CHAPTER XIII

THE NIGHT OF THE BIG WIND

“Ruthie! there’s another man wants to sell you a boat.”

“Ruthie! there’s another man wants to sell an elephant—and it’s _so_ cute!”

“For the land’s sake!” gasped Ruth, throwing down a sputtering pen, where she was writing on the chest of drawers in the tent. “_How_ can a body write? And an elephant, no less!”

She rushed out to see Dot’s elephant, as that seemed more important than Tess’ announcement that a man had merely a boat for sale. Dot’s man was a gangling young fellow with a covered basket from which he was selling sugar cakes made into fancy shapes. So Dot had her elephant for the Alice-doll (almost everything that appealed to Dot was bought for that pampered child of hers!) and was appeased.

But the man with the boat was a different matter. He proved to be a boat owner and he wanted to hire one of his craft to the Corner House girls by the week. Agnes was just crazy (so she said) to add rowing to her accomplishments, and Ruth thought it would be a good thing herself.

The boat was a safe, cedar craft, with two pairs of light oars and a portable kerosene engine and propeller to use if the girls got tired of rowing. Ruth made the bargain after thoroughly looking over the boat, which had had only one season’s use.

There was a chain and padlock for mooring it to a post at the edge of the water just below the tent.

The older girls had already learned to swim in the school gymnasium at Milton. Milton was pretty well up to date in its school arrangements.

Tess had been taught to “strike out” and could be left safely to paddle by herself in shallow water while Ruth and Agnes taught little Dot.

The latter refused to own to any fear of the water. Up here in the river the waves were seldom of any consequence, and of course on stormy days the girls would not go bathing at all.

Others of the Willowbend campers had rowboats for the season; and some even owned their own motorboats. The girls were well advised regarding fishing-tackle and the like. Crabbing was a favorite sport just then, for several small creeks emptied into the river nearby and soft-shell crabs and shedders were plentiful.

“I’d be afraid of these crabs if their teeth were hard,” Dot declared, for she insisted that the “pincers” of the crustaceans were teeth.

“They are dreadfully _squirmy_, anyway,” sighed Tess. “Just like spiders. And yet, we eat them!”

“But—but I always shut my eyes when I eat them; just as I do when I swallow raw oysters,” confessed Dot. “They taste so much better than they look!”

Having the boat, the Corner House girls rowed to the village for their supplies and to visit their friends. They did not go to the Overlook House; but Pearl Harrod and her party were at the burned bungalow almost all day. They always bathed there, and the Corner House girls went down to bathe with them. The beach was better there than at the camp.

It was Monday when Ruth Kenway and her sisters were established in their tent. On Thursday of that week they rowed over to Spoondrift bungalow in the morning. Pearl greeted them before they got ashore with:

“Oh, Ruth! The funniest thing has happened. You’d never guess.”

“Trix Severn has the mumps!” exclaimed Agnes. “I knew she was all swelled up.”

“Not as good as _that_,” laughed Pearl. “But worse may happen to that girl than mumps. However, it’s nothing to do with Trix.”

“What is it?” asked Ruth, calmly. “I’m not a good guesser, Pearl.”

“You remember those Gypsies?”

“That are camped up in the woods!”

“Yes.”

“If they _are_ Gypsies,” said Ruth, doubtfully.

“Of course they are!” cried Pearl. “Well, they’ve been around here looking for you.”

“For goodness’ sake!” gasped Agnes. “What for?”

Ruth herself looked startled. But Pearl began to laugh again.

“At least, that queer old woman has been asking for you,” she explained.

“Zaliska!” exclaimed Ruth, although she was very sure that was not the person’s name. Of course the name was part of the strange girl’s masquerade.

“It was this morning,” Pearl went on to say. “We didn’t see many of the women of the tribe when we came past that camp last week. But a number of them came down into the village this morning—selling baskets and telling fortunes from door to door. We saw them over by the hotel—didn’t we, girls?”

“Yes. I bought a basket from one of them,” admitted Carrie Poole.

“But when we came up here to the bungalow,” pursued Pearl, “one of the men working here asked me if I’d seen ‘my friend, the Gypsy queen’? So, I said ‘No,’ of course.

