Dorothy Dale's Camping Days Read online

  CHAPTER II

  TAVIA GOES BO-PEEPING

  Well might Dorothy exclaim in terror at the fate that seemed imminentfor the girls left in the wagon--the girls of Glenwood School--herdearest chums. Those of my readers who are familiar with the previousvolumes of this series, will, perhaps, pardon the rather unceremoniousmanner in which I have just introduced the young ladies of this book.To those who are reading of Dorothy Dale for the first time, a fewwords of explanation may be necessary. And, in presenting the youngladies of Glenwood School, I must at once apologize for, and criticiseTavia Travers.

  From the very first book of the series entitled "Dorothy Dale, a Girlof To-day," we find Dorothy striving bravely to induce Tavia to giveup her stagey ways. Every predicament in the story was a "scene" toTavia, while but for Dorothy's intervention, and gentle determination,these scenes would have been turned into tragedies for the wily Tavia.Then, in the second book, "Dorothy Dale at Glenwood School," Taviaand the young ladies of that institution got into many a "scrape" and,while Dorothy was one of the girls, in the true sense of the word, shemanaged to discriminate between fun and folly.

  But what sacrifices Dorothy was actually capable of making for afriend were more clearly related in "Dorothy Dale's Great Secret,"where she shielded Tavia from the consequences of her daring andfoolish venture, of running away with a theatrical company. Throughtwo more books of the series, "Dorothy Dale and Her Chums," and"Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays," we find Dorothy still busy trying toreform Tavia, and while in each of the books there is plenty of otherwork for Dorothy to attend to, it seems that Tavia is her oneperpetual charge. What Tavia thinks fun is not always of the safesort, and what Dorothy thinks necessary Tavia often thinks may bepassed by as some subtle joke. So it will be seen that each of thesetwo interesting characters always has her own particular following,while the friendship between Tavia and Dorothy has withstood everypossible test.

  So we find the same young ladies in the present story, still indulgingin their favorite pastime--getting into and out of mischief.

  They had been out riding on an improvised chariot--a hayrick of theold-fashioned kind, like a cradle, filled with the fragrant timothyand redtop, when the accident, narrated in the first chapter, tookplace.

  As Tavia and Dorothy ran after the wagon containing their friends,while the vehicle swayed from side to side in the road, they saw itgive a sudden lurch, and almost topple over on the steep embankmentwhich descended to the river.

  Dorothy gave a gasp of fear, and Tavia covered her eyes with her hand.The next moment Dorothy saw the driver of the wagon crawling out froma clump of bushes. Guessing that he was not badly hurt, she ran on,for she had halted momentarily when she saw the vehicle sway sodangerously. Together she and Tavia sprang forward, to reach, ifpossible, before it toppled over, the swaying, bounding wagon.

  Whether from an unconquerable spirit of fun, or from motives purelyhumane, Tavia had snatched up armful after armful of the loose hay,which had been spilled out on the road. In doing this she never haltedin her running, but stooped over, like some gleaner in a field, urgedon by the approach of night.

  "Oh!" cried Dorothy. "If we can only reach them before----"

  A figure darted out on the road just ahead of them, and the unexpectedmove interrupted Dorothy's exclamation.

  "Oh, a man!" shouted Tavia, who was somewhat in advance. "Now we--willbe--all right!"

  Yes, a man had started down the hill after the runaway, but just howor why Tavia was sure that this would make things right, was not clearto Dorothy.

  "He can run!" she called, "Can't he, Tavia?"

  "Can't he!" replied Tavia. "But I'm not going to let him have all theglory. Here," and she tossed a bundle of hay to Dorothy. "Take italong for the--hospital beds. I'm going--to--run!"

  "Going--to!" repeated Dorothy, all out of breath from her own effortsto catch up to the runaway.

  But Tavia darted on. The strange man kept well ahead. Dorothy pausedone moment from sheer exhaustion. Then she saw the wagon overturn!

