Margaret Penrose

“ If that Martha Poole is in with some crooked people who break the state gambling law by radio, sending news of the races to city gambling rooms, she would commit other things against the law.”
“Oh!” cried Amy. “Both she and that Mrs. Bothwell look like hard characters. But there were no aerials in sight!”
Jessie thought for a moment. Then she flashed at her chum:
“Well, that might be, too. Some people string their aerials indoors. I don’t know if that can be done at a sending station. But it may be. They are inventing new things about radio all the time. You know that, dear.” ”

“ Belle gave her attention to Darry Drew. She seemed to consider it necessary to steady him upon the stool while he acted as “barker.”
“Come away, do!” sniffed Amy to Jessie. “That brother of mine is as weak as water. Any girl, if she wants to, can wind him right around her finger.”
But Jessie did not wholly believe that. She knew Darry’s character pretty well, perhaps better than Amy did. He would be altogether too easy-going to refuse to help Belle, especially in a good cause. Belle Ringold was very shrewd, young as she was, in the arts of gaining and holding the attention of young men. ”

“ I never would have thought of that,” crowed Jessie.
“Leave it to your Aunt Amy. She’s the wise old bird,” declared Amy. “I always did like those overalls. If I climb a ladder I don’t want any skirt to bother me. If the ladder begins to slip I want a chance to slide down like a man. Do the ‘Fireman, save my cheeld’ act.”
“You are as lucid as usual,” confessed her chum. Then she went on to explain: “I have found rope enough in the barn for our purpose—new rope. We will attach the end of the aerial wires with the rope to the roof of the old tower. ”

“ He grinned widely, bowing to Belle and her crowd.
“Come on, Jessie!” he commanded. “No matter how many George Washington sundaes you kids have eaten––”
“‘Kids’! Indeed! I like that!” exploded Amy.
But her brother swept on, ignoring her objection: “No matter how many you have eaten, there is always room for one more. You and Amy, Jessie, must have another sundae on me.”
“Darry!” exclaimed Jessie Norwood. “I thought you and Burd went to his aunt’s.”
“And we came back. That is an awful place. There’s an uncle, too—a second crop uncle. And both uncle and auntie are vegetarians, or something. ”

“ Mr. Norwood said. “What is the desperate need for a father?”
“It is not very desperate, and really it is none of my business,” began Jessie thoughtfully.
“And that does not surprise me. It will not be the first time that you have shown interest in something decidedly not your concern.” 87
“Oh! But I am concerned about her, Daddy.”
“A lady in the case, eh?”
“A girl. Like Amy and me. Oh, no! Not like Amy and me. But about our age.”
“What is her name and what has she done?”
“Bertha. Or, perhaps it isn’t Bertha. But we think so.” ”

“ Miss Seymour had added up after each show the amount taken in at the door of the tent. Before the lights were put out and the booths were dismantled she was ready to announce to the committee the sum total of the radio tent’s earnings.
“Goody! That will beat Belle, sure as you live,” Amy cried when she heard it, and dragged Jessie away across the lawn to hear the report of the sum taken from the cash-drawer under the orangeade counter. Groups of young people milled around the “concession” which served the delicious cooling drinks. ”

“ Bertha!”
Suddenly the lower door of the tower opened a crack. An old, old woman, and not at all a pleasant looking woman, appeared at the crack.
“What you want?” she demanded. “Go ’way! Martha Poole didn’t send you here.”
Jessie spoke up briskly. “We’ve come to see Bertha. This is her little cousin. You won’t refuse to let her see Bertha, will you?”
“There ain’t nobody here but a sick girl. She ain’t to be let out. She ain’t right in her head.”
“I guess that is what is the matter with you,” said Darry Drew, sternly. ”

“ She had already made a careful schedule of the broadcasting done by all the stations within reach of her fine radio set, and found that it was possible, by tuning her instrument to the wave lengths of different stations, to get something interesting into every hour from two o’clock on until eleven.
Naturally, some of the entertainments would be more interesting or amusing than others; but as New Melford people for the most part were as yet unfamiliar with radio, almost anything out of the air would seem curious and entertaining. ”

“ Before the two young fellows left Roselawn again, they did the girls a favor that Amy and Jessie highly appreciated. It was done involuntarily but was nevertheless esteemed. Mark Stratford drifted up the Bonwit Boulevard in his big and shiny car and halted it in front of the Norwood place to hail Darry and Burd.
“Here’s the millionaire kid,” called out Alling. “Know him, girls? He’s quite the fastest thing that lingers about old Yale. Zoomed over the German lines in the war, stoking an airplane, although at that time he was only a kid. Mark Stratford. ”

