“Hush!” was the only word Desiré could utter just then. It took all the courage she was able to muster to approach the next travelers, a fat man and two women.
“Would you care to buy a souvenir?” asked Desiré, her heart beating very fast.
“Bless my soul, no!” replied the man, not unkindly but very definitely. “Too much luggage now.”
Only the thoughts of helping Jack urged the girl to persevere. Trembling, dripping with perspiration, she stopped a couple of women who shook their heads before she could get a word out. Seeing the look of disappointment on her face, the younger of the two held out a coin, saying—“I don’t want your wares, but take this.”
Stung to the quick, but realizing that no injury was intended, Desiré refused and walked away, ready to cry.
“I’d have taken it if I’d been you,” commented Priscilla.
“Of course you wouldn’t, Prissy. We do not beg. But I guess nobody wants our souvenirs—and I thought them so pretty. We’d better try to find the Public Gardens, where Jack told us to meet him.”
“I think the station is a bad place, anyway,” said Priscilla. “The people are in too much of a hurry, and they did all have a lot of baggage. Maybe we can find somewhere else.”
By asking directions a number of times, they arrived at the Public Gardens—the big iron gates opening into acres of gay flower beds, rare and valuable trees, winding streams, artistic bridges. They were about to enter, when a man who, at a safe distance, had been watching them in the station, and who had followed them to the Gardens, now hurried forward.
CHAPTER XVII
AN OLD ENEMY
Pushing rudely between the two girls, the stranger succeeded, by means of a skillful bit of elbow play, in knocking the souvenirs out of their hands. As if to avoid stepping on the scattered berries and flowers, he took a couple of quick side steps, planting his huge feet directly upon them, and thereby ruining them completely. It was all done so quickly that the girls hardly realized what had happened until they stood looking down at the remains of many days of labor.
Desiré was quite speechless, and seemed momentarily paralyzed. Not so Priscilla, whose quick eyes followed the stranger, striding away over one of the bridges in the Garden.
“Dissy,” she whispered, “it’s that same man.”
“What same man?”
“The one who fought Jack.”
“It does look a lot like him, but—”
“It’s him all right! The mean old pig!”
“Why, Prissy! It was an accident.”
“Wasn’t either, and now we can’t make any money to take to Jack.” Excitedly she burst into tears.
“Don’t, dear,” begged Desiré. “We mustn’t act like babies every time something goes wrong. We’ll just start over again. These didn’t cost anything, and it will be easy to make new ones.”
“What’s the trouble?” asked Jack, who had come up behind them.
Both girls explained at once.
“Where’s the fellow now?” demanded the boy, his jaw set, his eyes flashing.
“He went over that bridge,” pointed Priscilla.
“Don’t bother about him,” urged Desiré. “You might get arrested. Let’s go back to the wagon.”
Struggling between the wish to avenge the wrong to his little sisters, and the conviction that it was perhaps wiser to avoid conflict in a strange city, he turned abruptly away from the big iron gates.
“Where are we going next?” asked Desiré, as they walked along the street toward the place where the wagon had been left.
“I bought all the stock we need, and I thought, since Simon always did, we’d go on down the South Shore a ways and then come back here to start for—”
“Home!” concluded Desiré, “and what fun we’ll have settling down in it.”
“More fun in a wag’n,” declared René.
“You’d holler all right, when the snow blew in on you,” said Priscilla.
Jack hardly heard what they were saying, so puzzled and disturbed was he over the reappearance of his enemy. Was the man following them, or was the meeting purely accidental? Had he been tampering with the horses the night Priscilla roused them? If the fellow were bent on revenge, they were likely to suffer from the effects of his anger and jealousy almost any time.
The next morning they were following the very irregular South Shore line along the Atlantic; past ragged points, around deep bays, through tangles of woodland, then back beside the yellow sands again. Numerous offshore islands looked so inviting that Priscilla was always wishing they could drive out to them. As they rounded St. Margaret’s Bay, the sunshine was brilliant; but almost without warning, a mile farther on, they were completely enveloped in fog which cut off all view of the ocean.
