Chapter III: Part 3

There were almost always errands to do in Danville, after having been to the creamery. Afterwards, Arne and Christopher had to hurry back to the farm because there was work to do there, too. The men needed Christopher in the fields, and Arne, too. There never was any time to idle along the road. It seemed to Arne that work never ended. He wanted some fun--that’s what he wanted. The other boys didn’t have to work all the time in summer--but then, it wasn’t all of them that owned thrift cards. Arne did. He already had earned ten stamps. When he thought of that, then he was rather glad he had the work to do for his father. His father gave him a thrift stamp every week that work was well and satisfactorily done--and without shirking. So far, Arne had only missed getting his stamp once. That was when he slipped off one day to go to the swimming-hole with Jimmy Smith when he was supposed to be working in the hay-field, raking. That was last week.

As Arne reflected upon these things and Christopher jogged into Danville that day that was the very last day of June, he slapped the reins and decided that he would lose no more thrift stamps. He wore his knot of red, white and blue ribbon pinned on his blue shirt and he was “doing his bit” quite as much as anybody, even though the other boys did have more chance to have fun. Then he looked up and saw--the circus poster!

Right then and there, he stopped Christopher and sat gazing at it. The circus was coming to Danville on the Fourth of July--twenty-five cents admission. The picture showed all manner of lovely ladies dancing on the backs of black horses. It showed elephants that played hoop; it pictured funny clowns and monkeys riding dogs--in short, everything that a circus ought to be seemed suggested by the big circus poster. “I’m a-goin’,” Arne resolved aloud. “Sure, I’m a-goin’ to it, somehow!” Then he clucked to Christopher and the wagon rattled onward toward the creamery. Just that one afternoon was the circus coming. It was a splendid kind of Fourth of July treat. “I guess my father’ll let me go,” he mused. “I guess so.”

When he reached Danville, all the lads who were waiting for cans to be emptied had gathered in a knot near the creamery door. Everybody was talking about the circus. Everybody was going.

Harold Sniffin’s cans were ready first. He and Arne came the same road so he waited to go home with him. They tied Christopher to the back of Harold’s cart and the two sat together and talked as they rode home over the Prairie Road. Harold’s father let _him_ buy his own thrift stamps. Harold was going without his weekly stamp and was going to buy his circus ticket with the twenty-five cents. As Arne had no money, Harold suggested this method of getting a ticket. Fourth of July did not always bring a circus. This year there had been no spring circus at all. Circuses couldn’t travel well on account of the railroads needing the cars now. This circus, it seemed, had gone from town to town upon its own feet and in its own circus wagons.

They had decided to go together and start early when the road of Harold’s turning came. Then they unhitched Christopher and Arne whipped up and came clattering into the red barn at home. “There’s a circus coming to Danville on the Fourth,” he laughed. “Guess that’s a fine way to celebrate a _Safe an’ Sane_ day!”

Only four more days to wait! Hooray! All that afternoon, Arne sang happily as he ran around the farm doing chores. He reflected, as he hoed his patch late in the afternoon, that farm work was really patriotic work and that he, right there hoeing, was doing his bit as much as if he were buying a thrift stamp. Of course he was!

That night when he was coming from the barn, after having fed the calves their bran mixture, he met his father. He explained about the circus. He wanted the money instead of the stamp, he said.

“All right,” said father. There the matter dropped. He did not ask about the circus at all.

But Arne talked a great deal about it to his mother. He talked about it to Lyman and Leslie, who were helpers at the farm. When it was dark and chores were done, he sat on the flat stone at the doorstep and watched the stars come out while he thought about it some more--only four more days!

The morning of the first of July, Christopher trotted into Danville at a pretty rapid pace. Indeed, he was rather white around the collar when they at last reached the circus poster on the road to Danville. But he earned his rest, for there Arne stopped and gazed at all the wonderful things. The circus poster promised many, many more than were pictured there. It said a thousand thrills would be felt by everyone who witnessed the daring tight-rope walking. It spoke of the Wild West and Indians that were a feature of the performance. It was only a big poster but one felt after looking at it, that one could hardly wait three days more before the Fourth should come! And going home from Danville, Arne again sat beside Harold while Christopher jogged behind. Again they talked. Again they planned. Again they undid Christopher from the rear of Harold’s cart. Again at the crossroads, they parted till the morrow. And again on the morrow, the very same thing occurred.

Only one day more before the Fourth! In the country few have firecrackers. Arne was thinking chiefly about that circus. He and Harold planned to go in time to see the parade in the morning. Only one day more--

Then the next day it rained. It rained unexpectedly in the afternoon when the hay was all ready to pitch. They had to hurry out, even in the rain, and stack it. Arne went with the others. He was wet through when he came in but his spirits were undampened by the shower. Only one night more--and then, Fourth of July and circus! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! Tomorrow! _Tomorrow!_

After he had fixed the bran mixture for the calves that night, Arne hung around the barn where Lyman and Leslie were milking. He liked to hear them talk and joke together. Tonight, he himself felt that there was only one big subject of conversation and he broached this as he came through with the empty pails that had held the calves’ supper. “I’m goin’ to the Danville circus tomorrow,” he chirped. “Be you goin’ too?”

“You’re lucky, kid,” replied Leslie. “How’d you get the money?”

