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Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House

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<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> <h3>ALARMING SYMPTOMS</h3> The girls awoke one morning several days later—days of routine duty at the Hostess House—with the delightful sensation of something good impending. Crowded as they were in the one big room for Mrs. Sanderson's accommodation, they had formed the habit of talking over their prospective fun before the actual work and hurry and bustle of the day began. So it was this morning, just after the sun had streamed in through the two big east windows and settled on the tip of Betty's upturned little nose in a most provocative manner. Sleepily she rubbed a hand across her face, then sneezed. "Goodness, she's got the 'flu'!" cried Grace in alarm, as she sat up in bed, jerking the covers from her now fully aroused bedfellow. "Amy! Mollie! Get me a gas mask, somebody!" "I think it's poor Betty that needs the gas mask," retorted Mollie dryly. "I never heard you talk so much this early in the morning since the first day of our acquaintance, Grace. What happened to wake you up?" Whereupon Betty sneezed again, and Grace jumped about a foot in the bed. "Please take her away, somebody," she wailed plaintively, while Betty regarded her out of wide and sleep-brilliant eyes. "I heard a doctor say the other day that at the second sneeze it was time to go to the hospital." "Well, run along," twinkled Betty, adding, with a speculative look: "If you'll wait just about two minutes, I think I can give you another one." But Grace waited to hear no more. With a bound she was out of the bed and half-way across the room. "Goodness!" remarked quiet Amy, with a laugh, "I should think it would be almost worth while having the 'flu,' Betty, just to see Gracie move like that." "Well, I don't know about that," said Betty, rubbing the offending little nose ruefully. "It's easy to talk when it's some one else who's got it. Nobody seems to have any sympathy for me at all." "We would, dear," cried Mollie, slipping out of her own bed and taking Grace's place beside Betty on the sun-flooded cot, "only you don't really look as though you were dying of anything, you know—especially influenza. Betty dear," she added, with an impulsive little hug, "you do look so pretty!" "Now she does want a quarter," remarked Grace skeptically, as she took the place Mollie had vacated. "Don't you believe her, Betty Nelson. It's too early in the morning to see straight anyway." Betty laughed delightedly. "How very complimentary," she said, with a droll twist to the corner of her mouth. "Never mind, Mollie, it's worth a quarter just for seeing crooked!" Mollie hugged her, and even Grace had to laugh. "Which reminds me," continued Betty, apropos of nothing at all, "that we have a whole holiday which we can spend just exactly as we please." "Yes, where shall we go?" cried Amy eagerly. "I thought maybe we could take Mollie's car and—and—" Three pairs of curious eyes were focused upon her as she hesitated. "And what?" they queried in chorus. "Well, I thought," continued Amy, a little shy, as she always was when about to suggest something for another's comfort, "I thought we might invite Mrs. Sanderson to go along." "Good for you, Amy dear," cried Betty eagerly. "That's just exactly what I was thinking. The dear old lady seemed so much better yesterday I thought we might persuade her to share our picnic with us. How about it, Mollie?" "Why, of course," answered the latter heartily, "I'd love to have her—if she'd come." "If she'd come?" repeated Amy, puzzled. "Why shouldn't she come—that is, if she's feeling strong enough?" "Well," explained Mollie, with a little smile as she recalled one of the many unusual conversations she had had with the little old woman, "she told me the other day that she 'hated them gasoline wagons worse than poison,'—that the only reason she rode in ours was because she was unconscious when we put her in and she couldn't help herself. And she added somebody'd have to run over her again to make her do it a second time." Betty laughed gayly as she flung back the covers and slipped out of bed. "Goodness, I don't wonder you were doubtful," she said. "Maybe she's changed her mind by this time. Anyway, we can ask her and see." "I think she's the most wonderful old person I ever saw," remarked Amy thoughtfully, as they dressed hastily. "She must be pretty old, and yet she says the funniest, wittiest things, and her eyes sparkle and twinkle like a girl's." "Well, I really think she looks older than she really is," said Grace slowly and very judicially. "You know working on a farm in the hot sun the way she did for years, isn't calculated to make a person look younger than she is." "Oh, and if we could only do something to find him for her!" sighed Amy for—the girls did not know whether it was the fiftieth or the hundredth time, they had given up counting. "Well, wishing won't accomplish anything," said Mollie practically, as she vigorously pulled on a shoe as if it were in some mysterious way responsible for the unsatisfactory state of affairs. "I think some one ought to nickname us the 'four Dianas.'" "Well, of course Diana was very beautiful," said Grace, complacently regarding her own pretty reflection in the mirror. "But if you meant that, Mollie, of course the description applies to only one of us." "Goose," remarked Mollie. "Of course I wasn't thinking of Diana's beauty. I was merely thinking of her in the role of a fair huntress." "Goodness, now she is insulting us!" cried Betty, turning upon her friend with a melodramatic frown. "Do you mean to imply that one or all of us are huntresses?" "Not of men," said Mollie scathingly. "That shows a guilty conscience, Betty. I'm surprised at you." "O-oh! Squelched!" said Betty meekly. "May I ask," she added very humbly, "just what you did mean?" "I simply meant," explained Mollie patiently, "that we were after two men—" "Oh!" cried Amy, turning upon her in horror. "And you just told Betty you didn't mean that!" "I didn't," cried the badgered Mollie in desperation, then turned away in disgust. "There's no use trying to tell you anything," she said. "Go ahead, Mollie dear," urged Betty. "I meant," Mollie continued slightly, but only slightly, mollified, "that we were hunting two men—Mrs. Sanderson's Willie and the motorcyclist who ran her down. And we haven't any more real chance of finding them than—" "A celluloid dog has chasing an asbestos cat in—" began Grace. "That will do," cried Betty primly, though her eyes danced. "After this, you will kindly answer when you are spoken to, Miss Ford, and at no other time." "Oh, is that so?" mocked Grace. "Well, I'll just tell you, Miss Nelson, that although I am extremely fond of you—mistaken as that may be—I will take no dictation from you or any one else." "I'll give you more than dictation, if you don't stop maundering," threatened Mollie. "A girl has about as much chance of saying anything sensible—" "Did you ever try?" queried Grace innocently, and Betty and Amy had to form a human barrier between the two enemies. "Goodness, please don't kill her, Mollie," begged the Little Captain, her eyes twinkling. "Not till after breakfast, anyway. I want to give you a chance to think it over." "Yes, they're punishing murderers terribly," added Amy. "I heard Major Adams say—" "All right," Mollie agreed, "I'll let her off until after breakfast, but for one reason and one only—" "And that?" they queried breathlessly. "I'll be stronger then!" she said. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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