CHAPTER II.
ON THE ROAD.
The clock in the railroad station announced high noon; but of all the party, only Marjorie and Millicent were there to hear it. Nan Kellogg had fulfilled her own prophecy by coming down fifteen minutes earlier, and then going back home for her cuckoo-clock, which was one of her pet possessions, and which she decided she could n't be parted from for two whole weeks. She came flying back, and entered the station by one door just as Betty Miller came in at the other.
"Oh," said Nan, breathlessly, "I thought of course I'd be the last one here. Where are the other girls? But since they 're not here, won't you hold this clock, Marjorie, and let me run back home and—"
"No," said Betty, decidedly. "You cannot go back for anything else. Follow the example of your clock and stop running for a while."
"Has it stopped? I was afraid it would. Never mind; I can set it going after we get there. But I do want to go back and—"
"But you can't," broke in Marjorie; "so sit down, please."
Nan laughed, but sat down obediently, holding her precious clock; and then Helen appeared with her banjo, and Hester with her camera.
"Have you checked your wheels, girls?" asked Betty.
"Yes, with our trunks," said Helen. "Mr. Bond is keeping watch over them until the train comes; and he is holding Timmy Loo, who is a most important-looking animal just now, dressed in a new red ribbon and a baggage-tag."
"Oh, he's delighted with his prospective journey," said Marjorie. "I told him he had the entire charge of our trunks and wheels, and he feels the responsibility. Oh, here's Jessie. Now we 're all here but Marguerite. Where is she, Nan?"
"Who? Daisy? Oh, she 'll be here in a minute. I think she waited to learn how to make soup."
"She 'll be in it if she does n't hurry," said Nan. "I think I 'll go and poke her up."
"Don't do it," cried Betty; "you 'll miss her, and then we won't have either of you. Here she comes now, grinning like a Chessy cat."
Dainty Marguerite, in her fresh white duck suit and pink shirt-waist, came in, smiling radiantly.
"Girls," said she, "I was detained because Aunt Annie was calling at our house, and she taught me a new soup. It's wonderful, and I 'll make it for you, if you want it, the first thing."
"Of course we want it the first thing," said Nan. "Did you suppose we thought it was a dessert?"
"Come, girls!" called Mr. Bond from the platform, as the train that was to have the honor of carrying the party puffed into the station and came noisily to a standstill. "Are you ready? All aboard! Good-by, Margy dear; don't set the house afire. Who is the matron of this crowd, anyway? I'd like a word with her."
Marjorie looked at the girls. "I think Marguerite is," she said. "She's the youngest and smallest and rattle-patedest. Yes, she shall be our matron."
"Very well, then, Matron Daisy, I consign these young barbarians to your care, and I put them and my house in your charge, and I shall expect you to render me an account when you come back."
"Don't scare me, Mr. Bond," pleaded Marguerite, shaking her yellow curls. "If the responsibility proves too much for me I shall leave them to their fate and run away. But I think I can manage them, and I 'll rule them with a rod of iron."
And then the bell rang, and Mr. Bond jumped off the train just in time, and he waved his hat and the girls waved their handkerchiefs from the windows until they were whisked away out of his sight.
"Now, my children," said Marguerite, highly elated at her absurd title of matron, "you are in my care, and I must look after you."
The eight girls were quickly paired off, and the general chatter was broken up into dialogues.
Mindful of her position as matron, Marguerite kept a watchful eye on her charges. To be sure, the watchful eye was so bright and merry that as a means of restraint it was practically useless. But the Summer Club knew how to behave itself in a public conveyance—oh, dear yes; and, save for a few sudden and really unavoidable bursts of merriment, it was as proper and decorous a rosebud garland of girls as one could wish to see upon a summer's day.
To be sure, there was some commotion when the conductor asked for Marguerite's ticket and she suddenly remembered she had written Aunt Annie's soup receipt on the back of it, intending to copy it before the conductor came around.
"It was the only bit of paper I had," she explained, "and it is such a good receipt. What shall I do?" Nan had a blank-book with her which she always carried in case of poetic fire, and the conductor obligingly left the soup-ticket, as Betty called it, for them to copy, and returned later to receive the yellow card, much crumpled by the process of erasure. But the precious receipt was safe—and at least one page of Nan's book was worth having.
And there was another mild excitement when Nan's cuckoo-clock, which was carefully laid away up in the rack, suddenly announced in shrill pipes that it was twelve o'clock. It was n't twelve o'clock at all, and that rascally cuckoo knew it; but having been silenced by Nan's breathless run down to the station, he was well pleased to be set going again by the jar of the train, and he chirped his twelve double notes with an evident enjoyment of the situation.
Nan tried her best to look unconscious, but only succeeded in looking so funny that the girls went off into peals of laughter.
Betty leaned over, and picking up Nan's blank-book, scribbled in it:
Nannie had a little clock,
But it was rather slow;
And when she thought that it had stopped
The clock was sure to go.