  The next instant she noted that the stranger had grabbed the horse bythe trailing reins.

  "Quick!" shrieked Tavia. "The girls may be under the cart!"

  With strength gathered from every desperation Dorothy ran on.

  She was beside the overturned wagon now, and without uttering a wordshe crawled in through the upright sticks, down amid the dust and hay.

  Three girls, so wound together as to look like one, lay on one side ofthe wrecked vehicle.

  "Dorothy!" gasped Rose-Mary. "Are you safe!"

  "Yes, but you--Nita and Edna?" gasped Dorothy, pantingly.

  "I think Nita has fainted," replied Rose-Mary. "But Edna is all right.Where is Tavia?"

  "Safe," answered Dorothy. "A strange man stopped the runaway. Tavia ishelping hold the horse. We must get the traces loose before we canattend to Nita."

  She made her way out of the overturned wagon. The traces wereunfastened and the horse was free, and the strange man was actuallyastride the animal.

  "Why," exclaimed Dorothy, "that horse will bolt again. You had bestmake him fast somewhere!"

  The stranger looked at her with the air of a Chesterfield.

  "By kindness we alone subdue," he said.

  Dorothy stared at him. What could he mean?

  Tavia seemed to have forgotten the predicament of her companions--sheappeared charmed by the stranger--who really was good looking.

  "There comes the man who owns the horse," remarked Dorothy, as thefrenzied farmer, whip in hand, ran toward the stranger, yelling allsorts of unintelligible things in the way of threats and predictions.He would see to it personally, he declared, that these things wouldhappen to the man who dared ride his used-up horse.

  "A fight to finish it off," exulted Tavia, and Dorothy, for themoment, felt as if she could find it in her heart to despise sofrivolous a girl. The next second she remembered Nita, and turned backto the wrecked hayrick.

  "It's all well enough for you to laugh," complained thebadly-frightened Nita, "but I can't see where the joke comes in. Justlook at me!"

  "A perfect beauty!" declared Tavia. "The rips are all in one piece.That rent near the hem is positively artistic--looks like the riverNile!"

  It was some time later, but they were still in the roadway. The farmerhad patched up his damaged rig, but would not listen to the girls'appeals to give them a lift toward town. He insisted it was all theirfault for laughing and scaring the horses, and he vowed vengeance onthe man who really had saved the team from positive destruction in theriver.

  The strange young man, after considerable gusto, all of which waswasted on the farmer, but hugely enjoyed by Tavia at least, had madehis way off, leaving the girls discreetly to their woes. No one wasactually injured, although, as Nita said, costumes had sufferedseverely.

  "Wasn't he queer?" remarked Cologne, as she shook small bundles of hayfrom her Glenwood cap and blouse. "I thought I would laugh outrightwhen he mounted the old horse a second time. He looked like somebodyon a variety stage."

  "Yes," added Tavia, "and Dorothy had to spoil the show by inducing himto give up the act. What if the farmer did ply the whip? That wouldonly heighten the effect."

  "Since we have to walk," Nita reminded the others, "it might beadvisable to start."

  "Great head," commented Tavia, "but do you realize that we shall belocked out? That the ogresses of 'Glen' will be ready--axe in hand,block in evidence, grin prominent----"

  "Tavia!" exclaimed Dorothy, "do gather yourself up! That bundle of hayseems enchanted. As Nita says, we must be going."

  Tavia almost lolled over on the soft hay, then she gathered it up withconspicuous tenderness, pressed it fondly to her heart, and agreed tostart on. Each of the other girls was taking with her, back to theschool, a similar souvenir; but Cologne and Dorothy threw theirs overtheir shoulder, in true rustic fashion, while Nita complained that shewas not able to carry hers; though she did manage to bribe Tavia witha promised return of the choc
olates to tie hers in with the extrasized bundle that Tavia was lugging along.

