The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna Part 11

"I'll get the witch hazel--you poor dear!"

She had forgotten Aunt Dora, hiding in the pantry, and she collided with her with considerable force.

"What's the matter with you?" demanded the exasperated old lady.

"Nothing with me," returned the hurrying girl. "It's _she_ who's burned."

"Who's burned?" cried Aunt Dora. "Which of you is hurt?"

The girl who had stopped recovered her self-possession. "Let me go, Auntie," she said, quietly. "_My sister_ has burned her wrist."

And so the anxious and determined aunt did not catch the twins off their guard, neither in war nor peace.

CHAPTER IX

ONE IS A HEROINE

When the girls invited to Evangeline Sitz's "party" hurried out of Central High on Monday afternoon, they found, as Laura Belding had promised, her father's automobile, as well as one of Mr. Purcell's big, three-seated "lumber barges," as the boys called Centerport's sight-seeing autos. There were three seats behind the driver's, each wide enough for four persons.

Laura and Chet (the latter of whom drove the Belding machine) had their own close friends in the smaller auto, and it was well filled. Mr.

Purcell stood by the chauffeur of the big car as the Lockwood twins whisked into the front seat, completely filling it. Dora and Dorothy always preferred to keep together, and n.o.body could get between them here.

The girls heard the automobile owner ask the driver:

"How do you feel now, Bennie? All right?"

"Pretty good, Boss," said the man, who, the twins noticed, was pale.

"Sure you can make it all right? If you feel bad, say so, and I'll take your place."

"I'll be all right, Boss, once we get moving," said the chauffeur.

"Oh, look who's here!" whispered Dorothy, suddenly, to her sister, pinching her arm to attract her attention.

"It's Pretty!" gasped Dora. "Isn't he a vision of loveliness?"

The dandy of the school came mincing along the sidewalk with the evident intention of joining the auto party. He had been excused from cla.s.ses early to go home and "rig up" for the occasion; and he certainly was--as Lance Darby said from the head automobile--"a sight for G.o.ds and men!"

Prettyman Sweet wore a white flannel coat and trousers, with a very fine line of blue running through the goods lengthwise. He wore a canvas hat and canvas shoes, cut low to show open-work crimson silk socks--oh, they were dreams of the hosier's art! He wore a flowing crimson tie, too, and around his waist, instead of an ordinary belt, he wore a new-fangled, knitted, crimson sash-belt, the like of which none of the boys of Central High had ever beheld before.

"Oh, Purt! where did you get it?" cried Lance Darby.

"You're fixed up to flag a freight, with all that red on you," said Chet.

"And where _did_ you get that gorgeous sash, Mr. Sweet?" demanded "Bobby" Hargrew, who was a tease by nature, and had the sharpest tongue of any girl at Central High.

"Oh, now, Miss Clara," said Purt Sweet, carefully climbing into the seat directly behind the twins. "This is the very latest thing--weally! I sent clear to New York for it. You see, it's not so stiff and hard looking as a leather belt. This--er--lends a softness to the whole costume that is--er--quite un.o.btainable with a belt."

"Oh, gee!" gasped Bobby. "It's soft enough, all right, all right!" and the rest laughed as they piled into the machine.

Purt sat with his back to the twins, and was explaining to the girl beside him that he did not mind riding backward at all. Bobby was still on the ground, and as Dora and Dorothy looked down at her they saw the mischievous one suddenly reach up her thumb and finger and pick at a little frayed place upon the edge of Purt's beautiful sash.

The thing was knitted loosely of some kind of mercerized cotton, and when Bobby seized the end of a broken strand the sash began to unravel with marvelous rapidity. She grinned up at the twins delightedly, and continued to pull on the thread.

"All aboard, young folks!" cried Mr. Purcell. "You ready forward, there, Mr. Chetwood?"

"All right," returned Chet, tripping his self-starter.

Mr. Purcell stooped to crank up his big machine. Bobby, her eyes dancing, also stooped beside the front wheel for a moment, and then whisked into her seat, facing Purt Sweet. But the twins saw what she had done. She had fastened the end of the crimson thread to the head of a bolt upon the wheelbox.

"All right, Bennie!" said Mr. Purcell, stepping back and waving his hand. The big machine began to tremble and shake, and then they pulled out behind the Belding car. There was a lot of noise, and laughter, and fun; but n.o.body seemed so hilarious as Clara Hargrew and the Lockwood twins.

"Can't you keep your eyes off Purt, Bobby?" demanded the girl sitting next to the Sweet boy. "What's the matter with him?"

"No--nothing!" chortled Bobby, stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth.

But she was watching that red thread shooting down to the wheel and winding around and around the box, faster and faster as the big machine got under way. By the time the auto turned into Market Street a great ball of the red worsted, or whatever it was, had formed on the inside of the wheel, and the perfectly unconscious Prettyman Sweet was fast losing his beautiful crimson sash.

The knitted part of the sash overlaid a belt of canvas which really did the service of holding up the exquisite's trousers. But fast, fast indeed, the red thread was running out.

Others saw the unraveling yarn, and joined Bobby and the twins in hilarious laughter. Then a man walking on the sidewalk espied the growing ball of thread on the wheel and followed the strand to its source. His happy chortles attracted the attention of other pedestrians, and soon the big automobile was being accompanied by a chorus of shouts from small boys in the streets, and laughter from an ever-increasing number of bystanders.

"What do you suppose is the matter with all these people?" demanded the unconscious Purt. "I never did see the like. Weally! It's too widiculous."

"That's what it is!" laughed Bobby.

"Why!" exclaimed Purt, "they weally seem to see something about us to laugh at! What can it be?"

"Must be you, Purt," said one of the boys.

"Widiculous! There is nothing about me to laugh at, dear boy."

"Huh!" grunted his schoolmate. "You're one big laugh all the time, Pretty, only you don't know it!"

The way to the farm where the young people were bound was out Market Street to the east, and then through the winding road which bisected Robinson's Woods and up into the hills. Mr. Sitz was a Swiss, and had been used to hilly farms in his youth; therefore the "up hill and down dale" nature of his farming land near Centerport did not trouble him in the least. He and Otto, his son, and the hands he hired, made good crops upon the hilly farm, and the Sitzes were becoming well to do.

In the front auto Laura was speaking about Eve Sitz.

"She's such a big, muscular girl. If she comes to Central High next fall, as I want her to, she'll help us greatly in athletics. You see, she'll enter as a junior, and be in our cla.s.ses. And she can pull an oar already--and what a fine guard she'd make at basketball! She's a lot lighter on her feet than Hester Grimes, or Mary O'Rourke, in spite of the fact that she's so big."

"Bully!" exclaimed Jess. "She can cut out Hessie, then."

Suddenly Lance, who looked back, raised a shout of surprise and terror.