“What is it then?” Carney asked.
“Don’t be scared, but Bobbie isn’t around. He left a note saying he had eloped.”
“Eloped!” Carney cried. She burst into laughter in spite of the fear which gripped her.
“That’s what he said. ‘Just like Huck Finn,’ he said. He doesn’t seem to have told his plans to anyone else in the family, and we wondered whether he had told them to you.”
“No,” Carney answered. “But he was playing Huck Finn all morning. I’ll climb in with you, Sam. I’ll get home quicker.”
“I’ll drive to your house,” Larry said. “Maybe we’ll need the horses.”
She climbed out into the wind and the rain. Sam threw his coat around her. The collapsible top was raised and the storm curtains were on. Over the frantic drumming of the rain Sam told her what had happened.
“At supper time Bobbie didn’t show up. No one thought much about it until the sky began to look so bad. Then your mother started telephoning around, but the other little boys were all safe at home, and Bobbie wasn’t with any of them.
“I had stopped in to see Isobel, and I could see that your mother was getting nervous. For a joke I suggested that Bobbie might have left a note on her pillow. She went upstairs, and by golly there was a note!”
“What did it say?”
“‘Have eloped like Huck Finn. Don’t worry. Bobbie.’ If it weren’t for this storm it wouldn’t be important. Every boy runs away once. But tonight it isn’t so good.”
“It certainly isn’t.” When the lightning flashed Carney saw telephone wires trailing on the ground.
The car drew up in front of the Sibley house where the Maxwell was already waiting. As Carney ran inside, a feeling of dread choked her. Her father, mother, brothers, and the girls were gathered in the front parlor. They looked up hopefully. Her father and Hunter were in raincoats.
“We were waiting for you,” Mr. Sibley said. “We’re hoping you can give us a clue.”
“I can’t,” said Carney. “I wish I could.” She glanced anxiously at her mother whose small face looked white and pinched. “Let me see the note,” she added.
Mrs. Sibley gave it to her.
“Have eloped like Huck Finn. Don’t worry. Bobbie.” The large childish handwriting made the situation more poignant.
Sam was the first to speak. “Well,” he said. “Let’s see! He thinks he’s Huck Finn.”
Jerry broke in. “When Huck Finn ran away he went to the river.”
“That’s right!” Sam’s face lighted up. “Bobbie is headed for water. There’s no doubt about that.”
Mr. Sibley, who had been pacing the floor, wheeled about. “He probably went to Page Park. That’s the part of the river he knows best. Hunter and I will go there now.”
“And I’ll start up the Cutbank,” said Sam, “unless…” He paused. “Bobbie knows Murmuring Lake, and he’s been out in a boat at my place. I wonder…” He went to the telephone, but returned shaking his head. “The wires are down. I believe that’s a good hunch, though. I’m going to drive home, and if I don’t find him on the road I’ll come right back here.”
“I’ll go with you, Sam,” said Carney. “I can look for him while you drive.”
“Take along some blankets in case you find him,” her mother said.
“I have a hunch we’re going to find him, Mrs. Sibley,” Sam replied. “But would you mind awfully if I didn’t bring him back?”
“Why not? Why wouldn’t you bring him back?”
“Because,” said Sam, smiling at her, “he’d like it so much better if I didn’t. We’d give him hot lemonade and a bath; all that stuff. But tomorrow he could play Huck Finn on our lake and get it out of his system.”
“Why, of course!” Mrs. Sibley’s smile trembled. “Wouldn’t that be all right, Will?”
“A fine idea,” Mr. Sibley answered. “You understand boys pretty well, Sam.”
Carney knew that the warmth of her father’s tone sprang partly from his gratitude at having Mrs. Sibley’s thoughts diverted.
“He’d be there for the party tomorrow night,” Sam added. The casual reference to the dance helped, too. It seemed to indicate that Bobbie was already as good as found.
While her mother was getting the blankets, Carney put on her raincoat and one of Hunter’s caps. When she came downstairs Larry had arrived. It had been decided that he and Jerry were to go up the Cutbank. The automobiles were cranked, and the horses unhitched.
