The Girl Scouts at Rocky Ledge Part 16

"And Alma," confided Wyn, "we were so sorry not to be able to locate your prince----"

"Girls," Alma exclaimed. "If you say prince to me again I'll scream."

"You did this time," said Betta, "and we don't mind it at all. You scream really prettily."

"Hush," spoke Doro. She was down at the far end of the table and had not been with the girls on their eventful trip. "I think we have teased enough, really. Let the poor little prince rest."

"Good idea," chimed another who also had missed the expedition. "We have a new plan to propose, and with all that prince stuff we can't get your attention. Becky is going to take us to the Glen tomorrow morning, and we want volunteers to make up the lunch baskets."

"Call that a new plan?" mocked Wyn. "Why, that's as old as the Scouts.

First thing I ever did was to volunteer to make up a basket for my big sister, and she picked it up and walked off with it."

"Didn't even thank you?" asked Miss Beckwith, who always took part in the girls' fun.

"Well, she may have," replied Wyn, "but that didn't impress me. It was those sandwiches and those cakes----"

"You didn't make those, Wynnie?" demanded Treble. "If you did we won't ask for volunteers. We'll wish the job on you."

Alma was quiet during all the merry chatting, but Thistle, who could not resist one more thrust, said next:

"Thinking of him, dearie?" she asked. "And his little velvet coat----"

But the joke had a most astonishing effect. Alma sniffed, breathed in quick little gasps, and the next moment asked to be excused from the table.

"She's crying!" declared Betta.

"Horrid girls!" murmured Doro. "I told you she had had enough of princes."

"But to cry! Alma isn't like that," said Wyn in real surprise.

Miss Beckwith, who had reached the end of her lunch and was waiting for the others to finish, slipped away after Alma.

This left the girls to wonder, and they did that in all the ways known to girlhood.

Then it was definitely decided the first girl who mentioned the word prince should be made to pay a heavy fine.

All felt truly sorry for little Alma, but it was the wise and understanding Janet Beckwith who gathered the sobbing girl into her arms and soothed the sighs, tears, and protestations.

"Just teasing, dear," she insisted. "You must not mind their nonsense.

They, every one, love you dearly."

"But I did see a real prince, Becky. And--and they won't believe me,"

sobbed out Alma.

Miss Beckwith wondered. "A real prince?" she repeated.

"Yes. I was near enough to see all his pretty--things," Alma paused in her sobbing to relate. "He had all velvet clothes, and such a pretty black cap. Oh Becky!" she sobbed afresh, "can you ever imagine what it is to have the--girls--all making fun of you?"

"Now, Alma dear," again soothed the leader, "I am really surprised that you should take this so seriously. You know the girls are not making fun of you----"

"They--said I had--a vision," she sobbed as heavily as ever. "And I am determined to find out who that was--and prove it to them."

Miss Beckwith was sorely puzzled. Naturally she supposed the girl was romancing. But why should she take it so seriously?

"Come, now, dear," she urged. "We have talked it all out and the only thing that worries you is that the girls do not believe you, isn't it?

"Yes, that's the worst of it."

"Then, let's sleep over it and see what the morrow will bring in the way--of light." Becky scarcely knew just what to propose so she threw the responsibility on the "morrow."

Alma was over her "spell" presently. But the prince had, by no means, lost his real personal ident.i.ty to the sensitive little Scout.

CHAPTER XII

A DIVERSION n.o.bLY EARNED

Ted's pleasure, shown when Nora's transformation was revealed to her in a dripping little "pond lily" on the edge of Mirror Lake, was not to be compared with Jerry's joys when he first beheld his Bobbs in the Girl Scout uniform. They were waiting for Nora when she returned at lunch time.

"Pretty kipper, nifty, all right and no kiddin'." These were some of the exclamations he gave vent to.

"But I thought you didn't like little girls in anything but skirts," Ted reminded him.

"I didn't but I do," he replied Jerry-like. "Now what do you say Bobbie, to a try at horse back ridin'?" He always dropped his g's when perfectly happy.

"I'd like to try it," admitted Nora proudly. She might not have realized it but the trim little service costume had already emanc.i.p.ated her. She was no longer the creature of catalogued toilet accessories, "send no money" and "we guarantee money's worth or money back," etc. The new Nora was like a b.u.t.terfly leaving its coc.o.o.n--although the drying process had been facilitated by the loan of a new blouse and bloomers from the Chickadees' wardrobe.

Vita came out to announce lunch and she stood dumbfounded. Vita was not Americanized to the point of diplomacy.

"You lose your good clothes? Those t'ings not yours?" she asked blandly.

"I have one like this," replied Nora. She did know how to respond to interference, and had not yet quite forgiven Vita for the attic episode.

"Don't you like it, Vita?" asked Jerry, his brown eyes twinkling. "We were thinking of getting you one like it--for your tramps through the woods, you know."

The Italian woman scowled. She lacked a sense of humor as well as some other details of Americanization.

"Don't tease her, Jerry," Ted ordered. "He is only fooling, Vita," she a.s.sured the perplexed maid, while visions of the fat woman in a jaunty little Scout uniform filtered through the brains of both Ted and Nora.

During lunch time conversation ran to the important occurrence of the morning, but Ted did not know all about the ducking in the Lake, and since Betta had cautioned Nora to keep secrets and if necessary to make them, it seemed unwise to tell every single detail: thus Nora reasoned.

So it happened neither Ted nor Jerry knew whether the first swim was intentional or accidental, and both respected the "secrets of the order," as Jerry put it.

"The girls are coming over this afternoon with a manual," the candidate said as tea was finished, "and then I'll have to do some studying."

"I see where Cap and I will have to paddle our own canoe hereafter,"

lamented Jerry. "That's just the way with you girls. I get you all broke in and you race off and join up with the Indians. Well," he sighed deeply, "I suppose Ted and I and Cap will have to go on our picnics alone, in spite of all our plans."