  "Five miles of this will just about do me," declared Cologne. "I thinkit would have been infinitely better for us to have hitched on to thehay wagon, in spite of the old farmer."

  "And to think that we paid him in advance! It's a wonder we have neverhad a single lesson in financial economy at gloomy Glenwood. 'How tocheat farmers; or, how to die game in a hayrick!' I must suggest thetext to Mrs. Pangborn, our honored principal," declared Edna, as she,too, made her way along under the uncertain weight of a bundle of hay.

  "But what are we dragging this stuff along for?" asked Dorothy. "Sureas fate, we will have to drop them when we get within the city, andwhy not anticipate? I vote for a drop right here!"

  "Never!" declared Tavia. "These are to make up the sacrificial altar.If old Pangborn growls--won't allow the doors open--we will do it witha match!" and she signified that the hay would make a spontaneousblaze in that lamentable instance.

  Dorothy saw more than a joke in the remark. Tavia was so ridiculouslydaring! It would be very wise to get rid of the hay before enteringthe sacred precincts of Glenwood.

  The sight was most absurd. Five pretty girls, each dressed in theGlenwood blue and white, and each with a bundle of fragrant hay on hershoulder.

  "There's a lamb!" declared Cologne. "I could do worse than give Mary'spet a treat," and she ran to the rail fence, jumped up on one of thequeer crossed posts, and called all sorts of names to the surprisedsheep, that scarcely stopped grazing to notice the girls outside ofthe barrier.

  This spectacle induced the other students to climb up on the crookedfence, and presently the old rails were ornamented with the five girlsin blue, with the hay bundles in hand!

  It was getting dusk, and the sunset did not detract from the unusualscene. Great shafts of gold and scarlet fell down on that old fence,and a prettier sight could scarcely have been worked up, much lessimagined.

  "Here, sheepy, sheepy!" called Tavia.

  "Here, lamby, lamby, lamby!" pleaded Dorothy.

  "Here, woolly, woolly, woolly!" invited Nita.

  "Here, kinky, kinky, kinky!" induced Edna.

  "Here, Flossy, Flossy, Flossy!" persuaded Cologne.

  But never a lamb, sheep or other species of animal named made a movetoward the fence.

  "I'll get a few!" declared Tavia, jumping down over the fence, intothe meadow, and racing wildly among the sheep.

  "The ram! The ram!" shouted Edna. "Tavia! He is coming directly foryou!"

  This was a signal for Tavia to turn back to the fence. The ram didfollow her. She pulled down a rail, and bolted through the openingjust as the savage animal and the great herd of sheep followed.

  "Run, sheep, run!" yelled Edna, as the much-terrified girls scatteredhither and thither, along the road, fully conscious that they wereresponsible for the safety of the frantic flock that had broken loosefrom their pasture.

  "Now for the farmer and his whip!" gasped Dorothy. "I thought we hadhad enough of that for one afternoon!"

  "Too much is enough," answered Edna dryly, "but Tavia likes it. Mayshe have a real account of the little lamb story for the English classto-morrow."

  "Look! They are all following her!" moaned Nita.

  "And they seem to think she is taking them home to supper!" addedCologne.

  "What shall we do?" wailed Nita. "We will surely all be arrested!"

  "Wish the police van would hurry up, then," sighed Edna, "I am gettingtuckered out," and she glanced back again, to behold Tavia in the verymidst of the flock of the now somewhat quieted sheep.

  "A nice cool cell wouldn't be so bad," declared Cologne, who, beinginclined to flesh, was apt to give out before her companions wouldgive in.

  "How are the 'Bo-Peepers'?" yelled Tavia, with a flourish of a stickmeant to represent a shepherdess crook. "Or do you prefer the oldRoman? There will be all kinds of conflagrations when Nero comes!"

  "Isn't she dreadful!" retorted Nita, whose face was really a sicklywhite. "She gets us all into trouble, and then gloats over it."