“My week’s wages,” answered Arne. “The thrift stamp money.” When he said it, somehow, it sounded queer. It sounded--yes, it sounded unpatriotic. But Arne felt it only a second. He lifted himself with a jump to the side of the hay-cart that stood near-by and dangled his bare feet from denim overalls, “I’m goin’ with Harold,” he amplified. “We’re goin’ to hitch by the creamery an’ see the parade.” He swung his legs and whistled. The tune was _The Star-Spangled Banner_.

“I used to think more of firecrackers an’ that kind of thing when I was a kid,” said Leslie. “But I guess all them firecracker jiggers went over the other side when the war come. ’Tain’t patriotic to spend money for ’em now, these days. There’ll be bangin’ enough to suit everybody this July Fourth, I reckon, without firecrackers. We’re fightin’ for freedom in the same old way but our firecrackers are bigger’n they used to be an’ it takes our boys in the trenches to handle ’em. Just as soon as I’m old enough, I’m goin’ over there to help, I am!”

“Me too,” said Lyman. “It’s all right doin’ one’s bit here on a farm but I’m goin’ to help ’em win the war!”

Leslie laughed. “Sounds as if you was goin’ to do the whole of it,” he chuckled.

Arne laughed. “Wish I could go, too,” he smiled. “I’d like it--oh, I’d like to be in a big battle an’ hear the noise an’ see the guns an’ get right at the enemy an’ plant a flag where it’d wave for victory! _It’d be great!_ I’d rather fight in this war than any other that ever was--more’n Bunker Hill or Lexington, I would.” He stopped. Across his mind there flashed the phrase he had so often seen, “Help win the war.” It was on so many posters that the government used, and weren’t the thrift stamps helping to win the war? Surely they were!

Lyman broke in upon these thoughts. “You couldn’t go for a long time, kid,” he teased. “You’re just a colt. You don’t have to work in the field a-gettin’ that hay fixed tomorrow! There’s circuses for you yet. It’s work for us men, though, double-time work, too. We’ll be doin’ our bit in the field on Fourth of July. It mayn’t seem glorious as a celebration but it’s all we can do till we’re at camp for trainin’.”

No circus for Lyman and Leslie! Work in the field on Fourth of July! Arne stopped swinging his feet and looked thoughtful. Maybe he wasn’t living up to the colors, after all! How about the money for that thrift stamp? Suppose every boy and girl should buy a circus ticket instead of a thrift stamp--how about Uncle Sam’s helping to win the war with that money?

Nobody knew that there was a battle going on. Nobody heard it. Nobody saw it. The battle was between Uncle Sam’s need and Arne’s love of fun. It was a hot battle. Sometimes it went a little in favor of Arne’s love of fun and then, again, it came back to Uncle Sam’s need. Arne slid down from the hay-wagon quietly and slipped off to the house. He was quiet at supper time. At sunset, he went out to take in the flag. It always waved from the white flag-pole in front of the house. As the colors touched his hands, Arne knew which had won. It was Uncle Sam, of course!

He jogged into Danville creamery on the morning of the Fourth of July with Christopher’s reins flapping hard as they passed by the big poster. He met Harold. He told him. “I guess this year I won’t go to the circus, after all,” he explained. “I want to help Uncle Sam win this war--’tain’t much I can do but I _can_ give the money for the stamp.”

And when he rattled into the big red barn afterwards, he was whistling _The Star Spangled Banner_. “I’ll bet we win this war!” he shouted to Lyman who was bringing in a load of hay. “I’m goin’ to work with you men today--I’m not a-goin’ to any kid circus, I ain’t!”

_The Blackberry Adventure_

_THE AUGUST SURPRISE_

_Ever since the Surprise Book had come to Marjorie, she had been wondering what was in that first very lumpy big pocket that was marked for August first. She had felt of it repeatedly and guessed all manner of things that Dotty said weren’t at all right. Indeed, it would have been hard to guess for Dotty had put the first August surprise into a flat box. When the box was opened, there lay a bright penny. Whoever would have guessed it! That was a splendid surprise! The August story was directed to be opened_

“_On a warm summer afternoon._”

_As there were no other directions, Marjorie opened it upon the first of August. That truly was a hot day--a day to make one wish to sit still and read of the happy adventures of the little girls who went berrying in “The Blackberry Adventure.”_

_X_

_The Blackberry Adventure_

They came upon the old house one day when they were out blackberrying in vacation time. It was the kind of house that people used to build long ago. It had a long, sloping roof behind and the roof ran down almost to the ground. The house was very weather-beaten and out of repair. It looked battered and forlorn. Of course, it had long been deserted. Weeds grew rank in its front yard. It was far away from any neighbors. Solita and Sue had wandered far from the village. They hardly knew just how they had reached the place where so many berries grew, but they knew it was far from where they were boarding that summer.

Nobody seemed to have lived in the house for ever so long. Creepers covered the fence and what was once a roadway, leading toward the rear, was all overgrown. There were blackberry bushes thick everywhere.

At first Solita and Sue didn’t think much about the house, though it was rather a surprise to have come upon it suddenly. They had explored the different roads in the country near White Farm but never a deserted house had they found yet. At first both Solita and Sue did not observe it because they were all-absorbed in berry-picking. It was wonderful how fast the pails filled up with big, juicy, ripe fruit!

