Patsy Carroll Under Southern Skies

“You poor little thing!” exclaimed Patsy, her ready sympathies touched by the wistfulness of the girl’s tones as she related her sad little story. “Where do you live now, and why do you have to work so hard?”

“These things I cannot tell you. It is forbidden.” The girl mournfully shook her head. “So it is true also that I cannot be your friend. But if you will come here sometimes, I will see you,” she added, her lovely, somber features brightening.

“Of course I will, and bring my friends with me. They are dandy girls, ever so much nicer than I. My name is Patricia Carroll, but everyone calls me ‘Patsy.’ Why can’t you come to Las Golondrinas to see us?”

“It is forbidden. Never I can go there again. I am sorry.”

The brightness faded from the stranger’s beautiful face, leaving it more melancholy than before.

Patsy looked briefly baffled, then tried again with:

“Come down to the beach with me now and meet them and my aunt.” Sudden remembrance of Miss Martha caused her to exclaim: “Good gracious! I wonder what time it is! None of my friends knows where I went. They’ll be terribly worried.”

Patsy sprang to her feet in dismay. She wondered if she had really been away from the beach so very long. She was of the rueful conviction that she had.

“I would go, but I am afraid. If she saw me she would be angry and shut me up for many days. So she has said.”

This was even more amazing to Patsy. She longed to ask this strange girl all sorts of questions. Courtesy forbade her to do so. She also had a vague idea that it would be of no use. Fear of the person she had referred to as “she” had evidently tied the wood nymph’s tongue.

“I’d love to have you come with me,” Patsy said warmly. “But I wouldn’t want you to do anything that might bring trouble upon yourself. Is it right that you should obey this – this person?”

“No; never it is right!” The answer came in bitter, resentful tones. “Often I think to run away from here, never to return. Only I have the no place to go. I am truly the poor one. Dolores!” She made a little despairing gesture. “Si, it is the true name for me.”

“Then if you feel that it is not right to obey a person who is treating you unjustly, don’t do it,” was Patsy’s bold counsel. “I wish you would tell me your trouble. Perhaps I could help you. Won’t you trust me and tell me about it?”

“I am afraid,” was the mournful repetition. “Not afraid of you. Oh, never that! Already I have for you the amor. You are simpatica. I would to go to the sands with you now and meet your friends. I cannot. I will show you the way to the road. So you can walk more quickly to the sands. I will try to come to this place to-morrow at this time and wait for you.”

“May I bring the girls with me?” petitioned Patsy. “My chum, Beatrice, saw you in the thicket the first time we came to the beach. She is longing to know you.”

“Beatrice; it is the pretty name. She is perhaps that one with the true face and the brown curls. I saw her look at me that day. She is not so pretty as you; yet she is pretty. So, also, are those other two girls who look alike and still not alike.”

“They are sisters; Mabel and Eleanor,” informed Patsy. “At home, away up North, they live next door to me. When I come here to-morrow I will tell you more about myself. I must go now. You haven’t said yet whether I might bring my chums with me to-morrow.”

“I wish it,” was the brief consent. “Now I will show you the way.”

It was not as far as Patsy had thought to the sandy road. Guided by Dolores, who knew her ground thoroughly, Patsy found jungle travel easy, even in her bare feet. The two girls finally came out on the road about an eighth of a mile above the beach.

“Thank you ever so much for showing me the way.”

Patsy paused in the middle of the road, her hand extended. Impulsively she leaned forward and lightly kissed Dolores.

The vivid color in the girl’s cheeks deepened at the unexpected caress. A mist sprang to her glorious dark eyes. She caught Patsy’s hand in both her own. Bending, she touched her lips to it. “Oh, you are most simpatica!” she murmured, then turned and darted away, leaving Patsy standing in the middle of the white, sandy road, looking tenderly after the lithe, fleeing form until a tangle of green hid it entirely from her view.

CHAPTER XVI

NOTHING OR SOMETHING?

Meanwhile, down on the sands, three anxious-eyed girls were holding counsel with an equally disturbed matron.

“When did you see Patsy last?” Miss Martha was inquiring in lively alarm.

“She was lying in the sand when I started to swim out to Mab and Nellie,” replied Bee. “When I got to them, Mab began splashing water on me and we had a busy time for a few minutes just teasing each other. Then I looked toward the beach. I was going to call out to Patsy to come on in, but she wasn’t there. I supposed, of course, she’d gone up to the bath house to take off her bathing suit and dress again. She had said she was tired.”

“How long ago was that?” Miss Martha asked huskily.