“Then he told me that that Zaliska had asked him where the girl was who was called Ruth Kenway. He told her that after the bungalow got afire, all the girls went to the hotel.”

“Then she’ll never find you there, Ruth,” interposed Agnes, with satisfaction.

Ruth was not sure that she did not wish the supposed Gypsy queen to find her. She knew that “Zaliska” was really the very pretty, dark-skinned girl whom she had been so much interested in on the train coming down from Milton.

And that strange girl was interested in Rosa Wildwood. Of that Ruth was as sure as she could be.

“Maybe she’ll follow you up to the camp,” said Lucy Poole. “I’d be afraid to live all alone in that tent if I were you girls.”

“Pooh!” exclaimed Agnes. “What’s going to hurt us!”

“The crabs might come up the beach at night and pinch your toes,” laughed Maud Everts.

“I don’t know,” Pearl said, seriously. “I wouldn’t want those Gyps interested in _me_.”

“Now you are trying to frighten us,” laughed Ruth. “We have plenty of neighbors. Don’t you come up there and try to play tricks on us in the tent. You might get hurt.”

“Bet she has a gatling gun,” chuckled Carrie Poole.

“I’m going to have something better than that,” declared Ruth, smiling. But she refused to tell them _what_.

Ruth remembered that the little old woman who lived in a shoe had spoken of being afraid, too; so the oldest Corner House girl made her plans accordingly, but kept them to herself.

After their bath the sisters dressed in the Harrod tent that had been pitched on the lawn behind the bungalow, and then went on to the village. Ruth and Agnes rowed very nicely, for the former, at least, had had some practise at this sport before coming to Pleasant Cove.

They tied the painter of their boat to a ring in one of the wharf stringers, and went “up town” to the stores. The village of Pleasant Cove was never a bustling business center. There were but few people on the main street, and most of those were visitors.

“There are two of those Gypsy women, Ruth!” hissed Agnes in her sister’s ear, as they came out of a store.

Ruth looked up to see the woman who had been in the train, and another. They were both humbly dressed, but in gay colors. Ruth looked up and down the street for the disguised figure of the young girl, but _she_ was not in sight.

“My goodness, Ruth!” said Agnes, “what do you suppose that old hag of a Gypsy wants you for?”

“She isn’t——” began Ruth. Then she thought better of taking Agnes into her confidence just then and did not finish her impulsively begun speech, but said:

“We won’t bother about it. She probably won’t find us up at Willowbend Camp.”

“I should hope _not_!” cried Agnes. “I don’t want to get any better acquainted with those Gyps.”

The matter, however, caused Ruth to think more particularly of Rosa Wildwood. She had not yet found a boarding place for the Southern girl, and Rosa was to come down to Pleasant Cove the next Monday.

Ruth wanted to see Mrs. Bobster, and she did so that very afternoon. On their way back to the camp they tied the boat up at the foot of the wrecked pleasure park and walked up the broken boardwalk to the shoe-house.

“Here’s your bread, girls—warm from the oven,” said the brisk little woman. “And if you want a pan of seed cookies——”

“Oh! don’t we, just!” sighed Agnes.

The girls sat down to eat some of the delicacies right then and there, and Mrs. Bobster brought a pitcher of cool milk from the well-curb. Ruth at once opened the subject of getting board for Rosa with the little old woman who lived in a shoe.

“Wal, I re’lly don’t know what ter say to ye,” declared Mrs. Bobster. “I ain’t never kalkerlated ter run a boardin’ house——

“But one young lady! I dunno. They wanted me to take old Mr. Kendricks ter board last winter; the town selectmen did. But I told ’em ‘No.’ I warn’t runnin’ a boardin’ house—nor yet the poorfarm.”

“Poorfarm?” questioned Ruth, puzzled by the reference.

“Yep. Ye see, there ain’t been no town poor here in Pleasant Cove for a number o’ years. Last winter old Mr. Kendricks see fit to let the town board him. He’s spry enough to go clammin’ in the summer; an’ he kin steer a boat when his rheumatics ain’t so bad. But winters is gittin’ hard on him.

