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Dorothy Dale's Camping Days

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<hr /> <h2>CHAPTER IIToC</h2> <h3>TAVIA GOES BO-PEEPING</h3> Well might Dorothy exclaim in terror at the fate that seemed imminent for the girls left in the wagon—the girls of Glenwood School—her dearest chums. Those of my readers who are familiar with the previous volumes of this series, will, perhaps, pardon the rather unceremonious manner 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 few words of explanation may be necessary. And, in presenting the young ladies of Glenwood School, I must at once apologize for, and criticise Tavia Travers. From the very first book of the series entitled "Dorothy Dale, a Girl of To-day," we find Dorothy striving bravely to induce Tavia to give up her stagey ways. Every predicament in the story was a "scene" to Tavia, 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," Tavia and 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, she managed to discriminate between fun and folly. But what sacrifices Dorothy was actually capable of making for a friend were more clearly related in "Dorothy Dale's Great Secret," where she shielded Tavia from the consequences of her daring and foolish venture, of running away with a theatrical company. Through two more books of the series, "Dorothy Dale and Her Chums," and "Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays," we find Dorothy still busy trying to reform Tavia, and while in each of the books there is plenty of other work for Dorothy to attend to, it seems that Tavia is her one perpetual charge. What Tavia thinks fun is not always of the safe sort, and what Dorothy thinks necessary Tavia often thinks may be passed by as some subtle joke. So it will be seen that each of these two interesting characters always has her own particular following, while the friendship between Tavia and Dorothy has withstood every possible test. So we find the same young ladies in the present story, still indulging in their favorite pastime—getting into and out of mischief. They had been out riding on an improvised chariot—a hayrick of the old-fashioned kind, like a cradle, filled with the fragrant timothy and redtop, when the accident, narrated in the first chapter, took place. As Tavia and Dorothy ran after the wagon containing their friends, while the vehicle swayed from side to side in the road, they saw it give a sudden lurch, and almost topple over on the steep embankment which 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 from a clump of bushes. Guessing that he was not badly hurt, she ran on, for she had halted momentarily when she saw the vehicle sway so dangerously. Together she and Tavia sprang forward, to reach, if possible, before it toppled over, the swaying, bounding wagon. Whether from an unconquerable spirit of fun, or from motives purely humane, Tavia had snatched up armful after armful of the loose hay, which had been spilled out on the road. In doing this she never halted in her running, but stooped over, like some gleaner in a field, urged on 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 unexpected move interrupted Dorothy's exclamation. "Oh, a man!" shouted Tavia, who was somewhat in advance. "Now we—will be—all right!" Yes, a man had started down the hill after the runaway, but just how or why Tavia was sure that this would make things right, was not clear to 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 the glory. Here," and she tossed a bundle of hay to Dorothy. "Take it along for the—hospital beds. I'm going—to—run!" "Going—to!" repeated Dorothy, all out of breath from her own efforts to catch up to the runaway. But Tavia darted on. The strange man kept well ahead. Dorothy paused one moment from sheer exhaustion. Then she saw the wagon overturn! The next instant she noted that the stranger had grabbed the horse by the 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 word she 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 of the 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 is helping hold the horse. We must get the traces loose before we can attend to Nita." She made her way out of the overturned wagon. The traces were unfastened and the horse was free, and the strange man was actually astride the animal. "Why," exclaimed Dorothy, "that horse will bolt again. You had best make 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—she appeared charmed by the stranger—who really was good looking. "There comes the man who owns the horse," remarked Dorothy, as the frenzied farmer, whip in hand, ran toward the stranger, yelling all sorts of unintelligible things in the way of threats and predictions. He would see to it personally, he declared, that these things would happen to the man who dared ride his used-up horse. "A fight to finish it off," exulted Tavia, and Dorothy, for the moment, felt as if she could find it in her heart to despise so frivolous a girl. The next second she remembered Nita, and turned back to the wrecked hayrick. "It's all well enough for you to laugh," complained the badly-frightened Nita, "but I can't see where the joke comes in. Just look 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 river Nile!" It was some time later, but they were still in the roadway. The farmer had 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 their fault for laughing and scaring the horses, and he vowed vengeance on the man who really had saved the team from positive destruction in the river. The strange young man, after considerable gusto, all of which was wasted on the farmer, but hugely enjoyed by Tavia at least, had made his way off, leaving the girls discreetly to their woes. No one was actually injured, although, as Nita said, costumes had suffered severely. "Wasn't he queer?" remarked Cologne, as she shook small bundles of hay from her Glenwood cap and blouse. "I thought I would laugh outright when he mounted the old horse a second time. He looked like somebody on a variety stage." "Yes," added Tavia, "and Dorothy had to spoil the show by inducing him to give up the act. What if the farmer did ply the whip? That would only heighten the effect." "Since we have to walk," Nita reminded the others, "it might be advisable to start." "Great head," commented Tavia, "but do you realize that we shall be locked 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 hay seems enchanted. As Nita says, we must be going." Tavia almost lolled over on the soft hay, then she gathered it up with conspicuous tenderness, pressed it fondly to her heart, and agreed to start on. Each of the other girls was taking with her, back to the school, a similar souvenir; but Cologne and Dorothy threw theirs over their shoulder, in true rustic fashion, while Nita complained that she was not able to carry hers; though she did manage to bribe Tavia with a promised return of the chocolates to tie hers in with the extra sized bundle that Tavia was lugging along. "Five miles of this will just about do me," declared Cologne. "I think it would have been infinitely better for us to have hitched on to the hay wagon, in spite of the old farmer." "And to think that we paid him in advance! It's a wonder we have never had a single lesson in financial economy at gloomy Glenwood. 