Patsy Carroll Under Southern Skies

CHAPTER IX

THE WOOD NYMPH

Invited by guileful Patsy at luncheon that day to advance an opinion regarding the “witch woman” of the morning’s adventure, Miss Martha said precisely what her niece had prophesied she would say. She added something, however, which Patsy had not anticipated.

“You girls should have known better than trespass on private property,” she rebuked. “As for that woman, I should say she was mentally unbalanced. Don’t any of you go near that cottage again. I will not have you risking your lives in the vicinity of a lunatic. You had best make inquiry about her, Robert,” she continued, turning to her brother.

“I intend to,” was the reply. “This new man, Crespo, may know her history. Very likely she is one of those queer but harmless characters that one happens on occasionally down here. I hardly think there is any cause for alarm, Martha. Still, it will be just as well for the girls to steer clear of her.”

“I know I don’t want to go near her again,” Mabel said with a slight shudder. “She was positively savage.”

“One call is enough for me, thank you,” smiled Eleanor.

Patsy and Beatrice exchanged significant glances but said nothing. Each knew the other’s thought. Both had a valiant hankering to try their luck at a second interview with the witch woman. Unfortunately for them, Miss Martha’s stern mandate forbade further venturesome investigation.

Patsy’s carefully prepared question concerning the strange old woman Miss Martha replied to with a touch of impatience:

“My dear child, you can hardly expect me to be able to find meaning in the ravings of a lunatic. I have only one thing to say on the subject. I have said it before and I repeat it. You are all to keep away from that cottage.”

This emphatic repetition put a quietus to Patsy’s hopes of awakening her aunt’s interest in what she and Bee had already decided was a real mystery. Miss Martha’s one thought on the subject seemed to be that the society of an insane woman should be shunned rather than courted.

“My little scheme turned out all wrong,” Patsy admitted ruefully to Beatrice, as the two strolled into the patio after luncheon and seated themselves on the edge of the fountain’s time-worn stone basin. “I wanted to go to that cottage again, too.”

“So did I,” confessed Bee. “I was sure your aunt would say we mustn’t.”

“I’m going to make Dad take us there some day,” planned resourceful Patsy. “He’ll be willing to, I know. Then Auntie can’t say a word.”

“Hey, there!” suddenly called a gay voice from the balcony.

Both Bee and Patsy cast a quick glance upward to see Mabel leaning over the balcony rail.

“Are we going to the beach, or not?” she inquired. “If we are, you’d better leave off languishing beside the fountain and hurry up. We ought to start before sunset, you know,” she added satirically.

“It’s only one-thirty by my little watch,” calmly informed Patsy. “It’s a long time yet until sunset, Mabsie. Didn’t you know that?”

“What about taking our bathing suits?” demanded Mabel, ignoring Patsy’s playful thrust.

“Just as you like. If you and Nellie want to go bathing, then so do we.”

“I’d rather not,” returned Mabel. “I’d rather just poke around down on the beach and in the boat house. I think it would be more fun to get up early to-morrow morning and go bathing.”

“Those are golden words, my child,” grinned Patsy. “I was of the same mind, but too polite to say so. We can prowl around the boat house this afternoon and find out what we need to take down there in the way of bathing comforts. Dad says we’ll have to add the final touches ourselves. We’ll be up in a minute, Mabsie.”

“All right.”

Mabel promptly disappeared from the balcony. Patsy and Bee rose. Leaving the patio they went upstairs to their room.

A few minutes later the Wayfarers and Mr. Carroll were swinging down the oleander drive toward the highway. Miss Martha had declined to join the expedition. Following the highway north for about an eighth of a mile, they turned at last into a narrow white road hedged in by vermilion hibiscus growing rank and wild for lack of care. The road was shaded for some distance by double rows of palms, which had been planted on each side. Presently it entered the stretch of jungle lying above the beach and continued almost straight ahead through the bit of wilderness.

“Some of the Feredas must have liked to go bathing or they never would have had this dandy road cut through to the beach,” was Beatrice’s opinion, as the party came at last to the end of the tropical road and out onto the warm white sands.

The beach itself curved inward like a new moon to meet the jungle which surrounded it on three sides. At the left, near the water’s edge, stood the once dilapidated boat house. It now looked very trim in its new coat of white paint.

The jungle road ended almost at the middle of the new moon. Emerging from it and walking a few steps across the sands, the Wayfarers paused, by common consent, to gaze admiringly out on the glorious expanse of dazzlingly blue sea that lay only the breadth of the curving beach beyond them.