“Do be very careful, Jack,” pleaded Desiré nervously, as they almost felt their way around an especially blind curve. “Someone might run into us.”
They reached Chester in safety, and spent some time looking about that busy little town. The souvenir shop up the hill above the Lovett House especially attracted Priscilla, and it was with great reluctance that she left it.
“I’d like to have money enough to buy everything I wanted there,” she said, looking longingly back at it.
In a few minutes they missed René, who had been lagging along behind them.
“That boy is hopeless,” groaned Jack, as they retraced their steps to look for him.
Not very far back they discovered him, leaning over the edge of a cobblestone well, trying to lower the heavy bucket.
“I was thirsty,” he explained, as Jack detached him.
“But you might have fallen in!” said Desiré severely.
“I’ll tell you what we can do,” proposed Priscilla; “tie a rope to him, like you do to a little dog, and I’ll lead him. I saw a lady at Halifax with a little boy fastened that way,—”
The proposal called forth a howl from René.
“Won’t be tied like a dog! Won’t have Prissy lead me!”
“Well, let’s go on now before we get into any more difficulties,” said Jack, starting for the shed where he had left the wagon.
“That is Mahone Bay,” he told them, as they gazed out over the large arm of the ocean upon which Chester is located; “and all this section was once a great retreat for pirates. There are so many islands where they hid their booty, and so many little bays and inlets where they could take refuge if pursued.”
“Want to go out there and see pirates,” announced René, as Jack tightened the reins, and Dolly and Dapple began to move.
“There are no pirates there now,” said Priscilla in a disgusted tone.
“Go and see. I’m going to be a pirate when I grow up. I think they’re fine.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t give us that piece of information before, Jack,” laughed Desiré, “or we should have been swimming out to find Renny.”
Not very far beyond Chester, they ran into fog again. The road was winding, and very much up and down hill; and as they were about to round a curve near Lunenburg, a heavy automobile loomed up suddenly at their left, out of the grey blanket which enfolded the landscape.
CHAPTER XVIII
A COLLISION
Jack turned aside as quickly and as far as he dared, but the machine struck the side of the wagon, ripped off a wheel, and disappeared into the gloom. The children were thrown violently to the floor of the wagon, and Desiré against the side; but Jack managed to keep his seat. The horses stopped instantly, and stood quiet like the intelligent, well-mannered animals that they were. To the accompaniment of René’s cries, Jack got his little family out of the tilting wagon and took stock of their injuries. Priscilla had a bad nosebleed, and Desiré a bruised arm. René was only badly frightened, and Jack himself entirely uninjured.
“We certainly can be very thankful,” breathed Desiré with relief, after first aid had been given.
“We certainly can,” agreed Jack fervently, going to ex
amine the condition of the wagon; “we were very lucky.”
“What can we do with it?” inquired Desiré.
“Fortunately we’re not very far from Lunenburg,” he replied, “and I suppose I can get it fixed there; but it will mean quite a delay, I imagine. If the fog would only lift so that we could see something.”
“Why not stay right here until it does?” proposed Desiré.
“Should you be afraid to stay here with the children while I walked to town?” began Jack. “It would save time if I could get the work started today—”
“Not afraid for us, Jack; but for you. Something might hit you. Suppose another automobile should come along!” She shuddered.
“Well, then we’ll try to get the wagon just off the road, and make ourselves as comfortable as we can until the fog is gone.”
With much difficulty, and many pauses for rest, they succeeded in getting the wagon off the road.
It was a tiresome afternoon, and seemed many hours longer than it really was. Just about six o’clock the grey blanket was whisked away as suddenly as if someone had picked it up, and the land was flooded with late afternoon sunshine. On one side of them were fields with groups of trees here and there; on the other, a wide beach.
