CHAPTER XII WOODLAND RAMBLES

The next day went by in a whirl. After seeing the folks off for Europe—Nancy and Rosa went over to Mount Major, where Mr. and Mrs. Fernell took the New York train—the remaining hours seemed too few in which to crowd all the things Rosa had planned to do.

The injured foot was all but forgotten. Never was a girl livelier than Rosa, more enthusiastic nor more expectant—for the great times ahead. But through all her plans, it seemed to Nancy, a vein of mystery ran. For instance, she would talk about losing weight, exercising, dieting and go over the entire formula, when suddenly she would stop short, maybe put her finger to her lips and do something to indicate secrecy.

“It’s all planned and plotted,” she declared, when she finally did agree to take a little walk135 through the special fern path from which the place had received its name, “and won’t daddy and Betty be surprised?”

“What makes you so sure?” asked Nancy. “How ever can you tell that you will lose pounds and pounds?”

“I’m positive,” replied Rosa. “And I just dream of it all the time. Haven’t you ever had that sort of dream?”

“The silly kind? Surely. I had one special pet—and I’m afraid I haven’t banished it yet,” admitted Nancy. “I always wanted to wake up with light golden curls and heavenly blue eyes.”

The shout with which Rosa replied to this must have disturbed every pixy in the woods, for she simply roared!

“And you think that would make you happy! Why, I have blue eyes and curls, and my hair was golden—”

“And you are very pretty!”

“Nancy—Antoinette Brandon!”

“I mean it. You are!”

“Fat me!”

136 “You don’t have to stay fat!”

“I’m not going to!”

“Rosa—Rosalind Fernell!”

“What?”

“Please tell me what you mean.”

“By getting thin?”

“No. How are you going to get thin?”

“Oh.” Rosa swung herself around until she touched the little white birch tree with her finger tips. “You just wait and see!”

“I think that’s rather mean.” Nancy also swung herself around but not in Rosa’s direction. “I do hope you are not going to do anything foolish.”

“That depends. Margot thinks everything I do is foolish.”

“Oh, you know I don’t mean that, Rosa,” Nancy answered quickly. “But, you see, with the folks away we’ve got to be rather—cautious.”

“Now, don’t preach.”

“I don’t know how. Ted says I preach like the umpire at a ball game.”

“You were going to show me his funny letter,”137 put in Rosa, her eagerness to change the subject not even thinly disguised. “I know you have a whole batch of them, too. You know, Dell is just crazy about that sort of thing. She wants to teach kindergarten. Just imagine!”

“She’s very intelligent,” said Nancy, falling back into her own way of saying things which had ever been a part of her home life. “Mother always says we can tell folks by the things they prefer, rather than by the company they keep.”

“You’re over my head, Nancy,” laughed Rosa. “But if that’s true I must be a spiritual skeleton, for I love—thin folks.” Impulsively Rosa had thrown her arms around Nancy, and just as impulsively Nancy had thrown her arms around Rosa, until presently they were dancing through the woods like a couple of sprites—even if Rosa was a trifle out of spritely proportion.

They sang snatches of songs, they tried out different steps and were as free as the air about them; until they heard something queer.

138 “What’s that?” Nancy asked the question first.

“I wonder,” replied Rosa.

“Sounds like someone groaning.”

“A man, don’t you think?” Rosa’s voice had dwindled to a whisper.

Again came the noise interrupting their questions. This time there was no mistaking it. Someone was groaning.

“Let’s run back; we’re away out in Baker’s Woods,” said Rosa with deep concern. “And there’s the road. We’ll take that,” at which both girls turned to the well beaten path.

“Halt!” came the command. “Right about face!”

“Garry Durand!” exclaimed Rosa. “You mean thing!”

“Not to be an old tramp or something?” jeered the boy, who had stepped out into their path and was enjoying the little fright he had given them. “I suppose,” he went on, “you are disappointed. A real bandit would have been more fun.”

“Now, Gar,” scolded Rosa, “you know a139 lot better than that. We were just wondering where you and Dell had been keeping yourselves.”

“Like fun you were, just wondering. We’ve been watching you dance. What was that? A new one?”

“We?” queried Rosa.

“Yes. Come on, Paul; get introduced.”

At this there stepped from behind a big tree, another young man—no doubt Paul.

“This is Paul Randolph,” said Gar, “Miss Brandon and the famous Rosa—”

But Rosa cut that short. “The idea,” she protested, “of you peeping.”

“We weren’t, really,” defended Paul. “We just came along. Our car went dry and we were walking back.”

“Then, we’ll forgive you,” Nancy managed to say. She was losing the natural self-consciousness which had at first been difficult to overcome. Coming from the home of her devoted mother and darling Ted into the confused surroundings of Rosa, this was easy to understand.

140 As she spoke Paul stepped up to her, and they started off in the direction of home. Rosa was ahead with Gar and she, it appeared, was not in agreement with him. He argued and she protested.

Instantly his remark about Nancy coming just in time to save Rosa from some mysterious danger, flitted back into Nancy’s mind. It had been said at their very first meeting, but as time wore on, many other things appeared to make it seem important, and, of course, it was connected with Orilla. Now, Nancy could scarcely keep track of what Paul was saying, because of the distraction ahead with Rosa and Gar.