“This is the nicest bathing beach I ever saw!” exclaimed Patsy. “The beauty of it is that it’s our very own. We’re sole proprietors of this bit of sand and sea.”

“It’s the first one I ever saw,” laughed Bee. “You must remember that I never saw the Atlantic Ocean until I came down here. It seems thrilling to be so near to it.”

“Wait until to-morrow morning and I’ll give you a good salt-water ducking,” promised Patsy. “Won’t that be nice and thrilling?”

“Try it if you dare,” challenged Bee, “and see who gets the ducking.”

“I’m sorry now that we didn’t bring our bathing suits along,” lamented Eleanor. “I’d love to have a swim in that nice blue water. It looks fairly shallow, too.”

“At most of these lonely beaches along the coast, I imagine the water must be too deep for safety. This place looks safe enough,” agreed Mabel enthusiastically.

“We can’t tell much about it until we try it out for ourselves,” returned Patsy. “Sometimes shallows stop all of a sudden and you get into very deep water before you know it. I found that out once when we were spending the summer at Wildwood. Our cottage was quite a way up the beach. I started to wade into the surf one morning, and all at once I felt myself going down, down, down. I had sense enough to strike out and swim, or I wouldn’t be here now.”

“I don’t believe the water is very deep here.”

Mr. Carroll now broke into the conversation. He had been silently listening to his charges, an amused smile touching his firm lips.

“You mustn’t venture too far out, though,” he cautioned. “Remember, there are no guards about to keep tabs on you. Besides, the mists down here often creep up very suddenly over the sea. If you happened to venture too far out and were caught in one, your chance of regaining the shore would be slim. I can’t always be depended upon to be on hand to look out for you, so you’ll have to be good children and not run any needless risks.”

“We’ll be as good as gold and as careful as can be,” lightly promised Patsy. “Now take us over to the boat house. We’d like to see how it looks inside.”

Conducted by Mr. Carroll to the trim little house, the Wayfarers found it as completely renovated inside as out. Mr. Carroll had gone to considerable pains to transform the former boat house into a comfortable bath house. Wooden benches had been built along two sides of it. Plenty of towel racks and hooks on which to hang clothing were in evidence. A good-sized mirror had been hung on one of the end walls. There was also a tall rack designed to hold wet bathing suits and numerous other minor details had been added in the way of conveniences for bathers.

“Why, it’s all ready for us!” exulted Patsy. “You’ve thought of almost everything we’d need, Dad. You’re a dear.”

“I had it fixed up as nearly like the one we had at Wildwood as I could recall,” returned her father. “You girls will have to add the finishing touches. Sorry there isn’t a shower bath. I intend to put one in later when I have time to see to the piping for it.”

“Oh, we can get along beautifully without it,” Patsy assured. “It’s ever so much nicer than I thought it would be. You’ve done wonders to get it ready for us on such short notice.”

The other three girls were quick to concur with Patsy in this opinion.

“Here’s the key.” Mr. Carroll handed it to his daughter. “I now declare you Chief Custodian of the Bath!”

“I accept the high office. May I be ever faithful to my trust,” declaimed Patsy merrily as she took the proffered key, a small brass affair on a ring.

“The first thing we ought to do is to sit down and make a list of the things we will have to bring from the house,” suggested practical Beatrice. “I brought along a little memorandum pad and a pencil.”

Extracting them from the breast pocket of her white middy blouse, Bee offered them to Patsy.

“You may do the writing, Bee.” Patsy declined the proffered pad and pencil. “I’ll tell you what we’ll have to have. Any valuable suggestions from the illustrious Perry sisters will be respectfully received.”

“While this important consultation is in full swing, I believe I’ll take a walk up the beach,” announced Mr. Carroll. “My black boys tell me there’s an old fisherman living not far above here who owns several boats. I’m anxious to get in touch with him and, if possible, arrange a fishing trip for us while we’re here.”

“Go ahead, Dad. You have my permission,” saucily replied Patsy. “After we’ve made our list, we’ll lock up the bath house and play around on the beach until you come back.”

The list having been finally completed, to the Wayfarers’ mutual satisfaction, the quartette left the bath house. Up and down the white stretch of beach they strolled for a little, enjoying the fresh sea breeze. Finally they seated themselves on the warm sands to talk and watch the incoming tide, interestedly trying to calculate how long it would be before they would have to move further back to escape its slow but steady advance.

