Read Ebook: Eight Girls and a Dog by Wells Carolyn

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Ebook has 1250 lines and 45693 words, and 25 pages

"That means yes, of course," said Betty; "his French accent is so perfect, even I can understand it. Well, good-by, Timmy; I'll see you later. Can you take him on the train, Marjorie?"

"No; he'll have to ride in the baggage-car. But I've explained it all to him, and he doesn't mind; and he'll keep an eye on our trunks and wheels."

Timmy Loo barked again and blinked his eyes acquiescently, and Betty gave him a final pat on his funny little nose and ran away home.

"I must go, too," said Marguerite, rising as she spoke and picking a full-blown rose from the trellis above her head.

A careless observer probably would have called Marguerite the prettiest of all the Cooking Club girls. She was small, slender, and graceful, with a rose-leaf complexion and sea-blue eyes, and a glory of golden hair that the girls called her halo. She was visionary and romantic, and her special chum was Nan Kellogg, who was lounging in the hammock with her hands clasped behind her head and her eyes closed. Nan was a dark-haired, olive-skinned Southern girl, with a poetic temperament and a secret ambition to write verse.

"Come, girl," said Marguerite, dropping rose-petals, one by one, on Nan's nose. "What are you dreaming of?"

"Do," said Marjorie; "but don't write them while we're down at Long Beach. What shall we do if you go off on a poetic flight when it's your turn to boil the potatoes?"

"Oh, I sha'n't boil potatoes; they're too prosaic. Omelet souffl? is the very plainest thing I shall ever cook."

Grandma Bond groaned.

"Oh, yes, grandma; and your bundle of old linen and salve for burns, and your arnica-flowers for bruises, and your sticking-plaster for cuts, and your toothache drops, and your Balsam Balm. Oh, the hospital department will give you a vote of thanks, engrossed and framed. Now go on home, Nan and Daisy; I know you'll miss the train."

"Yes, we must go. Good-by, grandma." For all the girls insisted on sharing Marjorie's grandma, and the dear old lady's heart was big enough for them all. "Good-by, grandma; give us a parting word."

Grandma's eyes twinkled as she replied: "Well, I advise you to remember that too many broths spoil the cook."

Six merry laughs greeted this speech, and Nan replied: "Indeed they do, and I won't allow more than three kinds of soup at any one meal. Now I'm off, Marjorie; I'll meet you at the train--and oh, Duchess, I 'most forgot to ask you. Brother Jack says, can he and Ted come down and spend a day with us?"

"No, indeed!" cried Marjorie. "We are not going to allow a boy in sight all the time we are there. Tell them we're sorry to refuse, but we're not running a co-educational institution, and only girls need apply."

"I did tell him that, but he begged me to ask you again--"

"No," said Marjorie, laughing but positive; "tell him we turn a deaf ear--I mean sixteen deaf ears--to his entreaties, and harden our eight hearts to his appeal. There is no use, girls; if the boys come down they'll spoil everything; don't you think so?"

Then she and Nan went home, and Jessie Carroll said: "We'll have plenty of candy, Marjorie, for father will send it down whenever I want him to."

"Oh, Jessie, that will be fine! It will be just like boarding-school when the boxes come from home," said Hester Laverack, who had returned from Helen and her refractory tea-things. Hester was an English girl who had only been in America about a year, and was not yet quite accustomed to the rollicking ways of the rest of the club. "I think," she went on slowly, "I may take my camera down, if you like; it'll be rather good fun to take pictures of us all."

"Yes, indeed; you must take your camera," said Marjorie. "What larks! We'll have jolly pictures. And if Helen takes her banjo we can sing songs and have concerts, and--oh, dear, the time won't be half long enough!"

"Send me up a picture of the group when you've spoiled your dinner in the cooking, and haven't anything to eat," said grandma, slyly.

"Now, Grandma Cassandra, you mustn't talk like that," said Marjorie; "but you can't dampen our spirits with your dire prognostications; we have too much confidence in our own capabilities. Skip along, girls; I'm going to get ready now, and we'll all meet at the station."

The crowd scattered, and Millicent Payne said: "Well, I'm the last little Injun, and I reckon I'll go too, and then there'll be none."

Millicent Payne was Marjorie's dearest friend and chum, and lived next door; at least, she was supposed to, but she almost lived at the Bonds'. Millicent was a delightful girl to know; she was so clever and bright, and took such an interest in anything that interested anybody else--such a kind, whole-hearted interest, that was neither curious nor critical. And she had such funny little tricks of imagination. If, for any reason, her surroundings were not quite what she wished they were, she immediately created for herself an environment that suited her better, and, quite oblivious of facts, lived and moved among her fancies. She was devoted to stories and fairy-tales, and would repeat them in an irresistibly funny manner, becoming at times so imbued with the spirit of fantasy that she seemed a veritable witch or pixy herself.

