmer. The front door wasn’t locked, so I walked in and made myself at home. Are you staying here?”

“Yes, for a week. I’m sketching some bits of woodland, and I stayed at home to-day rather than go with them to stalk servants. Now, let me see,—this is rather a complicated situation. Shall I, by virtue of prior residence, be host and welcome you as my visitor, or would you rather appropriate the house as your own, and let me be your guest?”

His jolly, boyish face seemed to show that he thought the whole affair a great joke, and Betty fell into the spirit of it.

“When do the Careys return?” she asked.

“Mrs. Carey said they’d surely be home by three o’clock, and I could forage in the pantry to keep myself from starving.”

“All right,” said Betty; “I’ll be hostess, then, until she comes. You’ve heard Lena speak of me?”

“Gracious, yes! I’ve heard you so highly lauded that I doubt if you can live up to the angelic reputation she gives you!”

“Oh, yes, I can,” said Betty, laughing. “Now I’ll be Betty Crusoe, and this house is my desert island. You’re Man Friday, and you must do exactly as I say.”

“I live but to obey your decrees,” said young Pennington, with a deep bow.

“Good! Now, first of all, I’m starving. Are you?”

“I even starve at your command. I am famished.”

“I believe you are, really. Let’s see what we can find.”

Together they went to the pantry, and found cold chicken and peach-pie, a bowl of custard, and various odds and ends of tempting-looking dishes.

“Let’s set the table first,” cried Betty, gleefully. “Do you know where the dishes are?”

“I’ve never really set the table,” Pennington said, “but I’m quite sure the dishes are in the sideboard or the glass cupboard.”

“How clever you are!” said Betty, laughingly; “I do believe you’re right!”

They easily found linen, silver, and glass, and Betty set the table daintily for two.

“Now,” she said, “I’ll get the luncheon. A man’s only a bother in the kitchen. You go and do your sketching until I call you.”

But Hal Pennington was not so easily disposed of.

“No,” he said; “I’ll gather some flowers, and then I’ll arrange them as a decoration for our feast.”

“Do,” said Betty, “that will be lovely!”

Hal went out to the garden, and returned with gay blossoms, which he arranged deftly and with good taste on the table.

“What are you doing?” he said a little later, as he drifted into the kitchen, where Betty, with her sleeves rolled back, was whisking away at something in a bowl.

“Making a salad; don’t you like it?”

“Love it! Let me help.”

“You can’t help, I tell you. Go away, Man Friday, until I call you.”

“No, please let me help,” coaxed Hal. “I just love to cook. Pooh, maybe you think I don’t know how! See here, I’ll make an omelet!”

Before Betty knew what he was about he had broken several eggs into a bowl.

“Oh, don’t!” she cried, laughing at his misdirected energy. “We don’t want an omelet! We’ve bushels of things to eat already!”

“Then I’ll make coffee,” said Hal, quite unabashed. “These eggs will do for coffee just as well.”

“Not six of them, goose!” cried Betty.

“Why, yes, you always put eggs in coffee.”

“Oh, just one, or part of one, to clear it!”

“Well, if one’s good, more’s better; anyway, I’m going to make coffee.”

Taking a white apron from a nail, Hal tied it round himself, and proceeded to make what turned out to be really good coffee, though he used only a small portion of the eggs in it.

“You are a good cook,” said Betty, as she watched his experienced movements.

“Sure! I learned how in camp. All our fellows know how to cook.”

The luncheon was daintily served. Betty had garnished the salad with nasturtium leaves and red blossoms, and edged the platter of cold chicken with a wreath of parsley.

They had taken out the Careys’ best china and cut glass, and the table looked lovely indeed.

“My! What a spread!” said Hal, looking admiringly at it. “I didn’t suppose you could do things like that.”

“Why not?” said Betty, turning wondering eyes on him. “What made you think I couldn’t?”

Hal reddened a little, but said honestly:

“’Cause Lena said you’re such a fearfully rich girl, and I sort of thought you’d be—oh, you know—above fussing in the kitchen.”

Betty laughed merrily.

“I love fussing in the kitchen,” she said, “and I think every girl ought to know how to cook. At least she ought to have sense enough to get together a cold luncheon like this when everything’s provided.”

“Yes, I know; but you’ve made everything look so pretty. I want to eat dishes and all!”

Betty dimpled with pleasure at his praise, and they sat down to the pretty feast, to which they did full justice.

