Читать книгу The Outdoor Girls on a Hike - Stratemeyer Edward - Страница 3

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“Hand me that book, Carolyn, will you? There’s a dear!”

Carolyn Cooper, blond and pretty and delightfully lazy, regarded the speaker reproachfully.

“Always, just when I am comfortable, you think up something for me to do, Lota Bronson. Here—take your old book!”

“Thanks for the manner,” laughed Lota, catching the book as it was flung toward her. “If you ask for the truth, Carolyn——”

“Which I don’t and never did,” sighed Carolyn.

“I’d say you were getting abominably lazy.”

“Speak for yourself,” retorted Carolyn. “I don’t see you dancing any Highland fling yourself!”

“It’s the weather,” said Irene Moore, wrinkling her funny little nose. “We’ve all got spring fever.”

Stella Sibley sat up with sudden energy.

“How convenient it is to blame the weather,” she said. “But I’ll tell you what’s the matter with us, girls. It isn’t spring fever. It’s just plain laziness, spelled with a large L.”

“It’s a plot,” protested Carolyn, from the mass of pillows in the porch swing. “She’s trying to stir up something, girls. Don’t let her!”

But Stella found support from an unexpected quarter.

“I think Stella is exactly right.” This from Meg, the second of the Bronson twins. “We are all getting soft, sitting around eating candy and going to dances——”

“We play tennis sometimes!” Irene protested.

“How often?” Meg sniffed. “Once or twice a week. And I noticed after that last singles set I beat you——”

“Ouch! Don’t remind me!” begged Irene. “The memory hurts!”

“You were puffing like a fat little——”

“Don’t say it!” begged Irene. “Not if my friendship means anything to you!”

“Just the same,” Stella Sibley took up the theme where she had left off, “the fact remains that as athletic girls and members of the Outdoor Girls Club, we haven’t been exactly living up to our reputation.”

“Well, what do you want us to do?” Carolyn definitely abandoned her pillows and regarded Stella with the air of one who is willing to be reasoned with. “Are we to start skipping rope or making passes at a punching bag?”

“Not so bad for exercise,” chuckled Stella. “But hardly what I had in mind. I was thinking that what we needed was more road work.”

“Girls,” giggled Irene, “she wants to make us into lady pugilists.”

“Oh, well,” said Stella, offended, “if all you can do is laugh——”

“I’m not laughing,” said Carolyn Cooper virtuously. “I think it’s a mighty fine idea.”

“Listen who’s talking!” mocked Irene.

“But I really am in earnest,” protested Carolyn. “Hiking is the best kind of exercise and it’s apt to prove mighty interesting, too.”

“The trouble is that you can’t go far enough in one day to have any real fun,” Lota Bronson objected. “By the time you reach new, interesting places you have to turn round and trot home again. Not so good.”

“Oh, but I’ve an idea!” Irene clapped her hands. “A perfectly scrumbumptious idea! Why not take a real hike—an overnight hike?”

“A several overnights hike,” amplified Carolyn, slightly incoherent in her sudden enthusiasm. “Then we shouldn’t have to turn around and come home just when things began to get interesting.”

“And we could camp overnight wherever we happened to be,” added Irene. “We could pick out a route that wouldn’t be too lonely and where there would be plenty of farmhouses that would take us in for the night.”

Stella considered the idea seriously.

“That would be fun, girls, real fun. We would be gypsies for a while. What a lark to start out in the morning without knowing where we would end up at night.”

“Or how!” finished Meg, with a chuckle. “I’m right with you, girls, although Lota and I are more used to traveling on horses’ feet than our own. We ought to be good, though, for a considerable cross-country hike.”

The Outdoor Girls were holding their meeting at the beautiful Deepdale home of Stella Sibley. They had chosen the summerhouse in the garden because it was the coolest spot anywhere about. The summerhouse was completely and comfortably furnished with its swing, its small tables and inviting chairs, and the girls were fond of holding their meetings there.

“I think it’s a marvelous idea,” agreed Lota, continuing the discussion of the proposed hike. “Only I don’t think we ought to leave too much to chance. We ought to agree to hike so many miles a day for a certain number of days.”

“We could make it a two-weeks’ hike,” Stella suggested, “and we could cover, well, say something like ten miles a day.”

“Lovely!” cried Carolyn. “Fourteen days at ten miles a day makes something like one hundred and forty miles in the two weeks. Not bad for girls who have grown ‘soft’!” She made a face at Stella.