"Run along, Millikens," called Marjorie. "Come back when you're ready, and we'll go down together."

ON THE ROAD

THE clock in the railroad station announced high noon, but of all the party only Marjorie and Millicent were there to hear it. Nan Kellogg had fulfilled her own prophecy by coming down fifteen minutes earlier, and then going back home for her cuckoo-clock, which was one of her pet possessions, and which she decided she couldn't be parted from for two whole weeks. She came flying back, and entered the station by one door just as Betty Miller came in at the other.

"Oh," said Nan, breathlessly, "I thought of course I'd be the last one here. Where are the other girls? But since they're not here, won't you hold the clock, Marjorie, and let me run back home and--"

"Has it stopped? I was afraid it would. Never mind; I can set it going after we get there. But I do want to go back and--"

"Nan Kellogg, you'll be put in chains if you are so insubordinate," broke in Marjorie. "I am commander of this expedition, and I order you to sit down on that bench and not move until the train comes."

Nan laughed, but sat down obediently, holding her precious clock; and then Helen appeared with her banjo, and Hester with her camera.

"Have you checked your wheels, girls?" asked Betty.

"Yes, with our trunks," said Helen. "Mr. Bond is keeping watch over them until the train comes; and he is holding Timmy Loo, who is a most important-looking animal just now, dressed in a new red ribbon and a baggage-tag."

"Oh, he's delighted with his prospective journey," said Marjorie. "I told him he had the entire charge of our trunks and wheels, and he feels the responsibility. Oh, here's Jessie. Now we're all here but Marguerite. Where is she, Nan?"

"Who? Daisy? Oh, she'll be here in a minute. I think she waited to learn how to make soup."

"She'll be in it if she doesn't hurry," said Nan. "I think I'll go and poke her up."

"Don't do it!" cried Betty. "You'll miss her, and then we won't have either of you. Here she comes now, grinning like a Chessy cat."

Dainty Marguerite, in her fresh white duck suit and pink shirt-waist, came in, smiling radiantly.

"Girls," said she, "Aunt Annie was at our house, and she taught me a new soup. It's wonderful, and I'll make it for you, if you want it, the first thing."

"Of course we want it the first thing," said Nan. "Did you suppose we thought it was a dessert?"

"Come, girls!" called Mr. Bond, from the platform, as the train that was to have the honor of carrying the party puffed into the station and came noisily to a standstill. "Are you ready? All aboard! Good-by, Margy dear; don't set the house afire. Who is the Matron of this crowd, anyway? I'd like a word with her."

Marjorie looked at the girls. "I think Marguerite is," she said. "She's the youngest and smallest and rattle-patedest. Yes, she shall be our Matron."

"Very well, then, Matron Daisy, I consign these young barbarians to your care, and I put them and my house in your charge, and I shall expect you to render me an account when you come back."

"Don't scare me, Mr. Bond," pleaded Marguerite, shaking her yellow curls. "If the responsibility proves too much for me I shall run away and leave them to their fate. But I think I can manage them, and I'll rule them with a rod of iron."

And then the bell rang, and Mr. Bond jumped off the train just in time; and he waved his hat, and the girls waved their handkerchiefs from the windows, until they were whisked away out of his sight.

"Now, my children," said Marguerite, highly elated at her absurd title of Matron, "you are in my care, and I must look after you. Why, where are Nan and Helen?"

Sure enough, only six of the girls were to be seen; but just at that moment the two missing ones were escorted through the now wabbling doorway by an official. They were rather red-faced, and explained that they had seated themselves in the smoking-car by mistake, and the brakeman had kindly brought them back to their friends.

"I am shocked," said Marguerite, severely. "Sit down there at once, and after this follow my directions more closely."

Then the eight girls were quickly paired off, and the general chatter was broken up into dialogues.

Mindful of her position as Matron, Marguerite kept a watchful eye on her charges. To be sure, the watchful eye was so bright and merry that as a means of restraint it was practically useless. But the Blue Ribbon Cooking Club knew how to behave itself in a public conveyance--oh, dear, yes! and, save for a few sudden and really unavoidable bursts of merriment, it was as proper and decorous a rosebud garland of girls as one could wish to see.

To be sure, there was some commotion when the conductor asked for Marguerite's ticket, and she suddenly remembered she had written Aunt Annie's soup recipe on the back of it, intending to copy it before the conductor came around.

"It was the only bit of paper I had," she explained, "and it is such a good recipe. What shall I do?"

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