CHAPTER XVIII
A FISH STORY
The days passed without further scares until the time finally came when the boys were to arrive.
During those days the girls roamed around the farm attached to Cherry Corners. They found it for the most part a rocky place, with here and there dense patches of woods. There was a brook and in this they saw some small fish darting about.
"Maybe the boys will want to go fishing when they come," suggested
Billie.
The cherry trees also interested the chums—there were so many of them. The late cherries were ripe, and they spent a day in picking them, donning overalls for that purpose. Mrs. Gilligan took the fruit and made several delicious pies and also a number of tarts.
The place was certainly a lonesome one. Only once did they see two men tramp by. The men eyed the girls curiously, but tramped on without speaking.
"Certainly not very sociable," was Violet's comment.
At last came the time when the boys were to arrive.
The girls were in a fever of excitement and anticipation, for they knew that they would have just about twice as much fun with the boys as without them.
"We can go on picnics," said Laura, putting on her hat over one eye as she had a habit of doing when unusually excited, "and long tramps in the woods, and—oh, all sorts of things."
"I wonder if that old wagon will ever come," said Violet, looking anxiously down the road. "If it doesn't hurry we'll be too late to meet the train."
The boy who daily brought them provisions from the village had been commissioned to send the antiquated carriage after the girls so that they could get down to the village in time to meet the early train. But the girls, with no confidence in the country lad's memory, had been sure he would forget all about it.
"If he doesn't come pretty soon, the boys will get off the train with no one to meet them," Violet went on worrying. "They won't know where to go."
"Goodness, they'll know where to go just as well as we did," said Billie, regarding herself sideways in the mirror to be sure she had not forgotten anything. "They aren't infants, you know."
"Here it comes! Here it comes!" sang out Laura from her place at the window. "Are you ready, girls?"
The answer was a concerted rush for the stairs and in another minute the girls were out in the bright sunlight, running to meet the stage.
The driver, who had been nodding in his seat, looked up as if surprised at so much energy so early in the morning.
"Oh, please hurry," cried Billie, exasperated at the stupid look on the boy's face. "Don't you know that we're late already?"
"No'm, you're not late," he assured her in a voice that matched his manner. "The ten-thirty train's always 'bout half an hour late, anyways."
"Well, that's just the reason it will probably be on time this morning," remarked Billie, scrambling in after the girls. "When I'm late the trains are always early. Please hurry," she added, and the driver clucked half-heartedly to his team.
All the way down they worried for fear they would be late, but when they reached Roland at last they found that their rural driver knew the habits of trains in that part of the country better than they did, for they had a full thirty-five minutes to wait.
However, they roused from their despondent attitudes when they heard a familiar whistle in the distance, and began automatically to straighten their hats.
"Suppose they made up their minds not to come on this train?" Violet suggested, but Laura cut in hastily.
"If you're going to start worrying all over again about something different," she said, "I'll put you on the track and let the train run over you."
At this dire threat Violet stopped worrying, vocally at least, and they stood first on one foot, then on the other, eagerly watching the train as it rounded a curve and came pounding down toward them.
It had hardly drawn up to the station with a screeching of brakes and come to a standstill before a cyclonic trio of boys leaped from one of the rear cars and came dashing toward the girls, waving hats and bags and various other personal articles high in the air as they came.
"I say, but it was bully of you girls to come to meet us!" shouted Ferd Stowing, as they came within hailing distance. "It was more than we expected, eh, fellows?"
"Sure! Didn't think you'd be up yet," answered Teddy, looking exceedingly handsome—at least to Billie.
"Up yet!" cried Billie, trying to look angry, which she could not do because she was altogether too happy and excited. "I don't know where you boys get your ideas, anyway."
"Out of our brilliant craniums," said Ferd modestly. "I say, girls, where do we go from here?"
"There's an old carriage that looks as if it were on its last legs," laughed Violet, leading the way back to where the antiquated vehicle and its sleepy driver awaited them. "We came up in it, but I don't know how we're all going to squeeze into it going back."
"Say, fellows, we forgot to get our trunks," said Chet, interrupting himself in the midst of an earnest conversation with his sister. "Give me your checks and I'll go back and see about them."
"But if there isn't room for us, how are we ever going to get our baggage to the house?" Teddy asked.