Solita had her pail full and was picking more berries to fill her white canvas hat. She didn’t stop to think that the berries would ruin it--she just wanted to get as many berries as possible! The hat was all she had to use. Sue was racing with her and her basket was nearly full. There must have been at least three quarts. It was much more roomy than the tin pail or Solita’s hat.

The rest of the children who had started from White Farm with Sue and Solita were lagging along the roadside in the rear. Just how far away they were, the two leaders did not bother to consider. There was Albert, the baby, and he was bound to go slowly with Matilda. Probably some of the children were just fooling in the brook or sitting by the wayside. It was not everybody who was as energetic as Sue and Solita that hot day!

So Solita and Sue, proud to outdo all the others, picked fast and furiously and did not stop. Step by step they had progressed to this wonderful, wonderful berry patch beside the old house. All of a sudden, Solita shouted, “I’ve won!” She made her way with difficulty through the tangle, holding her hat, piled high. The tin pail hung upon her arm and dropped berries at every step.

“Let’s see?” Sue questioned. “I don’t believe it; you come here an’ we’ll compare.”

So the two floundered around in the high growth of weeds and made for the first clear space that there seemed to be. They met at the stone doorstep of the old house and put their load of berries down there upon its broad, flat tableland.

My! But they were a sight! Solita’s pink gingham dress was torn in several places and her arms were a sight to behold--all red scratches. Her fingers were stained and grimy and her cap, too, was a sight. As for Sue, her green chambray was purple with berry juice, although she seemed to have escaped the rents from thorny creepers. But the two were happy and they didn’t care much how they looked. They simply dumped all the berries on the doorstep and compared the two piles. These seemed even, so the two thought they would rest for a while and then start back to tell the lagging children behind and urge them to hurry up.

But Solita decided that it was no use to go away back on the road to call the others. They might be a mile or more back, she said. “No, don’t let’s do that! Let’s try to pick all there are and then go home and surprise everybody.”

“But, Solita,” Sue suggested, “we haven’t anything to put all the berries in. How could we do that?”

“I could gather up my skirt,” Solita volunteered. “We could pick into that. It’s already all ruined so I don’t mind using it--it’s an old last year’s frock.”

“Mercy me, Solita! What would your mother say to that!” Sue exclaimed, aghast. “The very idea! No, we’ll have to find something else.”

“Do you suppose there’d be anything to hold them if we were to look around here?” questioned Solita. “Maybe we might find something--an old pail or cooking pan that has been thrown away.”

“There might be something inside the house,” Sue mused. “That’s very likely, but I don’t know if we could get in or not. We can try. I’m going to push the door. Do you suppose we can get in?” They had prowled around the house to what must have been the back door. But that back door wouldn’t give at all. It was tight.

The windows seemed shut fast, too. Sue said it made her feel like a burglar to try them, but since the house had been without a tenant for so long, of course it was not burglaring, she said.

After they had investigated many nooks and found nothing in the near-by shed, either, Solita suggested that they try the front door. “People always leave things behind when they move,” she declared. “I’m sure, if we could get in, we’d find a box or a pan or a basket. Even an old sack might answer--anything that is like a bag could be used.”

But when the two came to the front doorstone where the two big piles of berries lay, Solita sat down on one side and did not try the door.

“You open the door, Sue,” she said.

“No, _you_ try it!”

“You’re afraid something will jump out at you!”

“No I’m not!” retorted Sue. “What’s there to be afraid of, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” said Solita. “But it’s kind of spooky, I think. Let’s go home.” But with that Solita rose and pretended to try the door. She didn’t push it at all.

“Oh, I can get it open! You’re not pushing,” Sue exclaimed. “We’ll do it together. You turn and I’ll push--what’s the use of backing down? Let’s go in.” So the two together pushed and pulled and the door suddenly yielded. Its latch must have been very old and rusty indeed!

The opening of the door came as a real surprise, and it swung back against the wall inside the house with a loud bang that echoed through all the lonely darkness of the hallway. There was only a little light that came from the slats of broken blinds here and there in the open room that was just off the hall.

Sue took the lead. Solita followed, ready to run back at any minute. It was certainly an adventure, this entering in upon the solitude of that deserted house, long closed. “I don’t think it’s at all nice to go into people’s houses while they’re away,” she urged. “I’m going back. I think we ought not to have come in here at all--it’s ever so dark. I can’t see anything--Where’re you, Sue?”

“I’m not a scare-cat,” replied Sue. “You were the one who wanted to find the basket for the berries. Come ahead! It isn’t dark--this is lots of fun!”

“I’m going to use my dress, anyhow,” protested Solita. “I don’t want any basket.” But for the sake of company chiefly, perhaps, she followed Sue, who was investigating the empty house. Here and there she poked under dusty furniture and into old, vacant closets. There seemed to be no basket--not even an old box or tin pan, rusty from disuse. “Come ahead, Solita,” she kept saying. “Nobody’s going to eat you up. If anybody comes for such a purpose, they can begin and eat up the blackberries that are on the doorstep.” So she kept on hunting. Really, after a while, when they were used to the noise that their feet made and to the echo of their voices in the dim, closed rooms, it was rather interesting. All they found was a rusty hammer downstairs, so Sue decided to go above and look some more.

