“after the dishes are washed and wiped, let’s set the table for supper,” laura suggested. “floribel will be so tired when she gets home, and thinks of all the work she’ll have to do alone.”
so the girls added this to the work they had already done.
“shall we go in bathing this afternoon?” rosie asked when the last knife and fork was in place.
“you all go if you want,” maida answered, “i don’t think i want to swim. somehow i feel as though i’d like to stay about the house. so many things have happened that i’m worried about going away.”
“so do i, maida,” laura agreed emphatically.
so although the boys went in swimming as usual, the girls stayed at home.
“i feel tired, too,” maida remarked. they took books from the library and settled quietly in the tree room where they read and talked[pg 220] all the afternoon. they were interrupted twice—once by the boys who, as though they had a responsibility too, cut their swimming short—and by the baby.
when the baby awoke, late in the afternoon, rosie brought her downstairs into the air for a while. they all declared that she looked quite a different child. a tinge of pink had come into her soft brown cheeks and the warmth and moisture of her nap had curled the brown hair in her neck.
“oh you sweet sweet darling!” maida kissed the little girl ecstatically. “oh how i wish your parents would give you to me! that’s all we need in the little house—a baby. delia’s not quite little enough.” she caught delia and kissed her.
“delia bid dirl,” delia protested.
even the boys were amused and entertained by their little visitor. arthur deigned to make faces for her. they amused her enormously, and when harold unloosed an ear-splitting whistle, she turned round, delighted eyes in his direction. but that she was still tired was evident; she kept falling into little naps.
“i don’t think i’ll bathe her again so soon,” rosie meditated with knitted brows when they[pg 221] had taken her upstairs for the night. “to-morrow i’ll give her a bath in the morning and another at night. but now i’ll just wash her face and hands and let her have her bottle. you do it this time, maida and to-morrow,” added rosie, generous always, “we’ll take turns bathing and feeding her.”
as they came downstairs laura said, “i wonder what time it is. oh half past five!”
“five!” maida exclaimed. “why floribel ought to have been home at five! what train can she get now?”
nobody knew, but arthur remembered there was a time-table in the library. they clustered about him. to most of them it was as difficult as greek; but to arthur, who had had some experience in traveling and to maida who had had a great deal, it did not seem insolvable.
they puzzled over it together.
“there’s a train at six from boston and another at seven,” they finally decided. “and that’s all.”
“she must have lost the three from boston,” maida declared. “but the six from boston isn’t due here until eight. and in the meantime we’ll have to get supper.”
“say let us boys help,” arthur suggested.[pg 222] “it must be a big job cooking for twelve. i know how to cook,” he added unexpectedly.
“where did you learn, arthur?” maida asked with interest.
“tramping with my father,” arthur answered briefly. “we often camped in the woods for days.”
“supper isn’t so hard as dinner,” rosie said hopefully. “now i propose that we have a combination salad with hard-boiled eggs cut up in it. you see there’s a lot of cold vegetables in the ice chest and we can make a custard and orange pudding.”
the whole group, three girls and three boys, bustled into the kitchen. from a drawer full of aprons, rosie took out enough for all of them. the little girls wore the aprons as they should be worn, but in the boys’ case, rosie tied them around their necks. “i’ve seen boys cook before,” she announced scornfully, “and when they get through, they generally look as though they had fallen into a barrel of something.”
the boys protested loudly. but to some extent rosie’s pungent comment seemed to be justified. arthur for instance squeezed the orange juice into his own eye. he yelled so[pg 223] loudly at this unexpected deluge that harold dropped an egg on his coat.
“there i told you!” rosie declared scathingly. “what did you pick out an egg to drop for, harold, why didn’t you drop a potato?”
however pride goeth before destruction and the contemptuous rosie was soon caught up with; for clandestinely stealing a long sliver of ice from the high ice box, she seized it in such a way that it slipped out of her hand and dropped down her neck.
