Margaret Penrose

“ THE DOGTOWN TRIBE Burd said, later, with a chuckle, that at this speech Amy sputtered worse than the Water Thrush itself. But Jessie pinched her chum’s arm and warned her to be still.
“What does it matter, Amy?” she said. “Belle says it because she knows we have the best of the argument. We have deliberately put ourselves up as a target for her sharp tongue. ”

“ Of course, Belle was angry because she had seen the Dogtown boy speaking to Jessie Norwood. She really had no other cause for quarreling with him.
Suddenly a shrill voice was heard shouting from the lake. The Roselawn girls instantly recognized Henrietta Haney.
“Say, Monty! Montmorency Shannon!” she shrilled. “Come on home. There’s somebody wants you. Come on home!”
Charlie Foley and one of the other bigger boys were paddling the freckle-faced little girl directly toward the landing. Belle and Sally turned to look at Henrietta, as did the boys who were at work on the radio antenna. ”

“ Yet I’m sort of proud of him, Norwood. There aren’t many boys of his age that have done the things he has.”
“I grant you that,” said Mr. Norwood, yet doubtfully. “Just the same,” and he pinched Jessie’s ear, who stood beside him, “I am glad my son is a girl.”
“Ha, ha!” laughed Mr. Stratford. “I have been noticing that both these girls seem to be aping the boys pretty closely as to dress. And very fetching costumes they are.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Amy, with vast coolness (Jessie was for the moment confused) , “we have to clear up Jessie’s radio aerial and hang it up again. ”

“ Miss Allister has had a lot of trouble with the chorus. That’s another stir-up,” sighed Jessie.
“They need not worry about me,” said Amy with conviction. “I am letter perfect in my recitation. I’m not scared a bit. When I stand up before the audience—Oh, honey! There will not be any audience, will there?” and she ended with a laugh.
“Not much of one, I guess,” said Jessie. “It must be like playing in the movies. There is no inspiration of applause. But I expect for the rehearsal to-morrow half the people who own motor-cars in New Melford and Roselawn will sail over to Stratfordtown. ”

“ See how Nell Stanley bosses Bob and Fred around.”
“But she is just the same as a mother to those boys and to Sally,” observed Jessie.
“And to the doctor, too,” laughed Amy suddenly. “I’ll say Nell rules the whole parsonage.”
“She is a very capable girl.”
“True. But she can’t get very far ahead of Doctor Stanley. He is the funniest man, Jess! It is so nice to have a pastor with a sense of humor, isn’t it?”
“Momsy says that the sense of humor is something that all clergymen must have. They have so much to contend with.” ”

“ I ask you.”
“Six years of age will make all the difference for us that it has for Darry and Burd—and more,” laughed Jessie Norwood. “Don’t be wishing your life away, dear.”
“I’m not,” declared her chum. “I don’t want to be any older than I am. I have none of Belle’s [Pg 62] aspirations for grown-up-ness, let me tell you. Only, I have always wished that Darry was younger than I, so that I could boss him and snub him and do all those nice things to him that other girls do who have younger brothers.”
“Oh, Amy!” cried Jessie, horrified, for she secretly thought Darrington Drew a wonderful fellow. ”

“ Mark Stratford wishes publicly to thank Miss Amy Drew and Miss Jessie Norwood, of Roselawn, for the discovery and return of a keepsake of which Mr. Stratford thinks highly, and for which there could be no possibility of adequate replacement.”
“I declare, Jess Norwood! you are blushing,” laughed Amy, pulling off her eartabs.
“It seems so public!” murmured her chum.
“I should hope so! Radio telephony is a very public thing, if anybody should ask you. See what it has already done for the hospital fund. In answer to Doctor Stanley’s appeal, contributions have been pouring in all day. ”

“ Perhaps the latter might really have succeeded in driving the Dogtown children away; while in the music and dancing of the New Melford and Roselawn young folks, Henrietta and her party took pleasure.
“Isn’t it kind of pitiful,” Jessie ventured before the dance concluded, “that those children should have to take their pleasure by proxy?”
“My goodness!” gasped Darry, “you’re a funny girl, Jess. Do you want to give Hen and those others dancing lessons?” and he chuckled.
“Well, why not?” she asked pluckily. “We like dancing. Why shouldn’t they like it in Dogtown just as much?” ”

“ Amy was always enthusiastic about anything she undertook. In the morning she was over at the Norwood house very early and in boating costume. The girls had a canoe on Lake Monenset and they knew pretty well how both to paddle and sail it. When they went down to the boatlanding belonging to the Norwood place a steady breeze ruffled the lake. It was, as Amy declared, “a gorgeous morning.”
“Tell you what, Jessie, honey,” said the flyaway. “Let’s have Bill get out the sail and step the mast for us. It is a fine sailing breeze. We can make Dogtown at a fast clip.” ”