“ Darry and Burd were planning another trip on the Marigold, and so had little time to give to the girl chums of Roselawn. Burd wickedly declared that Darry Drew was running away from home to get rid of Belle Ringold.
“Wherever he goes down town, she pops up like a jack-in-the-box and tries to pin him. Darry is so polite he doesn’t know how to get away. But I know he wishes her mother would lock her in the nursery.”
“It is her mother’s fault that Belle is such a silly,” scoffed Amy. “She lets Belle think she is quite grown up.”
“She’ll never be grown up,” growled out Darry. ”

“ Amy was shrieking for her chum to come out of the house. But Jessie began to be ashamed of her momentary panic.
“I’m going to see what it is,” she declared, approaching the door.
“Maybe you won’t see nothing,” said Henrietta. “Mrs. Foley says that ha’nts is sometimes just wind. You don’t see nothing. Only you feel creepy and cold fingers touch you and a chilly breath hits the back o’ your neck.” ”

“ I do believe, Amy Drew, that poor Bertha is hidden away somewhere at that farm.”
“But—but––how could she get at any sending station to tell her troubles to—to the air?” and Amy suddenly giggled.
“Don’t laugh. It is a very serious matter, I feel sure. If the poor girl actually isn’t being abused, those women are hiding her away so that they can cheat Daddy’s clients out of a lot of money.” ”

“ Nell added, “you are too late inviting me to the eats, Amy, honey. It can’t be done. I’m promised. Mr. Brandon and his wife saw me first, and I am to dine with them. Then they are going to take me in their car out to the Parkville home of their daughter—Oh, say! If your radio isn’t finished, Jess, why can’t you and Amy come with us? The Brandon car is big enough. And they tell me Mrs. Brandon’s daughter has got a perfectly wonderful set at her home. They have an amplifier, and you don’t have to use phones at all. Has your radio set got an amplifier, Jess?” ”

“ You can’t talk into a radio set like this. There has to be electric power and a generator, and all that—such as Mark Stratford showed us there at Stratfordtown.”
“Of course.”
“Then don’t you think, Jessie, the fact that it is a broadcasting plant where the girl is imprisoned must narrow the inquiry a good deal?”
“How clever you are, dear,” declared Jessie. “But a red barn with a silo and two fallen trees! Why, Amy! we don’t know in which direction to look. Whether to the north, south, east or west!”
“No-o. I suppose––Oh, wait, Jess!” cried the excited Amy. ”

“ Time might hang idly on their hands. So it behooved them to find something absorbing to keep their attention keyed up to the proper pitch.
“Tell you what,” Amy suggested. “Let’s go down town to the bookstore and see if they have laid in a stock of this radio stuff. We want one or two of the books mentioned here, Jess. We are two awfully smart girls, I know; we will both admit it. But some things we have positively got to learn.”
“Silly,” crooned Jessie, patting her chum on the cheek. “Let’s go. We’ll walk. Wait till I run and see if Momsy doesn’t want something from down town.” ”

“ But Mark is a patient soul.”
“‘Patient’?” repeated Jessie, wonderingly, as she and Amy accompanied the young fellows down to the street.
“Sure,” declared Burd. “Most fellows would be impatient, burdened with so much of the filthy lucre as Mark has. But not he. He is doing his little best to spend his share.”
However, and in spite of Burd’s introduction, Mark Stratford proved to be a very personable young man and did not look at all the “sport.” Jessie considered that Burd was very probably fooling them about Mark. The young folks were talking like old friends in five minutes. ”

“ But there were more roses in this section of the pretty town of New Melford, and on that account many inhabitants of the place had gotten into the habit of calling the estates bordering the boulevard by the name of Roselawn. It was the Roselawn district, for every lawn was dotted with roses, red, pink, white, and yellow.
The Norwoods were three. Jessie, we put first because to us she is of the most importance, and her father and mother would agree. Being the only child, it is true they made much of her. But Jessie Norwood was too sweet to be easily spoiled. ”

“ Jessie whispered to her chum. “Did you ever hear the like?”
“I guess that girl we saw run away with, was her cousin all right,” said Amy. “How she did fight!”
At that statement Jessie was reminded of the thing that had been puzzling her for some days. She began asking questions about Bertha, how she looked, how old she was, and how she was dressed.
“She’s just my cousin. She is as old as you girls, I guess, but not so awful old,” Henrietta said. “I don’t know what she had on her. She ain’t as pretty as you girls. ”

“ Everybody was astir early about the Norwood and Drew places in Roselawn that next morning. At the former house Jessie and Henrietta aroused everybody. At the Drew place “two old salts,” as Amy sleepily called them from her bedroom window, came rambling in from a taxi-cab and disturbed the repose of the family.
“Where did you leave that Marigold?” the sister demanded from her window. “You boys go off on that yacht, supposedly to stay a year, and get back in forty-eight hours. You turn up like a couple of bad pennies. You––”
“Chop it, Sis,” Darry advised. ”

