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Page 13
"Don't keep us in suspense, Phil," laughed Eleanor. "What have we
forgotten to buy?"
"A kitchen stove!" cried Phil dramatically. "And I know they must be
awfully expensive."
"What a goose you are, Phil," said Lillian in a practical tone. "We
don't want a kitchen stove. It would take up too much room. We need
an oil stove or something like that."
"Then I appoint you as a special committee to look into the stove
question, Lillian," laughed Madge.
"I accept the appointment," bowed Lillian, "and I won't waste our
capital on kitchen ranges of elephantine proportions, either."
During the next five days the four friends found plenty to occupy their
time. Then Miss Tolliver's school closed, and Phil Alden hurried home
to her family in Hartford, Connecticut; Lillian returned to her home in
Philadelphia, while Madge and Eleanor departed to spend a week with Mr.
and Mrs. Butler in their old home in Virginia. Miss Jones, however,
remained at the school. She made one hurried trip into Baltimore, and
on another occasion had a visitor, but the rest of the time she sewed
industriously; for on June the eighth a new experience was to be
hers--she was to begin her duties as chaperon to four adventurous girls
aboard their longed-for "Ship of Dreams."
CHAPTER V
ALL ABOARD
Blue waves lapped idly against the sides of a little, white palace that
had risen out of the waves of the bay overnight. One side lay close
along a quiet shore. Overhead the leaves of a willow tree stirred in
the wind, and the birds twittered in its branches. The rosy flush was
just fading out of the sky. Dawn had come only a short time before,
and the wind, the waves and the birds were the only things stirring so
early in the morning. There was not a sound or a movement aboard the
odd vessel that was moored to the shore.
Along the shore sped the slender figure of a girl. It was a part of
the morning. Her blue frock was the color of the sky and her auburn
hair had been touched by the sun, and on her radiant face lay the glory
of youth.
Of course, it was Madge! She did not stop when she first spied her
houseboat between the branches of the willow tree. She gave a little
gasp, and ran on faster than ever. A moment later she came alongside
her boat, which was only about three feet from the shore. Madge had
not practised running and jumping in the gymnasium at school and on the
old farm in Virginia for nothing. She gave one flying leap and landed
on the deck of her houseboat. Then she stood perfectly still, a little
song of gratitude welling from the depth of her happy heart.
"Perhaps it was not fair in me to have run away from Eleanor," she
mused. "But then Nellie is such a sleepy-head, she never would have
wished to get up so early. And I did want to see the boat alone, just
for a moment. I am not going to look into the cabin, though. I am
going to wait for the other girls----"
A stone went whizzing by Madge's ear at this moment, causing her
soliloquy to come to an abrupt end.
She glanced toward the shore. A small boy stood grinning at her, with
his hands tucked into a pair of trousers so much too long for him they
had to be turned up from the ankles to the knees.
"Hello," he remarked cheerfully, eyeing Madge owlishly.
"Hello yourself," returned Madge. "Do you usually begin the day by
throwing stones at peaceful strangers?"
"Yes'm," the small boy responded calmly. "Where'd you and that come
from?"
"I came from my home in Virginia, and if by 'that' you mean my boat, it
is a 'Ship of Dreams' and was towed up here from Baltimore yesterday
afternoon. What do you think of it?"
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