CHAPTER XVII
HENRIETTA IS WORRIED
"I used to think I _liked_ to get letters," said Henrietta, walking upand down the long veranda, arm in arm with Hazel Benton and Jean, "butnow I don't. My sweet old grandmother doesn't say much but I can seethat she's worried to death because she doesn't hear from my father--shealways asks if _I've_ heard. We haven't either of us had a word sincelast June. Of course, often it is two or three months between lettersbecause he gets into such unget-at-able places; and when there, gets sointerested in what he is doing that he doesn't realize how the time isgetting away, and quite often there are no postoffices that he canpossibly reach. But he does try to write often enough to keep us fromworrying. Then there are some people in England who look after his moneyand other business matters for him. Well, grandmother says _they_haven't heard from him; and she thought perhaps I'd brought my lastletter from him with me--it had the name of a place that he _might_ havegone to in it. But I left it in Lakeville--I think I can tell her justwhere to look for it--in one of those lovely little boxes that he sent mefrom India."
"It must be lovely," breathed Hazel, "to get presents from India."
"It is--when I'm getting them. But now I don't like any of Grandmother'sletters. I just hate to open them. She's trying not to frighten me andat the same time she's just scaring me to pieces. I didn't think muchabout it before I left home last fall, but when I didn't get a singlething from him at Christmas time (he _always_ sends me things forChristmas) I was sure there was something wrong. And then, of course, Ibegan to think of all the things that _might_ happen to a man that looksat a map and then plunges right into it, whether it's wet or dry, theway Daddy does. And goodness! It's a wonder there's a man left on thisearth. I can imagine such _awful_ things. I wake up in the night andworry for hours."
"What does your father do for a living?" asked Hazel.
"He doesn't do anything for a _living_," explained Henrietta, who forsome time had been wearing a worried expression that was new to her. "Hejust does what he does because he's perfectly crazy about digging upthings--like tombs and buried cities and old marble statues. He'd ratherfind the nick that came out of a prehistoric platter than to own a brandnew set of dishes."
"He must be quite handy with a shovel by this time," said Hazel.
"Oh, he doesn't do the digging _himself_," explained Henrietta. "Hehires folks--natives mostly. They do the actual digging but he is alwaysright there to make sure that they work carefully. Otherwise they'dsmash valuable finds and that would be worse than not digging them up atall. He knows a wonderful lot about pottery and old metals and marblesand--just loads of things. He's an archaeologist."
"No wonder you were able to spell the whole school down on that word,yesterday," said Hazel. "It must be wonderful to have a father likethat."
"It would be," returned Henrietta, soberly, "if he didn't have to takesuch dreadful risks."
"He has been lost several times," comforted Jean, "and he has alwaysturned up again all right."
"Yes, but once he was sick and almost died of a horrible fever; andanother time some Arabs robbed him and kept him for three months in aperfectly dreadful prison, and another time his guides got frightenedand deserted him and he had to buy himself back from the folks thatcaptured him."
"No wonder you can tell us stories on the front stairs," exclaimedHazel. "But isn't there any way to search for him?"
"Well, there's this about it. If Mr. Henshaw, in London, gets reallyworried, he'll send a relief expedition to hunt him up. They did it oncebefore."
"Well," said Hazel, "I hope they'll find him. And that remindsme--speaking of lost things and things that you dig up--my precious lapislazuli beads are gone. I wore them to church two Sundays ago; and I_know_ I put them back in their case, in my bureau drawer. When I openedit this morning, the case was empty. I reported it to Doctor Rhodes atonce and it's on the bulletin board right now. Those beads don't looklike so very much but they cost a young fortune. They're _good_. Yousee, I have a daughterless aunt who gives me lovely things--except whenshe goes alone to pick them out as she did those pink stockings; she'scolor-blind, unfortunately. Never anything useful, you know, justluxuries. Mother says Aunt Annabel hasn't a sensible idea in her head."
Jean laughed suddenly. Then she explained the cause of her mirth.
"I had a funny thought," said she. "If Hazel's aunt and Marjory's AuntyJane were shaken up in a bag, it might make two average aunts, mightn'tit, Henrietta? Marjory's aunt doesn't believe in luxuries--"
"Then," interrupted Hazel, with an odd, searching look at Jean, "Marjorydoesn't have very many?"
"None at all," returned Jean. "She's really an abused child. But I'msure her aunt thinks all the world of her."
"Marjory was crazy about those blue beads of mine," said Hazel. "I lether wear them once in awhile before Christmas."
"That's so," said Henrietta. "You and Marjory were quite chummy forawhile, weren't you? Why aren't you chummy now, if a lady may ask?"
"I don't know," returned Hazel, evasively. "That is, I don't care tosay. We just aren't friends."
"If it's anything that Gladys de Milligan has said," offered Henrietta,"you don't need to believe it. That girl has tried to say mean things tome about every girl in this school. She's a wretched little beast and Idetest her."
"I don't _like_ her," said Hazel, "and I don't listen to her when I canhelp it, but some of the things she's said have been _true_."
"That's the worst of Gladys," said Jean. "She always manages to mix alittle truth in with her yarns; and that makes people believe them."
"Mercy!" whispered Henrietta, a few minutes later. "How long have Gladysand Grace been walking just behind us? How much do you suppose theyheard?"
Girls of Highland Hall: Further Adventures of the Dandelion Cottagers Page 18