by Helen Wells
He tried every means he could think of, every tool he could find or borrow, to open the box. When his barn was broken into, and the precious box jeopardized, he was afraid to report the attempted burglary to the police. Purdy had puzzled a great deal over who had broken in, and why, but he never seriously considered that someone in the neighborhood knew what his barn really held.
So he had gone ahead, conceited by nature, made still more cocky by his success in stealing the box. He had discounted Mac Cook as having enough spirit to try to clear himself. But Purdy had figured wrong. As she stepped out of the boat at the camp dock, Cherry reminded Sergeant Braun that the mask was in the Blue Water safe.
“Right,” he said. “We’ll pick it up this afternoon. Maybe you’d better warn the Wrights to expect us; they might be a bit surprised to see the police walk in.”
Cherry promised to tell them, and smiled to herself as she thought, “But not one half as surprised as they will be when they find we had a criminal’s mask on our Can-You-Name-This Shelf!”
CHAPTER XIV
Events Week
ALMOST BEFORE ANYONE REALIZED, IT WAS THE LAST week of August and the closing week of camp. Everyone was sorry but terrifically busy and excited about the grand climax of the summer: Events Week. A bittersweet kind of feeling …
In the gala goings-on, Cherry did not like to mention anything so out of key as the Purdy affair. She talked about it only to the Wrights and to Reed Champion. Reed dropped in at Blue Water daily during this last week, partly to see about the water pageant and the final brother-sister party, but mostly to visit Cherry.
“I still want to look at you and see with my own eyes that you’re unscathed,” Reed said. “I never before met a girl who’d go through such a hair-raising adventure, and bob up smiling.”
“A nurse has to be resourceful, you know,” said Cherry, with an almost straight face.
“Well, let me tell you, I never saw one bit of that circus! I kept wishing I was on Tall Man’s Island.”
Reed and Cherry smiled at each other, and by mutual consent talked instead about this exciting last week of camp. Reed, an old-time camper, advised Cherry to brace herself for practically a week-long festival.
The keenest excitement was brought on by the awards. Even before Aunt Bet announced them at a Special Assembly in the Playhouse, the awards caused a wave of rumors and some secret, quite unnecessary tears, mopped up by Nurses Jan and Cherry. Nobody was surprised when Katy Osborn won the Camp Blue Water medal for general improvement. What made it extra nice, though, was Lil Baker’s telling in Assembly how, when she proposed Katy’s name, every girl in the Mountaineers cabin, voted yes. “They bunked with Katy—they ought to know.” Katy was so moved she burst into tears all over Sue’s shoulder. Sue had to extricate herself in order to go up on the platform to receive her own award. The Intermediates had voted Sue the best all-around camper in their group.
Ding shared gardening awards with one senior and three Midgets. Mary Alice received public notice for her cookies, baked on rainy days only. Katy won a dramatics commendation for her Juliet. And Sue, along with every girl whom Mac Cook had taught, won honorable mention for their dolls made of pine cones and driftwood and gnarled roots. Cherry was so excited about the awards that she admitted to Aunt Bet, “I wish I’d won something myself.”
“I think you did,” Aunt Bet said. “Isn’t clearing an innocent man quite a reward?”
Next, the girls and their counselors turned the Playhouse into a regular fair, heaped with the lovely and interesting things they had collected and made and grown during the summer. Many parents came especially to see their daughters’ fine “handmade originals”: handmade sewing baskets and bread baskets, bright-colored mobiles, wooden buttons and brooches and book ends. One wall was hung with new finger paintings, pencil sketches, and photographs, although Mr. Purdy was mysteriously not on hand to judge, this time. Cherry’s Can-You-Name-This Shelf contributed a fine collection of unusual growing plants, and Katy brought several varieties of delicate pressed ferns as a gift from her cabin. Heaps of luscious vegetables and bouquets of flowers testified to the girls’ harvest at the Model Farm.
