by Helen Wells
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 intend 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.
“Could he,”—Cherry’s thoughts clamored—“could he be the thief?”
CHAPTER IV
A Dance and a Scare
EARLY THAT SATURDAY EVENING THE GIRLS OF CAMP BLUE Water welcomed the boys of Thunder Cliff to the summer’s first square dance. Everybody was scrubbed till he or she shone. Reed Champion drove in with a truckload of the smallest boys.
It was still daylight at seven o’clock, with long tree shadows stretching across the camp. The Mess Hall, which had been cleared for the Midgets’ square dance, echoed merrily with music from the phonograph and many pairs of scuffling feet.
In the Playhouse, where Cherry helped the counselors serve lemonade and cookies at the refreshment table, the older campers danced and bowed to each other to the accompaniment of two fiddles. The cries of old Tom Hawkins, the local “caller,” sent them all whirling.
“Cha-a-ange partners! Choose your lady—” Everyone scrambled. “Doce
y-do to the right! Docey-do to the left! Swing your partner, and—a—Fiddle louder there, boys!”
Cherry admired the youngsters’ ease in these complicated steps and figures. Katy Osborn flew by, one of the best dancers, light-footed and in a colorful peasant skirt and blouse. Sue Howard was dancing and arguing with a boy of her own age and height, who wore steel-rimmed glasses and looked like a future scientist, even while bobbing around.
Sue pulled him out of the dancing circle, over to meet Cherry.
“Miss Cherry, this is D. V. Howard, my cousin and oldest friend. Here she is, D. V., the one I told you about.”
“How do you do, D. V.?” said Cherry. “I hope Sue told you something favorable about me.”
D. V. shook hands and looked Cherry firmly in the eye. “Sue says you’re but good. You know how inaccurately she talks—that means she likes you. Have you gone on an overnight hike yet?”
Cherry was a little startled at D. V.’s bluntness—rather like Sue’s. “Not yet. But I hope to.”
“Well, we boys are building a new shelter along the old lakefront trail. You watch for it. It’ll be solid enough for a person to live in all summer if he wanted, too. We built several shelters, other summers.”
“I’ll look for them,” Cherry promised. “What was the odd name of an island you told me about, Sue? The place that’s out of bounds.”
“Tall Man’s Island,” Sue said. “There’s all sorts of mysterious stories about it.”
D. V. scoffed. “Nothing over there but snakes and swamps. That’s why it’s dangerous,” he declared. “Say, don’t you hear a game starting? You had enough dancing, Sue?”
Sue said no, but her eyes lighted up with interest. Jean Wheeler was organizing a game of softball outdoors.
“Please excuse us, Miss Cherry, while there’s still daylight to play by?”
The square dance continued, and Cherry stuck by her post at the lemonade table. Several girls and their partners came over to speak to her, and she danced a few rounds with Dr. Lowell and Uncle Bob. At one point she had Reed Champion for a partner.
He hunted her up between dances, when everyone was taking time out to catch his breath and admire the moonrise.
“Care to come outdoors, Cherry? There’s a good breeze off the lake. Always cool up here in the mountains, in the evenings. How are you getting on?”
“I’m having as fine a time as the campers, thanks. And I’ve enjoyed meeting a number of Thunder Cliff boys this evening.”
Reed chuckled. “They’re behaving so politely this evening that I don’t recognize them.”
Reed and Cherry talked about the camps, and about the surrounding countryside. Cherry asked whether D. V.’s description of Tall Man’s Island, or Sue’s hints, was truer.
“I guess the truth falls somewhere in between,” Reed said. “Are you interested in seeing the island? I’ve been over a couple of times. It’s picturesque, all right.” He thought, then said, “If the counselors of both camps can get enough free time—it’s a long trip back and forth to the island—we could paddle over and have a picnic supper. Then we’d have moonlight to come home. A big party of us.”
“Sounds nice,” Cherry said. “What are you looking so amused about?”
“We did all go over, a few summers ago, with Bob and Bet Wright acting as chaperones. That’s the time when Rob and Jan Lowell got engaged. Moonlight on the lake, and stuff. I was just thinking”—Reed smiled broadly at her—”that it’d be only fair to make Rob and Jan be the chaperones the next time.”
“You’d probably make them feel ninety years old.”
“Well, isn’t it only poetic justice?”
Reed was so friendly and so easy to talk to that Cherry wondered whether she might ask him another question. For Mac Cook’s strange behavior had stayed in her mind. She asked Reed whether he knew Mac Cook.
“The new young fellow? Yes, I met him at the Model Farm.”
“What do you think of him?”
“Seems all right. The Clemences wouldn’t hire him if they didn’t think so, too.”
Cherry decided to say nothing further about Mac right now.
Reed had to see Uncle Bob at the Main House, and Cherry drifted in to the Midgets’ dance, to see whether she could lend a hand there. The guests were mostly yawning. Bea White was rounding up the Midgets, to tuck them into bed. She smiled her gentle smile as Cherry picked up one little girl who had fallen asleep in the middle of eating a cookie.