"We'll get the wagon that took ours up," Laura answered. "We've got to get some provisions, anyway."
So with a great deal of fun and laughter they looked up the ancient wagon and went to the general store to get a formidable supply of provisions.
"Looks as if you were buying the store out," Teddy remarked, as Billie pulled out a long list of items. "What's the big idea?"
"You boys," said Billie, dimpling at him. "We knew what kind of appetites you would bring along with you, so we decided on safety first."
"Now we know you girls are bright," said Ferd admiringly, and Billie made a face at him.
The ride to the house was one big lark. The boys sat on the trunks among the provisions, and the girls went off into gales of merriment at their comical efforts not to step on the eggs or fall among the fruit. They were having such an awfully good time that even the solemn old driver had to join in the fun.
At last they reached Billie's house, and with much ceremony the boys jumped down from the wagon and ran to the carriage to help the girls out. And all they got for their pains was scorn and derision on the part of the girls.
"Get out of the way before I step on you, little speck of dust," Laura cried haughtily to Ferd, who turned up his collar and slunk along toward the house as though his humiliation were more than he could bear, amid shouts of laughter from the merry crowd that followed him.
"That's the way to treat 'em, Laura," Chet cried, but at that Ferd turned upon him.
"Say, you'd better look out," he said belligerently. "I can't hit a lady—"
"A which?" murmured Billie, with a wicked glance in Laura's direction.
"For calling me names," continued Ferd, glaring at Chet, who began to tremble in mock fright; "but there's nothing to keep me from wiping the ground up—"
"Yes there is! It's my ground, and I won't have it wiped up," said Billie decidedly, at which Ferd had to laugh and the mock war came to a close.
"Say, this is some classy place, what?" said Chet, stopping in front of the rambling old house and regarding it admiringly. "Have you met with any ghosts yet, girls?"
"Oh, half a dozen," said Laura indifferently, and he was just about to ask some more questions when Mrs. Gilligan met them at the door and began giving instructions.
After that there was nothing to do but obey, and the boys and girls did not meet again until lunch time. Then they regarded each other across the table joyfully.
"I say, let's go for a tramp in the woods this afternoon," Ferd suggested, after he and the other lads had taken a look around the house. "This is the prettiest, wildest country I've ever seen, and I'd like to nose about a little."
"But we thought you'd like to see what the attic and cellar look like," said Billie. "We had the afternoon all planned."
"Let's do that to-morrow," Ferd begged boyishly. "This is too nice a day to spend indoors."
So it was decided to go outside and as soon as the dinner dishes were cleared away—at which the boys assisted without so much as a grumble—the young folks started out on their tour of discovery.
The girls had spent much of their time in the old house since their arrival, for they had found an almost inexhaustible supply of strange corners and unexpected rooms and peculiar ornaments that had fascinated them.
But to-day, as they felt the warm sunshine on their heads, as the wind caressed their faces and the scents of the woodland bathed them in perfume, they were glad they had let the boys have their way and had decided to spend the glorious afternoon in the open.
"Did you win the tennis singles?" Billie asked of Teddy, as she stopped to smell a bunch of strange flowers. "I was rooting for you."
"Were you?" asked Teddy eagerly.
"For you—and Chet," she added demurely, and laughed to see his face fall.
"But did you?" she asked.
"What?"
"Win the tennis singles, silly? Can't you remember a thing two seconds?"
"Why, yes, we did," he answered absently, his gray eyes on Billie's lovely mischievous face. "In fact, we just ran rings around them. I guess—"
He stopped short as they came upon the other young people. A couple of bearded men had come out of the woods and confronted the crowd. Each man carried a heavy club. They were the fellows who had once passed the girls without speaking.
"You can't go any further this way," one of them said in a rather gruff tone. "We're growing a new variety of corn and want to keep the seed to ourselves."
"What's that?" demanded Chet in astonishment
"You heard what I said. You can't stay here, and you can't go that way."
"You want to get out of here," growled the second man. "Come, move on."
"You can't steal any of our corn-growing secrets. Move on," and the first man shook his club suggestively.
The strange men looked ugly, and the boys and girls, after a pause, turned off in another direction.
"Humph!" grunted Ted, with a curious glance at the place where the men had been. "They made a mistake. That wasn't a corn story. It was a fish story!"
"Maybe," returned Billie. "But what does it mean?"