“An hour, I’m afraid; perhaps longer,” faltered Bee. “We’ve looked all along the beach and called to her. We looked in the bath house first before we told you, Miss Martha. We hated to frighten you. We kept expecting she’d come back. We thought maybe she was hiding from us just for fun and would pounce out on us all of a sudden.”

“You should have told me at once, Beatrice.”

Worry over her niece’s strange disappearance lent undue sternness to Miss Carroll’s voice.

“I – I – am – sorry.”

Bee was now on the verge of tears.

“So am I,” was the grim concurrence. “At all events, Patsy must be found and immediately. I shall not wait for you girls to change your bathing suits. I shall walk back to the house at once. You are to go into the bath house and stay there until my brother comes for you. He will bring men with him who will search the woods behind the beach.”

“Won’t you let me try again along the edge of jungle, Miss Martha,” pleaded Bee. “I won’t go far into it. I’ll just skirt it and keep calling out – ”

“Who-oo!” suddenly supplemented a clear, high voice.

It had an electrical effect upon the dismayed group. Out from the jungle and onto the beach darted a small, bare-footed, white-clad figure and straight into the midst of a most relieved company.

“Patricia Carroll, where have you been?” demanded Miss Martha sternly. “No; don’t try to smooth things over by hugging me. I am very angry with you for disobeying me.”

Nevertheless, Miss Martha made only a feeble attempt to disengage herself from Patsy’s coaxing arms.

“Now, Auntie, don’t be cross. A Patsy in hand is worth two in the jungle,” saucily paraphrased the unabashed culprit. “I’ve been as safe as safe could be. I’ve really had a wonderful time. I was so interested I forgot that very likely you might miss me and be a little worried.”

“A little worried!”

Miss Martha raised two plump hands in a despairing gesture.

“Why, yes. I – ”

“Do you know how long you’ve been gone?” was the severe question. “Long enough to set us all nearly distracted wondering what had become of you. Really, Patsy, I think you’ve behaved very inconsiderately.”

“I’m sorry, dearest Auntie; truly I am. I didn’t mean to be gone so long. I saw her and before I knew it I was following her as fast as I could run. She came out of the jungle after the book.”

“Saw her? Do you mean our – ” Mabel began excitedly.

“Wood nymph,” Patsy finished triumphantly. “I surely do. I not only saw her. I talked with her.”

“I might have known it,” came disapprovingly from Miss Carroll. “I should have set my foot down firmly in the first place about this girl. I thought you too sensible by far to race off into a snake-infested jungle, bare-footed, at that, after this young savage. I see I was mistaken.”

“She’s not a savage, Aunt Martha.” Patsy rallied to defense of her new friend. “She’s a perfect darling. She’s Spanish, but she speaks really good English in such a quaint, pretty way. She likes me and I like her, and we’re friends. We’ve shaken hands on that.”

“What is her name, Patsy, and where does she live?” eagerly asked Eleanor.

“Her name is Dolores. I don’t know where she lives,” confessed Patsy. “I asked her but she wouldn’t tell me. She said it was forbidden. I asked her to come to Las Golondrinas to see us, but she said that was forbidden, too. She read your book, Auntie. I told you she wasn’t ignorant.”

“What did she say about the ‘Oriole’?” interposed Bee, before Miss Carroll could frame an adequate reply to Patsy’s astounding announcement.

“I – Why, the idea! I forgot to ask her,” stammered Patsy. “I saw her pick up the book and run away with it. I started after her. Then I fell almost on that horrible snake and – ”

“Snake!” went up in shocked unison from four throats.

“Why, yes.” Patsy colored, then grinned boyishly. “I was going to tell you about it in a minute. I caught my foot in some vines and pitched into the bushes. I stirred up a rattler. It began to sing and Dolores ran to me and dragged me away from the place before it had time to bite me. Then she killed it. It was as thick as my wrist and eight feet long. She said it was a diamond – ”

“I must say you have very peculiar ideas of safety,” interrupted her aunt.

Despite the dry satire of her tones, Miss Martha was feeling rather sick over Patsy’s near disaster. In consequence, she was inclined toward tardy appreciation of the “young savage.”

“This girl,” she continued in a dignified but decidedly mollified voice. “I feel that we ought to do something for her. You say she insists that it is forbidden her to come to Las Golondrinas. Did she explain why?”

“No. I wanted awfully to ask her, but I felt sure that she wouldn’t tell me a thing. There’s a mystery connected with her. I know there is.”