Sam and Carney started up Agency Hill. That was the greatest hazard of the trip. The wheels of the car could hardly engage the slippery mud. The wind came roaring down the steep incline, as though trying to push them back into the valley.
At the top they both shouted their relief. The road was flat now, all the way to Murmuring Lake.
They went slowly, Carney looking out closely on both sides. Sam’s hands gripped the wheel, for driving was perilous. The road was littered with branches. Neither he nor Carney mentioned the possibility that they might encounter an obstacle big enough to stop the car. She was quite aware of that danger, though, and she knew that he was.
Carney concentrated on looking. Now and then lightning illumined the landscape. She saw trees bending and swaying in the wind but no small boy eloping like Huck Finn.
They passed the Half-way House, and still no Bobbie.
“He could have fallen down. We could pass him without knowing it,” she said.
“What would he fall down for?” Sam asked gruffly. “More likely he got a ride and is safe and sound at our house.”
But he went more slowly than ever. The car barely crawled through the wind and slashing rain.
At last the lakeside trees came into view, tossing wildly. They reached the lake and saw that the water swept upward in sheets. Just inside the Hutchinson driveway a large tree had fallen across the road.
“It’s too late to stop us now,” shouted Sam.
They abandoned the car. He caught her hand, and they ran through the pelting rain, up the driveway to the lighted house. Sam opened the big front door.
“Now if he’s here,” he said in a low voice, “for Pete’s sake, don’t kiss him!”
“Why not?”
“You don’t kiss Huck Finn.”
Then he charged forward. “Is Bobbie here?”
“Yes,” came a chorused answer from the library. Bobbie’s voice rose above the rest in strident jubilation.
He sat in a big chair in front of a blazing fire, enthusiastically busy with a large well-filled tray. He was wearing a suit of Sam’s pajamas, rolled up at ankle and wrist. His hair was wet, his cheeks were pink, and when he smiled up at them his big front teeth shone.
“Hello, Sis! What are you doing here?”
Carney went up to him but she remembered not to kiss him. She patted his head instead. “The next time you elope, tell us about it.”
“Why,” said Bobbie, sounding offended, “I told you about it tonight. Didn’t Mom find my note?”
“Yes,” said Sam quickly. “She found it. I told her you’d stay here and do some hoboing tomorrow.”
“Fine,” said Bobbie, returning to blueberry cobbler. “Gee,” he added, “this grub is swell! Whipped cream and everything. You’d think it was a party.”
“Fred found him down in the boathouse,” said Mrs. Hutchinson, smiling out of the pillows on her chaise lounge.
“He picked up a ride,” Mr. Hutchinson explained.
“Three rides,” said Bobbie. “One of them had taken a pig to the butcher.”
Sam’s little sister Genevieve was there. She was gazing at Bobbie with an admiration of which he was not unaware. He licked whipped cream from his spoon with a grandly nonchalant gesture.
Carney said she would try to telephone her mother. It was no use, the Hutchinsons said, they had been trying without success.
“There’s nothing for it but going back, and in a hurry, too,” Sam said. “Rose is fixing some hot tea for you, Carney. Yo
u’d better go right to bed.”
Carney snorted. “I certainly won’t. I’m going back with you.”
He looked annoyed. “Have a little sense. It’s bad enough for a man out on those roads tonight. A tree might fall that I couldn’t get over. I might have to hoof it.”
“Well, I’m quite capable of hoofing it myself,” Carney replied.
The Hutchinsons urged her hospitably to stay and Bobbie repeated that the grub was swell but Carney shook her head stubbornly.
“I’d like to tell Mother about Bobbie…and I’ve things to do at home. You’ll be busy here tomorrow with the dance coming off at night.”
“It’s perfect idiocy,” Sam answered angrily, “but I won’t stand here arguing. I want to get back to your mother. Come if you want to.”
He stalked out. Carney said hasty thanks and good-bys, patted Bobbie on the head again, and followed.
Mr. Hutchinson gave them a flashlight and Sam silently marked out her path as they descended. They climbed silently over the fallen tree. The car started without difficulty, and soon they were rolling along again through the howling wind and rain.
