The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale | Page 9

to ring for the morning session.
"It's all Betty Nelson's doings," declared Alice, who had often tried to make herself more intimate with the quartette of friends, but unsuccessfully. The other girls did not care for these two.
"Yes. Grace, Mollie and Amy will do anything Betty tells them," asserted Kittie.
"I don't see why she is so popular. She hasn't a bit of style about her."
"I should say not! Her skirt is entirely too wide, and her blouse never seems cut right."
"They say her mother doesn't believe in style. But I do," said Alice. "I'd rather have a cheap dress, if it was in style, than something old-fashioned, even if it cost a lot more."
"So would I. Look at them now, with their heads together! I wonder if they're going to have a dance?"
"I don't know. How can we find out?"
"Leave it to me. Jennie Plum is quite friendly with Mollie. I'll get her to ask some questions."
"Do; and then tell me. I'm sure they're getting up some affair."
"I shouldn't wonder. If they'd only ask us--"
"We have a right to be asked!" and Alice flared up.
The warning bell interrupted further conversation, and the girls and boys filed into their classrooms.
As Alice had remarked, there was a good deal of talk going on among the four members of the newly-formed Camping and Tramping Club. Every spare moment the four seemed to have something to say to each other, as one or the other thought of some new point to consider.
Following the hasty formation of the organization, the girls had sent letters to their friends and relatives asking if it would be convenient to entertain them. Some favorable answers had been received, others were delayed. There were no refusals.
"As soon as we know on whom we can depend, we can make up a schedule--'an itinerary'"--Betty had said. "We will know just where we will stop each night, so the folks can send us word, if they have to," she added.
"Why should they have to, unless something happens?" asked Amy.
"Oh, that five hundred dollar bill might be claimed," said Betty. "We'd want to know about that."
"And you haven't heard a word yet?" asked Grace.
"Not a word! I telephoned to the paper, and they said no replies had come in there. If that young man is depending on this money to make his fortune, I'm afraid he'll be broken instead of made, to use his own expression," and Betty sighed.
The warning bell had broken in on their talk, as it had on that of the rival girls. And then began the school day.
It was warm--very warm for that time of year, being early May, and as the members of the new Camping and Tramping Club looked from the open windows, out to where Spring was already forcing into bloom the flowers, and urging the trees to greater activity, as regards the tender green leaves, there came an almost overpowering desire to toss aside books and papers, and get out where the smell of the brown earth mingled with the perfume of growing vegetation.
The teachers, doubtless, found it difficult also, for the call of nature manifested itself to them, and the girls and boys, rather selfishly, did not make it as easy as they might.
The noon recess again brought the four friends together, and Betty showed a tentative program she had surreptitiously scribbled during a study period.
It contained the names of towns, with the available relatives of the girls set down opposite each one, and a rough calculation of the time required to walk from one place to the other.
"It seems as if we ought to start at once," exclaimed Mollie. "Aren't you just dying to go, Amy?"
"I am--yes." There was hesitation in the tones.
"Why, what is the matter?" asked Grace, quickly. "Are you ill, Amy?" for the girl looked pale, and there were dark circles under her eyes.
"No, I'm all right. But papa and mamma don't seem to want me to go--at least they say they rather I would not just at present."
"The idea!"
"After we have it almost all arranged!"
"Why not?"
These comments and the question were fairly shot at Amy.
"I--I don't know," she faltered. "At first they did not seem to mind--but last night--oh, I dare say it will, be all right, girls. Don't mind me," and Amy tried to smile, though it could easily be seen that it cost her an effort.
She did not want to tell that she had overheard her parents discussing something the night before that troubled her--a topic that had been hushed when she unexpectedly came into the room. And that it had to do with the proposed little trip Amy was sure. Yet Mr. and Mrs. Stonington had at first shown much interest in it, and had written to various relatives asking them to entertain the girls.
"Stuck up things!" murmured