it was the first of august, and as yet john hadley had received no answer to the letter he had written some time ago to marjorie. he watched anxiously for a letter from her, which would reassure him as the continuation of their friendship. but it did not come.
he mentioned the fact to dorothy snyder when he next saw her at cape may. she had advised him to write to marjorie, and had attributed the girl’s silence to his failure to start the correspondence again; now he was proving that she was wrong. evidently marjorie did not care anything about him after all.
“she probably has a good many interests,” said dorothy, consolingly.
“she always has a lot of interests,” he admitted, grudgingly. “and probably they’re in the form of young men at the ranch now!”
“not necessarily,” said dorothy. “didn’t you188 say she is a girl scout? well, they always have lots to do. and if she is thinking about graduating, and going to college—”
“she did graduate from miss allen’s boarding school this summer,” interrupted john. “and i believe she is planning to go to college in the fall.”
“miss allen’s boarding school!” repeated dorothy, almost to herself. “where have i heard of that school before?”
“you probably knew somebody who went there,” suggested john, glancing critically at the girl. she seemed exactly the type of young woman that one usually found at miss allen’s.
“yes, yes, perhaps,” she replied hastily, growing very red and embarrassed. always, john noticed, when the conversation showed signs of becoming personal, she grew alarmed, and instantly she was on her guard. he had observed this so many times that he resolved to question his mother more in detail about her. who was dorothy snyder, and what was it she feared? perhaps they were unwittingly harboring a criminal in their home.
as soon as he found an opportunity, he put the question to mrs. hadley.
“mother,” he said, when they were alone that evening, “what do you make of dorothy?”
“what do you mean, john?” asked mrs. hadley, looking up from her sewing.
189 “you know what i mean—who she is, and where does she come from?”
“she comes from a little town in new york state, and her people are all dead.”
“but what happened that made her so ill, and so penniless? and yet she said she had never worked before.”
mrs. hadley shook her head; she could not answer that question.
“i know nothing, except what she had volunteered to tell me. i never ask her about herself.”
“but how did you find her? you never told me the whole story.”
“she was sitting in a pavilion, her face buried in her hands, and sobbing very quietly. i went up and asked her if i could help her.”
“and she accepted?”
“no, not right away. she said she was very ill, and had lost her money, and would be grateful if i could take her in for a night. naturally i took her home. she gave her name as dorothy snyder, of edgetown, new york.”
“as you know, i took care of her till she got better. she never talked much, except to tell me how grateful she was for my kindness. once she told me that she had been through an awful experience, and begged me not to ask her any questions. of course i promised.”
190 “don’t you suppose she will ever tell us about herself?”
“yes, but i think she is trying to shield somebody or hide something, and will not tell till everything is cleared up.”
“do you—did you ever think she had done anything wrong herself?” john asked the question fearfully, as if he dreaded lest the answer might be in the affirmative.
“no,” replied his mother, decidedly. “i am sure of the girl’s innocence. i don’t know how or why, but i am.”
the young man breathed a sigh of relief, and yet he was not entirely satisfied. he longed to go to the bottom of the matter, to tear aside the veil, as it were, from dorothy’s obscurity, and have her for a friend as he might have any other normal girl.
he was glad, however, that she never avoided him now, that since he had told her about marjorie, she raised no barrier to their continuous companionship during his visits to his mother. accordingly, when he asked her to go for a walk with him on sunday afternoon, she willingly agreed.
she seemed preoccupied at first, and they walked along in silence for a quarter of an hour. it was dorothy who spoke first, surprising him by her remark.
“i am going to ask you to do me a great favor,191 john,” she began. “i don’t want you to think i am forward or pushing, but i do want very much to meet those girl scouts from miss allen’s school. i have a good reason, though it is a strange one; but i can’t tell it to you now. do you suppose that when they come back from the ranch in the fall, it could possibly be arranged?”
john wrinkled his brow. what, he wondered, could have prompted this strange request? dorothy could not possibly be jealous of marjorie—she had never cared for him in that way—nor did she seem like a social climber who wanted to meet all the people who were in good circumstances. like all the other mysteries about this girl, he had to give this one up unsolved.
“perhaps,” he said, slowly. “but it would be hard to have any sort of party, for they will be so scattered. five or six of them have graduated from miss allen’s, and probably they will all be at different places. but i’ll think about it. is it—” he hesitated for a moment—“is it any one girl in particular that you want to meet?”
“no, indeed,” she hastened to reassure him. “and you never need tell me which is the girl you care for. but i would love to see them together.”
john was turning over in his mind how the thing could possibly be carried out. dorothy so seldom asked him for anything that he hated to refuse her.192 suddenly his eyes lighted up with inspiration. he had it—the very thing! his mother might invite all eight of the girls for a week-end at cape may, as a sort of return for the wilkinson hospitality earlier in the summer. he told dorothy of the idea.
“that’s wonderful!” she cried. “but wouldn’t it be too much work for your mother?”
“we could both turn in and help,” said john.
“of course we would. but—would the house be big enough for eight girls, besides us?”
“yes, they enjoy sleeping in a bunch. we could get in some extra cots, and fit them up four in a room.”
“let’s hurry back and ask your mother right away,” suggested dorothy.
more mystified than ever at this unusual display of enthusiasm, he complied with the girl’s request. all the way back they talked of nothing else. he too was thrilled with the plan; he said he would take a room at the hotel and come in only for meals, so that the house would be freer for the girls.
as soon as they were home, they lost no time in putting the project before mrs. hadley. always glad to comply with the young people’s wishes, she readily fell in with the scheme, and seemed as pleased as they were. she suggested that they make a tour of inspection of the house with her, so that she might193 assure herself of the plan’s practicality. they began with the attic.