“Why not camp in this field?” asked Desiré, as the children darted across to play in the sand. “If we’re going to be held up for a day or two, this is probably as good a place as any.”
Jack agreed. So after charging the children not to go into the water, they set about making a permanent camp. It was too late to go to town that night, but early the next morning Jack took the broken wheel and started out.
“I can have it the day after tomorrow,” he announced upon his return, which Desiré assured him was “not so bad.”
The two days passed very pleasantly. Twice a day, much to René’s delight, they all went in bathing. Playing in the sand became almost as much of a joy to the older ones as to the children, and they laid out wonderful towns across the beach. In the middle of the day, when it was too hot near the water, they spent their time in the grove, and made friends with the squirrels who were busy laying in their stores for the winter. The little creatures got so tame that they would venture into the very laps of the invaders of their domain.
“Now for the road again!” cried Jack, on the evening of the second day, as he put the new wheel on the wagon. “We’ll go to bed early, and get started as soon as it is light.”
Just after daybreak, he came to the wagon where Desiré was collecting supplies for their breakfast.
“Dissy,” he said, “Dolly is very sick!”
“Sick! Oh, Jack, what shall we do!” cried Desiré in dismay. Difficulties did seem to be coming too thick and fast.
“I’ve made her as comfortable as I can, but I don’t know what to do next. I’ll have to go to town for help. Give me a sandwich to eat on the way—I can’t wait for breakfast. You and the children keep away from her until I get back.”
In a few minutes Jack disappeared down the road leading to Lunenburg, puzzling over the finding of a pan half filled with bran mash which he had discovered near Dolly. Since he could not arrive at a satisfactory explanation, he wisely decided to keep the discovery to himself.
Desiré gave the children their breakfast, and sent them out on the sand, she herself remaining where she could watch them and keep an eye on the wagon. It seemed hours after Jack had gone when up the road she could see the broad bulk of a team of oxen plodding slowly toward her. As they came closer, she saw that they were pulling one of the flat wooden wagons used for hauling stone. On the boards sat Jack and another man; the driver was walking at the animals’ heads. Jack got off and came hurriedly toward her, after directing the driver to the end of the field where the sick horse lay.
“The doctor thinks he’ll have to take Dolly to his place; so they brought an ox team along,” he explained. Then before Desiré had time to reply, he dashed off to join the other two men.
Half an hour later poor Dolly, reclining on the ox cart, was ready for her ride to Lunenburg.
“I think she will get well; but not right off. She must have ate something very bad,” said Dr. Myers, a stout German, mopping his brow with a big blue handkerchief. “You come see me—say—next day after tomorrow; then I maybe can tell you how long.” He ran clumsily down the road to join his patient.
Jack sat down beside Desiré, and for a long moment they looked at each other without speaking. The children, who had left their play to become spectators of the moving, had returned to the beach at Desiré’s direction, and were now so busy constructing a sea wall that they were oblivious to all else.
“What next, Jack?” asked Desiré at last, laying her hand over his.
CHAPTER XIX
POOR DOLLY!
“I wish I knew,” was the boy’s sad reply to his sister’s question.
Fired by the sight of his deep depression, Desiré put her wits to work to find a way out of this latest catastrophe.
“Perhaps I could get some work in the shipyards in town,” began her brother before she had arrived at any solution of the problem.
“But if Dolly gets well in a few days, would that pay?”
“I don’t think she will—at least not so as to be ready for the road. You see, Dissy, it’s going to take an awful lot of what we’ve made so far to pay the doctor; and while we’re held up here, nothing is coming in, and living expenses go on.”
“That’s so.”
“If I could get a job in the yards for two or three weeks, it would mean a lot to us.”
“We would stay here, and you’d go back and forth every day?”
“Yes, that is if you wouldn’t be afraid—”
“Of course I shouldn’t!”