“It didn’t seem good jedgment,” Mrs. Bobster said, reflectively, “to open the poorfarm jest for _him_. B’sides, they’d got the old farm let to good advantage for another year to Silas Holcomb. So they come to me.

“Now, Mr. Kendricks is as nice an old man as ever you’d wish ter see,” pursued Mrs. Bobster. “He comes of good folks—jest as good as my poor Eddie’s folks.

“The town selectmen had consid’rable trouble gettin’ Mr. Kendricks took, ’count o’ his being so pertic’lar. Yeast bread seemed ter be his chief objection. He couldn’t make up his mind to it on account of havin’ had sour milk biscuit all his life; but finally, after I’d said ‘No,’ they got Mis’ Ann ’Liza Cobbles to agree to give him hot bread three times a day like he was used to.

“But, lawsy me! She ain’t a com-_plete_ cook—no, indeed! Mr. Kendricks said her cookin’ warn’t up to the mark, an’ if he has to go on the town this comin’ winter he shouldn’t go to Mis’ Cobbles.

“The selectmen may be driv’ to open the poorfarm ag’in, an’ to gittin’ somebody ter do for Mr. Kendricks proper.

“Maybe it’s a sort of lesson to the folks of Pleasant Cove,” sighed Mrs. Bobster, “for bein’ sort o’ proud-like through reason of not havin’ no town poor for endurin’ of ten years. I view it that way myself.

“Mr. Kendricks says he feels as if he was meant ter be a notice to ’em; ter be ready an’ waitin’ ter help people in a proper way; not to be boardin’ of ’em ’round where they might git dyspepsia fastened on ’em through eatin’ of unproper food.”

Agnes was giggling; but Ruth managed to get the talkative old lady back into the track she wanted her in. The Corner House girl expatiated upon how little trouble Rosa would be, and what a nice girl she was.

“Well!” said Mrs. Bobster, “I might try her. You offer awful temptin’ money, Miss. And poor Eddie allus said I’d do anything for money!”

It had been fortunate for the deceased Mr. Bobster, as Ruth had learned, that his wife _had_ been willing to earn money in any honest way; for Mr. Bobster himself seldom had done a day’s work after his marriage to the brisk little woman.

So the matter of Rosa Wildwood’s board and lodging was arranged, and the Kenways went back to their boat. Evening was approaching, and with it dark clouds had rolled up from the horizon, threatening a bad night.

Ruth and Agnes found a head wind to contend with when they pushed off the cedar boat. Ruth had learned to run the little motor propeller, and she started it at once. Otherwise they would have a hard time pulling up to Willowbend Camp.

During the week there were few men at the tent colonies. On Saturdays and Sundays the husbands and fathers were present in force; but now there was not a handful of adult males in either the Enterprise or Willowbend encampments.

The Corner House girls were helped ashore, however, and they hauled their boat clear up to the front of their tent. There was quite a swell on, and the waves ran far up the beach, hissing and spattering spray into the air. The wind swept this spray against the tents in gusts, like rain.

But there was no rain—only wind. The black clouds threatened, but there was no downpour. There was no such thing as having a coal fire, however; the wind blew right down the stack and filled the tent with choking smoke.

They lit a lantern and ate a cold supper. The flaps of the tent were laced down, for they had been warned against letting the wind get under. Now and then, however, a chill draught blew over them and the

## partition creaked.

“It’s just like a storm at sea,” said Agnes, rather fearfully, yet enjoying the novel sensation. “We might as well be on a sailing ship.”

“Not much!” exclaimed Ruth. “At least, we’re on an even keel.”

They agreed to go to bed early. Lying in the cots, well covered with the blankets, seemed the safest place on such a night. There was no shouting back and forth from tent to tent, and no visiting.

Lights went out early. The wind shrieked in the treetops back from the shore, and in the lulls the girls could hear the breakers booming on the rocks outside the cove.

Tess and Dot went to sleep—tired with the day’s activities. Not so the older girls. They lay and listened, and shivered as the booming voice of the wind grew in volume, and the water seemed to drive farther and farther up the beaches.

Forever after, this night was known at Pleasant Cove as “the night of the big wind.” But as yet it had only begun and the Corner House girls had no idea of what was in store for them.

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