The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas

CHAPTER XIX

WHEN THE STORM BROKE

In­stead of en­ter­ing the tent af­ter Crazy Jane's snub, Pa­tri­cia and Co­ra Kid­der gazed at the girl pac­ing back and forth be­fore it, then laugh­ing sar­cas­ti­cal­ly turned and walked away. Mrs. Liv­ingston saw them in the dis­tance when she came out, but her at­ten­tion was im­me­di­ate­ly cen­tred on Jane.

“Miss Mc­Carthy,” she said. “I wouldn't keep Har­ri­et up long, were I in your place. The poor girl has had a try­ing time of it this evening. Were the two girls who just walked away from here, Miss Scott and Miss Kid­der?”

“Yes, ma'am. And I gave them a good stiff punch--I mean I told them--I let them know how much I loved them.”

“Try to love ev­ery one, Miss Mc­Carthy. It doesn't pay for one to go about with any oth­er feel­ing in the heart.”

“I guess I must have been born with the oth­er feel­ing,” re­turned Crazy Jane. “But at any rate, I know I have the oth­er feel­ing now.”

“Try to be like Miss Bur­rell, sweet and for­giv­ing. Good night.”

“Good night, Mrs. Liv­ingston. I'll just say 'good night' to Har­ri­et. I won't stay a minute.”

Jane was true to her word. She ran in­to the tent and gath­er­ing Har­ri­et in her arms, kissed her on the fore­head, very gen­tly, too, for Jane; af­ter which the im­pul­sive girl ran out with­out giv­ing Har­ri­et a chance to say a word.

The hour for “lights out” not hav­ing ar­rived, most of the girls were out by the camp­fire chat­ting. Har­ri­et pre­ferred to be alone on this oc­ca­sion. She did not feel equal to talk­ing with any one. She felt that the day had been a mis­er­able fail­ure. There had been two days of it. First, ev­ery­thing in the kitchen had gone wrong. This con­di­tion had some­what im­proved af­ter Pa­tri­cia had left the kitchen, on­ly to be­come many times worse af­ter three days had elapsed.

Har­ri­et tried to rea­son out the mys­tery. Her first thought was that Pa­tri­cia might have had some­thing to do with the spoil­ing of the soup. But she had not the slight­est proof that Pa­tri­cia was the cul­prit.

Har­ri­et was at a loss to know what to do. The prob­lem was too much for her. Her head whirled with her ef­fort to solve it Be­fore re­tir­ing for the night, how­ev­er, she moved her cot to the ex­treme rear of the tent so that the light would not be so strong in her eyes when Pa­tri­cia and Co­ra came in to re­tire. Af­ter a time Har­ri­et dropped off to sleep. She was awak­ened by voic­es out­side at the rear of the tent.

The light was out and the tent was in dark­ness. Har­ri­et did not know what time it was, but hear­ing reg­ular breath­ing she de­cid­ed that of course the two girls must have come in and re­tired with­out hav­ing awak­ened her. But as Har­ri­et lis­tened she rec­og­nized the voic­es. They were out­side the tent with­in a yard of her head at the mo­ment.

“To 'The Pines'?” came the ques­tion in Pa­tri­cia's voice.

“Yes,” replied Co­ra. “Char­lie Col­lier wants me to go with him. He says he will come for me in his car. They are go­ing to have a per­fect­ly love­ly dance at 'The Pines.'”

“Have you spo­ken to Mrs. Liv­ingston?”

“She wouldn't let me go. Of what use would it be to speak to her? I'm so an­gry I could howl.”

“What a sim­ple­ton you are, Co­ra Kid­der,” chid­ed Pa­tri­cia. “If I had an in­vi­ta­tion to that dance and want­ed to go--re­al­ly were crazy to go--I'd go!”

“How?”

“Cut for it.”

“You mean go with­out per­mis­sion?”

“Of course. I'd do it just to de­fy her.”

A brief pe­ri­od of si­lence fol­lowed. Then Co­ra spoke.

“If I thought I could do it and get back with­out dis­cov­ery, I would,” she said slow­ly.