“I wonder when the Careys will come,” Betty remarked, as they lingered over the coffee.

“I wish they’d never come,” said Hal. “I think it would be fine if we were really castaways, and nobody ever came to rescue us. Just like Robinson Crusoe and his Man Friday.”

“But we haven’t any goat,” said Betty, laughing. “The goat was one of the principal characters, you know.”

“Well, likely a goat would wander in some day. I say, can you sing?”

“Yes,” said Betty, smiling as she thought of how she had sung when she first entered the house; “I sing some songs pretty well.”

“I wager you do. Let’s go in by the piano and sing duets.”

“Didn’t you hear me singing this morning? I sat down at the piano when I first arrived.”

“No; I was out sketching. I only came in the house a few minutes before I found you.”

“Let me see your pictures, won’t you?”

“Sometime, yes. Let’s go and sing now.”

“No, we must clear the table first. It’s so untidy to leave it. But you needn’t do it; I hate to see a boy doing girl’s work.”

“Oh, pshaw, it isn’t girl’s work exactly, if you play you’re camping or picnicking or something like that. I’m going to help, and you can’t stop me!”

Hal had begun already to take out the dishes, and Betty gave him a mock sigh, as she said:

“I don’t think my Man Friday obeys me as well as he promised to.”

“’Cause I only obey when I want to,” he responded, and in a short time the table was cleared and the food put away.

“We won’t wash the dishes,” said Betty, as she piled them neatly on the kitchen table. “If Mrs. Carey’s going to bring a lot of servants at three o’clock, they’ll want something to do.”

So they went to the piano, and soon discovered that they knew a number of the same songs.

Hal had a good voice, and they sang away with all their youthful enthusiasm, making such a volume of sound that it could be heard above the chug-chugging of the approaching motor-car.

“Well, I declare!” exclaimed Lena, as they whizzed up to the house. “That’s surely Betty McGuire’s voice! No one else sings like that.”

“And that’s Hal singing with her,” said Mrs. Carey, as a masculine voice blended with Betty’s soprano.

Then Lena sprang from the car, and rushed to greet Betty, and all sorts of apologies and explanations followed.

“I’m not a bit sorry!” said Hal, as Mrs. Carey reiterated her regret at the misunderstanding; “I’ve had a jolly time, and now Lena’s come I don’t suppose I’ll be able to get a word in edgewise with Betty Crusoe, all the evening!”

“You will, if I have anything to say about it,” said Betty, flashing one of her brightest smiles at her Man Friday.

XI A LABOR DAY LUNCHEON

Labor Day was, of course, on Monday, and the Saturday before Betty received this letter:

Boston, Friday.

Dearest Betty: The loveliest thing has happened! Aunt Evelyn has asked me to make her a little visit in New York (she lives at the Waldorf, you know), and she says I may ask you to go with us on a Labor Day excursion on Monday. So don’t fail me; I’m crazy to see you! I’m so excited over it all, I can scarcely write. But this is the plan. I’m going to New York to-morrow. You’re to come on Monday morning, and we’ll meet you at the ferry—on the New York side, you know. And then, the boat—oh, I forgot to tell you, we’re going to West Point—sails from somewhere near there. But never mind that; we’ll meet you and show you the way. We’re going to carry our luncheon, for Aunt Evelyn says you can’t get anything fit to eat on an excursion-boat. So you can bring a contribution to the feast, or not, according to your convenience. But be sure to come. I’ve never been up the Hudson River, and we’ll have loads of fun. Take that early train from Greenborough, and wait for us “under the clock.”

Lovingly, Dorothy.

“Isn’t it fine, Mother?” said Betty, as she read the letter aloud. “I’ve never been up the Hudson either, and it will be such fun to go with Dorothy.”

“Yes, it will, deary. I’m sure you’ll have a lovely trip. You’ll have to scurry out early, though, if you’re to take that seven-thirty train. You’ll want to take some luncheon, won’t you?”

“Oh, yes; I think I ought to. Ellen will cook some of her lovely fried chicken for me. And I might take some stuffed eggs or some jelly tarts. I’ll talk it over with Ellen.”

Now, Ellen was by nature what is called “a good provider.” And so it happened that when Betty came down-stairs at half-past six on Monday morning Ellen was already packing into a big box the good things which she had risen before daylight to prepare.

“For mercy’s sake, Ellen!” cried Betty, “do you think I’m going to feed the whole excursion?”