“these rooms are small,” she said, throwing open the two doors and displaying the conventional attic rooms, with the slanting roofs besides the windows. “but they really aren’t bad.”
“they’re very comfortable!” said dorothy. “at least i find mine so.”
“well, then, that disposes of four girls, and there are two bedrooms besides mine on the second floor. yes—” she was noting two or three things to attend to, as she talked—“we can put eight girls up, if john will move out.”
“of course i will!” he replied, readily.
“then really the only thing that worries me is the dining room,” she concluded. “do you suppose we could get eleven people around our small table?”
“i’d just as soon be waitress,” offered dorothy; “and that would bring the number down to ten.”
“indeed you won’t!” protested mrs. hadley. “when the party is given in your honor!”
“suppose dorothy and i both be ‘waitresses’?” suggested john. “that would be only fair, if you do the cooking.”
“i thought i’d get eliza in to cook,” said his mother.
“that’s a good idea!” commented john. “still,194 i stick to the waitress plan. i think i’d make a hit in a cap and apron.”
dorothy laughed at the picture of john in a waitress’s costume, and she too urged mrs. hadley to let them adopt the plan.
“well, whatever you like,” said the older woman. “and now since it’s all settled, i guess i had better go write the letter.”
but before she had reached her desk, the door-bell rang, and she went to answer it. a telegraph messenger asked whether mr. john hadley lived there.
“yes,” replied mrs. hadley, mechanically taking the envelope and signing the paper. then, closing the door she handed the telegram to her son.
“i suppose your firm want you to go to new york or boston, or some such place again,” she said with resignation. “they seem to expect to send you all over the globe.”
john smiled, and tore open the telegram.
“by george, i’ve got a real trip this time!” he exclaimed. “two places in california, and a stop in wyoming on the way back!”
neither mrs. hadley nor dorothy shared the young man’s enthusiasm; they were both thinking how lonely it would be for them, with him away for such a long time.
“and how long will you be gone?” asked mrs.195 hadley, making a supreme effort to hide her dismay.
“i don’t know. this says a letter follows.”
“i wonder whether you start right from here.”
“probably,” answered john, “or they would hardly have telegraphed.”
“will this—” began dorothy, hesitating for a second—“will this mean that our house-party has to be given up?”
“certainly not!” replied john. “i’ll surely be back by september, and even if i weren’t, it would be all right to have it without me.”
neither woman said anything further; but dorothy noticed that mrs. hadley gave up all idea of writing the invitation, for the time being, at least. somehow, the house-party would seem flat without the presence of its originator, and neither of the others cared to press it. they busied themselves with the supper, and with the inspection of john’s clothing, to be in readiness for the hasty summons that would probably come late that night.
mrs. hadley had already gone to bed when john received his special delivery letter. he and dorothy had been sitting in the little parlor, reading a story aloud, when the messenger arrived. the girl watched him quietly as he perused its contents. first she noticed a slight frown on his face; but a moment later this was replaced by an ecstatic smile. john hadley had wonderful news!
196 “by george!” he cried, handing the letter to his companion, “i’m to see her! to go to california first, and stop on my way back at the hilton ranch, near bailey, wyoming, to deliver a radio to the girl scouts, and set it up. oh, did you ever hear of such luck? it sounds like the arabian nights!”
dorothy tried to enter whole-heartedly into his joy.
“it is wonderful, of course. and the girl scouts ordered their outfit from you?”
john examined the order, and nodded his head, smilingly.
“then it must be all right with—with—you know, i don’t know her name!” she added.
“i guess you are right,” agreed john. “and now i must go wake mother, and tell her, for i start early in the morning.”
“and when do you get back?”
“i don’t know. my vacation comes the last two weeks in august, so—well—i might spend it on the ranch!”
“with the girl scouts!” added dorothy. “i envy you, john!”
“yes, it would be nice,” he said. “and i could give them mother’s invitation in person.”
“and i do so hope they accept,” said the girl, fervently. “somehow, i feel as if my whole fate rested upon their decision.”
197 john forgot for a moment his own affairs, in his surprise at what dorothy was saying. why, he asked himself again, did she care so much about the house-party, and in what way was her future dependent upon it? he looked at her questioningly; his eyes held the interrogation his lips dared not utter.
as dorothy watched him, and noted his eager interest, she came to the sudden decision to tell him all that she knew of her past. perhaps he would be able to help her; at any rate, he was too good a friend to betray her confidence.
“john,” she said, in reply to his silent question, “i want to talk to you about myself. have you time?”
“i certainly have,” replied the young man.
for the next five minutes he listened to one of the strangest experiences he had ever heard. dorothy’s explanation was different from anything he had imagined, and more pitiful. never in his life had he so longed to help anyone, and never, he thought, had he been so powerless.
“and may i tell mother?” he asked, when she had finished her story.
“i believe i would rather tell her myself—tomorrow,” replied dorothy. “for you will want to go and tell her your own news now.”
“that is true,” he said, rising, and extending his198 hand. “and now goodnight, dorothy, and goodbye; for i leave early in the morning.”
“goodbye,” she answered, taking his hand. “and please don’t tell my secret to anyone except ‘the girl,’ will you?”
“i promise,” he said, with sincerity.