“Of course you can get back. Tell Char­lie Col­lier at what hour you must re­turn and see that he starts back to camp in good sea­son with you. Is he com­ing alone?”

“Oh, mer­cy no. His sis­ter will come with him and re­turn with us.”

“When is the par­ty!”

“The day af­ter to-​mor­row night.”

“How are you to let him know that you will go?”

“He is go­ing to call here with his sis­ter to-​mor­row.”

“Good! Now don't be afraid. Tell him you'll go.”

“I be­lieve I will,” replied Co­ra. By the way, Pa­tri­cia, the soap trick worked all right, didn't it!"

“It cer­tain­ly did,” was the an­swer, and Pa­tri­cia broke in­to a mer­ry laugh, in which Co­ra did not ap­pear to join so hearti­ly.

Har­ri­et heard no more. The two girls had got­ten up and moved out of her hear­ing. But she was shocked be­yond ex­pres­sion. The soap in the con­somme was no longer a mys­tery. She had nev­er be­lieved that Pa­tri­cia was quite so un­scrupu­lous. Now she knew the worst. Har­ri­et did not know what course to pur­sue, but af­ter think­ing it over she con­clud­ed that there was noth­ing for her to do. As to the pro­posed trip to “The Pines,” sure­ly were she to go to Co­ra and tell her what a wrong thing she was plan­ning, Har­ri­et would mere­ly be snubbed. Be­sides, it was not at all cer­tain that Co­ra Kid­der would go.

She heard the two girls slip in­to the tent and knew from their light foot­falls that they were wear­ing their slip­pers. Har­ri­et knew, too, that they had been sit­ting out­side clad in their wrap­pers, for they got in­to bed im­me­di­ate­ly. There were a few whis­pered words, which she failed to catch, then si­lence set­tled over the tent, bro­ken oc­ca­sion­al­ly by Tom­my's un­in­tel­li­gi­ble mut­ter­ings. Tom­my was dream­ing again--giv­ing promise of hav­ing a mild form of night­mare lat­er on.

A gust of wind set the tree-​tops to rustling. All Na­ture stirred rest­less­ly. The lis­ten­ing girl heard the dis­turbed chirp­ings of the birds in the trees. Fol­low­ing this came the pat­ter of rain­drops on the roof of the tent. A bril­liant flash of light­ning made the tent as light as day for the frac­tion of a sec­ond. Har­ri­et could plain­ly see the faces of the three girls in their cots. They were asleep, or at least ap­peared to be sleep­ing, for their eyes were closed. Then came the dis­tant rum­ble of thun­der.

Though un­afraid, Har­ri­et shiv­ered a lit­tle and snug­gled down un­der the blan­kets. The rain now be­gan to fall, at first mild­ly then in­creas­ing to a roar as heavy drops be­gan beat­ing on the can­vas roof. The sound lulled her to sleep. She sim­ply could not fight off the drowsi­ness that had tak­en pos­ses­sion of her, and un­mind­ful of the storm out­side, Har­ri­et soon passed in­to peace­ful slum­ber.

The storm grew heav­ier. The tents were il­lu­mi­nat­ed al­most in­ces­sant­ly by flash­es of light­ning. It was quite ev­ident, how­ev­er, that the camp was not in the heart of the elec­tri­cal dis­tur­bance, al­though a ver­ita­ble del­uge of wa­ter was now falling up­on it.

Near­ly ev­ery girl in the camp lay wide awake with head buried in her pil­low, shiv­er­ing, mo­men­tar­ily ex­pect­ing to be struck by light­ning. Har­ri­et was sud­den­ly star­tled by a scream fol­low­ing a par­tic­ular­ly vivid flash of light­ning.

“Did some one call?” she asked.

“Oh, yeth, yeth,” moaned Tom­my. “It wath aw­ful.”

“There is noth­ing to fear,” re­turned Har­ri­et. “Lie down and cov­er your head if the light­ning dis­turbs you. Are the oth­er girls asleep?”