Carney hazarded one or two remarks but Sam didn’t answer so she gave up. He was certainly mad, she thought. And he was certainly acting rude, but she couldn’t really blame him. It had been insane for her to insist on coming back.
Riding along in the silence, with her anxiety relieved, her mind went back to the afternoon. In all the excitement about Bobbie, no one had remembered the importance of her picnic. No one, she was sure, had even thought to wonder about how it had come out.
She remembered the great decision with satisfaction.
“I’m happy,” she remarked.
“Congratulations,” Sam answered grimly. Now what did he mean by that? Was he congratulating her upon the engagement he thought had taken place? Or on Bobbie being found? Or on being happy in such inauspicious circumstances?
Before she could answer he swore under his breath. He swore violently…and didn’t even apologize.
Carney was shocked. “What’s the matter?”
“Don’t you see? The lamps have gone out. I’ve run out of acetylene.”
The car skidded in the soft mud as he stopped.
“What are you stopping for?”
“You don’t expect me to drive on a night like this without lights, do you?”
“I suppose you can’t. There’s a very deep ditch.”
“You’re darn right there’s a deep ditch!”
“Shall we walk?” she asked, although her heart sank a little. They weren’t even half way home.
“Let me think,” said Sam, in a furious voice. After a moment he went on more calmly. “I’ve got the flashlight. Maybe you could hold that so that I could see the ditch.”
“I’ll try.”
She tried earnestly for a few minutes but it didn’t work. The feeble light didn’t reach the roadside. After a narrow escape from the ditch, Sam halted the car again. He folded his arms on the wheel and sat thinking.
“If I got out on the running board I could do it,” Carney said timidly.
“That’s impossible, of course.”
“I’ve got a raincoat on.”
Sam didn’t deign to reply.
“It would be easier than walking home,” she urged.
“You’re not walking home. I’ll walk to a farm house and try to get acetylene.”
“But there isn’t a farm house anywhere near,” said Carney. Her tone was almost a wail. “I don’t want to be left alone, Sam. Please!”
He was silent.
“Please let me lie on the running board! Then I can keep the flashlight on the ditch and you can just crawl.” As he didn’t speak she pleaded, “Just as far as the next farm house!”
“All right,” he agreed shortly. She scrambled out. Wrapping her raincoat around her tightly, she fitted her slim body onto the running board and aimed the flashlight downward.
Sam started the car. They progressed at a snail’s pace. But they progressed. The flicker of a farm house light came into view.
“Sam!” cried Carney. Fearing that he hadn’t seen it, she lifted herself up. “Look!” she cried joyfully. “The light…” and then she stopped, for she had rolled off into the road.
She wasn’t hurt…the car was going so slowly. She struggled to her feet, wiping mud out of her face and ears. With a terrible leap of the heart she realized that the flashlight was no longer in her hand. She had lost it, and Sam would be madder than ever.
He had drawn the car to a sloughing, grinding halt. He was getting out. He was running toward her.
She realized suddenly that the rain had stopped. There was a delicious freshness in the air. And at that moment the heavy clouds overhead shifted. The moon came out, spreading the world with such light that it didn’t really matter, after all, about the flashlight.
“Sam!” cried Carney. “I’m afraid I lost the flashlight, but…”
That was all she said for Sam took her in his arms. Holding her tightly he kissed her muddy face, not once but several times.
17
The Hutchinson Dance
“IT DOESN’T SEEM POSSIBLE that things were so awful last night,” Bonnie said at breakfast.
The sun was shining over a world which seemed to have been washed in green. The air steamed with sweetness. Out on the side lawn Hunter and Jerry were piling broken branches and raking a litter of leaves.
“Last night is like a dream,” said Betsy.
“It’s like a nightmare,” Isobel observed. “Isn’t it, Mrs. Sibley?”
Mrs. Sibley nodded, twinkling-eyed.
Carney said nothing. She had said nothing to Sam after he kissed her. Her indignation was apparent in the force with which she tore herself away, in the stiffness with which she marched back and took her seat in the Loco.