“I tell you flatly I won’t!” Gar broke out once just as Rosa, smiling, grabbed his arm and turned the remark into a joke. But as he turned around facing Nancy and Paul, his expression flatly belied Rosa’s attempt.

“Did you hear about the fun we are going to have at Sunset?” Rosa asked Paul.

“Hear about the fun you are going to have?” he teased. “How could we?”

141 “Oh, you know what I mean,” pouted Rosa. “We are going to the dances.”

“So are we,” said Paul gallantly, “so I suppose that’s hearing about the fun we are all going to have.”

“They have swell music,” put in Gar. “The best banjoist in Boston is with that outfit.”

“But really it isn’t Sunset that’s so attractive, but getting out,” explained Rosa. “You see, I’ve been rather tied to the apron string of Margot—”

“Lovely long string,” said Paul gaily, “judging from Gar’s accounts.”

“Has he been giving away my secrets?” asked Rosa, winking at Nancy and attempting to strike Gar.

“Better be careful,” cautioned Nancy, “or you’ll give them away yourself, Rosa. That’s the worst of having secrets; they’re so tricky.”

“Now we’re getting interesting,” remarked Paul. “Go ahead, Nancy. Give us your idea of—secrets.”

“Oh, she hasn’t any,” put in Rosa, rather flustered. “That is, she hasn’t any of my142 kind; she doesn’t have to.”

Everybody laughed at that except Rosa, and even to Paul Randolph, the stranger, Rosa’s uneasiness must have been evident. Quickly deciding to save her cousin from further embarrassment, Nancy broke into a lively talk about New Hampshire, comparing it with Massachusetts, and insisting that the big, measureless lake, with mountains all around it, and according to tradition with mountains hidden in its depth, was no more scenically beautiful than many another less famous and much smaller lake in the sister state.

“I’ll show you scenery,” declared Gar in worthy defense of his adopted territory. “Over among those hills there’s everything you could imagine in the way of rocks and lands and vegetation—”

“Except pretty wild flowers,” cut in Nancy. “And you don’t even have very pretty ferns.”

Whereat a general study in the ferns all around them was begun. The little by-play helped to make talk and the interest shown143 was surely genuine, although occasionally Rosa would step aside with Gar and insist upon whispering to him. Nancy tried to keep up her contention that New Hampshire ferns were not as lacy as those of Massachusetts, but the argument going on between Rosa and Gar was hard to close her ears to.

“Say!” called out Paul suddenly, kicking over a big bunch of “umbrella fungus,” “what’s going on between you two anyway? Don’t you want an umpire?”

“No,” fired back Gar, “a referee would be better. Rosa thinks because I’m an old friend she can get me into her sort of scrapes. You’ve no idea, Nancy,” he sighed playfully, “how many scrapes Rosa can get into.”

“Oh, you think you’re smart, don’t you?” snapped Rosa, childishly. “Just because—because I happen to have different plans from yours, Gar.”

“But we’re helpless, you know, Rosa,” Nancy hurried to say. “We only got permission to go out without Margot, on condition that we would be very good and do144 everything that Dell and Gar wanted us to do.”

“As if I intend to follow that silly stuff,” flung back Rosa, defiantly.

“Oh, all right,” drawled Gar elaborately, as if he were being very much offended. “Don’t worry about us. We can find plenty to do without—”

“Peace! Peace!” chanted Paul, as if fearful that the fun might result otherwise. “We might want an umpire or even a referee, but we don’t want a policeman.”

“Well, how about it?” asked Gar, turning so suddenly to another trend of thought that Nancy didn’t even guess what he meant. “Do we go to the dance to-night or don’t we?”

“I can’t go,” declared Rosa, promptly.

“Oh, you know you can if you want to, Rose,” the boy urged, “and it’s going to be a big time.”

“But we really don’t take part in the dance, do we?” queried Nancy, just a little timidly, for she was not yet old enough to go to dances.

“Don’t worry, lamb,” said Rosa, facetiously,145 “even the very babes dance at summer hotels early in the evening. Later, of course, the grown-ups own the floor. What we want to see is the masquerade, the follies, and all the stunts they get up. They’re fun!” she admitted, thus agreeing with Gar, who wanted to go to an affair that evening.

They were back to the porch of the big house now, and although Rosa pressed the boys to sit on the bench awhile, they politely declined, declaring they would presently have to go back to town for the delayed car.

Nancy was interested in Paul; it was so easy to talk to him—which fact Rosa presently explained.

“That’s because he’s so awfully smart,” she said when Nancy remarked how much she liked him. “He’s all ready for the M. I. T. I heard Gar say so.”

“The Massachusetts Institute of Technology,” amplified Nancy, “and he seems only like a high school boy.”

“Just being smart does it,” said Rosa cryptically. “One has either to be smart or handsome,146 and Paul is going to be both.”

Margot came hurriedly out and interrupted them.

“I want to see you alone, Rosalind,” she said, so severely that Nancy was glad to run off to her room and leave Rosa with her judge. She wondered what could be the matter that Margot would use such a tone, and look so indignantly at Rose.

“All right, Maggie,” was all that Rosa said in reply to the peremptory summons.