Everything there was rickety and the stairs squeaked and frightened Solita but she laughed--indeed, she was beginning to get over her timidity and enjoy the quest.

The chambers opened into the hall upstairs so that it looked like one big room except at one end of the rear room where the roof sloped. There was a real little bit of a room that must have belonged to some child. There were two little broken toy dishes in it on the floor. They were all thick with dust, so Sue did not pick them up. Solita was safely in the rear near the stairs. She declared from time to time that there was no basket and that they’d better go home but Sue kept on. It isn’t every day that one can have a real adventure. She enjoyed the creepy feeling that came with exploring dim corners.

“When my great-great-grandfather was a little boy,” she mused, “he must have lived in a house like this. Father told me a story about how he used to slide down the roof and land on the grass below just for fun. Fancy doing a thing like that!”

Solita didn’t appear much interested. But Sue went on, “It was during the American Revolution that he and my great-great-grandmother lived. He fought in it--I mean his father, I guess,” rambled Sue. She hardly knew what she was saying but she was chiefly trying to keep Solita from deserting the quest. “We might find a treasure in one of these closets,” she suggested. “Wouldn’t that be fine?”

“Nobody goes off and leaves a treasure in an old house,” Solita snapped.

“But it might have been hidden here by somebody and left till we came--”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, yes, it might!”

“Where--not up here!”

“Oh, maybe down cellar,” replied Sue, who had about finished her explorations upstairs. She had been peeping out of the window of the wee little room at the back of the house and had opened its window wide to let in the sunlight and fresh air. It was only a little window.

“You’re not going to get me to go down cellar with you,” declared Solita. “I’m going home. There wouldn’t be any baskets or treasure there at all and there might be rats and mice or other things--and I won’t go!”

“Then the treasure would be all my own, if I found it,” returned Sue. “Suppose it was a thousand dollars tied up in a bag!”

“If you go a step down cellar, I’m going home,” said Solita stoutly. “I’m going this minute anyhow--good-bye!” She started toward the stairs.

Sue felt rather obstinate. She decided that she _would_ go down cellar even if Solita left her. She tried to close the little window that looked down the long slope of the roof but it was hard to get it closed again. She looked down the long slope and was half determined to slide down it and see how it felt. If her great-great-grandfather had done it, she could, too! Why not! It would be fun to creep out of the window and not follow Solita--just slide down over the shingles to the ground and run around to the front door and hide till Solita came and then jump out and call, _boo!_ But at this minute, she heard Solita scream and the scream was so terrified that Sue jumped toward the stairs. Solita was running toward her. “You can’t go down the stairs--Oh, don’t go that way!” she screamed. “A bear is sitting in the doorway. He growled when he heard me come down the stairs. He is on the doorstone--a big, big bear! What shall we do! We can’t get out! Oh, dear! Oh, _dear_! Why did we ever come into this house!”

“A real bear?” questioned Sue, grabbing fast to Solita’s torn frock. “Tell me--you just imagined it--you couldn’t have seen one! There aren’t any bears here!”

But Solita struggled to free herself. “Oh, I _saw_ him,” she insisted in a frightened wail. “He may be up here any moment. He’s so big he could push any door in and we’re caught! We’re caught!”

Sue, half believing and against all entreaty, peeped over the winding balustrade rail. Yes. There _was_ a bear! Her heart went pat-pat-pat. A shiver ran down her back. She felt cold all over and ready to sink down in a limp heap upon the floor. But she put a warning finger to her lips and motioned Solita to stop crying. The first thing she thought of was to get Solita quietly into that little back room that had the open window that gave upon the long sloping roof--that was it! They could creep out quietly and then dash off over the back yard and into the woods. Then, perhaps, they could turn down and find the road and warn the other children!

Solita stood there shivering, but Sue dragged her toward the little room and closed the door. Solita was stupefied with the fear of that bear’s coming upstairs after them. At first she did not understand about the window, but Sue made her crawl through it first and told her to run toward the woods when she got down off the roof. “I’ll come right after you,” she urged. “Go right on and I’ll follow. He won’t see us!”

Poor Solita gathered her pink skirt about her and slid miserably and cautiously down. She was almost as afraid of falling suddenly as she was of the bear. Sue, however, made quick work of it, even as the great-great-grandfather must have done, though there were no bears after him. At the very end of the slope, she landed in a blackberry bush tangle, but she pulled herself free and helped Solita. Then the two of them darted toward the woods at the rear without a look back to see if the big bear were following or not. Solita was sure he was coming but Sue denied it. At last, badly out of breath, they reached the road, after plunging through thickets and being badly torn and scratched, after one or two excited tumbles over dead logs and much worry about the bear.

As they turned the corner of the road near the brook, they came upon the children with little Albert. “Run, run!” they screamed, “run, run quick! There’s a bear coming!”

Then, all in a crowd, they hurried on toward the road that led to White Farm. They had not gone very far when there appeared two men coming toward them. They were talking together in excited French. They stopped and asked if anybody had seen a big bear.

