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The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point; or a Wreck and a Rescue, a novel by Laura Lee Hope |
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Chapter 15. The Telegram |
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_ CHAPTER XV. THE TELEGRAM The morning dawned gloriously bright, and at the first ray of the sun the girls were up and dressed and ready for the fun of the day. "I don't know what I'll do if our trunks don't come," worried Amy, as she took a rather creased white skirt and waist from her suitcase. "I brought only one change and a bathing suit." "Well, as long as you brought the bathing suit, it's all right," returned Mollie, sticking one last pin in her hair. "I intend to live in mine to-day." "And, anyway, we can't possibly expect the trunks till this afternoon," put in Grace; "so I don't see any use in worrying about them now." "If they don't come to-day, either Mollie or I will go down to the station and see about them," offered Betty, who was looking as sweet and fresh as the morning itself. "We'll probably have to go down and get them anyway, since we expressed them through by train and came by motor ourselves." "Oh, well, who cares," cried Mollie, stretching her arms above her head and breathing deep of the salt-laden air. "When we get down on that wonderful beach, that looks too good to be true, we'll be away from all the rest of the world and we won't need any clothes but a bathing suit." "Mother's up," cried Grace, as they stepped out into the hall and smelled the welcome aroma of coffee. "I thought I heard somebody go downstairs a little while ago." "But we shouldn't have let her get the breakfast," cried Betty. "We brought her up here for a rest, not to wait on us." "She probably didn't sleep very well," said Grace, thinking of Will. "It really isn't any wonder." However, Mrs. Ford greeted the girls with a bright smile when they entered the kitchen, and when they remonstrated with her for getting up so early she merely laughed at them. "Why, I haven't cooked for so long, it's just fun for me," she said lightly, but Grace's loving eyes saw how pale she looked and how sad her eyes were when she was not smiling. "Game little mother," she whispered to herself. However, after they had cleared the remains of a remarkably good breakfast away, they asked Mrs. Ford to put on her own bathing suit and take a dip with them. After a minute's hesitation she agreed, and they ran upstairs eagerly to get ready. They all had black suits, and all but Grace wore snug-fitting rubber caps, designed more for use than looks. Grace wore a rakish little Scottish cap affair that was immensely becoming but not at all comfortable to swim in. "How do I look?" she demanded complacently, when she turned from a prolonged survey of herself in the mirror and pirouetted slowly before them. "Beautiful, but foolish," Mollie commented succinctly. "Do you really expect to swim in it, dear?" asked Amy mildly. "The effect would be altogether stunning," suggested Betty judicially, her head on one side, "if you cocked it just a little further over one eye so as to obscure the sight completely." There was a ripple of laughter. "Oh, you're all jealous," remarked Grace, not at all disturbed as she turned back to the mirror once more to pull a curl a little more fetchingly over her ear. "I might have known you would be." "Goodness, anybody would think she was at Palm Beach or some other show place," cried Mollie, pulling her own plain little cap a trifle lower over her ears. "If you expect an audience, Gracie, I'm afraid you will be disappointed." "Here I am, trying to give you something good to look at--" But they would hear no more and hustled her with scant ceremony away from the mirror and out of the door. "Come on!" cried Betty, taking the stairs two at a time. "Let's see who gets to the water first. I'm betting nine to one on myself." "Goodness, she's as conceited as you are, Gracie," gasped Mollie, following hard on Betty's footsteps. "Here's my chance to take some of it out of her!" Grace and Amy, following at not quite such breakneck speed, came out on the porch in time to see two slender, black-clad figures with vivid red and green caps scrambling down the side of the bluff that led to the beach. As they started after them Mrs. Ford joined them and they ran together to the edge of the bluff. The slope was not quite so gentle as they had thought on the night before, and Mollie and Betty were puffing considerably when they reached the bottom--which they did at almost the same minute. Then, fleet-footed, they sped across the sand toward the inviting water beyond, while Mrs. Ford, Grace, and Amy clambered down the bluff in their turn. At the bottom they turned, saw Betty and Mollie reach the water's edge at the same instant--or so it seemed to them--and dash into the green depths. A moment more and the two black figures were lost to sight and only two vivid caps bobbed on the surface of the water. "Do you suppose it's quite safe?" asked Mrs. Ford. "I wish the girls hadn't been in such a hurry." "Oh you needn't worry about them," Grace assured her. "Betty and Mollie are regular fish in the water, and you know there aren't any mean currents around here. The beach slopes gradually down so that they can't get caught in water holes either, so don't worry, Mother," and she slipped an affectionate hand into her mother's and received an answering smile in return. And, oh, how