The Corner House Girls on a Houseboat

by Grace Brooks Hill

  CHAPTER XIX

  ON THE LAKE

  Instantly Ruth was out of bed, and while she slipped on her bath robeand while her bare feet sought her slippers under the edge of her bunk,she cried:

  "What is it, Tessie? Ruth is coming! Sister is coming!"

  At once the interior of the _Bluebird_ seemed to pulsate with life. Inthe corridor which ran the length of the craft, and on either side ofwhich the sleeping apartments were laid off, a night light burned.Opening her door Ruth saw Mrs. MacCall peering forth, a flaring candlein her hand.

  "What is it, lass?" asked the sturdy Scotch woman. "I thought I heard awee cry in the night."

  "You did!" exclaimed Ruth. "It was Tess!"

  In quick succession, with kimonas or robes over their sleeping garments,Neale, Mr. Howbridge and Agnes came from their rooms. But from theapartments of Tess and Dot no one came, and ominous quiet reigned.

  "What was it?" asked Mr. Howbridge. "One of you girls screamed. Who wasit?"

  Something gleamed in his hand, and Ruth knew it to be a weapon.

  "It was Tess who cried out!" Ruth answered. "All I could hear wassomething about her being afraid some one would catch her."

  And then again from the room of Tess came a low cry of:

  "Ruthie! Ruthie! Come here!"

  "Yes, dear, I am coming," was the soothing reply. "What is it? Oh, mydear, what has happened?"

  When she opened the door she saw her sister sitting up in bed, a look offear on her face but unharmed. And a quick look in the adjoiningapartment showed Dot to be peacefully slumbering, her "Alice-doll" closeclasped in her arms.

  "What was it, Tessie?" asked Ruth in a whisper, carefully closing Dot'sdoor so as not to awaken her. "What did you see?"

  "I--I don't just remember," was the answer. "I was dreaming that I wasriding on that funny Uncle Josh mule that knows Neale, and then a clownchased me and I fell off and the elephant came after me. I called toyou, and--"

  "Was it all only a dream, dear?" asked Ruth with a smile.

  "No, it wasn't all a dream," said Tess slowly. "A man looked in thewindow at me."

  "What window?" asked Agnes.

  Tess pointed to one of the two small casements in her small apartment.They opened on the bank of the river, and it would have been easy forany one passing along the bank of the stream to have looked into Tess'swindows, or, for that matter, into any of the openings on that side ofthe craft. But the windows, though open on account of the warm night,were protected by heavy screens to keep out mosquitoes and otherinsects.

  "Do you really mean some one opened your window in the night, or did youjust dream that, too?" asked Ruth. "You have very vivid dreamssometimes."

  "I didn't dream about the _man_," insisted Tess. "He really opened thescreen and looked in. See, it's loose now!"

  The screens swung outward on hinges, and there, plainly enough, thescreen of one of the casements in Tess's room was partly open.

  "Perhaps the wind blew it," suggested Agnes, wishing she could believethis.

  Neale stepped over and tested the screen.

  "It seems too stiff to have been blown open by the wind," was thecomment.

  "But of course," Mr. Howbridge suggested, "the screen may not have beentightly closed when Theresa went to bed."

  "Oh, yes it was, sir!" exclaimed Mrs. MacCall positively. "I looked atthem myself. I didn't want any of the mosquitoes to be eatin' mapretties. The screens were tight closed!"

  "Oh dear, I don't like it here!" said Tess, on the verge of tears. "Idon't want tramps looking in my room, and this man was just like atramp."

  The noise of some one moving around on the upper deck of the craftattracted the attention of all.

  "That's Hank!" exclaimed Neale. "I'll go and see if he heard anythingunusual or saw any one. It may be that some fellow was passing along theriver road and was impudent enough to pull open a screen and look in,thinking he might pick up something off a shelf."

  But Hank, who in his curtained-off place had been awakened by theconfusion below him, declared he had seen or heard nothing.

  "I'm a sound sleeper," he said. "Once I get to bed I don't do much elsebut sleep."

  So nothing was to be got out of him.

  And it was difficult to tell whether or not Tess had dreamed about theman, as she had said she dreamed about the elephant and the mule. Nealevolunteered to look on the bank underneath the window for a sign offootprints. He did look, using his flashlight, but discovered nothing.

  "I guess it was all a dream," said Ruth. "Go to sleep, Tess dear. You'llbe all right now."

  "I'm not going to sleep alone," insisted the little girl, her lipsbeginning to quiver.

  "I'll stay with you," offered Ruth, and so it was arranged.

  "It's an awful queer happening," remarked Agnes.

  "Lots of things seem queer on this trip," put in Tess. "Maybe we bettergive up the houseboat trip."