“Oui, oui,” nodded Solita and she launched out into a long talk in French that nobody else understood. It seemed that that was really the bear Sue and Solita had run away from and he wasn’t a wild bear but a tame one that would dance with a pole while the men sang French songs. They had stopped to get a drink of water at a farm and the bear had got off someway, when their backs were turned. They were delighted to know where he was and Solita and Sue, reassured, offered to show the way. So again they started toward the funny, old-fashioned house in a crowd together.

They came upon the bear, still eating blackberries on the doorstone--he hadn’t budged! And when the Frenchmen called him, he came meekly. Then all the children stood around in the dooryard while the bear that Solita and Sue had escaped from danced and danced. He turned somersets, too! It was fun.

And then the men took off their caps and turned and went down the overgrown driveway and off up the road. The children were already busy with the blackberries. “I might go down cellar now, Solita,” laughed Sue, “but I don’t believe I want to. Maybe there’d be another bear there. I’ve had enough of one, even a tame one, haven’t you?”

Solita laughed. “Our blackberries are all eaten,” she said. “We’d have to begin to pick again to fill the basket and the pail. I move we all go home, for I think it’s nearly lunch time.”

But everybody wanted to go into the house and slide down the roof, while little Albert made believe he was the bear and said “Grrr-r” on the doorstone. It really _was_ a blackberry adventure for a summer day!

_Betty Crusoe_

_THE SEPTEMBER SURPRISE_

_September was almost school time again. There seemed to be a long, hard thing in the September pocket that was not the story pocket. Marjorie said it felt as if it were a stick of candy. She had wanted to open the surprise long before September 13th, the date set, had come. But at last it was September 13th and she tore open the seals that held that leaf of the Surprise Book’s pocket tight. There was--why, a pencil! Why hadn’t she ever guessed that! It was a pencil painted pink and it had a rubber at its end. It had a pretty card tied to it that said, “Use this when you go to school tomorrow.” The story Marjorie opened that evening after supper. It was called “Betty Crusoe.”_

_XI_

_Betty Crusoe_

All summer Betty had been in the city. Then, the last day of September came an eventful invitation from a school-friend of her mother’s. “Dear Betty,” it ran, “I know your mother can’t be persuaded to leave daddy and the boys, but can’t _you_ pack up and spend the rest of the vacation with me in my big house here at Riverby? I’m all alone for October.” So, in two days, there was Betty in Riverby!

Mrs. Roberts and she took long motor rides, but the rest of the time--and much of the time--Betty had to amuse herself. She was always longing for a boat ride on the lovely blue river that was within sight of the house, but Mrs. Roberts never seemed inclined to go out rowing. It was one day when she was lonely and wishing for somebody her own age to play with that she wandered through the grounds down toward the shore. Some magic must have been at work, for right there upon the sandy beach sat a pink gingham dress much like Betty’s own! It turned as Betty’s white shoes crunched the coarse gravel. “Hello,” she greeted. “I was just wishing I had a girl to talk to and then _you_ came!”

Betty laughed. “I was just wishing, myself,” she smiled. “I’m staying with Mrs. Roberts. Do you live next door?”

The pink hair-ribbon bobbed. “I’m staying with my aunt,” it said. “I just came from the West. I don’t know a soul my own age here and it’s stupid. Now that you’ve come, let’s have some fun together. My name’s Lydia. What’s yours?”

It seemed to the two of them that they had known each other always and, naturally, having so begun, it appeared that the two of them were longing to go out upon the river for a row--and had been longing for that ever since they came to Riverby.

“Don’t I wish we could find a boat!”

“Do you know where there is one?”

“No--and I’ve only rowed on the lake in the park--”

“Well, never mind. You could row out a little way, if we could find a boat! Let’s!”

“We wouldn’t go out very far--”

“No, not very far. I think we can find a boat if we walk along the shore--”

So the two trotted along the sandy rim of the river and, after a while, they did come upon a boat drawn high up. There were oars in it and it appeared to be waiting for the two, just as Lydia had been waiting for Betty a half hour before. They didn’t stop to think. They merely accepted the boat as they had accepted each other. It was part of the adventure, of course. With frantic tugging, they finally launched the boat and Betty took the oars.

As she dipped them, “I’ve got to be back by four,” she said. “Mrs. Roberts asked me to go calling--pity me, Lydia, I’ll have to come back and put on my best dress. I’d rather stay on the river--I hope you’ve a watch with you. I didn’t bring mine.”

“No, I haven’t any watch but I can tell time by the sun,” reassured Lydia. “Do you know, Betty, I’m longing to know what’s just around the bend of the river. We can go that far, can’t we?”

“Sure,” replied Betty, bravely. She did not say that her arms were already rather tired. She waited for Lydia to offer to take the oars.

But when they reached the bend, right there in the very center of the river was a big wooded island. Its shore was overhung with dark pine trees. It was a most fascinating island!

“Oh, row over to the island, Betty,” screamed Lydia. “I do so want to go there! We can stop for a bit and then come back and you’ll be home in time to dress for that call.” So Betty, tired but very willing to prolong the fun, rowed on.

They beached the boat near a rock, but while they were beaching it, out fell an oar! Before anybody could get it, it had floated far out beyond reach! Oh dear! Oh dear! Could anything ever be worse! Oh dear, dear, dear!

