Cherry Ames Boxed Set 17-20

by Helen Wells

  “You haven’t met the horses,” Sue Howard pointed out, on one of her before-breakfast visits to Cherry’s cabin. “I guess you haven’t met Mr. Purdy and his wonderful barn, either.”

  “How can you meet a barn?” Cherry teased her.

  “This barn is different. It’s stuffed with all kinds of costumes and props and gorgeous draperies. Mr. Purdy lets us borrow them for our camp shows.”

  Sue explained that Mr. Purdy was a commercial photographer, who lived in a summer cottage nearby, and these intriguing items were things he would not need for a while, or had no space for, at his studio in New York City. Sue thought he also stored old negatives, out-of-use cameras, bulbs, and such things in his barn.

  “Well, why haven’t I met this fascinating character?” Cherry demanded.

  “Because he just got here yesterday, from the city,” Sue said. “Ding and Mary Alice and I saw him yesterday, opening his cottage for the summer. I guess it’s Mr. Purdy’s vacation. He said hello to us and invited everybody over to eat apples off his trees. He’s a funny little man. I mean, he’s lots of fun.”

  Sue’s report was accurate. Cherry met Mr. Purdy that afternoon, while taking a wildflower-picking stroll with Lil Baker and the inmates of the Tumble Inn cabin, the Dingdong Belles, and the Mountaineers—all Intermediates. It was fortunate that Cherry had worn a sturdy cotton blouse and skirt and not her white uniform, for all of them were grass-stained and muddy, and bedecked with daisy wreaths on their heads.

  “We must be a sight to behold,” Lil remarked to Cherry as they straggled back toward camp.

  “Hold it!” a squeaky voice commanded. A little man trotted toward them. “A close-up, please, ladies!”

  He was a funny little man, with a beret perched on his nearly bald head, garish sports clothes, and rope-soled sandals on his feet. He seemed to be enchanted with the flower maidens, and nearly fell off a jutting rock trying to snap them at “an interesting angle.”

  “Enough, enough!” Lil Baker protested. “How are you, Mr. Purdy? It’s nice to see you again this summer.”

  He let his camera swing from its strap around his neck, and scrambled down to them, beaming.

  “Miss Lilian! Are these grown-up young ladies the same children I saw last summer? Hello, twins”—he nodded to the redheaded Smiths—”and I remember Ding and Sue, and—and all of you, naturally.”

  The girls giggled. Katy stepped forward as if, being so pretty, she were eager for the photographer to notice her. Mr. Purdy went on chatting with them all impartially.

  “Are you going to stage Macbeth this summer, or is it the Follies? Did you receive the snapshots I mailed you last winter?”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Purdy, and Uncle Bob used a lot of them in the camp catalogue,” Sue said.

  “I can act,” said Katy, but she was drowned out.

  “Will you lend us costumes and props again this summer, Mr. Purdy? Will you come to see us?”

  The little man said “Yes, yes, yes!” to everything. Lil Baker raised her voice to introduce Cherry.

  “A new nurse—well, that is fine,” said Mr. Purdy, shaking hands with her. “So you are new here. Really I am not such an old settler, either. I’ve had my cottage only two years.”

  All of them strolled down the road, in the direction of camp, to see his place. It was the nearest of all the neighbors’ houses to Blue Water. Cherry found it smaller and shabbier than she had expected, judging by Mr. Purdy’s rather high-flown manner. It was just a modest two-room cottage, backed by a ramshackle barn and some apple trees.

  “Your house needs a coat of paint, Mr. Purdy,” said matter-of-fact Mary Alice.

  “Yes, yes, but I’m not sure it would be worth the trouble,” he said airily. “Or the expense.”

  “Mr. Purdy,” said Sue, “we have a bet about your first name. None of us know what it is.”

  “Now tell me, Sue, do you like your name? … Not very well? … Well, I don’t care much for mine,” the little man said. “It’s Paul. And my middle name—may my dear mother be forgiven—is Ethelbert.”

  The girls found that fairly awful. Then Sue exclaimed, “But your three initials spell Pep! That’s fun.”

  “Exactly. Very quick of you. And do you know, I use the name Pep as my trade name? That’s what I sign on my photographs. In the city many of my friends call me Pep or Peppy.”