good that water did feel! As they waded into it up to their waists, Mollie and Betty came swimming back, shaking the water from their eyes and cleaving the big combers with long, powerful strokes. "Well, who won?" Amy challenged them, as they came within shouting distance. "Tell the truth," added Grace. "Both of us," yelled Mollie. "Or neither," Betty answered, getting to her feet and walking the rest of the way in toward them. "We couldn't have done better team work if we had tried. Oh, isn't it glorious?" "We don't know yet--we're not even all wet," returned Mollie, adding, as a great comber came rushing toward them: "Come on, Gracie, here's a good one. Let's get under it." And "get under it" they did, cleaving the water prettily, and in another minute were up on the other side of the big wave. They shook the water from their eyes and struck out merrily. "Don't go too far," Mrs. Ford called after them, and two bare gleaming arms waved back at her. The hours that followed were just one long delight, and the girls looked surprised and a little abused when Mrs. Ford reluctantly called them in. "Why, it can't be more than eleven," protested Grace. "And we haven't seen the water for, oh, ages," added Mollie. "Please, can't we have half an hour more?" Amy added. Mrs. Ford looked smilingly from one to the other and then at Betty. "Well, haven't you any petition to make?" she asked of the latter. "I was thinking," said Betty squinting up at the sun, "that Grace was wrong when she said it wasn't more than eleven. It seems to me to be after twelve." "It is," said Mrs. Ford firmly. "Quarter past." "Well, let's go!" cried Betty, starting toward the bluff. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm starving to death." "But we'll want to swim again after lunch, won't we?" protested Mollie. "Of course." "Well, then," she argued reasonably, "we don't want to change our clothes just for lunch, and we can't very well go up to the house in dripping bathing suits." The girls groaned. "Then we'll have to wait for lunch until we've sat here for hours and dried off," wailed Grace. "And she hasn't even a box of chocolates!" Betty mocked her. "It is a desperate case, Grace." With another groan Grace sank into the soft, warm sand while the others followed suit, looking so mournful that Mrs. Ford was moved to take pity on them. "I dried off long ago," she said, adding, as they looked at her hopefully: "I tell you what I'll do. I'll go up and open a couple of cans of tongue and make some sandwiches and bring down the cake we bought yesterday. And we can have some milk to drink, for I had the boy leave a couple of extra quarts this morning. How will that do?" "Do!" the girls echoed, while Grace hugged her mother with vigor. The eyes of the girls followed her gratefully as Mrs. Ford started off on her work of rescue--at least, that is the way the hungry girls regarded it. "You know, I have a better appetite than I've had in weeks," announced Mollie, as she dug her toes into the warm sand. "I haven't been eating much lately." "I hadn't noticed it," commented Grace dryly. "Well, mother did," returned Mollie spiritedly. "She said she was glad I was going away because she thought the change would do me good. I really should have stayed at home, I suppose, and helped mother take care of the twins," she added thoughtfully. "I never saw two children with such an absolute genius for getting into mischief. But when they're caught, they're so cunning and dear and say such quaint things that it is almost impossible to get angry with them." "They're adorable," agreed Betty, while all the girls smiled fondly at thought of the twins. "Just the same," remarked Grace, "although I love them, I'm glad I'm not their sister, for I'd never be able to eat a candy in comfort," and the girls laughed at her. "It seems so wonderful and peaceful here," said Amy, after a short pause, "and we seem so awfully far away from the rest of the world. It almost makes one believe that the war 'over there' is a dream--" "Or a nightmare," interpolated Mollie. "Well, it isn't," said Grace, adding, as she dug her toes more deeply into the yielding sand: "And if we don't hear more news of Will pretty soon, I'll just die, that's all. I can't stand it!" "There's your mother," cried Betty suddenly, glad of an excuse to change the subject. "I think she's calling us, too. Come on, let's go." Nothing loath, they got to their feet, shook the sand from their suits, and hurried to the bluff where Mrs. Ford stood awaiting them. As they clambered up toward her they noticed that she looked excited and was holding a yellow envelope in her hand. "The trunks have come," she said, as they ran up to her. "A big lumbering red-haired fellow brought them from the station a few minutes ago. He also brought this," indicating the envelope in her hand. "What is it?" they cried, a strange premonition of evil tightening about their hearts. "A telegram for Mollie!" Mollie turned a little pale under her tan and took the yellow envelope gingerly, as though it had been poisoned, or contained some T. N. T. explosive. "Who on earth--" she began, then interrupted herself, and with trembling fingers tore the envelope open. The girls watched her, wide-eyed and tense. "It's from mother," she cried, then crushed the paper in her hands and looked around at the sympathetic faces with eyes grown dark with fear. "Girls," she said, "I--I'm afraid to read it--I--" _ |
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