“Nonsense!” Miss Martha showed instant annoyance at this theory. “I dare say her parents have merely forbidden her to trespass upon the property of strangers. I have been told that these persons known down South as ‘poor whites’ still feel very resentful toward Northerners on account of the Civil War. The old folks have handed down this hatred to the younger generations. This girl’s parents have no doubt learned that we are from the North.”

“But such people as these poor whites are Americans with American ancestors. Dolores is Spanish. Besides, her father and mother are dead. She said so.”

Patsy went on to repeat the meager account Dolores had given of herself, ending with the girl’s allusion to the mysterious “she” of whom she appeared to stand in such lively dread.

“Very unsatisfactory,” commented her aunt when Patsy had finished her narration. “Understand, Patsy, I am grateful to this girl for the service she did you. As for the girl herself – ”

Miss Martha’s pause was eloquent of doubt.

“She’s perfectly sweet,” insisted Patsy with some warmth.

“Nevertheless, you know nothing of her beyond what she has chosen to tell you,” firmly maintained Miss Carroll. “I don’t approve of her dodging about in the woods like a wild young animal. For all you know this ‘she’ may have been put to a great deal of uneasiness by the girl’s will-o’-the-wisp behavior. She may be so headstrong and disobedient as to require the adoption of strong measures.”

“She’s not that sort of girl,” Patsy again defended. “She’s gentle and dear and lovable. When she smiles her face lights up just beautifully. Mostly, though, she’s terribly sober. Her voice is so soft and sweet. Only it makes one feel like crying.”

“Hmm!” The ejaculation was slightly skeptical. “She seems to have completely turned your head, Patricia. I suppose you will give me no peace until I have seen her for myself. I am a fairly good judge of character, however. It will not take me long to decide whether she is a proper person for you to cultivate.”

“Then come with me into the woods to-morrow,” eagerly challenged Patsy. “I promised to meet her there, at a certain place, and bring the girls. I’m not the least bit afraid you won’t like Dolores. I know that you will.”

“What! flounder through that jungle and risk snake bite? No, indeed! Furthermore, I forbid you girls to do so.”

“Then we can’t see her!” Patsy cried out disappointedly. “I told you she said she was afraid to meet us on the beach. Listen, dearest and bestest Auntie. As we go back over the road to the house, I’ll show you the place where Dolores wants us to meet her. It’s only a little way off the road and easy to reach. There isn’t the least bit of danger from snakes. There’s a kind of natural aisle between the trees that leads to it. Dolores brought me back over it, so I know what I’m talking about.”

“You may point it out to me as we go back to the house,” was the nearest approach to consent which Miss Carroll would give. “Now all of you must hurry to the bath house and make up for lost time. It will be at least two o’clock before we reach home. I will wait for you here. Don’t stop to talk, but hurry.”

Once in the bath house, however, the Wayfarers’ tongues wagged incessantly as they speedily prepared for the homeward hike.

Very naturally the conversation centered on Dolores, of whom Patsy continued to hold forth in glowing terms.

“Wait until Aunt Martha sees her,” she confidently predicted. “She can’t help liking our wood nymph. She was a tiny bit peeved when I said that I knew there was a mystery about Dolores. There is, too. I’m sure of it. She’s not headstrong or disobedient, but she is terribly unhappy. The person she lives with, that horrible ‘she,’ I suppose, must be awfully hateful to her.”

“Do you think we could find out for ourselves where she lives?” Bee asked earnestly. “Then we might be able to help her. She may need help very badly. Your father said that she might be the daughter of a fisherman.”

“We’ll try to find out.” Patsy spoke with quick decision. “Day after to-morrow we’ll make Dad take us to where those fisher folks live. Maybe we’ll find her there. Don’t say a word about it when you meet her to-morrow. We’ll just keep it dark and do a little sleuthing of our own.”

Her companions agreeing with Patsy that this would be an excellent plan, the quartette rapidly finished dressing, locked the door of the bath house behind them and joined Miss Carroll on the beach.

“There’s the place where we are to meet Dolores, Auntie,” informed Patsy when the party reached the point on the road where she had left her new friend. “It’s right beyond those oaks. You can see for yourself that the walking is good.”

“It isn’t quite so bad as I had expected,” Miss Martha grudgingly admitted. “Since you are so determined to introduce this girl to me, I may as well resign myself to taking this walk with you to-morrow.”

This being as good as a promise, wily Patsy accepted it as such and said no more on the subject. Added discussion of it might result in a change of mind on her aunt’s part.