“It’s only half an hour’s walk, and we can camp down here cheaper than living in town. In October we should settle down in Wolfville; for it will be altogether too cold to camp after that time. If I could get work for two or three weeks, then we’ll start back for Halifax, and get to—”
“Our house just about in time,” concluded Desiré gaily.
“How proudly you say that,” smiled Jack.
“I am proud of it. Well, we’ll follow out your plan then; and while I get dinner you might tell the children what we’ve decided.”
“Better wait until we see whether I get the job or not,” advised her brother. “It will be hard on you, poor kid, having to manage everything here while I’m gone all day long.”
“Not half so hard, dear, as your having to go to work at something you don’t know anything about. I’m used to my work.”
The following afternoon, Jack returned from town, and immediately sought out Desiré who was sitting under a clump of birches mending one of Priscilla’s dresses.
“Good news, Dissy!” he cried, dropping down at her feet. “I’ve got a job.”
“Oh, Jack, that’s great! Tell me all about it.”
“When I first went into town, I stopped at Dr. Myers’ and saw Dolly. She’s lots better, but Doc said she ought to stay there another week. It’s expensive, but it would be more so if we lost her; so I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Of course not.”
“When she’s ready to come back, he’ll bring her out here; and he said to let her roam about the field for another week, and then drive her half a day at a time for a while. After that, he says she’ll be all right again.”
“Well, that’s better than we feared at first.”
“Yes indeed. I thought for a while that poor old Dolly was a goner. And how hard it would have been to tell good old Simon!”
“And what about your job?” For Jack’s eyes were on the expanse of blue ocean, where the sparkling ripples from a distance looked like silver confetti tossed up into the air and then allowed to fall back upon the restless surface of the water.
“Oh, yes. I asked directions from the doctor, and went over to the shipyard. My, but it’s an interesting and busy place, Dissy!
Ships just begun, others with their ribs all showing and looking like the carcass of a chicken used to when the kids got through with it; some being painted, some out in the harbor waiting for masts, and others all ready for the deep sea. I found the man who hires the help, and he didn’t seem at all interested in me—said he wasn’t going to take anyone on at present. I’ll admit I was awfully disappointed—”
“Poor old Jack!” murmured his sister sympathetically, laying down her work to put her arms around him, much as she would have done to René.
“Just as I was leaving, who should come lumbering into the office but Dr. Myers. ‘Did you get it?’ he asked. When I said I did not, he grabbed my arm, turned me around, and marched me back to the desk where Mr. Libermann was sitting. ‘I send you this boy to get a job,’ he cried angrily. ‘For why you not gif him one? I know you haf extra work for these few weeks.’ Mr. Libermann seemed a bit taken back, and stammered—‘I did not know he was friend of yours. I’ll see what I can do if—’ ‘You’d better!’ shouted the doctor, shaking his fist under Herr Libermann’s nose. He got up from the desk and disappeared into some quarters at the back of the building, glad to escape, I think, for even a few minutes.
“‘He owe me too many kindnesses,’ grumbled the doctor, ‘for him to refuse what I ask.’ Presently Mr. Libermann returned with the welcome news that I was taken on as an extra hand for three weeks, and could start tomorrow. So once more we are—”
“On the road to prosperity!” finished Desiré, giving him a hug and taking up her sewing again.
“Not exactly prosperity, I’m afraid; but at least the means of existence,” laughed Jack.
“The funny part of the performance,” he went on, “is that Dr. Myers did not tell me to say to Mr. Libermann that he had sent me; and that gentleman didn’t have courage to remind him of the fact when he got so excited over my being turned down.”
The children were delighted when they heard that another three weeks were to be spent in that pleasant spot, but deplored the absence of their playfellow, Jack. Unaccustomed to work of the heavy kind that was required of him in the shipyard, he was naturally very tired when he returned at night; and Desiré tried to prevent the younger ones from making any demands at all upon him. She was careful, too, to keep unpleasant topics and worries from him.
The Second Girl Detective Megapack: 23 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 50