'How to cheat farmers; or, how to die game in a hayrick!' I must suggest the text 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. "Sure as fate, we will have to drop them when we get within the city, and why 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 with a match!" and she signified that the hay would make a spontaneous blaze in that lamentable instance. Dorothy saw more than a joke in the remark. Tavia was so ridiculously daring! It would be very wise to get rid of the hay before entering the sacred precincts of Glenwood. The sight was most absurd. Five pretty girls, each dressed in the Glenwood blue and white, and each with a bundle of fragrant hay on her shoulder. "There's a lamb!" declared Cologne. "I could do worse than give Mary's pet a treat," and she ran to the rail fence, jumped up on one of the queer crossed posts, and called all sorts of names to the surprised sheep, that scarcely stopped grazing to notice the girls outside of the barrier. This spectacle induced the other students to climb up on the crooked fence, and presently the old rails were ornamented with the five girls in blue, with the hay bundles in hand! It was getting dusk, and the sunset did not detract from the unusual scene. Great shafts of gold and scarlet fell down on that old fence, and a prettier sight could scarcely have been worked up, much less imagined. "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 move toward the fence. "I'll get a few!" declared Tavia, jumping down over the fence, into the meadow, and racing wildly among the sheep. "The ram! The ram!" shouted Edna. "Tavia! He is coming directly for you!" This was a signal for Tavia to turn back to the fence. The ram did follow her. She pulled down a rail, and bolted through the opening just as the savage animal and the great herd of sheep followed. "Run, sheep, run!" yelled Edna, as the much-terrified girls scattered hither and thither, along the road, fully conscious that they were responsible for the safety of the frantic flock that had broken loose from their pasture. "Now for the farmer and his whip!" gasped Dorothy. "I thought we had had enough of that for one afternoon!" "Too much is enough," answered Edna dryly, "but Tavia likes it. May she have a real account of the little lamb story for the English class to-morrow." "Look! They are all following her!" moaned Nita. "And they seem to think she is taking them home to supper!" added Cologne. "What shall we do?" wailed Nita. "We will surely all be arrested!" "Wish the police van would hurry up, then," sighed Edna, "I am getting tuckered out," and she glanced back again, to behold Tavia in the very midst of the flock of the now somewhat quieted sheep. "A nice cool cell wouldn't be so bad," declared Cologne, who, being inclined to flesh, was apt to give out before her companions would give in. "How are the 'Bo-Peepers'?" yelled Tavia, with a flourish of a stick meant to represent a shepherdess crook. "Or do you prefer the old Roman? There will be all kinds of conflagrations when Nero comes!" "Isn't she dreadful!" retorted Nita, whose face was really a sickly white. "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 cannot walk into Glenwood Hall with a herd of sheep at our heels," for the animals 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. "And just when we were finishing up the year in rather good style. I hadn't a 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 of sheep—in our scrape with Mrs. Pangborn!" Just as mysteriously as he had appeared before, the man with the Chesterfieldian 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 pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. "If you cry we will tell him you are too ill to walk, and then, maybe he'll offer to carry you," blurted out Edna. "If one insists on being a baby, she must be babied." This charge rather frightened Nita back to courage, or at least she pretended to it, for she promptly quickened her pace, and even hid away her handkerchief. Tavia, too, saw the strange man as he emerged, seemingly, from nowhere, for she started on a run, laughing uproariously at the herd of 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 huge stone afforded him a setting for his rather dusty boots. "What a chap!" commented Edna. "Seems to me he has enough strikes and poses 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 spot where the other girls were now waiting, and where the young man stood like a statue. "Another situation?" remarked the man, doffing his hat in the most gorgeous 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 may as well camp out to-night." But the young man did not express his opinion publicly. Instead, he stepped up to Tavia, and presently the two were conversing in subdued voices. Dorothy did not like that. She, in fact, did not fancy this young man's "apparition" habit, and she now determined to force Tavia to a sense of her own obligations to reach Glenwood School without further delay. "Girls," called Dorothy, "we really must hurry! Thank you, very much" (this to the strange man), "for your kindness this afternoon, but you see now, we have to get back to school. We would not have been out so long but for the fact that this is privilege day—school closes Thursday." "Then why not make use of the privilege?" the young man asked, with a sly look at Tavia. "We don't meet—professional friends every afternoon." The thought that Tavia might have met this man while engaged in her brief and notable stage career, as related in "Dorothy Dale's Great Secret," flashed across Dorothy's mind. With it came a thought of danger—Tavia was scarcely yet cured of her dramatic fever. The sheep stood around in the most serio-comic style, and the seminary girls were scarcely less comic. "Oh!" screamed Nita, suddenly, "there comes that awful farmer! And he has a whip!" "Can't ride off on a sheep this time," remarked Tavia with ill-chosen levity. "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! When they reached the foot of the steep hill, Dorothy stopped to look back. There, on the summit, stood the unmistakable form of the young man. Beside him posed the equally unmistakable form of the farmer and his whip. And the sheep were flocked around them! <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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