A RELIC FROM THE ALAMEDA
EAGER for the captain's story every scout was on hand promptly at two-thirty. The captain dusted off the wooden settee, and pulled out all his chairs, for the True Treds were meeting as if in council.
"It's about Kitty," he began. "Of course, you have guessed that. But what set me on this course was the way you have made friends with that heedless one. Seems to me you would stick by her in a pinch."
"We surely would, Captain," spoke up Grace, and her voice had in it the ring of the familiar "Aye, aye, sir."
"Well, you see," went on the captain, "she's so queer, no one makes friends with her. But from the furst I was a'watchin' you 'uns, as they say at Old Point, and I was curious to see if she was going to scare you off, as she had done to all the others."
"I guess she tried," Louise could not refrain from interrupting, for the memory of Kitty's throw of the paste board box was still vivid.
"Yes, she tried, and she has told me how she plagued you, but accordin' to Kitty you wouldn't quit."
"Not exactly quitters," ventured Cleo.
From his smile of approval it was plain the captain agreed with every interruption, and they seemed to whet his interest in the story he had undertaken to tell. He continued:
"Just noticin' and watchin' I says to myself, there is the very thing Kitty has always needed; girls, real live, jolly girls; and she ain't never had none."
He expressed himself more pathetically when he fell into the vernacular. "No sir, she ain't never had none," he repeated. "Then along you come, just for the summer, and she tried every blusterin' trick she could make use of to scare you off, to sort of bamboozle you, but you stick, and so, she's sort of givin' in. Especially since you befriended old Pete. That won her sure."
"She told us that she appreciated that," said Cleo. "But it was only fun to drive him to the landing. Of course, he wouldn't hear of us driving around to the Point, from where he could more easily have gone across to the island."
"Now then, thinking all those things over, and puttin' two and two together, as you might say, I've sort of concluded to ask you to do something more. And I almost feel I know your answer," pursued the well-trained narrator.
"You surely must know it, Captain," Cleo assured him. "I am acting captain of this troop—the True Tred. I am really only troop leader for the summer, but the girls call me captain, and I can speak for every one here, I know, when I say, we will do our utmost to help you, or to fulfill any trust you may offer."
At this the True Treds arose, and quite seriously gave their salute. So impressed was old Captain Dave, that he also tilted himself out of his tip chair, and likewise saluted. No one smiled—they were now engaged in serious work as True Treds.
"That's fine," he said heartily. "I tell you my boys can't beat that at drillin'. I just wish I could get a girl's team working some day," he complimented. "Wouldn't wonder if you could do as well as some boys.
"But back to Kitty," and his pipe was thoroughly emptied on the little tin plate at his elbow. "You see, the night her poor little mother was swung in from the Alameda with that youngster in her arms, we were too busy to do much but try to keep the freezin' folks alive. She had talked some to the little girl, and she had asked me to look out for the luggage.
"Well, when Mrs. Schulkill dies on the way to the hospital, and her name appears in the list of those lost, along comes Kitty's relatives, the folks they were comin' to live with. I turned over the luggage and all that sort of stuff we could get off the Alameda before she foundered, but I just made up my mind I'd keep an eye on Kitty. Also, I'd hold on to her papers a bit, 'til these folks really proved they were good friends to the orphan." He shook his head in decision at the memory.
"I've done that," he declared, "and I have the papers. Now, they worry me some. How do I know what'll happen to me? I'm gettin' old, and the seas are pretty rough at times."
He paused, and the girls noticed how gray his face looked, and how haggard and heavily lined.
"This packet of papers was in a tin box," he then explained. "Kitty's mother was comin' home from Holland, and being a widow, she kept all her little belongings with her. I have them in the same little box, and as I have glanced over them I just feel they'll be mighty interestin' when the girl gets sense enough to understand them.
"Now, I've thought of turnin' them over to a lawyer here, but what would that mean? A fee; of course, I have no fee, neither has Kitty. Then, if I trust some one around here, they'll likely go pokin' into them, curious like; and I don't want to do a thing like that to the mother who left her little girl in my arms."
He stroked his beard thoughtfully. The papers were plainly a considerable responsibility to carry. He looked out over the sea again, and shook his head thoughtfully.
"Are they letters or documents?" asked Cleo.
"Little of both," replied the captain. "And this is my plan. You girls must know some organization that would just take this little responsibility off Dave's shoulders."
"Certainly," spoke up Louise. "The Girl Scouts have a very trustworthy headquarters, and if this particular piece of work was not ours we could very readily place it where it belongs."
"Exactly, just exactly. That's what I've been a-thinkin'," said the Captain.
"There are Children's Aids, Travellers' Aids and all sorts of legal aids for just such purposes," said Margaret, "and if we bring anything confidential to the secretary at our headquarters, you may rest assured it will be placed where it belongs."
"Now, isn't that fine!" exclaimed the old sailor. "But you are not goin' up to the city soon, I take it, and I've just got a notion I'd like them papers put in safer quarters. No tellin' when I may be transferred, and then I wouldn't have time to think of the little tin box. Could one of you take it now, and put it in your family safe?" he asked.
The girls looked at one another speculatively. No one was personally anxious to assume such a responsibility.
"Louise, your daddy is a lawyer. He would know all about a thing like that. You take it?" urged Margaret.
After some discussion Louise finally agreed to accept the charge and old Dave shuffled over to his cupboard, procured a rusty tin box, and placed it in the scout's hand.
"There," he said with a sigh of relief. "I'm glad to get rid of that. It was like the little bundle of letters tied with blue ribbon, that we read about in love stories—not much to the world, but a lot to the right girl," he orated.