“It’s coming nearer and nearer,” remarked Bee, as she fascinatedly watched the endless succession of waves break on the sand, each a trifle higher up the beach than the preceding one.

“I move that we move.”

Eleanor rose, shaking the sand from her white linen skirt. Patsy and Beatrice also got to their feet.

“I hate to move. I’m so comfy.”

Stretched at full length in the sand, Mabel made no attempt to follow her companions’ example.

“Stay where you are then and get your feet wet,” laughed Eleanor. “There’s a good-sized wave heading straight for you now.”

This information caused Mabel hastily to draw up her feet. Next moment she was standing erect beside Eleanor.

“Dad ought to be back before long.”

Patsy stood gazing up the beach in the direction Mr. Carroll had taken.

“Oh, look!”

The sudden ringing cry issued from Beatrice’s lips. Her back to the sea, she had been dreamily staring into the green depths of the jungle. Now she was pointing excitedly toward a tangled thicket of briar bushes and flowering vines.

“Where? I don’t see anything! What is it, Bee?” instantly went up from Mabel.

“She’s gone.” Bee’s arm dropped to her side. “We scared her away. She ducked and ran.”

“Who ducked and ran? What are you talking about, Bee?”

It was Patsy who now impatiently put these questions.

“A wood nymph,” smiled Beatrice. “I was looking at that thicket up there and all of a sudden I saw her. She stood between two bushes watching us. Such a pretty little thing, with big black eyes and long black hair hanging about her face. I had just caught a glimpse of her when I called out to you. The minute she knew I’d seen her she turned and ran off through the green. I saw her black head bobbing in and out among the bushes; then I lost sight of her.”

“You certainly saw more than we did,” Patsy said ruefully. “I didn’t see anyone. Was she – well – a white person, Bee?”

“Oh, yes. As white as you or I, and about as tall as Mab, I think,” replied Beatrice. “She had a beautiful little face. She was wearing a faded brown dress or apron. I couldn’t tell which. It startled me to see her there, all of a sudden. She looked so wild and shy and pretty. Exactly like a wood nymph. I couldn’t help calling out.”

“Too bad we missed seeing her,” deplored Eleanor. “Maybe we’ll run across her some other day. She must live in this vicinity or she wouldn’t have been roaming around in the jungle. She certainly can’t be afraid of snakes. I wouldn’t care to go dashing recklessly through that wilderness.”

“That’s only because you’re not used to the idea,” declared Patsy. “By the time we’ve been here a couple of weeks, we’ll probably go tramping around in that bit of jungle without being in the least afraid of snakes.”

“Never,” was Mabel’s discouraging ultimatum.

The appearance of Mr. Carroll some distance up the beach diverted the minds of the quartette from the shy little apparition Beatrice had seen. With one accord the four set off on the run to meet him.

Nor had the Wayfarers the remotest idea that, from a concealing thicket of living green, a few yards above the spot where they had been standing, a pair of bright, black eyes wistfully and wonderingly watched them as they scampered across the sands toward Mr. Carroll.

CHAPTER X

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH OLD OCEAN

“Isn’t there a road to this beach wide enough for the automobile to run on?” Miss Martha inquired of her brother at breakfast the next morning, in a tone of long-suffering patience.

“None that I know of,” was the discouraging reply. “That stretch of jungle above the beach extends for miles along the coast. The only road to the sea in this vicinity is the one cut through the woods by old Fereda. It’s hardly more than a path. Too bad you don’t ride, Martha. You could make it easily on horseback.”

“Never,” was the firm assertion. “I wouldn’t trust myself to the best behaved horse that ever lived. I suppose I shall have to resign myself to walking.”

“You needn’t go with us, if you’d rather not, Auntie,” broke in Patsy. “Dad says it’s perfectly safe for us to go alone. We’re on our own property all the way to the beach, you know.”

“That is not the point,” calmly disagreed Miss Carroll. “I feel it my duty to accompany you whenever your father is unable to do so. I dare say the sea breeze will benefit me. I merely dislike the idea of this tramp through the brush and weeds.”

“Oh, the road’s as smooth as can be,” hastily assured Beatrice. “It’s only narrow, that’s all. It’s really a beautiful walk, Miss Martha. I am sure you will like it.”

“I doubt it,” was the pessimistic response. “Nevertheless I shall go.”

