Margaret Penrose

“ The car skirted the high fence of the Harrimay enclosure and then they ran past a long string of barns in which the racing horses were housed and trained for a part of the year. There was no meet here at this time, and consequently few horses were in evidence.
“I like to see horses race,” remarked Amy. “And they are such lovely, intelligent looking creatures. But so many people who have anything to do with horses and racing are such hard-faced people and so—so impossible! Think of the looks of that Martha Poole. She’s the limit, Jessie.” ”

“ But Jessie came back each time to radio. She had been very much interested in the wonder of it and in the possibility of rigging the necessary aerials and setting up a receiving set at her own house.
“We can get the books to tell us how to do it, and we can buy the wire for the antenna to-day,” she said.
[10]
“‘Antenna’! Is it an insect?” demanded Amy. “Sounds crawly.”
“Those are the aerials——”
“Listen!” interrupted Amy Drew.
A sound—a shrill and compelling voice—reached their ears. Amy’s hand clutched at Jessie’s arm and held her back. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ HENRIETTA IS VALIANT Jessie Norwood tried to remember that she should set little Henrietta a good example. She should not show panic because of the mysterious noise in the loft of the abandoned Carter house.
But as the thrashing sounds continued and finally the cause of it came tumbling down the enclosed stairway and bumped against the door that opened from the kitchen upon that stairway, Jessie screamed almost as loud as Amy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Darry grabbed his sister and sat her down at a table. 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, them is always room for one more. You and Amy, Jessie, must have another sundae on me.”
“Darry!” exclaimed Jesse 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. ”

“ Aren’t to be trusted yet with money,” and Amy marched down the steps in the lead.
She always took the lead, and usually acted as though she were the moving spirit of the pair. But, really, Jessie Norwood was the more practical, and it was usually her initiative that started the chums on a new thing and always her “sticktoitiveness” that carried them through to the end.
Bonwit Boulevard, beautifully laid out, shaded with elms, with a grass path in the middle, two oiled drives, and with a bridle path on one side, was one of the finest highways in the state. ”

“ She covered her face with her hands and sank down on the wet sod, while the rain beat upon her unmercifully. There was no shelter here, and Jessie Norwood herself was getting thoroughly wet.
In a calm moment that followed the child piped, without taking down her hands.
“Are—are you the ha’nt?”
“What a question!” gasped Jessie, and seized the crouching figure by the shoulder. “Do I feel like a ghost? Why, it’s Henrietta!”
The clawlike hands dropped from the freckled face. The little girl stared.
“Goodness! I seen you before. You are the nice girl. You ain’t a ghost.” ”

“ 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. It will enable us to make the far end of the aerials higher than my window—you see?”
“Necessary point; I observe. Go ahead, Miss Seymour.”
“Please don’t call me ‘Miss Seymour,’” objected Jessie, frowning. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ BROADCASTING 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. ”

“ Nell came up from the kitchen where she had been consulting the cook about the meals, and Sally came tagging after her, of course, with a cookie in one hand and a rag doll in the other.
[167]
“This Sally is nothing but a yawning cavity walking on hollow stilts,” declared Nell, who “fussed” good-naturedly, just as her father did. “She is constantly begging from the cook between meals, and her eyes are the biggest things about her when she comes to the table.”
“Ain’t,” said Sally, shaking her curls in denial.
“Ain’t what?” asked Jessie. ”

“ And among all the calicos, they are supposed to take the bun as prudes.”
Amy actually almost fell out of the window again, and stuck out her tongue like an impudent urchin. “A pair of smarties,” she scoffed. “Come home and fret our ears with your college slang. How dare you!”
“I declare! Is that Miss Amy Drew?” demanded Burd, sticking a half dollar in his eye like a monocle and apparently observing Amy for the first time.
“It is not,” said Amy sharply. “Brush by! I don’t speak to strange young men.”
But Darry had come to Jessie and shaken hands. ”

“ Norwood asked, at the dinner table.
“It is the bane of my existence,” declared the lawyer, with exasperation. “Those women are determined to obtain a much greater share of the estate than belongs to them or than the testator ever intended. Their testimony, I believe, is false. But as the apportionment of the property of the deceased Mr. Ellison must be decided by verbal rather than written evidence, the story those women tell—and stick to—bears weight with the Surrogate.”
“Your clients are likely to lose their share, then?” ”

“ The noise of the thrashing stopped. At least, the larger part of the noise. 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. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ Blair!” the collegian said. “Here are some friends of mine who are regular radio bugs. Let me introduce you to Miss Jessie Norwood and Miss Amy Drew. Likewise,” he added, as the gentleman smilingly shook hands with the girls, “allow me to present their comrades in crime, Darry Drew and Burdwell Alling. These fellows help me kill time over at Yale, to which the governor has sentenced me for four years.”
“Mr. Blair?” repeated Jessie, looking sideways at her chum.
“Mr. Blair?” whispered Amy, who remembered the name as well as Jessie did. ”

“ The gardener at the Norwood estate and his helper looked after the boathouse and the canoes. The Norwood’s was not the only small estate that verged upon the lake, but like everything else about the Norwood place, its lake front was artistically adorned. ”

“ 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.
“Besides,” Burd Alling said in comment on this, “for a good cause we are all ready and willing to be bunkoed a little.”
“Let me tell you, Mr. Smarty,” said Amy, “that Jessie’s lecture is well worth the price of admission alone. Never mind the radio entertainment.” ”