Now it was Sam’s turn to send remarks into the empty air. He had said that the moonlight was swell; that they would get home without any more trouble; that he hoped her mother hadn’t been too worried. Carney didn’t answer. He had said that if she didn’t mind they’d put on a little speed. Carney hadn’t said whether she minded or not.
None of her beaus had ever kissed her, and Sam wasn’t even a beau. A man didn’t kiss a girl of her sort unless he was serious. Far from being serious about her, Sam liked Isobel.
“I had stopped by to see Isobel…” he had said when he was telling her the news about Bobbie. He hadn’t said he had come to see the house party, just Isobel.
And now he was kissing her!
Back at the house she had flown into the parlor to tell the good news. Sam had followed, smiling brightly. Speaking together in assumed accord, they had described the fire, the pajamas, the loaded tray of food. Mrs. Sibley had wept and tried to pretend that she was weeping from laughter.
Mr. Sibley and Hunter came in, and the story was told again. Larry and Jerry had returned from taking the horses, at long last, to the livery stable. They, too, were told the glad tidings. Mrs. Sibley and Bonnie had slipped out to the kitchen. There was hot cocoa presently. While they were drinking it Mr. Sibley asked Larry whether he and Carney had had much trouble getting back from Orono.
Carney saw Sam’s head turn sharply. His glance slid down toward her left hand almost as though he expected to find a diamond there. A light had kindled, too, in the eyes of the girls.
Larry had told about losing the storm curtains.
“He handled the horses wonderfully,” Carney put in. It was true, and besides it would serve as a needed rebuke to Sam.
Sam had stayed at the Sibleys all night, but he wasn’t at the breakfast table. Mrs. Sibley explained now that he and Mr. Sibley and the boys had eaten early.
“Sam said he wanted to get out to Bobbie. And he insists on keeping Bobbie out there for the dance tonight. He took along his Sunday suit and a clean shirt. Wasn’t that kind of him?” Mrs. Sibley asked, turning to her daughter.
“He’s good with boys,”
Carney admitted grudgingly.
“He’s very nice.”
“Of course…ahem! He’s not like Larry,” Betsy put in mischievously.
“Ahem! Ahem!” added Isobel.
Bonnie beamed tenderly, and everyone looked expectant.
Carney chuckled. “All right. You might as well know. We came back mere friends.”
“What?”
“Mere friends,” she repeated, smiling at their blank astonishment.
“Did he? Did he…?” Betsy began, and stopped.
“It was mutual,” said Carney. “We agreed perfectly. Neither of us is in love.”
“Then you were very sensible to decide as you did,” said Mrs. Sibley. She rose briskly and started to clear the table. But the girls rebounded more slowly.
“Oh, dear!” mourned Bonnie.
“He’s awfully attractive,” Isobel said regretfully.
Betsy frowned. “I like stories to have happy endings!” she declared.
“Well, this one has a very happy ending.” Carney got up and stretched her arms. “I just love being a free woman.”
She did feel thoroughly satisfied with the outcome of the trip to Orono.
“Betsy and Joe will have to provide the love interest tonight,” she added.
“When does Joe get here?” Bonnie asked.
“On the two-five,” said Betsy. “The beautiful two-five!”
“Let’s all go to the train to meet him,” Carney suggested. She was glad it was her turn to tease.
“Nothing could be more unnecessary,” said Betsy. “I know the way to the depot.”
“But don’t you think it would be cordial…friendly-like…for all of us to go?”
“I think it would be cordial and friendly-like for all of you to stay home.”
Bonnie sighed in mock dejection. “I wish there was a little romance in my life.”
“Just wait till you get to the U.”
“Your Minister is waiting somewhere!” The girls had told Bonnie, after the visit to the Chapel, that she was destined to marry a minister.
Bonnie’s laughter bubbled.
They spent the morning packing, and Betsy cleaned her white shoes and bag. After dinner she dressed carefully in a lavender gingham with a wide flower-covered hat. When she came into the library, Carney sniffed loudly.