Half an hour after breakfast a luggage-laden procession set off beachwards. Miss Martha brought up the rear with Mabel, eye-glasses firmly astride her nose, a book in one hand, her white parasol held over her head at a dignified angle. Beatrice and Eleanor walked just ahead, while Patsy buoyantly led the van, calling continually back over her shoulder to her companions with every fresh feature of interest her bright eyes picked up along the way.

“I must say the walking is better than I had expected to find it,” was Miss Carroll’s grudging opinion as the party at length emerged from the woods onto the sands. “Walking, as an exercise, has never appealed to me, however.”

“If you walk down to the beach and back with us every day, Auntie, you’ll soon become a champion walker,” Patsy said lightly.

“I have no such ambition,” was her aunt’s dry answer. “Further, I don’t intend to come down here every day. On occasions when Robert is busy, and I do not feel inclined to take this walk, you will have to forego sea-bathing.”

“Come on over and see the bath house, Auntie.”

Patsy slipped an arm through that of her apparently disobliging relative. She was well aware of the fact that her aunt’s bark was worse than her bite.

Escorted by Patsy to the little bath house, Miss Martha critically inspected its interior and set upon it her seal of placid approval. For a half hour the four girls busied themselves with unpacking and arranging the various articles they had brought with them as final furnishing touches. This done to their mutual satisfaction, they gleefully began preparations for their swim. In an incredibly short time they had donned their bathing suits and were ready for their morning dip.

“My first appearance as a deep sea swimmer,” proudly announced Bee, making a low bow to Patsy.

“You look sweet, Bee. That dark red suit is awfully becoming,” praised Eleanor. “Pull your cap down well over your head. Salt water makes one’s hair so horrid and sticky.”

“Come on! The water’s fine! Hurrah for old Ocean!”

Patsy held out an inviting hand to Beatrice. Attired in a sleeveless suit of white flannel, with pale blue trimmings, one auburn curl escaping from under her white rubber cap, her gray eyes dancing, cheeks pink with excitement, Patsy was the embodiment of girlish prettiness and radiant health.

The Wayfarers made a charming picture as they caught hands and ran down the beach and into the water four abreast. There was a pleasant light in Miss Martha’s blue eyes as she stood watching them and heard the concerted shout of glee that arose as they struck the water and Patsy immediately proceeded to administer the ducking she had promised Beatrice.

Being a very sturdy young person, Bee had a will of her own. In consequence a battle royal ensued in the water, punctuated by shouts of laughter. It ended by both combatants losing their footing and sitting down violently in the water, to the great joy of Mabel and Eleanor, who seized the opportunity to fall upon Patsy and Bee and duck them thoroughly on their own account. Whereupon a good-natured, free-for-all combat waged.

Their first exuberance subsiding the bathers settled themselves to enjoy their swim in the buoyant salt water. Accustomed from childhood to sea-bathing, Patsy was an expert swimmer. Bee, who had learned to swim in fresh water, did fairly well, however. Mabel and Eleanor were indifferent swimmers. To quote Mabel: “We can swim and that’s about all.”

Having watched her flock make a noisy acquaintance with old Ocean, Miss Martha retired to a spot on the sands shaded by the overhanging palms where beach and jungle met. Seating herself on the clean, warm sand, she opened the novel she had brought with her and devoted herself to its pages.

Oblivious for the time being to the merry voices of her charges, she was finally startled by a piercing shriek of pain. As a result of going bathing bare-footed, one Wayfarer, at least, had met with disaster. Eleanor had had the misfortune to run afoul of a most ungracious crab, which had promptly shown displeasure of the intrusion by taking hold and pinching.

By the time Miss Martha had dropped parasol and book to rush to the water’s edge, Eleanor had won free of her tormentor and was limping for land.

“What’s the matter, Eleanor?” Miss Carroll cried out concernedly.

“A horrid crab pinched my foot,” was the doleful response. “I thought it would never let go. I was wading near the shore and stepped on it. My, but my foot hurts!”

Emerging from the shallows, Eleanor dropped down on the sand and began tenderly nursing her injured foot.

“You should have worn bathing slippers and stockings,” was the doubtful consolation. “They not only look well but are also a protection.”

“But this is a private beach and it’s ever so much more fun not to wear them, Miss Martha. I’m not really hurt much. My foot feels all right now,” Eleanor hastily assured. “It hardly pains me at all.”