“ Somebody spoke of radio, having noted Jessie’s aerial when they drove into the grounds.
“I do wish you had placed your set downstairs here in the drawing-room, as I suggested, Jessie,” Mrs. Norwood observed in secret to her daughter. “You see, large and comfortable as your room is, we could not squeeze them into it on this hot night.”
“Hold on, Momsy! Wait!” said Jessie eagerly. “I believe I can do something to help you out. There is a fine nine o’clock entertainment to-night from Stratfordtown and another from a New York station at ten. Now wait! Let me call Amy on the telephone.” ”

“ Darry sang out. “Beat it, folks!”
“What does he mean?” gasped Sally Moon, falling back from the door.
The general although unexplained desire of everybody to get away from the vicinity of the stairway amazed Sally, but it startled her too. The group of little animals on the loft stairs seemed the most harmless things in the world.
Suddenly Henrietta came to sudden action. She dropped the cake she had begun on and rushed for the stairway. Sally screamed and fell back out of the freckled little girl’s way. Amy screamed to Henrietta to return. ”

“ Come away with Jess and me.”
“You boys come, too!” cried Henrietta emphatically, and stamping her foot. “You heard what them two said about Monty and all us Dogtown kids. We won’t do another thing to help them.”
“You’re right we won’t,” agreed one of the Costello twins. “Come on, fellers. Let ’em put up their own wires.”
“We will just leave you flat,” declared Henrietta, her freckled countenance still ablaze. “You rich girls think you are so big. ”

“ We are only saving these foolish boys. I hope Darry and Burd will appreciate our efforts,” Amy sighed. “But of course they will not.”
They went ashore with the rest of the young folks, and Amy and Jessie were at once surrounded by a crowd of girls and boys, showing that, if they were disliked by Belle Ringold and her immediate clique, they were popular with a large circle of friends. ”

“ AN INVITATION TO A PARTY Superintendent Blair suddenly put up his hand and stopped the chorus in the middle of its second number. He looked very stern but he spoke composedly enough to Miss Allister. She was in a flutter of excitement.
“Let them rest awhile,” said Mr. Blair, bruskly. “They are not doing well; nowhere near good enough to broadcast from Stratfordtown. We pride ourselves here, Miss Allister, on sending out good stuff.
“Perhaps they will do better later. Let them rest. Meanwhile, we will try out these others. Who is first? Miss Norwood?” ”

“ Darry and Burd need not have been so afraid of the occasion being a “kid picnic.” There were several young fellows of near their own age; and if most of the girls were of the age of Jessie and Amy they were a bright, fun-loving and companionable lot.
A very good talking machine had been brought from the Ringold house, and the selection of dance records was good. Jessie and Amy introduced Darry and Burd to the nicer girls of the party—those whom the young men did not already know. The Roselawn radio chums particularly aided the collegians in escaping the wiles of Belle and Sally Moon. ”

“ Amy Drew led the way, and she led it shrieking. Mrs. Norwood appeared at the door of the library, demanding:
“What has happened, girls? Stop shouting, Amy, please! You will raise the neighborhood.”
“That’s what we want to do, Momsy!” Jessie cried. “Something dreadful has happened!”
“That radio set! I knew something would happen because of it,” gasped the kindly but rather nervous woman.
In fact, when Jessie Norwood and her chum, Amy Drew, had first become interested in radio telephony Mrs. Norwood had been rather fearful of the new apparatus. ”

“ There had been an occasion when the Roselawn radio girls had had a rather thrilling experience with some [Pg 83] black snakes that had preëmpted the old Carter house. “If those snakes ever came tumbling down into the kitchen while this bunch of girls and fellows were eating, mercy! what a row there would be!”
“I never did know what snakes were for,” sighed Amy. “Nature is wonderfully efficient, we know. But why snakes?”
“So that they can make snakeskin purses for you girls to carry. That’s easy,” declared Burd solemnly. ”

“ They should appreciate the opportunity to aid in a good cause. At least I, for one, do not mean to see the girls make our concert ridiculous. I know what is the matter with that chorus.”
“Bully!” whispered Amy, under her breath.
“I think you speak rather harshly, Mrs. Norwood.” It was Mrs. Moon who spoke. The Moons and the Ringolds “always worked in double harness,” to quote Amy Drew. “Surely we cannot expect the girls to take the matter as seriously as we do.”
“Why not?” Jessie’s mother demanded. “The hospital is for the poor and the sick among women and children of our town. ”

“ He was old enough to work. The Roselawn girl could not bring herself to the point of discussing the lost watch directly with any of these people. She did not know which child to suspect—if any.
But when she and Amy had bade their acquaintances of Dogtown good-by and were walking up the long lane toward Bonwit Boulevard, Jessie noticed that her chum was very grave.
“Why the seriosity, Amy?” she asked, smiling quizzically.
“Jess, I am puzzled,” admitted the other girl.
“So am I. Are you puzzled about the same thing I am?”
“That red-haired boy!” exclaimed Amy vigorously. “He’s awfully smart. ”