“serves you right,” arthur declared with delight. with heartless interest they all watched her wriggles before she was able to secure and extricate the slippery, rapidly melting sliver.
“you look as though you had had the hose squirted on you,” said dicky.
but their supper was good. the salad—lettuce with cold peas, string beans, tomatoes and sliced eggs—was so pretty that maida said she thought it ought to be used as an ornament for the center of the table. as for the custard and orange pudding—to which the gifted laura had added a delicious meringue—they ate and ate.
[pg 224]
“i never tasted anything so good in all my life,” rosie sighed. “i wish we’d made a bathtubful. once i had a dream,” she went on pensively, “where it looked as though i was going to have all the sweet things to eat i wanted. i dreamed that when i came out in the morning to go to school, the whole neighborhood was made of pink and white candy—everything, houses, streets, lamp-posts. i took a big bite right out of my fence.”
“and what happened then?” maida asked breathlessly.
“i woke up, goose. wouldn’t you know that that was what would happen with a whole worldful of candy to be eaten?”
after talking a while longer, they all filed into the living room; began to look about for their books. suddenly the telephone bell rang. maida was nearest. “i hope nothing else has happened,” she said as she took off the receiver.
“i want to talk with maida westabrook,” came a girl’s voice over the wire to her. strange it was and yet it had a familiar ring; the strangeness was its weakness and its breathlessness.
“i am maida westabrook.”
“listen! i must talk quick. they will be[pg 225] back and stop me. i am silva burle. they think i am asleep. i have tried to tell them. they won’t listen. they think i am raving. i’m not. i’ve got my senses. my baby sister, nesta, is in a cave on the other side of the lake. tyma is away. there’s nobody to feed her. she’ll starve—”
“i found her this afternoon, silva,” maida interrupted. “she’s upstairs in the little house now—fast asleep.”
“oh!” silva’s voice dropped almost as though she were faint. then suspiciously, “are you saying this to me because you think i’m raving? oh tell me the truth. i ask god to be my witness that i am telling you the truth.”
“yes, silva,” maida said steadily, “i am telling you the truth. i give you my word of honor. i went across the lake this morning. i heard the baby crying. i followed the sound and found her. don’t worry any more about her. we’ll keep her here just as long as you’re ill.” she started to add the news of mrs. dore’s accident, of granny’s and floribel’s absence, but a sudden discreet impulse bade her not to go on. instead she said, “how did you happen to have the baby in that cave?”
[pg 226]
“it’s a long story,” answered silva weakly. “i can’t tell you now. will you come to see me to-morrow?”
“yes,” maida agreed, “in the morning.”
“you promise?” silva’s weak voice entreated; it almost threatened.
“i cross my throat and my heart!” unseen by silva, maida solemnly performed these rituals of the pledged word.
“and you’re sure she’s all right?”
“sure,” maida answered. “you ought to hear her laugh and coo.”
“ask her how often they feed her,” came from rosie’s clear voice from behind. maida repeated the question.
“four times a day—at nine; at twelve; at three and at six, and then at night.”
“that’s what rosie said,” maida explained, “four in the day and one at night.”
“i can never thank you enough.” silva’s voice had something in it that maida had never heard there before. “but some day— here they are coming up the stairs. i must get back to bed.” silva’s voice cut off quickly. maida listened for a while, but there was no sound.
a babble of questions assailed her when she[pg 227] dropped the receiver. she told them all she knew.
“who would have thought that baby would have turned out to be silva burle’s sister!” rosie remarked thoughtfully.
“well now,” laura prophesied with a faint lilt of triumph, “i guess she won’t be so pig-headed.”
“nesta,” maida said. “what a sweet name! i’ll go to-morrow morning at—” and then the telephone rang again. maida took the message. “it’s floribel,” she announced in a serious voice. “they’ve lost the last train. we’ve got to get breakfast.”
“if we’re going to get up as early as that,” laura declared, “i’m going to bed now. i’m so tired that i’m cross.”
“i told you things always go by three’s,” rosie triumphantly reminded them.
