“I never wear them. O, I did put on that necklace once lately. I had forgotten it. Mother gave me quite a lot of old jewelry one day, saying that no one ever wore the pieces and that I might keep them or give them away, as I liked. I happened to have it with me and thought of it when Campbell said ‘let’s fix up something for the girls to find.’ The turquoise ring I had when I was about Dot’s age, and I thought of that for her, of the garnet one for Jo, and of the little chain for June. But divide them any way you like.”
“My, you’re good to us, Cathalina,” said Dot.
The children had quite a lively time while dividing the “treasure”. They decided to keep it a secret about the digging, and asked the older girls not to tell. “We didn’t put that coin there, though,” said Hilary.
“That’s so!” exclaimed Dot. “We did find something, then!”
CHAPTER XX
AS TOLD BY BETTY
Dearest Polly and Juliet:
You can’t imagine how we girls enjoyed your combination letter in reply to the little card we sent,—just to tell you where we were and to let you know that we are thinking of you. It is fine, Polly, that Juliet is with you on the ranch this summer. Maybe she will look like more than your “shadow” by the time she leaves the ranch. In my “mind’s eye” I see you both tearing around on horseback,—or is it bronco-back?
We appreciate all the more your writing to us because you have been so busy with the summer’s work. We all went out on the rocks, Patty, too, and sat there eating blueberries while Cathalina read the letter to us. You have already received her letter, of course. She said that she tried to give you a general idea of the camp and told you about some of the good times we’ve had, and they have been going on steadily since. It would take pages and pages to tell about them.
The August tournaments are on now. We have been playing off tennis and trying hard to have our team win in the other games. Since Cathalina wrote, we have had some fine trips, too. One was our second trip to Popham Beach for surf bathing. That was the real salt water, you know, sandy beach and everything. The water was cold, but you feel so fine, all in a glow afterwards. Those big waves,—I just love them. There is a place to buy ice-cream and other things, and we are always hungry, you know. We go to a house not far from the beach to change to bathing suits, and after the swim we have a hot lunch on the shore, hot beans and bacon or “wieners” and sandwiches, pickles, cake, different good things, and my, how we eat! This last time it took a good while to eat our lunch and then we shopped a little in Bay Point, which is the name of the little town, and all this made us late starting home. It is a three hours’ ride, anyway, and you may imagine that we were late getting home, and hungry again. We had to stop at Bath for errands and to pick up a visitor who was coming up to camp, then had to “buck tide” all the way up. The smaller boat got in while the folks were eating supper, but our big boat was heavier, with more passengers, couldn’t get through the Burnt Jackets and went around the longer way. The folks saw us turn around and go back and were worried, I guess, for one of the other boats came to meet us, but developed engine trouble and we beat it home! The girls pretended to be starving, and went up the rise to the dining-room saying, “We want food! We want food!” and two or three of the councillors who came out to meet us answered, “We want our children! We want our children!”
As we have been having good weather right along, it was decided to have the deep sea fishing trip this week, too. We go to the same beach, but go out to sea and fish. Last year they had rough weather and some of the girls had a hard time to stand it, after they anchored and were tossed around and up and down and back and forth! But this time it wasn’t rough at all. O, we rode some nice big waves, but that was fun. Our two boats caught forty fish. We had so much fun through it all. Evelyn Calvert caught the biggest fish of all and was so excited and even scared over it. Eloise and Helen are a “perfect scream” when they are together, say the funniest things with the most sober faces, and keep us laughing half the time. We have met so many interesting girls up here, too, besides the Greycliffers. Frances Anderson is a peach and Marion Thurman is a dear,—but Cathalina said that she told you all about Squirrels’ Inn. Virgie is having a great time with Isabel, who keeps her down somewhat. Can you imagine Isabel’s keeping anybody down? Virginia is all right, but after being bottled up so long she sometimes wants to try all sorts of things. I heard Isabel telling her the other day that she wanted to get back to school alive anyhow.