Part 6

“Then the treasure would be all my own, if I found it,” returned Sue. “Suppose it was a thousand dollars tied up in a bag!”

“If you go a step down cellar, I’m going home,” said Solita stoutly. “I’m going this minute anyhow--good-bye!” She started toward the stairs.

Sue felt rather obstinate. She decided that she _would_ go down cellar even if Solita left her. She tried to close the little window that looked down the long slope of the roof but it was hard to get it closed again. She looked down the long slope and was half determined to slide down it and see how it felt. If her great-great-grandfather had done it, she could, too! Why not! It would be fun to creep out of the window and not follow Solita--just slide down over the shingles to the ground and run around to the front door and hide till Solita came and then jump out and call, _boo!_ But at this minute, she heard Solita scream and the scream was so terrified that Sue jumped toward the stairs. Solita was running toward her. “You can’t go down the stairs--Oh, don’t go that way!” she screamed. “A bear is sitting in the doorway. He growled when he heard me come down the stairs. He is on the doorstone--a big, big bear! What shall we do! We can’t get out! Oh, dear! Oh, _dear_! Why did we ever come into this house!”

“A real bear?” questioned Sue, grabbing fast to Solita’s torn frock. “Tell me--you just imagined it--you couldn’t have seen one! There aren’t any bears here!”

But Solita struggled to free herself. “Oh, I _saw_ him,” she insisted in a frightened wail. “He may be up here any moment. He’s so big he could push any door in and we’re caught! We’re caught!”

Sue, half believing and against all entreaty, peeped over the winding balustrade rail. Yes. There _was_ a bear! Her heart went pat-pat-pat. A shiver ran down her back. She felt cold all over and ready to sink down in a limp heap upon the floor. But she put a warning finger to her lips and motioned Solita to stop crying. The first thing she thought of was to get Solita quietly into that little back room that had the open window that gave upon the long sloping roof--that was it! They could creep out quietly and then dash off over the back yard and into the woods. Then, perhaps, they could turn down and find the road and warn the other children!

Solita stood there shivering, but Sue dragged her toward the little room and closed the door. Solita was stupefied with the fear of that bear’s coming upstairs after them. At first she did not understand about the window, but Sue made her crawl through it first and told her to run toward the woods when she got down off the roof. “I’ll come right after you,” she urged. “Go right on and I’ll follow. He won’t see us!”

Poor Solita gathered her pink skirt about her and slid miserably and cautiously down. She was almost as afraid of falling suddenly as she was of the bear. Sue, however, made quick work of it, even as the great-great-grandfather must have done, though there were no bears after him. At the very end of the slope, she landed in a blackberry bush tangle, but she pulled herself free and helped Solita. Then the two of them darted toward the woods at the rear without a look back to see if the big bear were following or not. Solita was sure he was coming but Sue denied it. At last, badly out of breath, they reached the road, after plunging through thickets and being badly torn and scratched, after one or two excited tumbles over dead logs and much worry about the bear.

As they turned the corner of the road near the brook, they came upon the children with little Albert. “Run, run!” they screamed, “run, run quick! There’s a bear coming!”

Then, all in a crowd, they hurried on toward the road that led to White Farm. They had not gone very far when there appeared two men coming toward them. They were talking together in excited French. They stopped and asked if anybody had seen a big bear.

“Oui, oui,” nodded Solita and she launched out into a long talk in French that nobody else understood. It seemed that that was really the bear Sue and Solita had run away from and he wasn’t a wild bear but a tame one that would dance with a pole while the men sang French songs. They had stopped to get a drink of water at a farm and the bear had got off someway, when their backs were turned. They were delighted to know where he was and Solita and Sue, reassured, offered to show the way. So again they started toward the funny, old-fashioned house in a crowd together.

They came upon the bear, still eating blackberries on the doorstone--he hadn’t budged! And when the Frenchmen called him, he came meekly. Then all the children stood around in the dooryard while the bear that Solita and Sue had escaped from danced and danced. He turned somersets, too! It was fun.

