Read Ebook: The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point; Or a Wreck and a Rescue by Hope Laura Lee

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Ebook has 1425 lines and 47354 words, and 29 pages

ager glances her way: "I don't know whether I can be persuaded to tell you now or not."

"Tell us!" they cried, piling into the swing till the supporting ropes creaked with the strain.

"Can't we bribe you with candy?" pleaded Amy.

"No. I just made an advantageous trade in that article, you will remember," was the answer.

"Anyway, we don't bribe, we command," put in Betty. "Grace, we refuse to be trifled with. What have you to suggest? Out with it!"

"You'd better hurry," added Mollie, raising her knitting needle threateningly, "before I spit thee like a pig!"

GRACE SURPRISES HER CHUMS

"I'm not a pig," cried Grace, striving to look dignified, which is a rather difficult procedure when one is being hugged by three pairs of arms at once. "I don't care how many times you spit me, whatever that is, Mollie, but you shan't call me a pig."

"Of course she shan't," said Betty soothingly. "If she does it again, we'll try our hand at this spitting business--"

"Goodness, sounds like a cat fight," chuckled Grace, but Mollie unceremoniously shook her into attention.

"Grace, behave and tell us," she ordered.

"What?" asked Grace aggravatingly, but added hastily as Mollie again raised the knitting needle at a threatening angle: "All right, if you'll just give me space enough to breathe I'll do any little thing you ask."

With that the three jumped from the swing so suddenly that Grace, the only occupant left, bounced into the air and landed with a thump on the cushions.

They laughed and drew up three chairs in a semi-circle in front of her to make escape impossible. Then three pairs of merry eyes focused commandingly upon her.

"I didn't know it myself till last night," she said in response to the tacit order. "Then it was patriotic Aunt Mary who proposed it."

"Proposed what?" they cried.

"Well, that's what I'm going to tell you if you give me half a chance. She said she felt as if she owed something to us girls for having stood so loyally behind Uncle Sam, and had decided to offer us her cottage at Bluff Point to use as long as we wanted it."

"Bluff Point!" cried Betty, while her eyes began to sparkle. "Why Grace! isn't that the place you were telling us about--"

"Where the quaint little house stands on a bluff--" added Amy eagerly.

"Overlooking a sparkling white beach that leads down to the ocean?" went on Betty.

"The very same," nodded Grace, and they heaved a sigh of pure excitement and happiness.

"Isn't it wonderful," cried Mollie joyfully, "how somebody is always doing something to make us happy?"

"Yes, but when I said that to Aunt Mary last night she smiled and looked wise--you know how sweet she is--and said that that was the way happiness always came to us--by helping others to be happy."

"But we haven't done anything to make anybody happy--particularly that is," said Mollie wondering.

"I said that too," nodded Grace. "But she only went on smiling, and I realized she must have meant our work at the Hostess House."

"It's strange how everybody persists in calling it work and giving us so much credit when it was all such fun," said Betty. "But girls," she added, laughing breathlessly, "the great fact is that we are going to have another adventure in the open. The very thought of it makes me want to roll in the buttercups."

"Goodness, there's one open in the back meadow," suggested Mollie. "You can roll in it, if you want to."

"Well, I don't--I want a whole patch of them!" cried Betty, while the rest laughed at Mollie's picture. "My, I feel younger already."

"Well of course you need to," drawled Grace, adding with a fond glance at the glowing Little Captain: "You look so terribly like a dried-up ancient, dear."

"But when shall we start?" cried Mollie, coming back to the all-absorbing topic at hand. "Goodness, I'd like to throw a few clothes in a suitcase and start right away--quick--this minute--I can't wait!"

"Do you think it's catching?" asked Grace, anxiously.

"From the way I feel I should say it was already caught," twinkled Betty, adding eagerly: "How long do you suppose we will have to wait, Grace? Did your Aunt Mary say when we could have the cottage?"

"As soon as we want it," replied Grace, looking surprised. "Didn't I tell you?"

"No you didn't," mimicked Mollie, adding as she sprang to her feet impatiently: "I'd like to know what we're waiting for anyway! Why don't we get started?"

"Now I know she's crazy," cried Betty, seizing her chum and pulling her down upon the arm of her chair. "Why we haven't decided anything yet."

"What is there to decide?" cried Mollie, trying to be patient and looking like a martyr.

"Why we don't even know how we're going to get there yet," explained Betty soothingly.

"In the automobile, of course," cried Mollie, jumping up again.

"Oh, can we?" cried Grace, forgetting to be languid and bouncing eagerly in the swing. "Mollie, that would be wonderful."

"Why of course we'll go in the car!" it was Mollie's turn to look surprised. "What did you think we were going to do--walk?"

"There are railroads, you know," Grace reminded her, relapsing into irony. "And as to walking--well, we did that too before you got your car, Mollie."

"Yes, and got sore feet," added Mollie.

"Well, now that we've decided not to go on the railroad or walk," Amy broke in unexpectedly, "I really don't see what we are waiting for."

"My goodness, there's another lunatic," cried Grace, looking despairingly at the Little Captain, whose eyes twinkled merrily. "What do you expect us to do--go just as we are?"

"No, but we can throw some things into a suitcase--"

"How long do you suppose it will take us to get there?" asked the Little Captain, coming to Grace's rescue.

"Why, even in Mollie's car it will take two days," said Grace, turning to Betty with the relief of one who at last had a sane person to reckon with. "Mollie and Amy evidently expect to make it in a couple of hours."

"Oh well, I didn't know it was so far away," murmured Mollie, somewhat taken aback. "Of course, then, we can't go until to-morrow."

The girls laughed merrily, and Betty hugged her.

"We might," chuckled the latter, "even be forced to wait till day after to-morrow."

"I won't do it!" cried Mollie, jumping up again. "There's no reason in the world why we can't start to-morrow."

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