  Cherry thought the name suited him. Especially when he stood on tiptoe and vigorously shook an apple tree, so that they could carry refreshments back to camp with them.

  The girls were serious when they asked Mr. Purdy for costumes and props, Cherry learned. Sounds floated up to the infirmary from the Playhouse—sounds of home-grown vaudeville acts in rehearsal. Sue confided to her that one skit was called “Fussy Flossie at Blue Water,” and could Cherry guess who was meant?

  “I hope that you’re not being unkind to Katy,” Cherry said.

  “It’s Katy who’s being unkind to—to—Well, our whole cabin can hardly believe it! She begged to adopt a kitten from that nice Mr. and Mrs. Clemence, who own the Model Farm. A gray kitten with a dear little face. Then Katy brought the poor little thing home and forgot to feed it regularly. Didn’t even bring it fresh water!” Sue said indignantly. “Said that it could catch Miss Leona’s mouse. And it’s only a baby, still wobbly on its paws. All the rest of our cabin is taking care of the kitten. Katy says she forgets. Forgets! It sleeps on my cot now.”

  Cherry suggested that Katy’s lack of any sense of responsibility was not her fault—it was the way she had been brought up.

  “But Katy will have to learn, or she’ll be in trouble,” Cherry said. “Why, the Midgets do better than that.”

  The six-, seven-, and eight-year-olds were busy with a project of raising baby ducklings. A dozen yellow balls of fluff floated at the Midgets’ share of the waterfront and swam tamely in to shore to eat grain out of outstretched palms.

  The camp was alive with numerous projects. Indirectly Cherry learned of some of them. Via Sally Trent’s skinned knees, she heard about the older girls’ trip to one of the lake coves, in search of specimens for their plant collection. From three girls’ upset stomachs, the Lowells and Cherry found out about Sophie’s good-natured permission to make fudge the previous afternoon when it rained. A scorched thumb was testimony of what the girls were doing at the woodcraft center, under Jean Wheeler’s supervision. This especially interested Cherry, and she went down the hill to see.

  The point was, the girls were preparing themselves for overnight hiking trips. The other side of the mountains called to them, and the flowery opposite shore of Long Lake seemed to beckon. Cherry found girls of various ages working seriously with saplings, cut in the forest, fashioning them into lean-to shelters and crude dish racks. She watched Jean Wheeler show one group how to use a fireplace “—sometimes we’ll use the camp shelters and fireplaces along the way—” and showed samples of what kind of woods were best for cooking.

  “Cherry, you look wistful.” Jean Wheeler laughed at her.

  “If you’d have me, I’d love to come along sometime on an overnight hike,” Cherry said.

  “You’re cordially invited, Nurse, provided you can pass tests for outdoor skills. Every girl has to, before she starts out.”

  “I’m rusty,” Cherry admitted. ‘“Mind if I hang around and brush up?”

  She made it her business to work with Katy, whose delicate fingers were unused to bending a sapling.

  “I think this is silly,” Katy said under her breath.

  “Silly to know how to take care of yourself? Never mind a scraped finger. You really have a knack with wood, I think,” Cherry encouraged her.

  The girl gave Cherry a look of surprise and hope. “I thought you told me in the infirmary the other day that I’m spoiled. You sort of hinted it.”

  “No one has to stay spoiled and helpless,” Cherry said cheerfully. She held two pieces of wood in place for Katy to join. “How’s your kitten?”

  “Oh, I
guess she’s Sue Howard’s kitten now.”

  Katy Osborn had much to learn. Cherry hoped she would not insist on learning the hard way. She had an inkling that Katy, defiant or not, was not happy about not fitting in and would like to change.

  “It isn’t easy to discover one’s own good and bad points,” Cherry remarked to Katy on the morning a crowd of them drove over to the Model Farm. “Look at me, I know I wouldn’t know what to say to a pig or a calf. Do you think I can learn?”

  Katy smiled faintly. “I s’pose it depends on whether the pig and calf cooperate.”

  “Good for you,” Cherry thought. “At least you’ve found out that there is such a thing as cooperation.”

  The Model Farm was well equipped. Elderly Mr. and Mrs. Clemence, who operated it as a hobby with the help of several men, left a place open on the farm schedule every summer for the children to take part. The Clemences always had plenty of time to show a girl—or a boy, on the boys’ days—how to look after the animals or grow a garden. Cherry’s eyes opened wide at the campers’ skill. No one hurried, enjoying the warm sun and the warm, fragrant earth.

