The Phantom Yacht. Norton Carol

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      “I didn’t have time to let her know, Aunt Jane,” was the dismal reply. “I’m just ever so disappointed.”

      The old woman nodded her head toward the door. “Is that her?” she asked. “Is that your friend?”

      Dories sprang to her feet and turned. A tall girl, carrying a suitcase, was approaching them. With a cry of mingled amazement and joy, Dories ran toward her and held out both hands. “Why, Nann, darling, it can’t be you.” The newcomer dropped her bag and they flew into each other’s arms. Then, standing back, Dori asked, much mystified, “Why, are you going somewhere Nann?”

      It was the old woman who replied grimly: “She is! I invited her to go with us. There now! Don’t try to thank me.” She held up a protesting hand when Dori, flushed and happy, turned toward her. “I did it for myself, I can assure you. I knew having you moping around for a month wouldn’t add any to my pleasure.”

      An embarrassing moment was saved by a stentorian voice in the doorway announcing: “All aboard for Siquaw Center and way stations.” A colored porter appeared to carry the bags, and the old woman, leaning heavily on her cane, limped after him, followed by the girls, in whose hearts there were mingled emotions, but joy predominated, for, however terrible Dori’s Great-Aunt Jane might be, at least they were to spend a whole long month together.

      CHAPTER IV

      SEAWARD BOUND

      There were very few people on the seaward-bound train; indeed Miss Jane Moore, Nann and Dories were the only occupants of the chair car. After settling herself comfortably in the chair nearest the front, the old woman, with a sweep of her arm toward the back, said almost petulantly: “Sit as far away from me as you can. I may want to sleep, and I know girls. They chatter, chatter, chatter, titter, titter, titter all about nothing.”

      Her companions were glad to obey, and when they were seated at the rear end of the car, they kept their heads close together while they visited that they might not disturb the elderly woman, who, to all appearances, fell at once into a light doze.

      As soon as the train was under way, Dories asked: “Now do tell me how this perfectly, unbelievably wonderful thing has happened?”

      Nann laughed happily. “Maybe your Great-Aunt Jane is a fairy godmother in disguise,” she whispered. They both glanced at the far corner, but the black veiled figure was much more suggestive of a witch than a good fairy.

      “The disguise surely is a complete one,” Dories said with a shudder. “My, it gives me the chilly shivers when I think how I might be going to spend a whole month alone with her. But now tell me, just what did happen?”

      “Can’t you guess? You wrote your aunt a letter, didn’t you, telling all about me and even giving the name of the hotel where Dad and I were staying?”

      Dories nodded, “Yes, that’s true. Mother wanted me to write to Aunt Jane and I couldn’t think of a thing to tell her about, and so I wrote about you.”

      “Well,” Nann continued to enlighten her friend, “she must have written me that very day inviting me to be her guest at Siquaw Point for the month of October, but she asked me not to let you know. I sent the last picture postcard, the one of our hotel, just after I had received her letter, and you can imagine how wild I was to tell you. I hadn’t started going to the Boston High. Dear old Dad said a month later wouldn’t matter, and so here I am.” The girls clasped hands and beamed joyfully at each other.

      Dories’ next glance toward the sleeping old woman was one of gratitude. “I’m going to try hard to love her, that is, if she’ll let me.” Then, after a thoughtful moment, Dories continued: “Great-Aunt Jane must have been very different when Dad was a boy, for he cared a lot for her, Mother said.” Then with one of her quick changes she exclaimed in a low voice, “Nann Sibbett, I have lain awake nights dreading the dismal month I was to spend at that forsaken summer resort. I just knew there’d be ghosts in those boarded-up cottages, but now that you’re going to be with me, I almost hope that something exciting will happen.”

      “So do I!” Nann agreed.

      It was four o’clock when the train, which consisted of an engine, two coaches and a chair-car, stopped in what seemed at first to be but wide stretches of meadows and marsh lands, but, peering ahead, the girls saw a few wooden buildings and a platform. “Siquaw Center!” the brakeman opened a door to announce. Miss Jane Moore sat up so suddenly, and when she threw back her veil she seemed so very wide awake, the girls found themselves wondering if she had really been asleep at all. The brakeman assisted the old woman to alight and placed her bags on the platform, then, hardly pausing, the train again was under way. Meadows and marshes stretched in all directions, but about a mile to the east the girls could see a wide expanse of gray-blue ocean.

      “I guess the name means the center of the marshes,” Dori whispered, making a wry face while her aunt was talking to the station-master, a tall, lank, red-whiskered man in blue overalls who did not remove his cap nor stop chewing what seemed to be a rather large quid.

      “Yeah!” the girls heard his reply to the woman’s question. “Gib’ll fetch the stage right over. Quare time o’ year for yo’ to be comin’ out, Mis’ Moore, ain’t it? Yeah! I got your letter this here mornin’. The supplies ar’ all ready to tote over to yer cottage.”

      The girls were wondering who Gib might be when they heard a rumbling beyond the wooden building and saw a very old stage coach drawn by a rather boney old white horse and driven by a tall, lank, red-headed boy. A small girl, with curls of the same color, sat on the high seat at his side. “Hurry up, thar, you Gib Strait!” the man, who was recognizable as the boy’s father, called to him. “Come tote Mis’ Moore’s luggage.” Then the man sauntered off, having not even glanced in the direction of the two girls, but the rather ungainly boy who was hurrying toward them was looking at them with but slightly concealed curiosity.

      Miss Moore greeted him with, “How do you do, Gibralter Strait.” Upon hearing this astonishing name, the two girls found it hard not to laugh, but the lad, evidently understanding, smiled broadly and nodded awkwardly as Miss Moore solemnly proceeded to introduce him.

      To cover his embarrassment, the lad hastened to say. “Well, Miss Moore, sort o’ surprisin’ to see yo’ hereabouts this time o’ year. Be yo’ goin’ to the Pint?”

      The old woman looked at him scathingly. “Well, Gibralter, where in heaven’s name would I be going? I’m not crazy enough yet to stay long in the Center. Here, you take my bags; the girls can carry their own.”

      “Yessum, Miss Moore,” the boy flushed up to the roots of his red hair. He knew that he wasn’t making a very good impression on the young ladies. He glanced at them furtively as they all walked toward the stage; then, when he saw them smiling toward him, not critically but in a most friendly fashion, there was merry response in his warm red-brown eyes. What he said was: “If them bags are too hefty, set ’em down an’ I’ll come back for ’em.”

      “O, we can carry them easily,” Nann assured him.

      The small girl on the high seat was staring down at them with eyes and mouth open. She had on a nondescript dress which very evidently had been made over from a garment meant for someone older. When the girls glanced up, she smiled down at them, showing an open space where two front teeth were missing.

      “What’s your name, little one?” Nann called up to her. The lad was inside the coach helping Miss Moore to settle among her bags.

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