Louise looked at the box almost reverently. Just as Dave had said "not much to the world but a lot to the right girl," she thought.
"All right, Captain," she said bravely. "I am sure, simple as this is it does mean something, and as you say, Kitty is not yet wise enough to appreciate her mother's letters. So I accept the charge, and you may call upon me to report at any time you choose."
"Now, if I'm sent over to the Hook, I won't have to move quite so much," said Dave with something like a chuckle, for the box was a very small article to worry about in event of an ordinary moving. "Also," he continued, "I'll feel Kitty is in good hands with this sort of—well, sort of claim on your friendship," he stammered. "You see, how wise I am, to link you together this way?"
It had been rather a serious half hour, and the True Treds were not prone to stay concentrated for any prolonged length of time. As it was, Isabel had been counting the blocks in the faded red table cover, and Helen was drawing pictures with a burnt match on the back of a marine magazine.
"Now, I've got some good news, after all the old mildewed stuff," said Captain Dave. "You have been wanting to see our men at drill. What would you say to coming down some morning soon—and—and——Wonder would I be spilling the beans if I told you a secret?" he broke off.
"Trust us to pick them up carefully if you do, Captain," volunteered Cleo.
"Well, here's the news," and he sank lower in his chair, dropped his head deeper on his shoulders, and seemed to assume the most secretive and confidential air. "Listen," he commanded. "The Boy Scouts are to have a wig wag trial. They may have been a little mite jealous of your reputation, or something like that, anyhow, they've fixed it up to do a grand stand stunt, and they've enlisted the Beach Patrol——"
"But we have been begging for that all summer," interrupted Grace immediately on the offensive.
"I recall that, and it's why I am spilling the beans. Why can't you all join in?"
"With the Boy Scouts?" It was Louise who spoke.
"Certainly," Margaret hurried to say. "Why not? They will enter us if we send an application. Oh, goody-good! Louise run right home with the tin box, lock it in the safe and come have a troop meeting," sang out Margaret.
"Don't have to say where you heard the news, do you?" asked the captain with a chuckle.
"Certainly not," declared Cleo. "Besides, we know exactly where we can verify it. Come on, girls. Let's interview the clerk at the landing soda fountain. You remember he told us he was a scout."
They all remembered, and ran thither forewith, as Grace would say.
"To think of the boys planning to outdo us in glory," Cleo reflected. "Well, we had better be busy, True Treds, and get ready to prove our mettle."
It was exciting even to anticipate, and that the Boy Scouts were going to considerable trouble in their preparations now dawned forcibly upon the girls.
"That's what all the wig wag practising has been for," Margaret declared. "I have seen the boys on the beach every morning so early. I'm sure they know the code backwards and forwards."
"Exactly," agreed Louise. "How many brought manuals?"
"I did," replied Julia, but it was a solo.
"Then, we will all have to look over your shoulder, Julia dear," said Cleo. "It would be dreadful if we missed a letter."
"How are we going to get in the contest though? That's what worries me," declared Helen.
"First, find out all about it," advised Cleo practically. "Then, follow the advice of our friend what's-his-name at the landing. Louise, be careful of Kitty's papers," she ordered. "Isn't it lovely to have won the confidence of Captain Dave?"
"Lovelier still to live up to it," replied Louise, in her best oratorical tone, "I would have preferred some one else to take the tin box, but since I have it, I suppose I'll have to sit up nights watching it," she deplored.
"Lucky it's only letters, and not deeds to some monarchy," put in Helen. "But count on all of us, Weasie dear, to stand by you in case of any safe-blowing at midnight."
"I'm so excited about the contest, I can almost forget Kitty and Luna Land," gurgled Margaret. They were running along the lakeside, up to the river landing, with the hope of gaining the boy's confidence over nut sundaes.
"He's there! That's lucky!" Helen said, sighting in the open pavilion, the desired Boy Scout, just in the act of sizzling a soda.
"And he has on a clean apron, a good sign," said Margaret under her breath.
Tables nearest the water and farthest from land (thus most secluded) were chosen, and favorite frappes were smilingly ordered.
"Listen to catch his name," whispered Cleo, but a call for "Tommie" voided the suggestion. Tommie fetched their sundaes in that miraculous way waiters have of carrying cup and saucers heaped up, just as jugglers catch them.
"Been practicin'?" inquired Grace glibly.
"What for?" asked Tommie, whisking his towel over the table.
"Why, for the contest," answered Grace, as if the whole world should know that.
"Oh, yes a little," admitted Tommie, gliding off to a new customer.
"Didn't notice that he waved any program," said Louise.
"Don't give up," Margaret encouraged. "I could manage another sundae."
"So could I if I had the price," said Helen dryly.
Cleo tapped on the table and Tommie sauntered back.
"Say Tommie, you know we are strangers here," she began adroitly, "and don't know a single Girl Scout in town, and we are supposed to keep up our activities. How do we get in the contest?"
"Who told you about it?" he asked, his face betraying the fatal boyish weakness of succumbing to girls' flattering attention.
"Why, folks are talking about it, of course," went on Cleo sweetly. "It promises to be a big event."
"Bet your life," and the secret spring had been tapped. "That will be some event. We wanted to flash a surprise, but you being Girl Scouts, I think you ought to be in it."
"Of course, we should," came a chorus.
"Tell you what I'll do. I'll propose it at to-night's meeting. I saw you girls save the Bentley chap, and I know you're game," he said stoutly, "so I don't see why not."
"Good for you, Tommie!" Helen wanted to cheer. "And when they put you up for office, just let the True Treds know."
"That's right, Tommie," Cleo assured the blushing boy. "We'll see you through."
And why shouldn't they? As Tommie said: "I don't see why not."