“I saw you and Reed together,” Bea whispered above the Midgets’ heads. “Is this going to be a romance?”
“Why, we’re hardly acquainted, Bea. You can’t tease me yet.”
“Watch out for the moonlight.”
That was the second time this evening she had been cautioned about the moonlight. Cherry mused about that after the dance was over, and Blue Water was quiet once more. Well, Reed was very pleasant and the summer was just beginning. On the other hand, Reed was exceedingly busy heading up the boys’ camp. Beyond that, she refused to think about the possibility of a romance, moonlight or not.
Two days afterward, Cherry had a bad scare. Dr. Lowell was away getting some extra supplies, expecting to be back by noon. Janet Lowell was busy down at Firefly cabin; one of the children had severely twisted her ankle and Jan did not want her to walk on it. Cherry was in charge of the infirmary when a counselor brought in Sally, an Intermediate of twelve, still in her pajamas and slippers. Sally’s heavy eyes and flushed face clearly said illness.
“Sally woke up with a headache and sore throat,” her worried counselor told Cherry.
“And my stomach feels sick,” Sally complained.
“Well, we’ll make you comfortable in bed,” Cherry said, “and have you feeling well again in no time.”
The counselor, Amy Clark, looked questioningly at Cherry when she helped Sally into the cot in the examining room, instead of putting her into the four-cot ward.
“Isolation?” her lips formed the word soundlessly.
“Private room,” Cherry said cheerfully. That was to encourage Sally. It was too soon to know whether this was a communicable disease or not. At this stage the symptons could point to any one of a number of illnesses.
“Let’s take your temperature, Sally. That should tell us something interesting,” Cherry said.
It did. The thermometer read 100.4 degrees.
Cherry cleaned the thermometer, and washed her hands.
She motioned to the counselor to follow her into the clinic room. Out of Sally’s hearing, Cherry asked whether any of the other girls in Sally’s cabin felt ill, what Sally had been eating, whether she had caught cold.
Amy Clark answered that the rest of the girls felt all right—so far—and that Sally had been in good condition until this morning.
“Is there anything I can do here, Cherry? If not, I’d better go to my basket-weaving class. They’re waiting for me.”
“Yes, go right ahead. But will you send someone to tell Jan Lowell that as soon as she has strapped that ankle, I’d like her to come here?”
Jan did not come for quite a while. While she kept up a cheerful front for Sally, and put a cool compress on her heated forehead, Cherry thought busily. If this turned out to be something contagious not only every girl in Sally’s cabin but every girl in camp would have to be carefully checked over and watched. Considering that the boys’ camp had come visiting on Saturday night, the same precautions would have to be taken for the boys. Of course, even if Sally had influenza, as Cherry half suspected, that would not necessarily mean the others would catch it. Sally could be kept in quarantine or, safer still, sent to the hospital.
Jan came in. She listened to Cherry’s brief report and looked at the TPR. Then she peeked into Sally’s private room.
“Asleep,” Jan whispered.
She watched Cherry get out a pail for Sally’s soiled dishes, disinfectant, paper towels, a gown, and a separate hand-washing unit—just in case quarantine might be necessary.
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br /> “I wish Rob were here,” Jan said. “I don’t think we should wait for him though, so I believe I’ll telephone Dr. Edwards at Martinsville and ask if he can come right over.”
The physician drove over at once. Aunt Bet, also notified by phone, came up the hill to hear what Dr. Edwards would say. The two nurses came out on the porch and shooed her away.
“We don’t want you getting this, if it proves to be contagious,” Jan said. “We’ll keep you informed. Please don’t worry.”
“How can I not worry!” Aunt Bet said, but she went obediently back down the slope and leaned against a tree. “Here I am and here I stay,” she said, half to herself. “I’ll catch Dr. Edwards on his way out.”
Dr. Edwards, assisted by Cherry, gave Sally a quick, thorough examination. Her temperature had gone down a little.
“Keep her in bed, keep checking her temperature. Liquids only,” the doctor said. “We can’t be sure yet. Either Rob or I should see her a little later in the day.”
Dr. Edwards left after the nurses promised to call him a second time if necessary.
Cherry went to the Mess Hall at noon and brought back fresh fruit juice for Sally, and sandwiches for Jan and herself. Jan, meantime, bathed Sally’s hands and face, and asked questions. Sally admitted to sampling everybody’s packages from home, and having played games in a damp bathing suit, although her counselor had told her to change into dry clothes. The two nurses looked at each other with a cautious hope.
“Could be grippe,” Jan said, out of Sally’s hearing.
Dr. Lowell arrived at half-past one, dusty and mildly annoyed.
“Had a flat tire,” he explained. He listened to the nurses’ report. “Any discharges from her throat? Is she sneezing?”
Sally’s nose was running, but that was all so far. Dr. Lowell looked her over.
“My croaking sounds better now,” Sally said with a grin.
Jan kept watch through the afternoon. Sally had all the air, liquids, and sleep that one girl could manage. When she woke up, Jan asked where she had been last Saturday, on Friday, and on Thursday, for if she had been exposed to some disease it might take three or four days for the infection to develop.