The only thing not on exhibit were the Midgets’ ducklings which had grown so plump that Uncle Bob proposed, “Let’s ask Sophie to roast them and we’ll all enjoy a fine duck dinner.” The Midgets were brokenhearted at the idea, and Uncle Bob had a hard time to convince them that he was only joking. Another character besides the ducklings who had grown up during the summer was Katy’s kitten, now long-legged and almost a cat. Vernie Epler had fallen in love with the gentle little gray creature, and since Katy’s mother was not hospitable to pets, Vernie was going to adopt her. Mac Cook, too, was being adopted in a sense, but Cherry was waiting for him to come back from testifying in New York. At the big brother-sister party, Mac could tell his own good news.
First came the water pageant. Blue Water and Thunder Cliff had been preparing their floats, tableaux, music, and swimming formations for the past two weeks. Not everyone was skilled enough to take part—besides, someone had to be the audience.
The day of the water pageant, the last Friday, arrived all blue sky, sunshine, and calm blue water. Perfect! Along the leafy shores of the lake, young people, their counselors, and parents found comfortable places from which to watch. Now at the end of August, in the afternoon, the mountain air was turning cooler. Brisk breezes blew the leaves wrong side out, their undersides showing silver, like thousands of banners.
Unless an onlooker knew that each float was based on a rowboat, he would have wondered how even the powerful swimmers—senior girls and boys—swung the spectacles slowly, smoothly along. The band led the pageant, in two bunting-decorated boats, and Cherry saw D. V. tootling away for all he was worth. The Midgets, with the ducklings swimming alongside, came next. Intermediate boys offered a glee club, their voices ringing out over the water. The Ding-dong Bells floated past, costumed as flowers. There were floats of water nymphs and fierce pirates, Greek gods and gauzy ballet girls to admire, and a boatload of clowns to laugh at. Finally the chorus of senior boys and girls closed the floating pageant.
Everyone returned to Camp Blue Water where boxed lunches of fried chicken and mounds of ice-cold watermelons awaited them on the grass.
“Sophie has done herself proud,” someone said.
“I think Mac Cook is helping her. It’s good to have him back.”
Cherry looked around for Mac. He had promised her he would try to be back in time for the big party, and he was! He came out of the Mess Hall, smooth-shaven, his hair now mostly a natural brown, smiling shyly and looking younger and happier than Cherry had ever seen him. The kids nearly upset his big platter of bread and butter, as they crowded around him.
“Mac! That doll you showed me how to make—it won an award!”
“Where have you been, Mac? Didn’t you like us any more?”
“Mac, you look so different,” Sue shrilled, “and so nice! Better, I mean.”
“I feel better, honey.”
Mac smiled at Cherry, at the Wrights, and went on to pass the platter, with a troop of children at his heels. Aunt Bet nodded quietly at Cherry. It had been agreed, earlier at a meeting in the Main House among the Wrights, the Eplers, the Clemences, Cherry, and Reed, that there was no need to announce the entire story to the campers. Anyone who was interested could read in the newspapers of Purdy’s guilt and Mac’s innocence. Mac Cook—or Jack Waldron—was now completely cleared. The newspapers, like Sergeant Braun, gave full credit to the good work done by Cherry Ames. As for Mac himself, he only wanted to forget the whole thing.
Presently he came over to where Cherry and Reed were eating their supper together. Mac sat down beside them under the tree.
“I suppose Fred told you?”
“That the loan company offered you your job back?” Cherry said. “That’s good news.”
“No, better than that. Fred wants me to have a half share in the farm.” Mac’s
face actually glowed. “Fred says he means it, he thinks it never was fair that I was placed in the orphanage. You know what? I used to dream about this farm all the time I was growing up.”
Cherry was so pleased she could only gulp. Reed asked:
“Will Fred’s farm support three of you?”
“We don’t know yet. It probably will in time. In the meantime, the Clemences asked me to come back and take care of their greenhouse. Pretty nice people.”
“It looks as if your lonely days are over, Mac.”
“That’s right. Now I have a family—as well as a farm!”
No one mentioned Purdy. Though they were all thinking about him, there was nothing anyone could say. Someone teased Uncle Bob by telling him, “Now you can loaf for the other ten months of the year, can’t you?” He nearly exploded, explaining that camp work kept him and Aunt Bet busy the year round.