This was passed around, and caused such hilarity that Marguerite confiscated the book, and assuming an air of rigid decorum, sat staring straight before her with all the appalling dignity of a blond wax doll.
Upon which, Millicent slyly regained the book, unobserved by the stern matron, and drew a funny sketch of Marguerite wearing epaulets and a cocked hat, mounted on a fiery steed, and commanding a great army. The curly mop of hair, the stiff duck skirt, and the side-saddle, contrasted with the military pose and uplifted sword, were very funny; and when Millicent labeled it "A Daisy Napoleon," and passed it over to Betty and Jessie, they giggled outright. But now they had passed Spring Grove, and the next station would be Blue Beach. Gathering up their belongings, they all were ready, when the train stopped, to jump out on the platform, and there they found Uncle Ned and Aunt Molly waiting for them.
"All here?" sang out Uncle Ned, in his cheery way. "Where are your checks?"
A dozen metal medals were produced by Betty, who announced herself as a courier. It was an appalling lot of luggage to which these checks entitled Uncle Ned; but he soon found a man with a big wagon, and trunks, wheels, and boxes were lifted into it and despatched to the cottage, while Marjorie received frantic expressions of affection from Timmy Loo, who had had quite enough of baggage-cars for one while.
Uncle Ned politely put the spare seats of his carriage at the disposal of the girls, but the loyal crowd refused to be divided. Not they, indeed! They would find a conveyance that would hold them all, or they would walk. It was only about a mile. But a capacious stage lumbered up, and the whole eight were bundled into it.
Timmy Loo, as was his custom when riding, jumped up on Marjorie's shoulder, and sat there, fairly quivering with curiosity to know what kind of a performance was going on anyway. For his part, he could not understand it at all. But Marjorie gave him a little whack on his nose, and he subsided into a wary indifference.
"Here's the ocean, Nan; get out your best pensive expression and put it on," cried Betty, as the stage bumped around a corner and the blue sea shone before them.
But Nan was already wearing what the girls called her "rapt look," and she paid no attention to their banter.
"‘Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!’" began Millicent.
"Should you dry up, 't would leave an awful hole," continued Marjorie. "Oh, how good this salt air is! It makes me feel like a mermaid."
"It has a worse effect on me than that," exclaimed Betty; "it makes me just awfully hungry. Do we really have to get settled at housekeeping, and all that, before we can have anything to eat?"
"No, indeed," said Marjorie; "we 'll have a picnic supper as soon as we can get enough things unpacked to have it with, and then we 'll begin our regular living to-morrow. There's the house, girls—that shingled one next to the one with the yellow dog in front of it."
And in another minute they had stopped in front of the shingled house, and were tumbling over one another out of the stage.
Nan landed first, and no sooner had she touched the ground than, as if by magic, a swarm of men appeared, who gathered around her, out-vying one another in impressive politeness, and offered her cards.
Bewildered at the suddenness of the onslaught, Nan glanced helplessly at Marjorie with a scared "What do they want?"
At this the swarm turned their attention to Marjorie, and the cards were pointed at her, while the men stood respectfully silent.
"What do you want?" repeated Marjorie; whereupon one braver than the rest volunteered the information that he was the best butcher at Blue Beach, and then another calmly made the same statement.
The cards of the other men announced them to be fish and vegetable merchants, bakers, and milkmen; and one, being cardless, declared himself the coal and wood agent.
"We may as well order that at once," said Marjorie; "but I can't tell about the other things until we get into the house."
At this the men departed, with envious looks at the coal and wood agent, who remained.
"Will you, sir," continued Marjorie, reflectively, "please send us a barrel of kindling-wood and—a—girls, how much coal ought we to have for two weeks?"
"A ton, I should think," said Marguerite, with an air of superior wisdom that made her look like a canary that wanted to be an owl.
"Crazy Daisy!" said Betty. "We could n't begin to use a ton, nor a half, nor a quarter. Why, we only use twenty tons for a whole year at home, radiators and all."
"If six Millers in one year burn twenty tons, how much is necessary to supply one miller and seven other insects that they may have coal to burn?" said Marguerite.
"I 'll be stoker," said Hester Laverack. "The only thing I'm a real success at is making a fire and keeping it going. And I think we 'll need a barrel of coal."
"A barrel! Just the thing!" cried Betty. "That's lots better than a fraction of a ton; and there are so few fractions of a ton to choose from!"
"All right," said Marjorie; "you may send us a barrel of coal and some wood for the open fire."
"A quarter of a cord?" suggested the man, as if he feared another lengthy discussion.
"Yes," said Marjorie, breathing a sigh of relief as he went away. Then she stood looking helplessly at her handful of cards. "Girls," said she, "the responsibilities of housekeeping are wearing me out, and we have n't even entered the house yet."
"Where are the keys?" said impatient Marguerite.
Marjorie flourished her bunch of keys importantly, unlocked the door, and, with a wild whoop from Betty and a responsive bark from Timmy Loo, they all went in.