  Bea’s Beehive, little as they were, took care of a pen of chickens, scattering corn, while other little girls carefully gathered the eggs. Sue’s cabin and rival cabins plunged with hoes and rakes into the truck garden, which had a thriving vegetable patch for each group of girls. Cherry pitched in, too, mostly to give Katy a hand and engage her interest.

  Aunt Bet had said, “See what you can do with her, Cherry. Lil can’t, and I can’t do much.” Katy was behaving fairly well, so Cherry stole away for a few minutes to see the older girls’ project. The Seniors cultivated a large flower garden, the most striking Cherry had ever seen, with variegated blooms massed in whites, pinks, and blues. The all-blue garden with its delphinium, hydrangea, larkspur, and bachelor buttons was Cherry’s favorite.

  “It’s a favorite New England garden,” old Mrs. Clemence told her. “This July sun is helping the flowers so much, isn’t it? But you look puzzled, my dear?”

  “I was wondering, Mrs. Clemence,” said Cherry, “whether you could tell me the exact species or horticultural names of the blue flowers. My mother is an enthusiastic gardener, she’d love to know about good, healthy strains.”

  “Certainly. We have a little greenhouse. If you want to walk over there, you’ll find shelves of seed envelopes. Those will give you the information you want, I’m sure. They’re for sale, if you care to choose any.”

  Cherry thanked Mrs. Clemence and walked over to the greenhouse, which stood by itself. Entering, she took a deep breath of its moist, scented air. Right at the door she found the shelves with the seed envelopes and a seed catalogue. But first, she could not resist having a look down the greenhouse’s long green aisle.

  A young man was watering some of the plants. Didn’t she recognize that yellow thatch of hair? Wasn’t that figure, rather short and of wiry build, Mac Cook? Then he turned around and Cherry saw the mustache and his startled face.

  “Hello, Mr. Cook,” she said. “I certainly am surprised to see you here.”

  He wet his lips and tried to smile. “I guess it doesn’t square with asking you to keep quiet about me being in the neighborhood, does it?” He looked unhappy. “Well, by now I’ve said hello to most of the neighbors. Remember I told you about that?”

  “So you’re working here now,” Cherry said. “I rather thought you had a job or business or farm elsewhere.”

  Mac hesitated. “Well, I’m between jobs, so to speak. This isn’t my regular work. You know how it is, when you need money and take a temporary job—gosh, I’m not saying what I mean.” He smiled at Cherry, for the first time, as if asking for understanding. “Summer jobs—it’s good to work around a farm, outdoors. I’ve been bottled up all winter. It’s a good change to live and work at the Clemences’ farm.”

  “You live here now, too?” Cherry asked curiously.

  “Why—why, sure. Why shouldn’t I move to where I’m working?”

  “Except,” Cherry thought, “that the Eplers’ place is nearby, and you said you were here to visit them.”

  “I was sort of in Vernie’s way,” Mac said, as if sensitive to Cherry’s thoughts. “Oh, they invited me to stay, but I didn’t want to wear out my welcome, so I moved.”

  Mac said he had come over to the Model Farm the day before yesterday, Wednesday, after asking Fred Epler where he could get a job and lodging. And here he was.

  Cherry didn’t know just what to think of this story, or of Mac Cook himself. Was he one of those men who drift aimlessly from job to job, from town to town? Farm owners did hire extra hands who came and went with the summer. Yet Mac Cook did not look like a wanderer. Cherry sensed something purposeful in him. He was likable, all right—nice-looking, self-respecting and—well, the sort of person you’d expect would be lighthearted, full of jokes and laughter. It baffled Cherry that he seemed tense and watchful.

  In fact, Mac was listening hard to voices outside, voices approaching the greenhouse.

  “Who’s that coming, Miss Cherry?”

  “It sounds like Mr. Clemence and another man. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing, nothing.”

  Cherry went to the door of the greenhouse, aware that Mac was watching from the end of the aisle.

  “Hello, Miss Ames.” The photographer doffed his beret to her. “We meet again. How are you today?”