The long afternoon grew dusky, the first stars appeared. By the time the smallest of the boys were boosted into the truck and station wagons, and the older boys had taken the boats back to Thunder Cliff, evening had come. Reed, dashing past Cherry, paused for a moment to show her a shooting star.
“Make a wish on it,” Cherry said.
“I wish for us to meet again.” Reed smiled down at her.
“That’s easy. We will.”
The girl campers, tired and happy, went to their cabins. Tomorrow they would complete their packing. Tomorrow they would take the afternoon train.
“Give me your address, Miss Cherry,” said Sue, “and I’ll write to you faithfully.”
“Misspelled, no doubt. Oops, I’m sorry,” said Katy. “I forgot.” Katy had a brand-new grin and a new self-reliance. “Will you come to the camp reunion at Thanksgiving, Miss Cherry? Lil and our whole cabin will be there.”
“If I’m not the nurse with a traveling circus or something like that, I’ll surely be there,” Cherry promised.
She said good night and crossed the path to her own cabin. In the field the privileged seniors were having a last, sentimental campfire, a last evening sing. She entered her counselors’ cabin to find Leona Jackson standing gingerly on a bed.
“It’s that field mouse,” Leona squeaked. “I swear it’s the same one. He knows we’re moving out, and he’s moved back in!”
Cherry and Ruth J. persuaded Leona that there was room enough in the cabin for them all. They should have packed, or gone right to bed after this long, stirring day, but everyone wanted to sit up and talk. Finally, after Lights Out, Cherry stole out onto the step for one more look at lake and hills and stars.
“What a lovely summer it has been!”
She remembered a fawn she had seen this summer running in the woods, its dappled coat dappled again by shadows of leaves. She breathed in again the cool woodsy fragrance to which she had fallen asleep and awakened. And the wonderful people! It had been a rich experience getting to know all of them. Sue—who wasn’t unlike Cherry at twelve—and Katy who had put up a game fight and won it, the darling Lowells and Wrights, Fred and Vernie, and, above all, Mac.
Yes, it had been quite a summer! Smiling to herself, Cherry went contentedly into the cabin. This summer had rested and refreshed her. She was all ready for a new adventure.
Preview of
Cherry Ames at Hilton Hospital
CHAPTER I
Identity Unknown
CHERRY AND HER FELLOW NURSE ON MEN’S orthopedic Ward, Ruth Dale, were preparing a dozen breakfast trays in the small ward kitchen. They moved as quickly as they could, white uniforms rustling, as they dished out hot cereal from the food cart from the main kitchen, and poured glasses of orange juice and milk.
“Faster!” Ruth Dale said, “Last July we had hopes of getting extra nurses, and here it is September tenth, and the hospital is still short of nurses.”
“Unless you count me as extra,” Cherry said.
She was taking the place of a staff nurse who had gone abroad for a long-planned vacation. On Cherry’s return home to Hilton, Illinois, a week ago, after her summer job as camp nurse, the post at Hilton Hospital was open. When the hospital asked her to fill in, Cherry had jumped at this chance to return to staff nursing.
“It keeps you alert,” she thought. “Keeps you up to date on new methods.” It was stimulating to work every day from seven A.M. to three P.M. with other nurses and the resident and visiting physicians—to talk with other white-uniformed staff from Medical Ward, Children’s Pavilion, the Operating Rooms…. “Why, I never realized how much I missed working in a hospital. I’ll have to come back regularly and be one of the team.”
Mrs. Peters, head nurse for Men’s Orthopedic, looked in. She asked brusquely if they’d seen the night nurse’s report book and whether the diet kitchen had sent up Mr. Pape’s special foods. If Millie Peters sounded a little peppery, it was out of concern for the patients. The two nurses knew that and moved faster.
“I wonder what sort of a shorthanded day we’ll have,” Ruth said.
“You never know,” Cherry commented as she picked up a breakfast tray. “You just never know what’s going to happen in a hospital.”
