The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point Part 4

"As soon as we want it," replied Grace, looking surprised. "Didn't I tell you?"

"No you didn't," mimicked Mollie, adding as she sprang to her feet impatiently: "I'd like to know what we're waiting for anyway! Why don't we get started?"

"Now I know she's crazy," cried Betty, seizing her chum and pulling her down upon the arm of her chair. "Why we haven't decided anything yet."

"What is there to decide?" cried Mollie, trying to be patient and looking like a martyr.

"Why we don't even know how we're going to get there yet," explained Betty soothingly.

"In the automobile, of course," cried Mollie, jumping up again.

"Oh, can we?" cried Grace, forgetting to be languid and bouncing eagerly in the swing. "Mollie, that would be wonderful."

"Why of course we'll go in the car!" it was Mollie's turn to look surprised. "What did you think we were going to do--walk?"

"There are railroads, you know," Grace reminded her, relapsing into irony. "And as to walking--well, we did that too before you got your car, Mollie."

"Yes, and got sore feet," added Mollie.

"Well, now that we've decided not to go on the railroad or walk," Amy broke in unexpectedly, "I really don't see what we are waiting for."

"My goodness, there's another lunatic," cried Grace, looking despairingly at the Little Captain, whose eyes twinkled merrily. "What do you expect us to do--go just as we are?"

"No, but we can throw some things into a suitcase--"

"How long do you suppose it will take us to get there?" asked the Little Captain, coming to Grace's rescue.

"Why, even in Mollie's car it will take two days," said Grace, turning to Betty with the relief of one who at last had a sane person to reckon with. "Mollie and Amy evidently expect to make it in a couple of hours."

"Oh well, I didn't know it was so far away," murmured Mollie, somewhat taken aback. "Of course, then, we can't go until to-morrow."

The girls laughed merrily, and Betty hugged her.

"We might," chuckled the latter, "even be forced to wait till day after to-morrow."

"I won't do it!" cried Mollie, jumping up again. "There's no reason in the world why we can't start to-morrow."

"But, Mollie dear," insisted Betty mildly, "we haven't even asked our folks whether we may go or not--"

"As if we didn't know what they will say," broke in Mollie, but Betty went on without heeding her.

"And we must have a chaperone, you know."

"Oh, I suppose so," sighed Mollie sinking down in her chair resignedly, "but it's horribly tiresome. I want to go now."

"You sound like Dodo with her candies," remarked Grace, amiably helping herself to a luscious milk chocolate filled with nuts. "Have one, Mollie--it may make you feel better."

"It won't, but I will," said Mollie rather enigmatically, reaching out a hand for the proffered sweet. "Thank you, dear."

"But whom shall we have for a chaperone?" cried Amy impatiently. "I'm almost as bad as Mollie--I can hardly wait till to-morrow."

"Why," said Grace, nibbling daintily, "I thought maybe you girls wouldn't mind if I asked mother to go with us."

"Mind!" echoed Betty, while the others looked at her in surprise. "Why of course we'd love to have her! You know that. But I never imagined she would care to go, she is so interested in Red Cross work and her clubs--"

"That's just it," said Grace, sitting up quickly. "She's entirely worn out with work and worry about Will, and I thought a little vacation with us girls would help her out wonderfully. I'm not sure she will go--I haven't asked her yet."

"Well, let's," cried Betty impulsively, jumping to her feet. "She simply can't refuse if we all ask her at once."

"Now you're saying something!" cried Mollie fervently, albeit slangily, as she flung her arm about the Little Captain and dragged her down the steps. "Action is what we need--action, and plenty of it."

The girls fairly ran the short distance from Mollie's home to Grace's, and the people they met on the way, greeted them heartily, musing as he or she turned to go on: "There's probably something interesting in the air--the Outdoor Girls always look like that when they have some new adventure in tow." For Deepdale was very proud and fond of its Outdoor Girls.

Mrs. Ford was just coming down the stairs dressed to go out when the quartette burst in upon her. She did look very tired and worn, as Grace had said, but the smile that lighted her face at sight of the girls made her appear ten years younger.

"Mother," said Grace, taking one of her mother's carefully gloved hands in her own and leading her gently but firmly into the library, "we have something very important to say to you."

"Will it take long?" queried Mrs. Ford, smiling at the other girls over her shoulder. "Because, if it will, I'm very much afraid I can't wait.

I'm a little late now."

"That," said Grace decidedly, as her mother sank into a chair and the other girls grouped themselves about her, "is exactly what we have come to talk about. We think you need a little vacation."

"Vacation!" cried the lady, half rising from her chair. "Why, my dear!

how can I take a vacation when my hands are so full of work now that I am--"

"You don't have to take it," Grace interrupted argumentatively, "we'll just give it to you."

Mrs. Ford laughed helplessly and regarded the eager young faces with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Out with it, girls," she commanded. "I know you are plotting some terrible thing. What do you intend to do, kidnap me?"

"No, we're keeping that for a last resort," returned Betty, and Mrs.

Ford laughed outright at the confession.

"We want," explained Grace, speaking fast for fear of being interrupted, "to have you go with us to Bluff Point. We need a chaperone, you know."

"I've no doubt of it," retorted her mother, laughing, adding, with another anxious glance at the clock: "But I'm afraid you will have to get someone else, Honey. If I were free, I should like nothing better, but you see how rushed I am--"

"But you're terribly tired, Mother, you know you are," said Grace with unusual gentleness, adding diplomatically: "What good will you be to the Red Cross or to anyone else, I'd like to know, if you let yourself get sick?"

"But I'm not sick," protested her mother, then added with a sudden longing as the wild solitude of Bluff Point rose before her eyes suggesting utter peace and quiet, a chance to rest tired nerves and gather strength for the last great drive:

"You're right, I am tired, terribly tired," and the lines of weariness returning to her face. "I'd love it, girls, but there's my work!"

It took the girls about five minutes of the hardest work they had ever done in their lives. But they did what they had set out to do. At the end of that time Mrs. Ford consented to start with them whenever they were ready.

"Day after to-morrow?" asked Mollie, her eyes s.h.i.+ning.

"I don't know why not," said Mrs. Ford, then sprang to her feet with a cry of dismay. "Girls, I completely forgot to telephone the Red Cross.