CHAPTER X
THE PRIZE IDEA
When the two girls paddled back up the lake after their adventure atthe old Carter house, Henrietta squatted in the middle of the canoeand seemed to enjoy the trip immensely.
"I seen these sort of boats going up and down the lake, and they lookpretty. Me and Charlie Foley and some of the other boys at Dogtownmade a raft. But Mr. Foley busted it with an ax. He said we had nobusiness using the coal-cellar door and Mrs. Foley's bread-mixingboard. So we didn't get to go sailing," observed the freckle-facedchild.
Almost everything the child said made Amy laugh. Nevertheless, likeher chum, Amy felt keenly the pathos of the little girl's situation.Perhaps with Amy Drew this interest went no farther than sympathy,whereas Jessie was already, and before this incident, puzzling hermind regarding what might be done to help Henrietta and improve hersituation.
The girls paddled the canoe in to a broken landing just below thescattered shacks of Dogtown, and Henrietta went ashore. It was plainthat she would have enjoyed riding farther in the canoe.
"If you see us come down this way again, honey," Amy said, "run downhere to the shore and we will take you aboard."
"If Mrs. Foley will let you," added Jessie.
"I dunno what Mrs. Foley will say about the strawberries. I told herI'd bring home some if she'd let me go over there. And here I comehome without even the bucket."
"It is altogether too wet to pick wild strawberries," Jessie said. "Iwanted some myself. But we shall have to go another day. And you canfind your bucket then, Henrietta."
The chums drove their craft up the lake and in half an hour sightedthe Norwood place and its roses. Everything ashore was saturated, ofcourse. And in one place the girls saw that the storm had done somedamage.
A grove of tall trees at the head of the lake and near the landingbelonging to the Norwood place was a landmark that could be seen forseveral miles and from almost any direction on this side of BonwitBoulevard. As the canoe swept in toward the dock Amy cried aloud:
"Look! Look, Jess! No wonder we thought that thunder was so sharp. Itstruck here."
"The thunder struck?" repeated Jessie, laughing. "I _am_thunderstruck, then. You mean----Oh, Amy! That beautiful great tree!"
She saw what had first caught Amy's eye. One of the tallest of thetrees was split from near its top almost to the foot of the trunk. Thewhite gash looked like a wide strip of paper pasted down the stick ofruined timber.
"Isn't that too bad?" said Amy, staring.
But suddenly Jessie drove her paddle deep into the water and sent thecanoe in a dash to the landing. She fended off skillfully, hopped out,and began to run.
"What is the matter, Jess?" shrieked Amy. "You've left me to do allthe work."
"Momsy!" gasped out Jessie, looking back for an instant. "She wasscared to death that the lightning would strike the house because ofthe radio aerial."
Her chum came leaping up the hill behind her, having moored the canoewith one hitch. She cried out:
"No danger from lightning if you shut the switch at the set. You knowthat, Jessie."
"But Momsy doesn't know it," returned the other girl, and dashed madlyinto the house.
She had forgotten to tell her mother of that fact--the safety of theclosed receiving switch. She felt condemned. Suppose her mother hadbeen frightened by the thunder and lightning and should pay for itwith one of her long and torturing sick headaches?
"Momsy! Momsy!" she cried, bursting into the hall.
"Your mother is down town, Miss Jessie," said the quiet voice of theparlor maid. "She drove down in her own car before the storm."
"Oh! She wasn't here when the lightning struck----"
"No, Miss Jessie. And that was some thunder-clap! Cook says she'llnever get over it. But I guess she will. Bill, the gardener's boy,says it struck a tree down by the water."
"So it did," Jessie rejoined with relief. "Well, I certainly am gladMomsy wasn't here. It's all right, Amy," she called through the screendoors.
"I am glad. I thought it was all wrong by the way you ran. Now let'sgo back and get our rugs and the rest of the junk out of the canoe.And, oh, me! Ain't I hungry!"
Jessie ignored this oft-repeated complaint, saying:
"We should have remembered about the bazaar committee meeting. Momsywould go to that. Do you know, Amy, she thinks she can get the otherladies to agree to have the lawn party out here."
"Here, in Roselawn?" asked her chum.
"Right here on our place."
"How fine!" ejaculated Amy. "But, Jessie, I wish I could think of someawfully smart idea to work in connection with the lawn party. Thatlovely, lovely sports coat that Letterblair has in his window hastaken my eye."
"I saw it," Jessie admitted. "And the card says it goes to the girlunder eighteen who suggests the best money-making scheme in unusualchannels that can be used by the bazaar committee. Yes, it's lovely."
"Let's put on our thinking-caps, honey, and try for it. Only two daysmore."
"And if we win it, shall we divide the coat between us?"
"No, we'll cast lots for it," said Amy seriously. "It is a be-a-utifulcoat!"
That evening after dinner Jessie climbed upon the arm of her father'sbig chair in the library, sitting there and swinging her feet just asthough she were a very small child again. He hugged her up to him withone arm while he laid down the book he was reading.
"Out with it, daughter," Mr. Norwood said. "What is the desperate needfor 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 youhave shown interest in something decidedly not your concern."
"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 ourage."
"What is her name and what has she done?"
"Bertha. Or, perhaps it isn't Bertha. But we think so."
"Somehow, it seems to me, you have begun wrong. Who is this youngperson who may be Bertha but who probably is not?"
Jessie told him about the "kidnaped" girl then. But it spilled out ofher mouth so rapidly and so disconnectedly that it is little wonderthat Mr. Norwood, lawyer though he was, got a rather hazy idea of theincident connected with the strange girl's being captured on DogtownLane.
In fact, he got that girl and little, freckled Henrietta Haney rathermixed up in his mind. He found himself advising Jessie to have thechild come to the house so that Momsy could see her. Momsy always knewwhat to do to help such unfortunates.
"And you think there can be nothing done for that other girl?" Jessieasked, rather mournfully.
"Oh! You mean the girl you saw put in the automobile and taken away?Well, we don't know her or the woman who took her, do we?"
"No-o. Though Amy says she thinks she has seen somebody who lookslike the woman driving the car before."
"Humph! You have no case," declared Mr. Norwood, in his most judicialmanner. "I fear it would be thrown out of court."
"Oh, dear!"
"If your little acquaintance could describe her cousin so that wecould give the description to the police--or broadcast it by radio,"and Mr. Norwood laughed.
Jessie suddenly hopped down from the chair arm and began a pirouetteabout the room, clapping her hands as she danced.
"I've got it! I've got it!" she cried. "Radio! Oh, Daddy! you are justthe nicest man. You give me such fine ideas!"
"You evidently see your way clear to a settlement of this legal matteryou brought to my attention," said Mr. Norwood quite gravely.
"Nothing like that! Nothing like that!" cried Jessie. "Oh, no. But youhave given me such a fine idea for winning the prize Momsy and theother ladies are offering. I've got it! I've got it!" and she dancedout of the room.
BELLE RINGOLD
THE GLORIOUS FOURTH
THE BAZAAR