She darted out to the ward, smiling her very prettiest for the men in beds, casts, and wheel chairs. The sixteen-year-old boy in the wheel chair, Tommy, was undergoing a course of corrective surgery. The young man in the end bed was suffering from inflammation of the joints and could not move. The big man who had developed osteomyelitis following an auto accident—the old man with a broken hip—the long-term spine patient—all had a long fight to get well. Cherry had told her family she wished she could wear a red ribbon in her hair, or have more music on the ward, to brighten up these patients.
In spite of their serious handicaps, this was a cheerful ward. The men joked about “the peculiar shape we’re in,” and smiled back at Cherry as she served the breakfast trays. Some of them had said they felt better just having her around. “You’re so darn healthy, and you’re nice to look at, too, Miss Cherry.” She was tall and slim, with cherry-red cheeks and dark curls and a spirited way of moving.
After breakfast she gave her assigned patients their morning care, then wrote up each man’s chart for the medical doctors’ and surgeons’ visits.
At midmorning Dr. Ray Watson came in. He was in charge of Men’s Orthopedic Ward, and he reminded Cherry of a clumsy, warmhearted grandfather bear.
“Very good,” he boomed as he examined Tommy. “Very nice improvement.” He went down the row of beds, accompanied by the nurses, checking the patients and noisily encouraging each one.
The head nurse glanced at Cherry and her look said: “I’m afraid Dr. Watson is a little rambunctious for some of the sicker ones, but his heart is in the right place.”
When he had completed his rounds, he conferred privately with the three nurses at Mrs. Peters’ desk and wrote out orders for continuing care.
“It’s a lot for the three of you to handle,” Dr. Watson said. “If only we had more nurses! Glad Miss Ames is filling in here. Well, if you should want me, I’m going to look in at Emergency now.”
Dr. Watson thumped away, and the ward settled down for a rest before lunchtime.
About twenty minutes later Cherry was surprised when Mrs. Peters summoned her to the ward telephone. The head nurse seemed surprised, too.
“Miss Ames, Dr. Watson wants you to come down to Emergency and help him with an accident case that’s just been brought in. A fracture, but apparently something special. He’d rather have a nurse from Orthopedic than one of the Emergency nurses—for follow-up, I gather—anyway, the nurses are all busy down there. I guess he thinks of you as our ‘extra’ nurse. Can you safely leave the ward?”
“Yes, Mrs. Peters. I’m all finished with morning routine, if you can spare me for serving lunch.”
“I’ll get a volunteer to do that.” The head nurse spoke into the phone: “All right, Dr. Watson, I’ll send Miss Ames down to you.” The head nurse listened for a moment. “Yes, Doctor, if you feel privacy is a
dvisable, we’ll get the side room ready.” She hung up.
“The side room?” Cherry asked as she started for the corridor and elevator. “What sort of case is it?”
“I don’t know. Dr. Watson sounded rather uncertain himself.”
In Emergency on the street floor, Cherry passed an ambulance attendant wheeling in a badly burned woman and caught a glimpse of doctors and nurses administering oxygen to two workmen in overalls. Cherry found Dr. Ray Watson in one of the partitioned-off cubicles. A nurse had already set up a treatment tray in there for him.
In the cubicle, on one of the high iron beds, was a dazed-looking young man. His leg was broken and in a splint, but what impressed Cherry was his blank, lost expression. She noticed his ragged but clean clothing. What had happened to him?
“Ah, Miss Ames!” Dr. Watson looked anxious. “Glad you’re here. I’ve examined his leg, and given a sedative, but between you and me—” The elderly doctor drew her aside, out of the patient’s hearing. “This boy’s fracture is the least of his troubles. He won’t talk to me or the orderly or the ambulance attendant who brought him in. He’s not in shock, either. No mouth or throat injury. Not deaf. No concussion. He just won’t talk to anybody. Maybe a girl would be gentler with him. See if you can get him to speak.”
“Yes, Doctor. Perhaps he’s too frightened to speak. How did the accident happen?”
“A motorist found him out on Lincoln Highway, lying beside the highway with a broken leg. He called the police, they called our ambulance, and our man put a splint on the leg and brought him in. We don’t know whether a car struck him, or he fell from a car or truck, or what.”