And then the men took off their caps and turned and went down the overgrown driveway and off up the road. The children were already busy with the blackberries. “I might go down cellar now, Solita,” laughed Sue, “but I don’t believe I want to. Maybe there’d be another bear there. I’ve had enough of one, even a tame one, haven’t you?”

Solita laughed. “Our blackberries are all eaten,” she said. “We’d have to begin to pick again to fill the basket and the pail. I move we all go home, for I think it’s nearly lunch time.”

But everybody wanted to go into the house and slide down the roof, while little Albert made believe he was the bear and said “Grrr-r” on the doorstone. It really _was_ a blackberry adventure for a summer day!

_Betty Crusoe_

_THE SEPTEMBER SURPRISE_

_September was almost school time again. There seemed to be a long, hard thing in the September pocket that was not the story pocket. Marjorie said it felt as if it were a stick of candy. She had wanted to open the surprise long before September 13th, the date set, had come. But at last it was September 13th and she tore open the seals that held that leaf of the Surprise Book’s pocket tight. There was--why, a pencil! Why hadn’t she ever guessed that! It was a pencil painted pink and it had a rubber at its end. It had a pretty card tied to it that said, “Use this when you go to school tomorrow.” The story Marjorie opened that evening after supper. It was called “Betty Crusoe.”_

_XI_

_Betty Crusoe_

All summer Betty had been in the city. Then, the last day of September came an eventful invitation from a school-friend of her mother’s. “Dear Betty,” it ran, “I know your mother can’t be persuaded to leave daddy and the boys, but can’t _you_ pack up and spend the rest of the vacation with me in my big house here at Riverby? I’m all alone for October.” So, in two days, there was Betty in Riverby!

Mrs. Roberts and she took long motor rides, but the rest of the time--and much of the time--Betty had to amuse herself. She was always longing for a boat ride on the lovely blue river that was within sight of the house, but Mrs. Roberts never seemed inclined to go out rowing. It was one day when she was lonely and wishing for somebody her own age to play with that she wandered through the grounds down toward the shore. Some magic must have been at work, for right there upon the sandy beach sat a pink gingham dress much like Betty’s own! It turned as Betty’s white shoes crunched the coarse gravel. “Hello,” she greeted. “I was just wishing I had a girl to talk to and then _you_ came!”

Betty laughed. “I was just wishing, myself,” she smiled. “I’m staying with Mrs. Roberts. Do you live next door?”

The pink hair-ribbon bobbed. “I’m staying with my aunt,” it said. “I just came from the West. I don’t know a soul my own age here and it’s stupid. Now that you’ve come, let’s have some fun together. My name’s Lydia. What’s yours?”

It seemed to the two of them that they had known each other always and, naturally, having so begun, it appeared that the two of them were longing to go out upon the river for a row--and had been longing for that ever since they came to Riverby.

“Don’t I wish we could find a boat!”

“Do you know where there is one?”

“No--and I’ve only rowed on the lake in the park--”

“Well, never mind. You could row out a little way, if we could find a boat! Let’s!”

“We wouldn’t go out very far--”

“No, not very far. I think we can find a boat if we walk along the shore--”

So the two trotted along the sandy rim of the river and, after a while, they did come upon a boat drawn high up. There were oars in it and it appeared to be waiting for the two, just as Lydia had been waiting for Betty a half hour before. They didn’t stop to think. They merely accepted the boat as they had accepted each other. It was part of the adventure, of course. With frantic tugging, they finally launched the boat and Betty took the oars.

As she dipped them, “I’ve got to be back by four,” she said. “Mrs. Roberts asked me to go calling--pity me, Lydia, I’ll have to come back and put on my best dress. I’d rather stay on the river--I hope you’ve a watch with you. I didn’t bring mine.”

“No, I haven’t any watch but I can tell time by the sun,” reassured Lydia. “Do you know, Betty, I’m longing to know what’s just around the bend of the river. We can go that far, can’t we?”

“Sure,” replied Betty, bravely. She did not say that her arms were already rather tired. She waited for Lydia to offer to take the oars.

But when they reached the bend, right there in the very center of the river was a big wooded island. Its shore was overhung with dark pine trees. It was a most fascinating island!