“Arrah, Miss Betty,” returned Ellen, placidly, “it’s a fine appetite ye’ll get on the water, and yer city folks’ll be glad to eat yer country fixin’s.”

Ellen was wrapping delicious-looking bits of golden-brown fried chicken daintily in oiled paper, and tucking them into place in the big box.

Then in one corner she placed a smaller box of stuffed eggs, which, in their individual frills of fringed white paper, formed a pretty picture.

Another partition held jelly tarts, with flaky crusts and quivering red centers, and somehow Ellen found room for a few sandwiches, through whose thin bread showed the yellow of mayonnaise.

Everything was carefully protected with white paper napkins, and the whole box was a most appetizing display of skilled culinary art.

“But it’s so big, Ellen,” repeated Betty, laughing. “I simply can’t carry so much stuff.”

“Niver you mind, Miss Betty,” said the imperturbable cook, going on with her work of wrapping the big box in neat brown paper and tying it with stout twine. “You’ve not to walk at all, at all, and ye can get a porther to lift it off the thrain. An’ sure Pat’ll put it on safely fer ye.”

So Betty submitted to the inevitable, realizing that she wouldn’t have to carry the box at all, and proceeded to eat her breakfast.

“It is an awfully big box,” said Mrs. McGuire, as the carriage came to the door; “but if your party can’t eat all the things, you can give them to some children on the boat.”

“Oh, it’ll be all right,” said Betty, and kissing her mother good-by, she jumped into the carriage, and Pat drove her to the train.

There were few passengers at that early hour, and so there was ample room for the box on the seat beside her. Though Betty went often to New York, she rarely went alone, but as Dorothy and her aunt’s family were to meet her, she felt no responsibility as to traveling.

In Jersey City the conductor lifted the box out for her, and a convenient porter carried it to the ferry-boat.

“Hold it level,” Betty admonished him, and he touched his red cap and said “Yes’m,” and then carried the box with greatest care. Betty went by the Twenty-third Street Ferry, and in the ferry-house on the New York side she was to meet Dorothy, “under the clock.”

This tryst was a well-known one, for it made a definite place to meet in the crowded room.

Betty always enjoyed the long ferry, and she sat outside, with her precious box reposing on the seat beside her.

The morning was delightful, but it was growing warm and bade fair to be a very warm day.

Betty watched with interest the great steamer piers, and the traffic on the river, rejoicing to think that soon she would be sailing farther up the stream, where the banks were green and wooded, and the expanse of water unmarred by freight-boats and such unpicturesque craft.

The ferry-boat bumped into its dock at Twenty-third, Street, and Betty picked up her box and started off with it. A porter met her at the gangplank, and she gave it to him with an injunction to hold it quite level. For it would be a pity to tumble the neat arrangement of Ellen’s goodies into an unappetizing mass.

Down-stairs they went, and into the waiting-room, where Betty paused “under the clock.”

Dorothy hadn’t arrived, but Betty remembered, with a smile, that she was nearly always late, so, remunerating the porter, she sat down to wait, with her box beside her.

She had on a suit of embroidered blue linen, and a broad-brimmed straw hat trimmed with brown roses.

The big hat suited Betty’s round face and curly hair, and, all unconsciously, she made a pretty picture as she sat there waiting. Before she had time to feel anxious about Dorothy’s non-appearance, a messenger-boy in uniform came toward her.

“Is this Miss McGuire?” he said, touching his cap respectfully.

“Yes,” said Betty, wondering how he knew her.

“Then this is for you. The lady told me how you looked, and said I’d find you right here. No answer.”

The boy turned away, and in a moment was lost in the crowd, leaving Betty in possession of a note addressed in Dorothy’s handwriting.

She tore it open and read:

Waldorf-Astoria.

Dear Betty: What do you think! Aunt Evelyn has a _fearful_ sick headache, and can’t raise her head from the pillow. So, of course, we can’t go up the Hudson to-day, and she says for you to come right up here, and have luncheon here, and afterward Uncle Roger will take us to a matinée. She said this was the surest way to reach you, and for you not to be afraid, but just take a taxicab and come straight here. I told her I knew you wouldn’t be afraid, but she said for you to telephone us as soon as you get this note, so she’ll know it’s all right. She’s sort of nervous about you. So call us up right away, and I’ll answer you.

In haste, Dorothy.

P. S. I told the messenger he’d know you because you were very pretty, except for your turn-up nose.