They sat upon the beach there under the pines and wondered what was going to happen. What indeed? The island seemed nothing but woods, and the boats that passed by were too far away to hear what Betty and Lydia screamed at them. They evidently took the wild antics of the two pink dresses on the island beach as just so much joyous kind of greeting, nothing more. Neither Lydia or Betty could swim. So there was every reason to believe they would stay upon that island forever.

“My aunt didn’t know I was going off anywhere,” wailed Lydia. “She’d never think of my being _here_!”

“And Mrs. Roberts is expecting me to be dressed for calling at four!”

“I don’t know what we’re going to do!”

“Neither do I!”

It seemed so utterly hopeless that the two put their arms around each other and cried hard on each other’s pink gingham shoulders. Yet, as crying did not mend matters, Betty decided to make a petticoat flag and wade as far out as possible to hail the next boat. There was a rocky point that might be a good station. So she and Lydia paddled out there, leaving shoes and stockings on the shore.

The sun was gradually sinking toward the West. Lydia insisted that it must be at least half past four or five. She was sure they would have to camp out upon the island all night and was tearfully worrying about bears--“There always _are_ bears in the woods, Betty,” she said. “I don’t want to stay here all night, oh dear! Don’t you suppose that a boat ever will come around the bend and see our signal?” But it was long after that that at last a launch sped by, leaving in its wake a track of white foam. No use to scream! The launch simply did not hear or see and there were but two in it, a lady and a man who was at the rear.

“Mrs. Roberts has a parasol exactly that shade,” wailed Betty. “It might be her out looking for me only she wouldn’t think I had gone out on the river. Since I’ve been here, we never have been boating. She’s probably hunting for me in town or else she’s gone to call without me by this time. Maybe she thinks I forgot the call and went to walk. Then, of course, she’d not be worrying or looking for me till supper time.”

“But I should think they’d have stopped the launch when they heard us scream, ‘Help!’ They must have heard!”

“No,” disagreed Betty. “Maybe they never noticed or they thought we were just a silly picnic party playing Robinson Crusoe.”

Alas!

“Well, we’ve got to stay here, Lydia.”

“It’s our punishment, I suppose.”

“Maybe we deserve it for taking a boat that didn’t belong to us.”

They sat on the rock for a long time wondering what more they could do and then Betty realized that she was fearfully hungry. Lydia, too, at the same time, longed for a couple of sandwiches. “We might go look to see if there are berries in the woods,” they agreed.

There were no berries, of course. There was only wintergreen and that wasn’t satisfying. They found remnants of some picnic’s old boxes--but that was all. The picnic must have been there weeks ago for its boxes were mere pulp now--oh dear!

Betty’s pink dress was torn and scratched by brambly twigs that were in that woods. Lydia’s hair had lost its ribbon and trailed down her back in a loose tangle. The two of them were begrimed like two tramps when, finally, Betty discovered a footprint that looked as if it were newly made. “Friday, Man Friday,” she screamed, “Look! There must be somebody on this island, if we can only find the one to whom this belongs! Hooray, maybe we’ll be rescued yet! Let’s follow in the same direction and see if we do find another picnic party--if they haven’t gone home!”

“Oh, I hope they haven’t--I don’t want to spend the night here with nothing to eat--Oh dear!”

And then they found a path!

There was another footprint upon the path too!

Betty and Lydia hurried on, their hearts beating excitement. When they turned suddenly, the woods ceased abruptly and they found themselves in full view of a summer camp!

With one wild shout, Betty ran forward to its landing. There, there was a launch and in it the two who had passed on the river and beside them, too, were other people. The launch was just about to start when Betty with Lydia at her heels darted upon the dock waving wild arms. “Stop, stop,” they cried. And then Betty saw who the lady was--why, why, it was--it was Mrs. Roberts! It _was_!

On the way home, Mrs. Roberts said that she hoped Betty wouldn’t decide to play Robinson Crusoe again. She looked very sober. “Our call might have been planned for tomorrow,” she smiled. “The camp would have been closed then and whatever would you and Lydia have done on the island all night!”

“I don’t know,” returned Betty. “I’m ever so sorry. Lydia is too.”

_The Magical Circle_

_THE OCTOBER SURPRISE_

_October’s first surprise was easy to guess, as it was marked to open on Marjorie’s birthday, which was the twenty-second. She said it was a birthday present--but she did not guess that the birthday present was a pretty handkerchief as well as a birthday card! That was fun! The story was a Hallowe’en story, so it was marked to open on the afternoon of October thirty-first. It was called, “The Magical Circle.”_

_XII_

_The Magical Circle_

The family moved into the new house about the first of October. It was the first time that Mark and Marjorie had ever moved and the event was full of novelty. The new house was a big one in the country and the two found much to explore in the first weeks of arrival.

Mark was always romancing. He believed, maybe, if he were to hunt long enough, he might find something interesting that had been left by former tenants. He was sure that there were secret drawers in the old desk that was in the barn and he spent hours trying to find them. Then, too, he went about tapping the walls of the house to see if they emitted a hollow sound. He was sure, he said, that there must be secret panels with things hidden behind them.