“We haven’t done it yet,” Stella quickly reminded her.

“I have another idea,” Irene announced suddenly.

“She’s running mad with them to-day,” observed Lota, with a lazy grin.

“Why wouldn’t it be possible to visit the married girls while we’re about it?”

“Great!” exclaimed Stella approvingly. “Mollie and Roy have that darling bungalow in the woods——”

“Newlyweds!” chuckled Irene Moore. “Maybe they wouldn’t be glad to see us.”

“Maybe they wouldn’t!” scoffed Stella. “I’d be willing to take a chance on that.”

“Then we could go on to the seashore and stay overnight with Grace and Amy and the boys,” Carolyn proposed. “And then travel on to Betty’s.”

“Up in the hills,” agreed Irene contentedly. “I call that a pretty nice itinerary, if you ask me.”

“Then it’s settled?” asked Stella, in her capacity of president. “There is no dissenting voice?”

“Not one dissenting voice!” the others assured her in a solemn chorus.

“Then,” added Stella, assuming a very businesslike manner, “I think it’s about time we called the meeting to order and got on with the business of electing officers. That’s what we are here for, you know.”

“Oh, bother business,” protested Carolyn Cooper. “I move we save time by reëlecting the same officers we had last year. I’m sure we all want Stella to go on being president——”

“Hear! Hear!” cried Irene, the irrepressible. “Second the motion!”

“Carried unanimously,” added Meg Bronson, grinning.

“And I’m sure,” Carolyn continued, looking prettier than ever as she twinkled at them mischievously, “Irene has made a most excellent, honest, and praiseworthy treasurer——”

“Irene for treasurer!” was the clamorous cry, while Stella rapped in vain for order. “We’ll have no one else! We want Irene!”

“Unanimously elected!” laughed Carolyn. “For myself,” she lowered her eyes modestly, “I say nothing. As your secretary, I have honestly tried to give satisfaction. It is for you to decide whether or not I have succeeded.”

“We want Carolyn!” the others chorused obligingly. “We want Carolyn! Carolyn Cooper for secretary!”

Carolyn rose and bowed gravely about the circle.

“I thank you all,” she said.

“Well, I must say,” cried Stella indignantly, “I never saw such an unbusinesslike meeting in my life! What I want to know is, am I the president of this——”

“Didn’t you just hear yourself elected?” asked Carolyn, with much gravity.

“You must have been asleep or something,” giggled Irene.

“Well, of all the unbusinesslike——”

“Oh, bother!” drawled Meg. “Who wants to be businesslike on a day like this? Listen!” she added, sitting at attention. “Do you hear an airplane or am I imagining things?”

Silence descended on the summerhouse; a silence invaded by the unmistakable roar of an approaching plane.

“Oh!” Carolyn jumped to her feet and ran out into the open. “Maybe it’s Hal. Oh, I hope it is!”

The rest of the girls joined Carolyn and gazed up at the plane, now directly overhead.

“What do you mean by ‘maybe it’s Hal’?” Lota Bronson demanded. “Don’t tell me Hal has taken up flying!”

“Oh, hadn’t you heard?” Carolyn tried to look innocent. “Hal has gone crazy over aviation. He has been up in a plane several times and he told me that he is considering taking up flying—seriously, you know.”

“You little wretch!” cried Lota. “Of course you wouldn’t tell us about it!”

Hal Duckworth was a nice lad, who had become interested in the Outdoor Girls—in general; and in Carolyn Cooper—in particular. It would not be giving away a secret to admit that Carolyn returned this interest.

“I think it’s thrilling,” observed Irene. “If Hal gets to be a demon air pilot, maybe he’ll take us for a ride once in a while.”

The plane winged its swift way into the distance, the whine of its motor died on the soft summer air.

As the girls turned to reënter the summerhouse they saw that some one had come into the garden. An unprepossessing old crone, dressed in the colorful garb of a gypsy, shuffled along the gravel drive. Two younger women with dark, brooding faces, followed her.

They saw the girls standing at the entrance to the summerhouse and came toward them. The old crone’s face lighted with what was evidently intended to be an ingratiating smile.

“Have your fortunes told, pretty ladies?” she mouthed, showing toothless gums. “Pretty fortunes for pretty ladies. Come, cross my palm with silver and you shall look into the future.”

“Send them away!” Carolyn whispered to Stella. “I don’t like the looks of them. Do send them away!”