  "You wanted something real to write about to-day," Edna reminded her."This would make a regular thriller!"

  "But, as a matter of fact," began Dorothy seriously, as she stopped,and her companions halted with her, "what had we best do? We cannotwalk into Glenwood Hall with a herd of sheep at our heels," for theanimals were now following the girls along the road.

  "Let's shoo them," suggested Cologne. "Maybe they'll shoo nicely."

  "We'll get shooed when we try to get in to-night," murmured Edna. "Andjust when we were finishing up the year in rather good style. I hadn'ta single thing against my name----"

  "There's that man who saved the team," gasped Dorothy. "Mercy!Wherever does he come from? A man is worse than two herds ofsheep--in our scrape with Mrs. Pangborn!"

  Just as mysteriously as he had appeared before, the man with theChesterfieldian walk, and the big slouch hat, turned into the road.Where he had come from, nobody could imagine.

  "He has followed us!" breathed Nita. "Oh, dear me!" and she pressedher handkerchief to her eyes.

  "If you cry we will tell him you are too ill to walk, and then, maybehe'll offer to carry you," blurted out Edna. "If one insists on beinga baby, she must be babied."

  This charge rather frightened Nita back to courage, or at least shepretended to it, for she promptly quickened her pace, and even hidaway her handkerchief.

  Tavia, too, saw the strange man as he emerged, seemingly, fromnowhere, for she started on a run, laughing uproariously at the herdof sheep that trotted as she increased her pace, turned as she turned,and, in fact, seemed to be at a regular game of "follow the leader."

  The young man stood carefully posed in the path, just where a hugestone afforded him a setting for his rather dusty boots.

  "What a chap!" commented Edna. "Seems to me he has enough strikes andposes to make a good cigar box picture."

  "Any particular brand?" asked Dorothy. "I might label it'Spectacular,' with all rights reserved."

  "Look at Tavia," begged Cologne with a smile. "The rights are'reserved' in her particular direction."

  "She's welcome," finished Dorothy, just as Tavia reached the spotwhere the other girls were now waiting, and where the young man stoodlike a statue.

  "Another situation?" remarked the man, doffing his hat in the mostgorgeous bow.

  "Yes, the climax," answered Tavia. "What do you think of the scenery?"

  "Mercy!" breathed Edna aside. "If they start that sort of talk we mayas well camp out to-night."

  But the young man did not express his opinion publicly. Instead, hestepped up to Tavia, and presently the two were conversing in subduedvoices.

  Dorothy did not like that. She, in fact, did not fancy this youngman's "apparition" habit, and she now determined to force Tavia to asense of her own obligations to reach Glenwood School without furtherdelay.

  "Girls," called Dorothy, "we really must hurry! Thank you, very much"(this to the strange man), "for your kindness this afternoon, but yousee now, we have to get back to school. We would not have been out solong but for the fact that this is privilege day--school closesThursday."

  "Then why not make use of the privilege?" the young man asked, with asly look at Tavia. "We don't meet--professional friends everyafternoon."

  The thought that Tavia might have met this man while engaged in herbrief and notable stage career, as related in "Dorothy Dale's GreatSecret," flashed across Dorothy's mind. With it came a thought ofdanger--Tavia was scarcely yet cured of her dramatic fever.

  The sheep stood around in the most serio-comic style, and the seminarygirls were scarcely less comic.

  "Oh!" screamed Nita, suddenly, "there comes that awful farmer! And hehas a whip!"

  "Can't ride off on a sheep this time," remarked Tavia with ill-chosenlevity. "Let's run!"

  "Yes, let's!" chimed in Dorothy with a knowing look at Cologne.

  At this the girls started off; and they did run!<
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  When they reached the foot of the steep hill, Dorothy stopped to lookback.

  There, on the summit, stood the unmistakable form of the young man.Beside him posed the equally unmistakable form of the farmer and hiswhip.

  And the sheep were flocked around them!