“ Good!” he ejaculated. “Now,” he said, swinging to face the other girls, “if you young people would do half as well, your songs would be all right. Now! Who comes next?”
He looked at his paper and announced Amy’s recitation. It was a humorous bit, that Amy did very well indeed. She had the ease that usually marks a much more practiced recitationist. After all, the full flavor of the piece was lost on radio telephony because her facial expression and her gestures would not be seen by her audience downstairs. But Mr. Blair had as encouraging a smile for her as he had had for Jessie. ”

“ Roselawn as a community was interested in the hospital fund committee’s work, and the advertised “radio concert and dance,” posted for the day before the committee’s broadcasted entertainment, seemed to threaten disaster. Mrs. Norwood confessed that she did not know what she should do.
“I always feel when I am half through such a [Pg 150] task as this hospital fund raising,” said Jessie’s mother, “that I will never undertake anything of the kind again. Something or other—sometimes several ‘others’—is sure to arise to balk us, no matter how good the cause may be. ”

“ There was much merriment at that end of the table, too, for Darry and Burd, as well as others of the radio girls’ friends, cheerfully entered into the spirit of the occasion.
“Lucky you brought this hatbox full of good things, Amy,” Burd said. “I can see right now that we are going to be able to get outside the whole of it. Let’s see if we can fill up these kids. I believe they are hollow all the way down.”
“Mrs. Foley says I am,” said Henrietta, complacently. “It takes as much to fill me up as it does a lots bigger girl. Bertha can’t eat as much as me.”
“Where is Bertha?” Jessie asked. ”

“ Think of bothering your head about a watch when you’ve just smashed a perfectly good airplane all to bits.”
“I guess he thinks more of his grandmother’s gift than he did of the plane,” said Jessie. “But Amy and I have looked all around and we can’t find the watch.”
“By the way,” demanded Darry, “what’s this Mark was telling us about a program to be given out by radio telephony at the Stratfordtown station? He says you girls are running it.” ”

“ Norwood for her kindness, and he was not likely to come especially to Roselawn to call on Jessie and Amy, for both his age and his various interests precluded his desiring the society of girls so young. Amy sometimes said, glumly:
“Darry and his friends think they haven’t any time for their ‘kid sisters’ and their friends. But wait till they want something—a button sewed on, or knicker tapes fixed, or a book found, or something. Then ‘little sister’ is just as handy to have around as a little red wagon. ”

“ He may roast while you are wetting down the plane with the hose.”
This seemed practical even to Amy. She lent her strength to Jessie’s and fortunately they were able to drag the unconscious pilot forth. He wore the usual helmet, the tabs of which were fastened over his ears. It was plain that he had been up to a high altitude before making this unfortunate swoop that had ended so disastrously.
“Is he dead? Oh! is he dead?” murmured Jessie Norwood.
“Oh, I hope not,” gasped her chum. “Who is he? Anybody we know, Jess?”
Jessie waved her away. “Run for Chapman or the gardener. Where can they be? ”

“ You got to take your own part, or nobody won’t help you. Mrs. Foley says so. How d’you s’pose a little, homely thing like me could have got the best of all those Dogtown kids if I didn’t make ’em afraid of me? They know I’m a witch and can put the curse on ’em.”
“That is an awful way to talk,” admonished Jessie. “And Amy and I won’t like you if you talk that way. It’s all right to play being Spotted Snake; but to use bad language and say ugly things isn’t nice at all.”
Henrietta looked at the older girl very closely while she said this. ”

“ But on this occasion Henrietta had relieved her of the youngest Foley and had popped him, fast asleep, into a box cradle in the house.
Billy, whose nativity was being celebrated under a fringe of Japanese lanterns on the platform, was cavorting about in an Indian suit, attempting to scalp all his little friends with a wooden tomahawk.
Jessie and Amy brought him presents, too; and they had been wise enough to give him “perfectly useless” playthings—the kind that delight a small [Pg 142] boy. Henrietta brought him by the hand to thank the two Roselawn girls. ”

“ A watch such as this that has been lost would be a great temptation.”
[Pg 34]
“But, Momsy! They would not even know the value of it.”
“Leave it to Henrietta, or to Montmorency Shannon,” said Amy quickly. “That Shannon boy doesn’t have to be led about by a little dog,” and Amy laughed again.
“Of course he is smart enough,” agreed Jessie. “But being smart and poor does not prove his dishonesty,” she added severely.
“That is true, Jessie,” her mother said approvingly. “Poverty does not walk hand-in-hand with dishonesty by any manner of means. And the poor need our help in any event. ”