CHAPTER XVIII
LOOKOUT BEACH
"Isn't it perfectly dreadful!"
"Simply awful!"
"It surely isn't true!"
"But it's there--every word of it!"
These exclamations burst from the lips of Belle and Bess Robinson, asthe two sisters smoothed a newspaper out before their startled eyes.
"And this paper was found at the Wayside," went on Bess. "No wonderthe poor girls ran away again!"
"When we get to the cottage I am going to ask Cora all about it,"declared Belle. "It does not seem right that a newspaper should hintat anything that is not plainly stated! That about the young ladiesfrom Chelton who rode in autos--every one will know means us."
The girls were in the _Flyaway_, going along a sea cliff road, only afew miles outside of the pretty summer resort of Lookout Beach. Theroaring of the ocean could be plainly heard now, the salt of the spraywas in the air, and the sun glinted on the white roads. Bess andBelle, in their car, had gone on ahead, the others followed at adistance.
"Isn't the air glorious!" cried Bess. "I am sure we are going to havea delightful time down here."
"And wasn't it lovely of mamma to invite the boys?" added Belle. "Ofcourse she felt perfectly helpless with just us girls; and Jack is soresourceful!"
"Yes, I fancy it might have been rather lonely evenings without theboys. Of course we will have to stay around the cottage evenings, andwith them we will have some opportunity for fun."
"Ed says they are going to take a bungalow almost on the beach,"remarked Belle. "It will be fun to see how they keep house."
The _Flyaway_ dropped back nearer the little procession of other autosthat now wended their way along the seaside boulevard to the peninsulathat looked out over the bay, across the great noisy ocean, andout--out--it seemed almost to Eternity.
It was here, on this point of land, that the cottages were grouped,and it was this exceptional view that gave the pretty spot itsname--Lookout Beach.
"Quite a pretty village," Cora remarked to Jack, as they drove throughthe center of the place.
"Plenty of fishing around here," said Ed to Walter, as the boys' carslacked along the board sidewalk, and its occupants observed numbersof men and boys slouching along, with baskets, evidently well filledwith the night's catch.
The _Whirlwind_ stopped at the post-office, and Cora stepped out toask the exact direction to Clover Cottage. She glanced in the box, thenumber of which Bess and Belle had given her as the one that "wentwith" their cottage. Two pieces of mail had already arrived and thesewere handed to Cora by the old man who made it his particular businessto welcome every "box holder" to Lookout Beach.
"The first road to the left," the postmaster told her as she emergedfrom the office, and the _Whirlwind_ again led the way to the cottage.
The hanging sign "Clover" left no doubt as to which was the particularcottage and here the four cars and their merry passengers pulled up,and stopped.
"Welcome to Clover!" exclaimed Bess and Belle in chorus.
"Three cheers for the welcome!" replied Jack, in as loud a voice asthe proximity to other cottages would allow.
"But the house is not open!" declared Bess, who was first to reach theporch. "Nettie was to have come down yesterday."
"Why, yes," added Belle. "Mother will be dreadfully put out if shegets here and we have no maid----"
"Oh, don't worry about that," Ed interrupted. "Since we have beeninvited, we will attend nicely to any little thing like opening uphouse, and setting up housekeeping," and without further ceremony heundertook to explore each window on the broad veranda, and soon he hadone pair of shutters unfastened, and was opening a sash without theslightest difficulty.
"Was that window unlocked?" asked Belle. "Why, our things might havebeen stolen!"
"Just wait until I open the door," ordered Ed, "then you there--Walterand Jack--you may take the job of portering."
"I'd rather 'buttle,'" objected Walter. "There's more in it. Firstshot at buttling!"
It seemed jolly already. The door was thrown open, and Ed made allsorts of bows and bends in inviting the ladies to enter.
In the sitting room a paper dangled from the lamp that hung in thecenter of the apartment.
"Directions!" announced Jack. "Don't blow out the gas! Don't waste thewater! Don't break any dishes!"
He had taken the paper down. The room was rather dark, and he steppedto the door to read the penciled words.
"It's for--Cora," he announced. "Now who on earth knew that CoraKimball was coming down to Clover!"
They all stood spellbound!
That a letter for Cora should hang there in a cottage closedup--certainly the doors had not been opened!
Cora took the folded paper from Jack's hand.
"More--ghosts!" sighed Belle. "Somehow this whole trip has been----"
"Ghost-bound!" interrupted Walter. "Well, what does this particularghost want, Cora?"