“Oh, I sha’n’t insist on your wearing them,” Miss Martha smiled grimly at Eleanor’s miraculous recovery. “I merely expressed my opinion.”

By this time, Mabel, who had been some distance away from her sister when the latter cried out, now appeared beside her.

“What happened to you, Nellie?” she asked. “I heard you yell and came as fast as I could.”

“Oh, a hateful old crab pinched my foot. It wasn’t anything. I was silly to make a fuss about it. I frightened Miss Martha and I’ve spoiled Bee’s and Patsy’s sport. They’d started to race as far as that upper curve of the beach. Now they’re coming back.”

“It’s just as well.” Miss Martha consulted her wrist watch. “You girls have been in the water over an hour. That is long enough for your first day’s bathing.”

Patsy and Bee presently arriving on the scene with solicitous inquiries, they were promptly informed of Eleanor’s mishap by the sufferer herself.

“Poor ’ittle Nellie! Did a nasty, naughty old crab nip her tootsey-ootsey?” deplored Patsy. “Show Patsy that wicked crabby an’ her’ll kill him wight down dead.”

“Oh, stop, you goose,” giggled Eleanor. “You make me feel as though I were about three years old.”

“That’s the way she appreciates my sympathy,” grinned Patsy. “Never mind, Nellie. I forgive you, even if you did interrupt the grand race. Bee was gaining on me, anyway. She might possibly have beaten me. Want to try it over again, Bee?”

“Not to-day, Patsy,” objected her aunt. “You’ve been in the water long enough. By the time you girls are ready to go back to the house it will be nearly noon. I ordered luncheon at one o’clock, as usual. It will be one before we reach the house.”

“All right, Auntie. We’ll postpone the great race until to-morrow.”

As she spoke, Patsy began energetically to wring the salt water from the skirt of her bathing suit, preparatory to retiring into the bath house.

Her companions following Patsy’s example, Miss Carroll strolled back to the spot where she had left book and parasol. The white parasol lay precisely where she had cast it aside in her hurried dash to Eleanor’s rescue. The book – Miss Martha stared down at the sand in sheer amazement. The red, cloth-bound volume she had been reading had disappeared as utterly as though the earth had suddenly opened and swallowed it.

CHAPTER XI

A TIMID CALLER

“My book! Where is it?”

Miss Martha continued to stare severely at the spot where her book had so lately lain.

“I saw you sitting there reading it,” affirmed Eleanor positively. “I remember looking up toward you just before that cranky old crab nipped my foot.”

“Certainly I was reading it. I laid it down beside my parasol. It never walked away by itself. Someone stole it. This is very unpleasant. I don’t like it at all. It simply goes to show that I was right in not allowing you girls to come down here alone. Some unknown person has evidently been hidden back there in those woods watching us.”

Miss Martha shook a dramatic finger toward the jungle.

“Oh!” Bee gave a quick, startled gasp. “I wonder – ”

“What is it, Beatrice? Tell me instantly,” commanded Miss Carroll.

“Why – nothing – only – ” Bee hesitated. “Yesterday when we were down here,” she continued, “I saw a – a young girl standing back in a thicket watching us. She might be the one – ”

“She might indeed,” grimly concurred Miss Martha. “I haven’t the least doubt but that she appropriated it. I have been told that the negroes down here are a thieving lot. Strange she didn’t take my parasol.”

“But this girl I saw was as white as Patsy or I,” protested Bee. “She was so pretty. I don’t believe – ”

“I would far rather lay the loss of my book to her than to some prowling tramp,” retorted Miss Martha.

“A person who would take an ordinary cloth-bound book and not an expensive white silk parasol can’t be a very desperate character,” surmised Patsy gaily. “I guess there’s really nothing to worry about. Perhaps this wood nymph of Bee’s is fond of reading.”

“I am not inclined to pass over the incident so lightly,” disagreed her aunt. “I shall insist on Robert’s finding out who this girl is and all about her.”

Some further discussion of the affair ensued during which Miss Carroll again repeated her stern injunction: “You must never come down here to bathe unless either my brother or I are with you. It strikes me that this community is entirely too full of thieves and lunatics for comfort.”

“I’m pretty sure that it was our wood nymph who made off with Aunt Martha’s book,” confided Patsy to Bee as they finally started for the bath house. “I have a scheme of my own that I’m going to carry out. If it works – well, just watch me to-morrow and see. I’m not going to tell you about it now, so don’t ask me.”