Marjorie only laughed at Mark’s romancing. She half believed in it. It was fun, anyway. So she followed Mark’s tapping and listened to the knocks. One day when the paperers were busy, Mark went into a store-closet that adjoined the room and somehow he did find a place that was hollow. It was back of a board shelf in the closet and, when opened, was quite a hiding place. There was nothing in it. Marjorie insisted that it was where the gas pipes had been before electricity was installed. But Mark called it triumphantly the secret panel. He talked a great deal about it and showed it to the neighbor’s children, Eleanore and Mabel and Richard. He even persuaded Mother to hide some silver in the place for safe keeping. And she did it, she said, laughingly, to please him.

One might have thought that Mark would stop romancing, after having discovered a secret panel, but he didn’t rest satisfied. Having read a story about two boys who found a lost will in a trunk in an old attic, Mark became interested in the possibilities of their newly acquired one. There were three rooms up there, two of them used to store the family’s trunks. The third room Mark appropriated and made into what he called his “den.”

The “den” had an old matting upon its floor. The matting had been there when Mark and Marjorie moved into the new home. Mark always accepted it and had never found any romantic suggestions coming from that source till one night, Richard having been allowed to spend a night with him, they carried a mattress up there and slept on the floor, “for fun,” they said. Mark had a lantern and they talked till nearly two o’clock telling stories to each other. It was really great fun. Mark’s stories were full of adventure--some of them even were creepy, as it was nearing Hallowe’en day by day. And what was more fitting than right in the middle of Mark’s last thriller, there should be a strange rattle and a clinking noise! It made Mark hush and it made Richard jump. They looked at each other in frightened silence for a minute.

“What was it?” asked Mark, as soon as he could breathe again calmly.

“Oh, a mouse, I guess,” returned Richard.

“A mouse, forsooth! Nay!” returned Mark, talking in a romantic way. “Me-thinks it is a strange noise, friend. It cometh from under this matting. I will take up the matting and if need be the floor and we shall see--” Here he pulled up an end of old matting.

Richard was willing to have another of Mark’s adventures, so he helped. It wasn’t hard to get it up--but when it was once up the most astonishing thing came to light. Even Richard was amazed. As for Mark, he was in his element of discovery. There upon the floor was a big round circle. The floor was painted but the circle was not!

“What is it?” inquired Richard.

Mark debated. “I don’t know,” he mused. “It’s evidently something!” He measured the circle. It was about three feet in diameter. He was for tearing up the flooring at once, only Richard reminded him that it would make a dreadful noise and wake everybody in the house up. Surely a fortune and a lost will must be under it! Richard silenced Mark’s objection to waiting till daylight and after school by saying that they would never be allowed to sleep in the attic on a mattress again, if the two of them got into trouble. That was true. So they sat up, wrapped in blankets, listening for the sound that seemed to have gone away and also for other sounds that did not come. And they wondered excitedly how a circle like that should come to be upon an attic floor, if not purposely put there to mark something. Richard suggested that it might be an old astrologer’s room and that the circle was one upon which he might have cast horoscopes. That sounded rather fascinating but neither Mark nor Richard knew anything about astrologers or even what they did when they cast horoscopes. So this was rather romantic and they talked a great deal about it, once in a while switching off to goblins and Hallowe’en. Mark and Richard discussed, among other topics, what they should do to make Hallowe’en truly exciting. They were going to dress up like witches and go to call upon some friends. Richard was planning to carry his black cat in a bag and they were going to wear masks. Probably Marjorie would beg to go too--girls always did want to go too--and they’d let her into the secret about the circle on the attic floor too, wouldn’t they?

Richard assented. He and Marjorie were good friends.

“I tell you what!” exclaimed Mark, suddenly. “After we’re dressed up, we’ll all come up here early in the evening. Maybe Mother and Daddy’ll have gone to the pictures. Then we’ll take up the floor and see what’s under the circle!” It seemed a thing quite fit for the night of Hallowe’en.

Having decided this, they again unrolled the mattress, hid themselves in blankets and snored peacefully till dawn.

In the morning, Mark put the matting over the very precious circle and the two went downstairs hinting at wonderful secrets of things they had found and strange noises they had heard. Marjorie said it seemed to her that she had heard a queer noise too--up overhead. She said it sounded like Mark tapping for secret panels. Then everybody laughed because of the memory of how Mark was shut up tight in the harness-closet once upon a time, a victim of his love of mystery and adventure. Then Richard said he thought Mark had heard a mouse.

“Mouse! Does a mouse rattle?” inquired Mark. “I guess you’ll find out!” And the subject strung itself out all through the day and on till Hallowe’en time came. Of course, in between, Mark had visited the attic and everybody had seen the circle. Everybody declared that it was a mystery. Nobody had ever seen anything like it upon an attic floor. Mother laughed. She was used to Mark’s imaginings. She said she didn’t connect it with a little harmless mouse gnawing at a hole.

At the mention of a mouse gnawing, Mark became almost dramatic. “It was no mouse!” he declared. “Don’t I know what a mouse sounds like!”

Hallowe’en came, but even the fun of dressing up like witches lost the usual flavor. Mark, Marjorie and Richard were worked up to a pitch of excitement over the circle on the attic floor. They talked of nothing else. Mark had read up on astrology in the encyclopedia. He hadn’t understood it all but he talked as if he did and Marjorie was wonderingly proud of his knowledge, while Richard was willing to listen, though he corrected Mark’s statements now and then, having read up on the subject at the library himself.