Reaching the house, however, a most unpleasant surprise lay in wait for the party. To see Mammy Luce standing in the entrance to the patio was not an unusual sight. To see her stationed there, however, her bulky form swathed in an ancient linen duster, a shapeless black hat, decorated with a depressed-looking ostrich plume jammed down upon her gray wool, was another matter. More, in one hand was a section of a turkey red tablecloth, tied together at the four corners and bulging with her personal belongings. In the other hand she held a green cotton umbrella which she raised in a kind of fantastic salute as the Wayfarers approached the entrance.

“I’se gwine away fum here, I is,” she rumbled. “I ain’t gwine stay in no house where sperrits come sneakin’ aroun’. I done seen one this mawnin’.”

“What does this mean, Mammy Luce?” Miss Martha took majestic command of the situation. “You have no right to leave me like this without giving notice. Now tell me exactly what the trouble is.”

“I done tell yoh a’ready, Missis. I done seen a sperrit. I wuz bakin’ a cake, I wuz, in de kitchen. I done looks up from de oben an’ I seen a long, tall, ole white sperrit a-sneakin’ for de back stairs. I near fell daid, I did. When I come to, I wuz shakin’ like a leaf. So I jes’ put mah traps togedder quick an’ now I’se gwine. I’se been awaitin’ to tell yoh an ax yoh fer mah wages.”

“There are no such things as ‘spirits,’ Mammy Luce,” Miss Carroll informed the frightened servant. “You only thought you saw one.”

Alarmed at the prospect of losing an excellent cook, Miss Martha proceeded to do her utmost to convince the old woman that her visitant, provided she really had seen an apparition, was not supernatural.

“I seen it. I ain’t blind. I seen it,” Mammy Luce doggedly reiterated. “Yoh cain’t tell this niggah it wuzn’t no sperrit, ’cause it wuz.”

“Much more likely it was one of the maids who dressed up in a sheet on purpose to frighten you,” was Miss Martha’s practical view of the matter. “Where are Celia and Emily?”

“Em’ly she am upstaihs somewhar. She don’t know nuffin’ ’bout it, an’ this am Celia’s day off. Dey am good girls an’ don’t go for to skair ole Mammy Luce. ’Sides, this yeah sperrit wuz ’bout seben foot high. It wuzn’t no pusson. It ain’t no use talkin’, Mis’ Carroll, ’cause I’se gwine ter git out fore dat sperrit gits after this niggah. It ain’t no fun to be daid an’ I ain’t gwine to be it.”

Further argument on the part of not only Miss Martha but the girls as well proved futile. Mammy Luce had but one thought. That thought was to put distance between herself and Las Golondrinas. The substantial increase of wages Miss Carroll felt impelled to offer her did not interest the superstitious old woman.

“I jes’ want what’s acomin’ to muh an’ git out,” she declared with finality. “I’se gwine ober yander ’bout three mile toh see mah brudder. He’ll hitch up his ole yaller mule an’ tote ole Luce toh the station.”

“Go upstairs, Patsy, to my room and bring me my handbag. It is in the tray of my trunk. Here is the key.”

From the white crocheted bag swinging from one arm, Miss Carroll took a small brass key which she handed to Patsy.

As she passed through the patio and thence on upstairs, recollection of the curious impression she had received that morning in walking through the portrait gallery came back to Patsy.

She had been absolutely sure at the moment that the pictured cavalier had moved. Mammy Luce, it seemed, was equally sure that she had seen a “sperrit.” The question that now obtruded itself in Patsy’s mind was, had she and Mammy Luce seen nothing, or had both of them really seen something?

CHAPTER XVII

PUZZLING OVER THE PUZZLE

Now minus a cook, it remained to the Wayfarers to prepare their own luncheon. Not stopping to bewail their cookless state, the four girls, under the direction of Miss Martha, attacked the task with the utmost good humor.

Miss Carroll, however, was not so optimistically inclined. Mammy Luce’s sudden departure had deprived her of a skilled cook, whom she could not easily replace. She was thankful that the panic had not extended to the maids. Providentially, Celia was absent for the day. According to Mammy Luce, Emily was still in ignorance of the “sperrit’s” visitation. She had eaten her noonday meal and gone back to her upstairs work before Mammy Luce had seen the dread apparition.

In the midst of preparations for the belated luncheon, she appeared in the kitchen, broom and duster in hand, her black eyes round with curiosity at the unusual sight which met them.

In as casual a tone as she could muster, Miss Carroll informed the girl that Mammy Luce had left Las Golondrinas. This news appeared not to surprise Emily so much as had the sight of the “young ladies an’ the Missis aworkin’ in de kitchen.”

