Читать книгу Outdoor Girls at New Moon Ranch - Stratemeyer Edward - Страница 3

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“Why so thoughtful, Betty?” teased the girl who had been Grace Ford and was now Mrs. Frank Haley. “You haven’t spoken a word for the past ten minutes——”

“Which,” put in Amy Stonington Ford, with a fond smile in Betty Washburn’s direction, “is a very unusual thing for Mrs. Allen Washburn. But, honestly, what were you thinking of, Betty?”

“Mollie,” returned Betty unhesitatingly. “I’ve been thinking about her steadily ever since I——”

“Saw her with Clem Field and dear old faithful Roy,” Grace finished, with an understanding nod. “I know. I’ve been wondering, too.”

“Wondering what?” asked Amy.

Grace waved a bonbon in the direction of their mutual friend, Mollie Billette. The latter was halfway up a rather rickety stepladder. She carried an ornamental basket of ferns which it was her evident intention to hang in the entrance from the spacious square hall to the still more spacious living room. Two young men supported the ladder and looked anxiously up at the girl.

“Wish you’d let me do that, Mollie,” said Clem Field. “This is no sort of work for a girl when there are fellows around.”

From her impressive height, Mollie looked down upon the speaker disdainfully and said in a solemn voice:

“Any kind of work is the work for an Outdoor Girl and she never asks help from a boy—never!”

“Hear! Hear!” cried Roy, on the other side of the stepladder. He let go of it for a moment to clap his hands. The ladder teetered drunkenly and Mollie squeaked. Also, she almost dropped the fern basket on Clem’s head!

“Listen!” she said severely, as Roy recovered his hold of the ladder. “Next time you are going to do that, give me warning, will you, Roy Anderson?”

Everybody giggled and Roy looked aggrieved.

“That was one time you needed me, anyway,” he suggested dryly.

“Oh, well—when it comes to hanging baskets—” chuckled Mollie, and took another step up the ladder.

The married members of the Outdoor Girls Club exchanged significant glances.

“Looks to me like an even race between Clem and Roy,” said Grace, enjoyably nibbling her candy.

“I think she likes Clem,” said Betty, adding, with a smile that showed her pretty dimples: “I don’t blame her so much, at that. Clem is rather a dear!”

“Yes, but good old Roy is the steady, dependable sort that Mollie really should have,” objected Amy. “They are so absolutely unlike——”

“That they ought to get along beautifully together,” finished Grace.

“All of which,” added Betty brightly, “won’t make a shade of difference to Mollie when she comes to actually make her choice. She will do exactly what she pleases, so there’s no use our trying to settle things for her.”

“Nevertheless, one can’t help wondering,” murmured Grace, and the pleasantly scheming look of the born matchmaker came into her eyes as she watched the girl on the ladder and the two young men.

The beautiful new home of Stella Sibley in Deepdale was the scene of this reunion of the Outdoor Girls, married and not married.

All the “old crowd” were there; Betty Nelson Washburn who had married the successful and popular young lawyer, Allen Washburn; Amy Ford, Will Ford’s wife; and Grace Haley, who had been the last of these three Outdoor Girls to enter the holy state of matrimony.

After considerable persuasion on the part of Frank Haley, Grace had yielded to the latter’s persistence to the extent of becoming his wife—and was now one of the happiest brides imaginable.

Mollie Billette, then, was the last of the original quartette of Outdoor Girls to remain unmarried and it was around and about her that this match-making discussion centered.

Roy Anderson—or “good old faithful Roy,” as he was sometimes affectionately called by those who knew and liked him best—had accompanied the Outdoor Girls on some of their very first adventures. He had an amiable disposition and a fund of good humor, which goes a long way toward explaining his general popularity.

To be sure, Mollie had never shown Roy any especial favor. But then, as a matter of fact, she was apt to treat all her would-be admirers with a good-natured indifference that effectually kept them at their distance. But she liked Roy and her friends had more or less taken it for granted that eventually these two would pair off.

Now, however, it was disconcerting to find all their pleasant deductions threatened by the appearance on the scene of Clem Field.

Clem was a dashing, attractive youth still in college and with money enough to make life pleasant for himself and his friends. Mollie’s old girl friends admitted his good looks and charm, but they were jealous on Roy’s account. It was hard to see “good old faithful Roy” left “standing at the post.”

But now the trend of their thoughts was changed by Stella Sibley. The latter, a tall, good-looking young person, flung herself into a chair near the “married girls” and peered anxiously from the window.

“Sister Annie, Sister Annie, do you see a man?” murmured Grace, the while she munched happily on her sweets.

“I’m not looking for a man,” retorted Stella, without turning her head. “Or, at least, not altogether.”

“You’re wondering why the rest of the crowd don’t show up,” said Betty. “They are terribly late, aren’t they?”

Stella nodded.

“Probably Carolyn is holding them up. She’s dreadfully pretty——”

“And she knows it,” said Amy, with a wise nod of her head.

“I’ll say she does,” grinned Stella. “She takes about a year to dress and doesn’t care who is kept waiting. Slightly wearing—if you have to catch a train or any little thing like that!”

“Carolyn’s a dear, nevertheless.” With a swish of short skirts Irene Moore joined them. Irene was short and inclined to plumpness. Besides which she was very pretty herself in an impish, impudent way. “I won’t have you saying mean things about our new soon-to-be Outdoor Girl, Stella Sibley, even if you are my best friend!”

“Oh, she makes a fine Outdoor Girl, once she gets through primping before the mirror,” Stella admitted. “I’m fond of her myself. Still——”

“It may not be Carolyn’s fault at all that they’re late,” suggested Betty peaceably. “How about the two others who are going to be initiated to-day——”

“The twins!” cried Irene, sparkling. “They are a sketch——”

“And so exactly alike that you couldn’t tell them apart if it were not that Lota has a freckle on the tip of her nose!” finished Stella, with a chuckle.

“From a distance, your hail is apt to sound something like this,” said Irene, “‘Hello, Meg or Lota. Which are you?’”

The “married” girls laughed.

“Must add considerable interest to your adventurings,” said Betty.

“It does and they do,” returned Irene, wrinkling her funny little nose in cheerful recollection. “One of them plays a trick on you, you know—”

“And they are always doing it,” murmured Stella.

“And you don’t know which to blame,” finished Irene. “The result is, you blame both, or neither—and they get away with it.”

From the porch, where she had gone to rest from her labors, accompanied by Roy and Clem, Mollie looked in at them.

“Here they come now,” she announced. “At least,” she modified, as every one ran out on the porch, “it looks like them. Three girls and two boys. But where did they get the good-looking car?”

“I think it belongs to one of the boys the twins are bringing with them,” Stella said, shading her eyes to watch the swift approach of the car.

“Evidently they know they’re late,” said Betty. “For they are surely breaking all speed laws——”

She broke off as Molly uttered a frightened exclamation.

“That moving van!” she cried. “The horses—why, I believe the horses are running away!”

“There’ll be a smash-up!” cried Roy hoarsely. With Clem at his heels, he dashed down into the street.

“Look out!” yelled the latter, waving wildly at the driver of the approaching car. “That van! Swerve to one side, can’t you, you idiot!”

The young fellow at the wheel evidently saw the danger—but too late. The girls felt sick as they stood, gasping, waiting for the crash.