The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge Part 4

"Name's Dora--not Dodo," the little girl answered, paying not the slightest heed to Mollie's caution about the mud. "Dodo's a baby's name--don't like it. Got something for you."

She stumbled heedlessly up the steps, leaving a trail of mud behind her, and almost breaking her neck in the bargain.

"Now just look at Betty's porch," Mollie was beginning in exasperation when Betty laughingly interfered.

"Oh, let her alone, Mollie," she coaxed. "The porch was dirty anyway and--what's that you have in your hand, Dodo?"

"Sumfin' for Mollie," answered Dodo, leaning sulkily against the rail while the girls regarded her anxiously. "An' if Mallie aren't nice to me she can't have it."

"Oh, for goodness' sake be nice to her and get it over with, Mollie,"

urged Grace, uneasily conscious of the candy box she had shoved hastily behind her. She was afraid one corner of it might show.

So Mollie got down from her perch on the railing and went over coaxingly to the little girl.

"Give it to Mollie, honey," she begged. "I'll even call you Dora, if you will."

"_Always_ Dora--_never_ Dodo?" asked Dodo eagerly, for she was growing out of babyhood just enough to resent being called by her baby name.

"Always Dora," Mollie promised.

For answer Dodo held out the white thing she had waved at them from the street, and with a little cry of excitement Mollie saw that it was a letter addressed to her in her Uncle John's firm hand.

At her exclamation the girls crowded round her eagerly. She hastily tore open the envelope and devoured the contents. Then she turned to the girls with a glowing face.

"It's all right, it's all right!" she cried, waving the letter round her head like a flag and nearly upsetting her chums. "Uncle John says it is settled. He is going to Canada for a couple of months and we can have the lodge for the whole time he is away or a part of it, just as we wish.

Hooray! How's that for luck?"

The girls were so excited over their good fortune that they forgot all about Dodo. She, finding herself un.o.bserved, had slipped around the girls to the swing, s.n.a.t.c.hed the box of candy which Grace had exposed when she got up, had taken the steps two at a time and was flying off down the street before the girls saw what she was up to.

Then it was Grace who, with a dreadful premonition, thought of her candy.

She turned quickly, saw that the box was gone, and uttered a wail of woe.

"That little Turk of a sister of yours has done it again," she cried, turning to Mollie, while Betty and Amy began to laugh. "You just wait till I catch her. I'll get my candy back if I have to--spank her," this last with a fierce scowl.

Betty put an arm about her excited chum, led her over to the swing and put her down in it.

"By the time you caught Dodo there wouldn't be any of your candy left,"

she said, adding soothingly: "Never mind, honey. We will get you some more if we have to take up a collection."

"Makes me feel like an orphan's home," grumbled Grace, but she laughed nevertheless with the rest and immediately forgot both her candy and Dodo in renewed excitement over Wild Rose Lodge.

"Just where is this place, Mollie?" asked Amy. "What is it called?"

"Oh, that's the very best part of it," said Mollie, with a mysterious smile. "It has the most wonderful, most romantic name. Come closer while I whisper it--Moonlight Falls. There, isn't that a real name for a place?"

"Wild Rose Lodge at Moonlight Falls," sighed Grace ecstatically. "If we don't have a wildly romantic time in a place with a name like that, it will be our own fault."

"But we will have to have a chaperon--" Amy was beginning when Betty interrupted her eagerly.

"I have fixed that," she said, and while they all looked in astonishment she went on quickly to explain. "I met Mrs. Irving in the street the other day--you know she has been away ever since that last time she was with us on Pine Island--and I asked her then if she would chaperon us this summer."

"But you didn't even know then that we were going to Wild Rose Lodge, Betty," Mollie interrupted.

"I knew we were sure to go somewhere. We always--" Betty was arguing when Grace cut in impatiently.

"Never mind about that," she said. "Did Mrs. Irving say she would go?"

"She said she was very sure she could manage it," Betty answered. "She seemed awfully surprised and said it would be great fun to be with us girls again."

"It will be great fun for all of us," said Amy happily. "I'll never forget the wonderful time we had on Pine Island with Mrs. Irving and the boys."

"Yes--and the boys," Betty repeated a little wistfully. She was thinking of Allen Washburn and the wonderful time they had had that never-to-be-forgotten summer--before the war had come to separate them and make their hearts ache. Oh, it would be unbelievably happy to have the boys back again--Will, Roy, Frank and--her Allen. The old crowd together once more. She looked around at the girls, who had also fallen into a thoughtful mood, and suddenly she smiled, the old bright, happy smile that was peculiarly Betty's own.

"Oh, cheer up, everybody," she cried gayly. "How do we know but what the boys will be home in time to join us at Wild Rose Lodge? Then think of the fun!"

"Oh, Betty, if we could only believe that!" they cried.

"Well," said the Little Captain stoutly, "you never can tell. Stranger things have happened, you know."

"But nothing so joyful," added Mollie.

Chapter V

Betty Takes a Dare

It would be a week or two before Wild Rose Lodge would be ready for the girls' occupancy, and as a relief for their impatience they filled in the time in hiking, motoring and put-putting up and down the Argono in their natty little motor boat.

But whatever it was they were doing, their conversation almost invariably returned to one of two subjects--the return of the boys and the good time they would have at Moonlight Falls.

They spoke often of Professor Arnold Dempsey. They took a real interest in the queer little old man, both because of the service he had done them and the fact that he was watching and waiting for his two big sons, even as they were anxiously awaiting the return of their boys.

"It must be dreadfully lonely for him in that little cabin or house or whatever you call it in the woods," Amy said one day as she and the girls sauntered down to the dock where their motor boat was anch.o.r.ed. "And he said he hardly ever had company."

"Goodness, I should think he would go crazy," Mollie commented. "Why, I go almost mad when I don't have any one to talk to for an _hour_."

"I wonder if he lived in that little house all during the war," said Betty thoughtfully. They had reached the dock and were walking slowly out upon it. "If he did, it must have been dreadfully hard for him. It makes me shiver to think of him sitting there all alone, reading the casualty list, terrified for fear the next name would be that of his son----"

"Oh, Betty," cried gentle Amy, all her sympathy quickly roused by the picture Betty had drawn, "what a dreadful thing to think of!"

"But he never did find their names among the missing or killed," Mollie reminded them soberly. "We know that because he said he expected to see them soon."

"Of course. And all we can do is hope with all our hearts that he gets his wish," said Betty brightly, adding with a sudden change of subject: "But away with dull care. The sun is shining and here's our fairy ship waiting to carry us off to fresh adventure. What more could any one want, I'd like to know."

"Humph," grunted Mollie, eyeing critically the trim little boat in which they had had so much fun and adventure, as the other girls tumbled aboard.