"It's a note--from Rose and Nellie," she announced. "They have beenhere--and--wait, let me read it."
"Dear Miss Kimball," she read aloud.
"We came to your cottage last night. I hope you will forgive us. We did not sleep in any bed, but slept on the floor. We washed all the dishes this morning, and cleaned down the pantry shelves to pay for our night's lodging. We are dreadfully discouraged, and when you see Aunt Delia will you just tell her we have drowned ourselves on account of that piece she put in the paper about us. We did not take Miss Schenk's earrings.
Your true friends, Rose and Nellie Catron."
"Oh!" gasped Belle. "Isn't that perfectly dreadful!"
"Do you really think--they have drowned themselves?" asked Bess.
Jack was reading the letter over, and the other boys were helping himdecipher it. Cora waited their opinion.
"Isn't it strange," she said, as Jack laid the paper on the table,"every place we go they leave some clue, and yet they are just cleverenough to escape us."
"But are they dead, do you think?" asked Belle, sobbing.
"Not much," declared Ed firmly. "They only threw that in to put Ramsyoff their track. You know that account in the Chelton paper claimedthat Mrs. Ramsy said she would put the girls in the Reform School whenshe found them. Now what girl is going to walk into that sort oftrap?"
"Wasn't it good of the poor things to wash all the dishes," remarkedBess, who was now looking at the clean porcelain on the closetshelves. "If they had only waited we might have hired them, since, forsome unknown reason, Nettie has not arrived."
"And we could have helped them keep out of sight, too," added Belle,to whom any thought other than that of suicide was a welcome change."I do wish we could find them! Don't you think we ought to search,before they get away--to the ocean?"
"Now, my dear young ladies," began Ed, assuming a comical air, "sinceI am to be head waiter, steward and all but butler here, I insist thatthe thought of foreign affairs, tinged with suicide and desperation,be tabooed from--our midst," and he actually opened the piano. "Pleaseget your partners for----"
But the melody he struck up was not intended for a dance. It was theold, familiar: "No Place Like Home!"
In something between a wail and a howl, the three boys took up therefrain, and kept at it until the girls begged them to stop. Then Edfell in a heap on Walter's neck, and the two foolish young menpretended to cry, and moaned aloud without pretense.
Jack found a big dishpan and he struck up a tattoo on that with acarving knife and fork. Cora was not going to let the boys make allthe noise so she procured the dinner bell and rang it violently.
When the din subsided, the boys suggested that the windows be opened,and the place aired before the arrival of the train that was to bringto Lookout Beach Mrs. Robinson and Miss Steel.
What fun it was to be in actual possession of a house!
True it was a very small house, compared with that occupied by t
heRobinsons in Chelton, but then there were no maids, and there was noformality. Just a perfect little cottage with everything in it forreal housekeeping!
"A regular playhouse!" commented Cora. "I wish we could keep it all toourselves without Nettie, or any other maid."
"You must come and see our house when we get set up," said Ed. "We aregoing to do it all alone. Take turns at cooking, and, I suppose, taketurns at eating."
Bess and Belle were busy making a room ready and comfortable for thearrival of their mother, and her guest.
"I am sure mamma will like this room best," said Bess, "for it looksout over the bay and has such a lovely tree just on the east end,where the sun might have been troublesome at daybreak."
"Yes, what a perfectly delightful room," exclaimed Cora, assisting inarranging the bed with the white coverlets, that had been placedwithin reach, all ready for the first comers.
"We never before had a furnished house," went on Belle, "and just see!A cake of soap and box of matches in each room! Now that is what Icall _real_ furniture."
And so they went on from room to room, the girls selecting andarranging according to what seemed most practical, and most pleasing.The fright of the "suicide note" was almost forgotten in the joys ofexploring and experimenting.
Then the boys discovered that it was almost lunch time, and this wasthe signal for "a raid" on the town stores.
Ed and Jack jumped into the _Get There_, and were off before Bess orBelle had a chance to tell them what might be "nice for lunch."
"Oh, we may as well try our hand all alone this time," commented Jack,"and if we fail in buying the right things, it will add to our generalknowledge in managing 'our bungalow.'"
So they drove off, while Walter assisted in spreading rugs on theporch, and putting up hammocks.
"Wouldn't have missed this for anything," Walter declared, when Coraasked him to help put the leaves in the dining-room table. "Isn't thisjust playing house, though!"
"And to think that we do not have to wash any old, dusty dishes,"remarked Cora. "Dear me! I wish we could get some tangible clue to theactual whereabouts of those two lone, miserable, runaway girls!"