“Huh!” was her scornful ejaculation. “I guess ole Luce done got skairt ’bout dat ere ghos’. Carlos wuz tellin’ her ’bout it t’other day. That Spanish fellah in the queer duds up thar in the pitcher gallery done walk aroun’ this house. He go fer to say he’s seen it. He am a liar. They ain’t no sech things ’s ghos’es, I says, but Luce, she says they is. She wuz ’fraid she’d see it.”

“Certainly there are no such things as ghosts, Emily,” Miss Martha made haste to agree. “I am glad to find you so sensible on the subject. Since you have mentioned it, I might as well say that it was this ghost idea which caused Mammy Luce to leave us.”

Miss Martha diplomatically avoided making a direct explanation of the affair. Once Emily learned Mammy Luce had insisted that she had actually seen a ghost, she might not remain firm in her conviction that there were “no sech things.”

“I hope Celia has no such foolish ideas about ghosts as Mammy Luce,” Miss Carroll continued inquiringly.

“Celie, she’s ’bout half an’ half. She says as thar might be or mightn’t. Only she says she ain’t gwine to git skairt ’less she sees one. Celie’n me, we don’t take no stock in that good-fer-nuffin’ Carlos. He am a sorehead, he am. Ef it’s ’greeable, Mis’ Carroll, I reckon I ain’t sech a bad cook. Leastways, I don’ mind tryin’. Ef yoh likes mah cookin’ mebbe I can git mah sister t’ come an’ do mah work.”

This was joyful news indeed. Needless to mention, Miss Carroll was not slow to take good-natured Emily at her word.

“I shall be very glad to have you try, Emily,” she said. “If you can get along with the cooking it will save us the trouble of sending to Miami for another cook. Where does your sister live? Perhaps she wouldn’t care to come here for so short a time.”

“She lives home with mah mudder, Mis’ Carroll. Jes’ a little ways from Miami. She am only fifteen, but she am right smaht. I done gwine t’ write her t’night,” assured Emily, showing her white teeth in a wide grin.

“Do so, Emily. To have your sister come here will simplify matters wonderfully.”

Miss Martha looked her relief at this unexpected solution of the domestic problem.

With the deft assistance of Emily, the luncheon which the Wayfarers had busied themselves in preparing was soon on the dining-room table. It consisted of bread and butter, bacon, an omelet, and a salad, composed of tomatoes, green sweet peppers and lettuce, with French dressing. The fateful cake which Mammy Luce was removing from the oven when she saw the “sperrit” now figured as dessert along with oranges which Patsy had painstakingly sliced and sugared.

Previous to Emily’s disappearance, the preparation of luncheon had been accompanied by much talk and laughter on the part of the Wayfarers. Presently seated at table, they had considerably less to say. Emily’s revelation concerning Carlos had set them all to wondering and speculating.

“It strikes me that this Carlos has very little good sense,” Miss Martha criticized the moment Emily had left the dining-room. “He should have known better than tell such a tale to old Mammy Luce. I shall speak to your father about him, Patsy.”

“When we asked him about the portrait gallery he said he didn’t know a thing,” Patsy replied with a puzzled frown. “Do you suppose he really told Mammy Luce about the picture and the ghost? If he did, that proves he wasn’t telling us the truth. Now why should he lie to us?”

“Very likely to get rid of answering your questions,” responded her aunt. “Undoubtedly he knew better than to tell you girls such a silly story. He knew you would refer to it to your father and that Robert would be displeased. I believe Emily, of course. As to Mammy Luce, I don’t know. It is exactly the sort of foolish yarn that I warned you we were likely to hear down South. I am sorry that it should have cost us our cook.”

The tale of the ghostly cavalier was not disturbing Miss Carroll in the least. The loss of a cook was of far greater importance to her.

The Wayfarers, however, were more impressed by Mammy Luce’s ghost than they dared allow Miss Carroll to guess. During luncheon four pairs of bright eyes continually exchanged significant glances. They were burning to talk things over among themselves.

Miss Carroll’s announcement that she intended to take a nap directly after luncheon gave them the longed-for opportunity. Patsy’s demure invitation, “Come on into Bee’s and my room, Perry children,” held untold meaning.

“Girls,” began Patsy solemnly, the instant the door of the room closed behind the quartette, “there’s something queer about this old house. There’s something queer about that picture. Carlos knows more than he pretended to know. I wouldn’t feel so – well, so funny about it if I hadn’t thought I saw that cavalier in the picture move. It gives me the shivers. Do you suppose there is – Oh, there simply can’t be a ghost in this house!”