Four Girls and a Compact Part 3

"But, Emmeline Camp, what are you going to do with her all that time?"

The second voice was a little shrill.

"s.h.!.+ I'm goin' to doctor her up, just as if she was the little girl the Lord never gave me. I've always known what I'd do if my little girl broke anything--There! you'll have to excuse me, Mrs. Williams, while I take this cup o'tea in."

It is odd how many little confidences can be exchanged in the time of cooling and drinking a cup of tea. The caller had gone away, and the old woman and the girl were left alone. Little by little the story of the B-Hive and the quest for an Eldorado came out. Emmeline Camp sat and nodded, and clandestinely wiped her eyes.

"I see--I see, deary! Now, don't you talk any more and get faint again.

I'll talk. You no need to worry about anything in the world--not yet!

When it's time to commence, I'll tell you. How does your foot feel now?

Dear, dear! When I was fussing over it, it seemed just as if it was my little Amelia's foot! I've always known what I'd do if she sprained hers, and so I did it to yours, deary!"

"Is Amelia your daughter?"

The old face wavered between a smile and tears. "Yes," she nodded, "but she warn't ever born. It's a kind of a secret between me and the Lord.

He knows I've made believe Amelia. I've always been kind of lonesome, an' she's been a sight of company to me. She's been a good daughter, Amelia has!" Now it was a smile. "We've set an' sewed patchwork together, ever since she grew up. When she was little--there, deary, hear me run on! But you remind me so much of Amelia. You can laugh just as much as you want to at me runnin' on like this about a little girl that warn't ever born--mebbe laughin' will help your foot."

She took up the empty cup and went away, but she came back and stood a minute in the doorway.

"There's this about it," she laughed, in a tender, little way, "if she warn't ever born, she won't ever die. I sha'n't lose Amelia!"

To the three girls waiting at the B-Hive came a letter. They read it, three heads in a bunch:

"Eldorado, June 26.

"Come whenever you want to. Directions enclosed."

CHAPTER III.

There was a postscript. It was like T.O. to put the most of the letter into the postscript.

"P.S.--Never call me the Talentless One again" (as if they ever had!), "when I came straight to the Eldorado--tumbled right into it. I've decided to stay here until you come--please tell my subst.i.tute so. I know she'll be so glad she'll throw up her hat. Bring your sheets and pillow-cases. Come by way of the X. & Y. R.R. to a place called Placid Pond."

The three readers, bunched together over the letter, uttered a cry of delight. "Placid Pond!"--of all the dear, delightful, placid names! The very look of it on paper was restful; it _sounded_ restful when you said it over and over--"Placid Pond. Placid Pond. Placid Pond."

"Oh, she's a dear--she's an _artist!_" cried Laura Ann, who measured all things by their relations.h.i.+p to art. This was an own cousin!

"Read on--somebody hold the letter still!" Billy cried excitedly. And they read on: "Take the only road there is to take, and keep on to a house that's painted green. It will be Emmeline's house, though they might have named her Sophia, she says, by accident. But you will be glad she is Emmeline. She has a beautiful daughter that never was born and never will die--oh, girls, come as quick as ever you can!"

Yours, "The Talented One."

"P.S. No. 2.--Don't climb any stone walls. The stones are not stuck on."

For a tiny s.p.a.ce the three girls looked at each other in silence. The letter in Loraine's hand was a masterpiece, full of enticing mysteries that beckoned to them to come and find the "answers." What kind of an Eldorado was this that was called Placid Pond, and was full of mysteries? How could they wait! They must pack up and go at once!

"'Talented One,' indeed!--she's a genius! See how she's left us to guess things, instead of explaining them all out in a nice, tame way--oh, _girls_"--Laura Ann's eyes shone--"won't we have the greatest time!"

"What I want to know is, who is Emmeline--"

"Yes, who is Emmeline?"

"And who _can_ her daughter _be_? She sounds so lovely and ghostly!"

"Everything sounds lovely and ghostly. When can we go, girls?" This from practical Loraine. "_I_ can't till after the Fourth."

"Nor I," groaned Billy, dolefully.

"I could, but I shall not--I shall wait for you two," Laura Ann said quietly.

Loraine turned upon her. "You needn't," she said, "now that you've signed the compact--you can do whatever you _want_ to now, you know. Needn't think of anybody but yourself."

"The privilege of being selfish doesn't begin till we get to Eldorado,"

laughed Laura Ann. "You'll see what I do then!"

It was arranged that they should start on the fifth of July. "With our sheets and pillow-cases," appended Billy. No one thought of writing to T.O. for further particulars. No one wanted further particulars. The uncertainly and mystery that enveloped Eldorado was its greatest charm.

They speculated, to be sure, at odd moments, as to the ident.i.ty of the person who might have been Sophia but was Emmeline, and they wrestled a little with the hidden meaning of Postscript Number Two. Why were they especially bidden not to climb stone walls? And _why_ was the Talented One "staying over" till they came?

"Why? Why? Why?" chanted Billy, "but don't anybody dare to guess why!

Who wants to know!"

"Not me!" echoed ungrammatically Laura Ann.

While they waited and speculated mildly, and packed and repacked their things, T.O. lay on the bed in Emmeline Camp's little bedroom and winced with pain whenever she moved her wounded foot. But she was very happy.

"Peace is in my soul, if not my _sole!_" she thought, a slave still to the punning habit. She had never been so peaceful in her life. The little old woman who had befriended her bustled happily in and out of the little bedroom. She bathed and rubbed the swollen ankle, and smiled and chattered to the girl at the other end of it. Her "lineaments" were working a cure, surely.

It had all been decided upon. The B-Hive was to be transplanted for the summer to the little, green-painted house trailed over with morning-glory vines and roses. Emmeline Camp had wanted, she said, for forty years, to go upon a long journey, to visit her brother. Here was her chance. The small sum she had at last consented to be paid for the use of her little house would pay her traveling expenses one way, at least, and John would be glad enough, she said, to pay her fare home, to get rid of her! Only she was quite able to pay it herself.

"I've kind of hankered to go to see John all these years. Forty years is quite a spell to hanker, isn't it? But I never felt like leaving the house behind, and I couldn't take it along very conveniently, so I stayed to home. And then--my dear, you can laugh as well as not, but I didn't like to leave Amelia."

"But you might have taken her with--"

"No," seriously, "I couldn't 've taken Amelia. I think, deary, it might 've killed her; she's part of the little house and the morning-glories and roses. I'd have had to leave Amelia if I'd gone, and it didn't seem right."

"But now--"

"Now," the little, old woman laughed in her odd, tender way that "went with" Amelia, "now she'll have plenty of young company--all o' you here with her. I shall make believe she's coming and going with you, and it'll be a sight of comfort. Yes, deary, I guess this is going to be my chance to visit John."

"And our chance to have a summer in the country," completed the Talented One. "Oh, I think you are--_dear_! Whatever will the other girls say when I tell them about you!"

One day T.O. remembered the blue pump. She gazed out of the window at the brown one in the little yard. "Who would have thought," she sighed, "that I could be so happy without a blue pump!"

"What's that, deary?" The little, old woman was sewing patchwork near by.