“ But at the moment Jessie Norwood and her chum, Amy Drew, darted around from the broad boulevard into the narrow lane that led down to this poor hamlet, neither of the girls remembered “Dogtown,” as the group of huts was locally called. The real estate men who exploited Roselawn and Bonwit Boulevard as the most aristocratic suburban section of New Melford, never spoke of Dogtown. ”

“ Henrietta came to the door with the stick that Jessie had dropped in her hand.
“I fixed ’em,” she said calmly. “I just hate snakes. I always kill them black ones. They ain’t got no poison. And I shut the door so if there’s any more upstairs they won’t come down. You can come back to dinner.” 79
“Well, you darling!” gasped Jessie.
Her chum leaned against the door jamb while peal after peal of laughter shook her. She could just put out her hands and make motions at the freckled little girl.
“She—she—she––”
“For pity’s sake, Amy Drew!” exclaimed Jessie. “You’ll have a fit, or something.” ”

“ Norwood, “do you think the two girls can do that work?”
“Why not? Of course Jessie and Amy can. If they need any help they can ask one of the men—the chauffeur or the gardener, or somebody.”
“We are going to do it all ourselves!” cried Jessie, eagerly. “This is going to be our very owniest own radio. You’ll see. We’ll put the set upstairs in my room.”
“Wouldn’t you rather have it downstairs—in the drawing-room, for instance?” asked her mother.
“I know you, Momsy. You’ll be showing it off to all your friends. And pretty soon it will be the family radio instead of mine.” ”

“ Human beings cannot easily command the elements which Nature controls.” 56
“Seems to me we are disproving that right in this radio business,” cried Jessie. “And it is going to be wonderful—just wonderful—before long. They say moving pictures will be transmitted by radio; and there will be machines so that people can speak directly back and forth, and you’ll have a picture before you of the person you are speaking to.”
She began to laugh again. “You know what Amy says? She says she always powders her nose before she goes to the telephone. You never know who you may have to speak to! ”

“ Anyhow, Jessie as well as Amy, went off very gayly in the Brandon car with the minister’s daughter. Mr. Brandon drove his own car, and the girls sat in the tonneau with Mrs. Brandon, who did not seem by any means a very old lady, even if she was a grandmother.
“But grandmothers nowadays aren’t crippled up with rheumatism and otherwise decrepit,” declared Amy, the gay. “You know, I think it is rather nice to be a grandmother these days. ”

“ So she drew from Jessie and from Amy all they knew about the new science, and Jessie ran across to her house and got the books she had bought dealing with radio and the installation of a set.
Jessie and Amy got into their outing clothes when Nell Stanley had gone and embarked upon the lake, paddling to the landing at despised Dogtown. It was not a savory place in appearance, even from the water-side. As the canoe drew near the girls saw a wild mob of children, both boys and girls, racing toward the broken landing.
“Why! What are they ever doing?” ”

“ But Darry got close to his sister, stretching his ear, too, to distinguish the sounds. The introduction to the famous composition was played brilliantly, then the voices of the singers traveled to the little group in Jessie Norwood’s room from the broadcasting station thirty miles away.
“Isn’t it wonderful! Wonderful!” murmured Amy.
“Sh!” admonished her chum.
When the number was ended, Burd Alling removed his head-harness and gravely shook hands with Jessie.
“Some calico, you are,” he declared. “Don’t ever go to college, Jess. It will spoil your initiative.” ”

“ There was something wrong with those women. Amy said this with a serious shake of her head. You could tell!
And when, on further discussion, Jessie remembered their names—Poole and Bothwell—this fact brought out another discovery.
“Bothwell! I never did!” ejaculated Amy Drew. “Why, no wonder I thought she looked like somebody I knew. And she drives a fast car—I’ll say she does. Jess Norwood! where were our wits? Don’t you remember reading about Sadie Bothwell, whose husband was one of the first automobile builders, and she has driven in professional races, and won a prize—a cup, or something? ”

“ If you go over there again to the sending station, tell the superintendent all about her, Miss Jessie.”
“I certainly will,” promised the Roselawn girl. “But we haven’t even found Bertha yet, and we are not sure she is here.”
Darry and the others had entered the grounds 190 surrounding the stock farm buildings and they were gone some time. When they came back even Amy seemed despondent.
“I guess we were fooled, Jess,” she said. “There is nobody here—not even a caretaker. I guess what we heard over the radio that time was a hoax.” ”