“Oh, row over to the island, Betty,” screamed Lydia. “I do so want to go there! We can stop for a bit and then come back and you’ll be home in time to dress for that call.” So Betty, tired but very willing to prolong the fun, rowed on.

They beached the boat near a rock, but while they were beaching it, out fell an oar! Before anybody could get it, it had floated far out beyond reach! Oh dear! Oh dear! Could anything ever be worse! Oh dear, dear, dear!

They sat upon the beach there under the pines and wondered what was going to happen. What indeed? The island seemed nothing but woods, and the boats that passed by were too far away to hear what Betty and Lydia screamed at them. They evidently took the wild antics of the two pink dresses on the island beach as just so much joyous kind of greeting, nothing more. Neither Lydia or Betty could swim. So there was every reason to believe they would stay upon that island forever.

“My aunt didn’t know I was going off anywhere,” wailed Lydia. “She’d never think of my being _here_!”

“And Mrs. Roberts is expecting me to be dressed for calling at four!”

“I don’t know what we’re going to do!”

“Neither do I!”

It seemed so utterly hopeless that the two put their arms around each other and cried hard on each other’s pink gingham shoulders. Yet, as crying did not mend matters, Betty decided to make a petticoat flag and wade as far out as possible to hail the next boat. There was a rocky point that might be a good station. So she and Lydia paddled out there, leaving shoes and stockings on the shore.

The sun was gradually sinking toward the West. Lydia insisted that it must be at least half past four or five. She was sure they would have to camp out upon the island all night and was tearfully worrying about bears--“There always _are_ bears in the woods, Betty,” she said. “I don’t want to stay here all night, oh dear! Don’t you suppose that a boat ever will come around the bend and see our signal?” But it was long after that that at last a launch sped by, leaving in its wake a track of white foam. No use to scream! The launch simply did not hear or see and there were but two in it, a lady and a man who was at the rear.

“Mrs. Roberts has a parasol exactly that shade,” wailed Betty. “It might be her out looking for me only she wouldn’t think I had gone out on the river. Since I’ve been here, we never have been boating. She’s probably hunting for me in town or else she’s gone to call without me by this time. Maybe she thinks I forgot the call and went to walk. Then, of course, she’d not be worrying or looking for me till supper time.”

“But I should think they’d have stopped the launch when they heard us scream, ‘Help!’ They must have heard!”

“No,” disagreed Betty. “Maybe they never noticed or they thought we were just a silly picnic party playing Robinson Crusoe.”

Alas!

“Well, we’ve got to stay here, Lydia.”

“It’s our punishment, I suppose.”

“Maybe we deserve it for taking a boat that didn’t belong to us.”

They sat on the rock for a long time wondering what more they could do and then Betty realized that she was fearfully hungry. Lydia, too, at the same time, longed for a couple of sandwiches. “We might go look to see if there are berries in the woods,” they agreed.

There were no berries, of course. There was only wintergreen and that wasn’t satisfying. They found remnants of some picnic’s old boxes--but that was all. The picnic must have been there weeks ago for its boxes were mere pulp now--oh dear!

Betty’s pink dress was torn and scratched by brambly twigs that were in that woods. Lydia’s hair had lost its ribbon and trailed down her back in a loose tangle. The two of them were begrimed like two tramps when, finally, Betty discovered a footprint that looked as if it were newly made. “Friday, Man Friday,” she screamed, “Look! There must be somebody on this island, if we can only find the one to whom this belongs! Hooray, maybe we’ll be rescued yet! Let’s follow in the same direction and see if we do find another picnic party--if they haven’t gone home!”

“Oh, I hope they haven’t--I don’t want to spend the night here with nothing to eat--Oh dear!”

And then they found a path!

There was another footprint upon the path too!

Betty and Lydia hurried on, their hearts beating excitement. When they turned suddenly, the woods ceased abruptly and they found themselves in full view of a summer camp!

With one wild shout, Betty ran forward to its landing. There, there was a launch and in it the two who had passed on the river and beside them, too, were other people. The launch was just about to start when Betty with Lydia at her heels darted upon the dock waving wild arms. “Stop, stop,” they cried. And then Betty saw who the lady was--why, why, it was--it was Mrs. Roberts! It _was_!

