The Campfire Girls on Station Island: or, The Wireless from the Steam Yacht

“I understand that,” said Jessie. “But can an amateur build and practically work this new circuit?”

“Why not? If you follow directions carefully. And with the new outfit a loop is just as effective an antenna as an outside aerial. They say, too, that to catch broadcasting for not more than twenty-five miles, not even a loop is needed, the circuits themselves acting as the absorbers of energy.”

“I’m going to try it,” declared Jessie, with more confidence. “But I feel that I understand so little about the various forms of radio, after all.”

“You have nothing on me there,” laughed the operator. “I am learning something new all the time. And sometimes I am astonished to find out how, after five years of work with it, I am really so ignorant.”

The girls had a very interesting visit at the station; and from the operator Jessie and Amy gained some particular instruction about sending and receiving messages in the telegraph code. He received several messages from ships at sea while the girls remained in the station, and likewise relayed other messages received from inland stations both up and down the coast and to vessels far out at sea.

“It is a wonderful thing,” said Nell, as the girls walked homeward. “I never realized before how great an influence wireless already was in commercial life. Why, how did the world ever get along without it before Marconi first thought of it?”

“How did the world ever get along without any other great invention?” demanded Amy. “The sewing machine, for instance. I’ve got to run up a seam in one of my sports skirts, for there is no tailor, they say, nearer than the hotel. I do wish a sewing machine had been included in the furnishings of your bungalow, Jess. I hate to sew by hand.”

The boys had come in before the Roselawn girls returned for dinner, and they were very enthusiastic over a plan for taking a part of the bungalow crowd on an extended sailing trip. They had met Dr. Stanley walking the beaches, and he had expressed a desire to go to sea for a day or two, and at once Darry and Burd had conceived a plan for the young folks to be included.

“The doctor is a good enough chaperon,” said Darry, with a laugh. “Nell shall come. Her Aunt Freda will be down to look after the children.”

“And Henrietta?” asked Jessie, hesitatingly.

“For pity’s sake!” cried Darry, in some impatience. “Don’t be tied down to that kid all the time. You’d think you were a grandmother.”

“Well, I like that!” exclaimed Jessie. “I’m not sure that I want to go on your old yacht, Darry Drew.”

“Aw, Jess – ”

“Well, I’ll think about it,” murmured Jessie, relenting.

CHAPTER XV – HENRIETTA IN DISGRACE

Darry and Burd seemed to have little time to spend ashore these days. They said that they had a lot to do to fix up the Marigold for the proposed trip seaward. But Amy accused them of being afraid of Belle Ringold and Sally Moon.

“Belle is determined that she shall get an invitation to sail aboard your yacht, Darry,” teased his sister. “Don’t forget that.”

“Not if we see her first,” responded Burd, promptly. “And don’t you ring her in on us, for if you do we’ll not let you aboard the Marigold either. How about it, Darry?”

“Good enough,” agreed Amy’s brother. “Oh, I promise not to ring Belle Ringold in on you,” giggled Amy.

“It is perfectly disgraceful how you boys teach these girls slang,” Mrs. Drew remarked with a sigh.

“Why, Mother!” cried Darry, his eyes twinkling, “they teach it to us. You accuse Burd and me wrongfully. We couldn’t tell these girls a single thing.”

This was at breakfast at the Norwood bungalow. After breakfast the young folks separated. But Jessie and Amy had no complaint to make about the boys. They had their own interests. This day they had agreed to explore the island with Nell Stanley as far as the hotel grounds.

They took Henrietta and Sally Stanley along, and carried a picnic lunch. The older girls were rather curious to see the extent of “Henrietta’s domain,” as Amy called it. The pastures included in the Hackle Island Golf Club grounds covered all the middle of the island, and consisted of hills and dells, all “up-and-down-dilly,” Amy observed, and from a distance, at least, seemed very attractive.

Of course, they could not go fast with the two smaller girls along, although Henrietta seemed tireless.

“But Sally ain’t a tough one, like me,” declared the little girl who thought she was going to own an island. She approved of Sally Stanley very much because the minister’s little girl was dainty, and kept her dresses clean, and was soft-spoken. “I got to run and holler once in a while or I thinks I’m choking,” confessed Henrietta. “But your mamma, Miss Jessie, says I’ll get over that after a while. She says I’ll go to school and learn a lot and that maybe I’ll be as nice as Sally some day.”

“I hope you will,” said Jessie warmly. “That’s hardly to be expected,” Henrietta rejoined in her old-fashioned way. “Sally was born that way. But I always was a tough one.”

“There is a good deal in that,” sighed Jessie to the other Roselawn girls. “The poor little thing! She never did have a chance. But Momsy is already talking about sending her away to school to have her toned down and – ” “Suppose the Blairs won’t hear to it?” suggested Amy. “Leave it to Momsy to work things out her way,” said Jessie, more gaily.

They soon left the sand dunes behind them and marched up over what the natives of the island called “the downs” to a scrubby pasture at the edge of the golf links. Crossing the links watchfully they only had to dodge a couple of times when the players called “Fore!” and so got safely past the various greens and reached the patch of wood between the club premises and the hotel grounds.

There was a spring here which they had been told about, and it was near enough noon for lunch to occupy an important place in their minds. They spent an hour here; but after that, much as she had eaten, Henrietta began to run around again. She could not keep still.

Her voice was suddenly stilled and she halted in the path and stood like a pointer flushing a covey of birds. The older girls were surprised. Amy drawled:

“What’s the matter, Hen? You don’t feel sick, do you?”

“I hear something,” declared Henrietta, her freckled face clouding. “I hear somebody talk that I don’t like.”

“Who is that?” asked Nell.

“She makes me feel sick, all right,” grumbled the little girl. “Oh, yes! It’s her. And if she says again that she owns my island, I’ll – I’ll – ”

“Belle Ringold!” exclaimed Amy, much amused. “Can’t we go anywhere without Belle and Sally showing up?”

The two girls whom they all considered so unpleasant appeared at the top of the small hill and came down the path. They were rather absurdly dressed for an outing. Certainly their frocks would have looked better at dinner or at a dance than in the woods. And they strutted along as though they quite well knew they had on their very best furbelows.

“Oh, dear me! there’s that awful child again,” drawled Belle, before she saw the older girls sitting at the spring.

“She must be lost away up here,” said Sally Moon, idly. “Say, kid, run get this folding cup filled at the spring.”

“What for?” demanded Henrietta.

“Why, so I can drink from it, foolish!”

“You bring me a drink first,” said the freckle-faced girl stoutly. “Nobody didn’t make me your servant to run your errands – so now!”

“Listen to her!” laughed Belle. “She waits on Jess Norwood and Amy Drew hand and foot. Of course she is a servant.”

“You ain’t a servant when you wait on folks for love,” declared Henrietta, quickly.

Amy clapped her hands together softly at this bit of philosophy. Jessie stood up so that the girls from the hotel could see her.

“Oh! Here’s Jess Norwood now,” cried Sally. “You might know!”

Little Henrietta was backing away from the two newcomers, but eyeing them with great disfavor. She suddenly demanded of Jessie:

“Is this spring on a part of my land, Miss Jessie?”

“It may be,” said Amy, quickly answering before Jessie could do so. “Like enough all this grove is yours, Hen.”

“Why,” gasped Belle Ringold, “my father is just about to take possession of this place. He is going to have surveyors come on the island and survey it.”

“This is my woods!” cried Henrietta. “It’s my spring! You sha’n’t even have a drink out of it – neither of you girls!”