  "You won't say that in the morning," laughed Neale.

  "How do you know that?"

  "Oh, I know," the boy laughed.

  They all went back to their beds, but it was some time before several ofthem resumed their interrupted slumbers. Tess, the innocent cause of itall, fell off to dreamland with Ruth's arm around her in the rathercramped quarters, for the bunks were not intended to accommodate two.But once Tess was breathing deeply and regularly, Ruth slipped back toher own apartment, pausing to whisper to Agnes that Tess seemed allright now.

  Ruth remained awake for some time, her mind busy with many things, andmingled with her confused thoughts were visions of the mule driver, HankDayton, signaling to some tramp confederates in the woods the fact thatall on board the _Bluebird_ were deep in slumber, so that robbery mightbe easily committed.

  "Oh, but I'm foolish to think such things," the Corner House girl toldherself. "Absolutely foolish!"

  And at last she convinced herself of that and went to sleep.

  The next morning Neale and Mr. Howbridge, with Hank to help, made acareful examination of the soft earth on the river bank under Tess'swindow. They saw many footprints, and the stub of a cigarette.

  But the footprints might have been made by themselves when they hadmoored the boat the evening before. As for the cigarette stub, thoughHank smoked, he said he never used cigarettes. A pipe was his favorite,and neither Mr. Howbridge nor Neale smoked.

  "Some one passing in the daytime before we arrived may have flung thestub away," said the lawyer. "I think all we can do is to ascribe thealarm to a dream Tess had."

  The little girl had forgotten much of the occurrence of the night whenquestioned about it next morning. She hardly recalled her dream, but shedid insist that a man had looked in her window.

  "Well, next time we tie up over night we'll do it in or near some cityor village, and not in such a lonely place," decided Mr. Howbridge.

  Neale and Hank made good their promise to repair the motor, and shortlyafter breakfast the craft was in shape to travel on.

  The weather continued fine, and if it had not been for the alarm of thenight before, and the shadow of the robbery hanging over Ruth and Agnes,and Neale's anxiety about his father, the travelers would have been in amost happy mood. The trip was certainly affording them many newexperiences.

  "It's almost as exciting as when we were snowbound," declared Agnes.

  "But I'm glad we don't have to look for two little runaways or lostones," put in Ruth, with a glance at Tess and Dot as they went out toplay on the upper deck.

  It was just before noon, when Ruth was helping Mrs. MacCall prepare thedinner, that the oldest Kenway girl heard a distressing cry from theupper deck where Tess and Dot had been playing all the morning.

  "Tess, stop!" Ruth heard Dot exclaim. "I'm going to tell Ruthie on you!You'll drown her! Oh, Tess!"

  "She can't drown! Haven't I got a string on her?" demanded Tess. "Thisis a new way of giving her a bath. She likes it."

  "Give her to me! Ruthie! Ruthie! Make Tess stop!" pleaded Dot.

 
; "I wonder what the matter is," said Ruth, as she set down the dish shewas holding and hastened to the upper deck.

  There she saw Dot and Tess both leaning over the rail, at rather adangerous angle, and evidently struggling, one to get possession of andthe other to retain, some object Ruth could not see.

  "Be careful! You'll fall in!" Ruth cried.

  At the sound of her voice her sisters turned toward her, and Ruth sawthey each had hold of a cord.

  "What are you doing; fishing?" Ruth asked. "Don't you know Hank said youcouldn't catch fish when the boat was moving unless you trolled withwhat he called a spoon?"

  "We're not fishing!" said Dot.

  "I'm just giving the Alice-doll a bath," explained Tess. "I tied her onthe end of a string and I'm letting her swim in the water. She likesit!"

  "She does not! And you must stop! And you must give her to me! Oh,Ruthie!" cried Dot, trying to pull the cord away from Tess. In aninstant there was a struggle between the two little girls.

  "Children! Children!" admonished Ruth, in perfect amazement at suchbehavior on the part of the gentle and considerate Tess. "I'm surprisedat you! Tess, dear, give Dot her doll. You shouldn't have put her inwater unless Dot allowed you to."

  "Well, but she needed a bath!" insisted Tess. "She was dirty!"

  "I know it, and I was going to give her a bath; but she has a cold and Iwas waiting till she got over it!" explained Dot. "Tess, give me thatstring, and I'll pull my Alice-doll up!" she demanded.

  The struggle was renewed, and Ruth was hastening across the deck to stopit by the force of more authority than mere words, when Neale, who wassteering the craft, called out.

  "There's the big water! We're at Lake Macopic now!"

  Hardly had the echo of his words died away than Dot cried:

  "There! Now look what you did! You let go the string and my Alice-dollis gone!"