It was lucky that the picture theatre claimed Mother and Daddy that night. And the strange thing was that neither Mark nor Marjorie had begged to be taken too. They had come in at eight o’clock sharp, according to directions that Mother had insisted upon. They kept on their weird garments of sheets and shawls. Mark, lantern in hand, led the way to the dark attic room and the others followed.

Then there began to be a real noise in that room as Mark hammered a chisel into the flooring. It seemed to be a very thick board flooring and it took time to get some nails out. But they yielded finally, and the end of one floor-board that crossed the circle at its centre grew loose enough to be pried up. (Mark had insisted that he choose the centre of the circle. Nobody knew why, though they trusted him. He said that the centre was the middle of a thing and that whatever was there would be exactly under it. This sounded plausible.)

Then Mark had Richard take the chisel and wedge up the board a bit. It wouldn’t give very much, you know. He said Marjorie might hold the lantern and he’d peep into the darkness underneath and see what was there. Really, the moment _was_ very exciting. Nobody knew what Mark might see--they felt that he was brave to take the first look, for it might be ’most anything down there where Mark’s noise had come from!

They were silent while Mark, lying flat down on the attic floor, peered under the lifted end of the board. “I see gold pieces,” he gasped. “Say, give me more light--it must be buried treasure! _Didn’t I say I’d find it!_”

Marjorie and Richard looked at each other. _Was it true?_ “Let _us_ see,” they urged. Richard did peek. He said he couldn’t see very clearly but that there was something there that he thought looked like money. It was round and there was something that looked like a bag there--maybe a money bag! Marjorie was so excited that she couldn’t keep still long enough to see anything at all well. But she thought she saw something that looked like a piece of paper. Nobody else had seen that, so they all peeped again. “It is a lost will,” declared Mark. And they believed him.

Then they fell to opening the flooring in a most reckless way. It really was dreadful--but when one is expecting to get at a money bag and a lost will, one does not stop to consider the flooring. The board was whacked beyond recognition. The hammer and chisel fell to work and the flooring yielded to the onslaught. Then--Mark lifted the board! Ah!--Ah-ha!--

Richard held the lantern down so that it shone full upon the treasure; Marjorie gasped; Mark bent forward to see all there was to see. There was a pile of broken glass and some rags, corks--and buttons! Oh, yes, and there was a piece or so of white paper--not very large. The buttons were of metal, round brass buttons, tarnished and old. The paper was old white paper, yellow now. It was not a lost will at all! No, the money bag was just a round wad of cloth and Mark’s noise was--Mark’s noise was evidently a rat running around the rat’s nest that they had found! Alas, alas! There was no more mystery! The three had never seen a rat’s nest before but Richard had heard about them. He said, from the first, he’d said it was a mouse--but everybody knows that a mouse is very different from a rat!

After they had all recovered from the shock of their disappointment, they laughed a little. It really was funny--There they had been planning what they would do with all the money after it had been properly divided! Of course, the lost will would have given the money to the finders, you know.

Mark fingered the buttons, grimy with much dust. “They don’t make buttons like this any more,” he said. “They are very interesting. I am glad I found them.” He said that they had not yet come to the end of the mystery. “_Why_ is there a circle on the attic floor?” he questioned. “Why?”

Nobody could say. Then they heard Mother’s voice downstairs. “You’ll have to tell about the floor,” Marjorie suggested. “We can never get it down again.”

So they did. It was a sorry group that said good-night, even after they had been forgiven.

Next day when Mark returned from school, he heard the carpenter repairing the damaged floor up in his den and he rushed up there.

“Say,” he said, “what do you suppose anybody ever made a circle on the floor like that for unless it was an astrologer?”

The carpenter laughed. “Sonny,” he smiled. “I’ve been in this house when there was a big cistern right here--Know what a cistern is? It’s what the family used to depend upon for water in the house. When they took it down, the floor that was painted all around it showed the circle where the cistern had stood. That’s all. It wasn’t any astrologer that made it.”

After that, somehow, the news about the cistern’s having been Mark’s mysterious circle in dim ages past, leaked out. Richard and Marjorie and Mabel and Eleanore plagued him forever after--but, anyway, Mark says, some day when he does find a fortune and a lost will, they’ll stop laughing at him. Maybe that’s true.

_Ermelinda’s Family_

_THE NOVEMBER SURPRISE_

_November’s first surprise pocket was another strange mystery. Dotty always chuckled when Marjorie asked her to tell what it was. “I can’t,” she laughed. “It’s a joke!” So poor Marjorie had to quiet her curiosity and wait till the very day before Thanksgiving. Then she ripped open the Surprise Book’s surprise and undid the paper that she found wrapped around that queer lumpy-bumpy-feeling thing. You couldn’t guess what Dotty had put in--it was a wish-bone. “Good wishes for a fine Thanksgiving dinner,” it send. As for the story, that was dated to read on the evening before Thanksgiving. It was called “Ermelinda’s Family,” and it was a Thanksgiving story._

_XIII_

_Ermelinda’s Family_

Ermelinda entered High School in September. Then, too, she contributed to the High School magazine. Going to and from school she hunted for themes to use in school compositions. She meant to write a story some day! That was Ermelinda’s ambition.