On the way home, Mrs. Roberts said that she hoped Betty wouldn’t decide to play Robinson Crusoe again. She looked very sober. “Our call might have been planned for tomorrow,” she smiled. “The camp would have been closed then and whatever would you and Lydia have done on the island all night!”

“I don’t know,” returned Betty. “I’m ever so sorry. Lydia is too.”

_The Magical Circle_

_THE OCTOBER SURPRISE_

_October’s first surprise was easy to guess, as it was marked to open on Marjorie’s birthday, which was the twenty-second. She said it was a birthday present--but she did not guess that the birthday present was a pretty handkerchief as well as a birthday card! That was fun! The story was a Hallowe’en story, so it was marked to open on the afternoon of October thirty-first. It was called, “The Magical Circle.”_

_XII_

_The Magical Circle_

The family moved into the new house about the first of October. It was the first time that Mark and Marjorie had ever moved and the event was full of novelty. The new house was a big one in the country and the two found much to explore in the first weeks of arrival.

Mark was always romancing. He believed, maybe, if he were to hunt long enough, he might find something interesting that had been left by former tenants. He was sure that there were secret drawers in the old desk that was in the barn and he spent hours trying to find them. Then, too, he went about tapping the walls of the house to see if they emitted a hollow sound. He was sure, he said, that there must be secret panels with things hidden behind them.

Marjorie only laughed at Mark’s romancing. She half believed in it. It was fun, anyway. So she followed Mark’s tapping and listened to the knocks. One day when the paperers were busy, Mark went into a store-closet that adjoined the room and somehow he did find a place that was hollow. It was back of a board shelf in the closet and, when opened, was quite a hiding place. There was nothing in it. Marjorie insisted that it was where the gas pipes had been before electricity was installed. But Mark called it triumphantly the secret panel. He talked a great deal about it and showed it to the neighbor’s children, Eleanore and Mabel and Richard. He even persuaded Mother to hide some silver in the place for safe keeping. And she did it, she said, laughingly, to please him.

One might have thought that Mark would stop romancing, after having discovered a secret panel, but he didn’t rest satisfied. Having read a story about two boys who found a lost will in a trunk in an old attic, Mark became interested in the possibilities of their newly acquired one. There were three rooms up there, two of them used to store the family’s trunks. The third room Mark appropriated and made into what he called his “den.”

The “den” had an old matting upon its floor. The matting had been there when Mark and Marjorie moved into the new home. Mark always accepted it and had never found any romantic suggestions coming from that source till one night, Richard having been allowed to spend a night with him, they carried a mattress up there and slept on the floor, “for fun,” they said. Mark had a lantern and they talked till nearly two o’clock telling stories to each other. It was really great fun. Mark’s stories were full of adventure--some of them even were creepy, as it was nearing Hallowe’en day by day. And what was more fitting than right in the middle of Mark’s last thriller, there should be a strange rattle and a clinking noise! It made Mark hush and it made Richard jump. They looked at each other in frightened silence for a minute.

“What was it?” asked Mark, as soon as he could breathe again calmly.

“Oh, a mouse, I guess,” returned Richard.

“A mouse, forsooth! Nay!” returned Mark, talking in a romantic way. “Me-thinks it is a strange noise, friend. It cometh from under this matting. I will take up the matting and if need be the floor and we shall see--” Here he pulled up an end of old matting.

Richard was willing to have another of Mark’s adventures, so he helped. It wasn’t hard to get it up--but when it was once up the most astonishing thing came to light. Even Richard was amazed. As for Mark, he was in his element of discovery. There upon the floor was a big round circle. The floor was painted but the circle was not!

“What is it?” inquired Richard.