  Cherry murmured a reply, and was introduced to Mr. Clemence. She turned around to see why Mac Cook was so quiet. He had disappeared. The trowel and box of fertilizer he had been working with were gone, too.

  Old Mr. Clemence did not notice; he was busy with Mr. Purdy. The photographer wished to buy some perennials or bushes, to plant around his cottage.

  “Nothing expensive, please. What would you recommend?”

  Mr. Clemence, as white-haired and gentle as his wife, showed Purdy the catalogue for perennials. The two men discussed rhododendron versus mountain laurel for a few minutes. Where had Mac gone to, and why? Cherry waited, pretending to admire rows of tender plants.

  “Now if you want to select bushes, Mr. Purdy,” said the old man, “I’ll show you what we grow over in the nursery. If you’ll come along, sir—”

  It was several minutes after they left before Mac Cook reappeared from another aisle, with trowel and box under his arm, and carrying a hose in his free hand.

  “Hi,” said Cherry. “Are you playing hide-and-seek?”

  “You still here?” Mac Cook was flustered. “You mean me, playing hide-and-seek? Why, I went to find a hose and special nozzle.”

  “I’m not trying to quiz you,” Cherry said pleasantly. “If you want to avoid Paul Purdy, that’s up to you.”

  “I’m not avoiding—Who? What name did you say?”

  Cherry stared at him. “Mr. Purdy, the photographer. You seemed to know him.”

  “Er—I did know a photographer, but not by that name.”

  “This one’s name is Paul Ethelbert Purdy. Quite a name.”

  “His initials spell Pep,” Mac mused.

  “That’s right. He uses Pep as his trade name, or professional name.”

  Mac Cook screwed the spray nozzle onto the hose, peering at it and adjusting it until it was just right.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, does the photographer live around here?”

  That was no secret. Cherry told him about Purdy’s cottage, close to Camp Blue Water. Mac Cook listened quietly. Then he asked:

  “When did Pep—Mr. Purdy—come to his cottage?”

  “Early this week. You certainly are asking a lot of questions, Mr. Cook.”

  “Sorry. Just curious. Why don’t you call me Mac?”

  “Is that because you’re going to ask me for a favor again?”

  Mac Cook grinned. “Well, if you don’t mention seeing me to Purdy, I’d be just as well satisfied.”

  The tone of voice was casual, but Cherry saw his fingers tremble.

  “I didn’t int
end to go and tell him. But why? And won’t he find out from someone else?”

  Mac Cook shrugged. The moment of tension had passed. Cherry saw his rate of breathing change, the slow deep breaths of relief.

  Mac Cook genially refused to say another word about the photographer. He offered Cherry a rose. She accepted it, and let their odd conversation end there, in mid-air.

  Cherry went back to the seed shelf and started to choose some packets for her mother, but her mind kept going back to Mac, and the more she thought about the incident, the more puzzled she grew. Had Mac ducked when Purdy came in, or had he really gone for the hose? And why, in either case, had he bothered to carry the trowel and box back and forth?

  “On the other hand I may be imagining things,” Cherry half decided. “Mac moved in order to get a job. He may not have dodged Purdy at all.”

  “Or maybe it’s not imagination,” cautioned another part of her mind. What disturbed her most was, why had Mac’s fingers shaken? Why had Mac been so disturbed?

  With her hands full of seed packets, Cherry started out to find Mrs. Clemence, and met her coming in.

  “I’d like to buy these, Mrs. Clemence,” she said, “to send to my mother.”

  “I’m sure she’ll enjoy them,” the little old lady replied. “But here, dear, let me wrap them in a package for you. You’ll be dropping them all over, carrying them loose like that.”

  She reached for a pile of old newspapers such as country florists keep on hand for wrapping plants and cut flowers. As she pulled the sheet toward her, Cherry’s eye was caught by a headline on the page beneath.

  NEW CLUE IN NEW YORK LOAN COMPANY ROBBERY

  It was the article she had read on the train.

  Instantly, certain facts flashed through her mind: The suspected thief had gone to Pennsylvania; he was twenty-eight years old; he was rather short and of medium build.

  Instantly also, she thought of Mac: He was in Pennsylvania; he could be about twenty-eight; he was rather short and of medium build! He had asked her not to mention his presence to anyone. His hands had trembled as though in agitation. He had disappeared when Mr. Purdy came in.