A flash an­swered the ques­tion for her. Pa­tri­cia and Co­ra were sit­ting up in their beds, with blan­kets wrapped about them. Their faces were pale with fright.

“Don't be fright­ened, girls,” Har­ri­et called sooth­ing­ly. “You can tell by lis­ten­ing that the worst of the storm has passed. It has gone to the north of us. The wind is blow­ing strong­ly from the south.”

Co­ra gave her an ap­peal­ing look that made Har­ri­et feel sor­ry for the girl. Pa­tri­cia nev­er looked at her at all.

“It may rain all the rest of the night, but the dan­ger­ous part of the storm has passed,” con­tin­ued Har­ri­et. “I'm glad of it my­self. One doesn't feel any too se­cure in these flim­sy tents in a heavy gale. But don't wor­ry.”

“Oh, thave me!” wailed Tom­my, quick­ly pulling the blan­kets over her head as the tent was il­lu­mi­nat­ed by a par­tic­ular­ly bril­liant flash of light­ning.

The down­pour be­came heav­ier. Next the tent be­gan to leak. Har­ri­et felt sev­er­al large drops of rain strike in her face.

“I think I had bet­ter move,” she said laugh­ing­ly. “How is it with you, girls?”

“I'm soaked,” an­swered Co­ra.

“Drag your cots in­to the mid­dle of the tent. I think we shall find it dri­er there.”

This suit­ed Grace. She felt the need of clos­er com­pan­ion­ship. Then fol­lowed the sound of cots be­ing scraped along the floor. Har­ri­et had rea­soned cor­rect­ly. The mid­dle of the tent thus far had not be­gun to leak.

They crawled in un­der the blan­kets once more, but three of the Camp Girls were trem­bling and shiv­er­ing with fear at the fury of the storm. Ten min­utes lat­er the tent sprang a leak di­rect­ly over their heads. Very short­ly af­ter that the four cots and the bed­ding were thor­ough­ly soaked by the mer­ci­less down­pour.

Pa­tri­cia, Co­ra and Tom­my hur­ried­ly crawled out of their wa­ter-​soaked beds. Har­ri­et de­cid­ed that she would be as well off in her cot, so she lay still. She did sug­gest that one of the girls might try to light the lantern. Pa­tri­cia fum­bled about in the dark­ness for the match­es, and fi­nal­ly found them, on­ly to dis­cov­er that they were so wet that they would not light.

Sud­den­ly a new and ter­ri­fy­ing sound was borne to the ears of the four girls.

Tom­my screamed with fright. Co­ra ut­tered a ter­ri­fied wail. Har­ri­et and Pa­tri­cia, how­ev­er, were silent. At the first sug­ges­tion of the threat­en­ing sound Har­ri­et had leaped from her cot. She stood with one hand slight­ly raised, her head bent for­ward ev­er so lit­tle, her eyes tight­ly closed, ev­ery nerve in her body cen­tred on lis­ten­ing to the dis­turb­ing sound, seek­ing to dis­cov­er its mean­ing. Then all at once it oc­curred to her what it was.

Har­ri­et act­ed in­stant­ly.

“Down!” she cried sharply. “Un­der the cots! Quick! Do as I tell you! Tom­my! Are you un­der?”

“Yeth. Oh, thave me!” came a muf­fled voice that seemed to be un­der the floor of the tent.

Pa­tri­cia and Co­ra, rec­og­niz­ing that Har­ri­et had some well de­fined plan in mind, obeyed her with­out the slight­est hes­ita­tion. They threw them­selves on the floor hasti­ly crawl­ing un­der the cots. Then Har­ri­et Bur­rell made a sud­den dive. She was stand­ing sev­er­al feet from her own bed. The dive sent her slid­ing un­der­neath the near­est cot. Her progress was stopped by the body of one of her com­pan­ions.

She had sought cov­er none too soon. The most ter­rif­ic crash­ing that any of those girls ev­er had lis­tened to, filled the air. Above the up­roar was heard faint­ly the scream of a girl some­where out­side the tent. Then the blow fell, a mighty, crush­ing blow that seemed to set the uni­verse all a trem­ble.