Mark debated. “I don’t know,” he mused. “It’s evidently something!” He measured the circle. It was about three feet in diameter. He was for tearing up the flooring at once, only Richard reminded him that it would make a dreadful noise and wake everybody in the house up. Surely a fortune and a lost will must be under it! Richard silenced Mark’s objection to waiting till daylight and after school by saying that they would never be allowed to sleep in the attic on a mattress again, if the two of them got into trouble. That was true. So they sat up, wrapped in blankets, listening for the sound that seemed to have gone away and also for other sounds that did not come. And they wondered excitedly how a circle like that should come to be upon an attic floor, if not purposely put there to mark something. Richard suggested that it might be an old astrologer’s room and that the circle was one upon which he might have cast horoscopes. That sounded rather fascinating but neither Mark nor Richard knew anything about astrologers or even what they did when they cast horoscopes. So this was rather romantic and they talked a great deal about it, once in a while switching off to goblins and Hallowe’en. Mark and Richard discussed, among other topics, what they should do to make Hallowe’en truly exciting. They were going to dress up like witches and go to call upon some friends. Richard was planning to carry his black cat in a bag and they were going to wear masks. Probably Marjorie would beg to go too--girls always did want to go too--and they’d let her into the secret about the circle on the attic floor too, wouldn’t they?

Richard assented. He and Marjorie were good friends.

“I tell you what!” exclaimed Mark, suddenly. “After we’re dressed up, we’ll all come up here early in the evening. Maybe Mother and Daddy’ll have gone to the pictures. Then we’ll take up the floor and see what’s under the circle!” It seemed a thing quite fit for the night of Hallowe’en.

Having decided this, they again unrolled the mattress, hid themselves in blankets and snored peacefully till dawn.

In the morning, Mark put the matting over the very precious circle and the two went downstairs hinting at wonderful secrets of things they had found and strange noises they had heard. Marjorie said it seemed to her that she had heard a queer noise too--up overhead. She said it sounded like Mark tapping for secret panels. Then everybody laughed because of the memory of how Mark was shut up tight in the harness-closet once upon a time, a victim of his love of mystery and adventure. Then Richard said he thought Mark had heard a mouse.

“Mouse! Does a mouse rattle?” inquired Mark. “I guess you’ll find out!” And the subject strung itself out all through the day and on till Hallowe’en time came. Of course, in between, Mark had visited the attic and everybody had seen the circle. Everybody declared that it was a mystery. Nobody had ever seen anything like it upon an attic floor. Mother laughed. She was used to Mark’s imaginings. She said she didn’t connect it with a little harmless mouse gnawing at a hole.

At the mention of a mouse gnawing, Mark became almost dramatic. “It was no mouse!” he declared. “Don’t I know what a mouse sounds like!”

Hallowe’en came, but even the fun of dressing up like witches lost the usual flavor. Mark, Marjorie and Richard were worked up to a pitch of excitement over the circle on the attic floor. They talked of nothing else. Mark had read up on astrology in the encyclopedia. He hadn’t understood it all but he talked as if he did and Marjorie was wonderingly proud of his knowledge, while Richard was willing to listen, though he corrected Mark’s statements now and then, having read up on the subject at the library himself.

It was lucky that the picture theatre claimed Mother and Daddy that night. And the strange thing was that neither Mark nor Marjorie had begged to be taken too. They had come in at eight o’clock sharp, according to directions that Mother had insisted upon. They kept on their weird garments of sheets and shawls. Mark, lantern in hand, led the way to the dark attic room and the others followed.

Then there began to be a real noise in that room as Mark hammered a chisel into the flooring. It seemed to be a very thick board flooring and it took time to get some nails out. But they yielded finally, and the end of one floor-board that crossed the circle at its centre grew loose enough to be pried up. (Mark had insisted that he choose the centre of the circle. Nobody knew why, though they trusted him. He said that the centre was the middle of a thing and that whatever was there would be exactly under it. This sounded plausible.)

Then Mark had Richard take the chisel and wedge up the board a bit. It wouldn’t give very much, you know. He said Marjorie might hold the lantern and he’d peep into the darkness underneath and see what was there. Really, the moment _was_ very exciting. Nobody knew what Mark might see--they felt that he was brave to take the first look, for it might be ’most anything down there where Mark’s noise had come from!

They were silent while Mark, lying flat down on the attic floor, peered under the lifted end of the board. “I see gold pieces,” he gasped. “Say, give me more light--it must be buried treasure! _Didn’t I say I’d find it!_”