mattie was seated at a table with her mother and two other ladies. mrs. helms nodded pleasantly when she saw the river bend folk, but margy was almost crying as she sat down at the table the waiter found for them.
"i knew it!" she declared. "i knew it! if we didn't dress up, i was sure we'd see some one we knew."
the boys laughed at her wail, but mrs. williamson spoke soothingly.
"never mind, daughter," she advised. "we have been traveling and are tired. our dresses are dark, but they are clean and neat, and that is all that is necessary."
poor margy, however, during the dinner kept glancing over toward the table at which mattie sat. mattie wore a pink dress, with slippers and stockings to match. she came over to speak to her friends before they had finished.
"hello, everybody!" said mattie cheerfully.[pg 66] "we got here at noon. isn't this a nice hotel? we are going to take all our meals here, so mother won't have to keep house. have you seen our bungalow? it is the fourth down the street. it's painted brown and white. carrie is coming to-morrow to stay with me. i suppose you came in the car? wasn't it hot? where are you going to be? oh, that part of sunrise beach is awfully out of date. nobody goes there any more."
she rattled on, hardly pausing for a reply to her questions, till her mother caught her eye and signaled to her to go with her. artie stared after her as she left the dining room.
"she's kind of dressed up, isn't she?" he ventured.
"did you see her lovely slippers?" margy sighed.
"you know if you had to get into pink slippers every night, you'd make an awful fuss," the practical fred declared. "i'm glad my mother has some sense."
"thank you," laughed mrs. williamson. "and now let's wander back to our comfortable, old-fashioned house and see about settling down for a good rest."
the house had been thoroughly aired and all the bedding, and it did not take the three mothers[pg 67] long to have the beds made up. there was a shabby old barn at the end of the lot which served as a garage, and the cars had been run in there. the house was three stories high, but there was only one room on the third floor—a large room that had a balcony in front of one of the windows. indeed, as polly said, whenever they didn't know what to do, they built a balcony. some were almost porches and others were little more than platforms, but nearly every window had its balcony. the large room in the third story, it was decided, should be given over to the boys. three cots were put up there, and fred and artie and ward were delighted.
"what's the bell for?" asked fred, pointing to a black iron bell in one corner over the door.
"i suppose it connects with the kitchen, and if we had a maid it would be a signal for her," mr. williamson said. "we'll use it to let you know when breakfast is ready. one ring will be the rising bell; two, a summons to breakfast; three will mean that if you don't hurry you'll get nothing to eat; and four rings will tell you that all is over—we have eaten everything up."
there were four large square bedrooms on the second floor, and the one allotted to the three girls had two balconies, one of them directly under the third story balcony. polly said they could sit[pg 68] out and listen to the ocean, but margy was sure that some one would hear them and come to say they must go to bed.
"they won't hear us listen," argued polly. "of course i don't mean to-night, for we'd go to sleep sitting up. but some night we can sit out here, if we don't get to giggling."
however, no one felt like listening to the ocean that night. they were all tired from the long drive, and polly's cheeks were burning from the wind. within half an hour the whole house was dark and silent, and though the breakers came in and ran out ceaselessly and the tide turned, rose and turned again, not a person in meeker's cottage paid the slightest attention.
polly was awake before jess or margy, and she dressed very quietly. when she was ready, she stepped out on the balcony to get a glimpse of the ocean, sparkling in the sun.
"um, um, isn't that good!" she whispered, taking a long breath of the salty air. "i'm so glad we came to the beach—it is nicer even than lake bassing."
then, in spite of her resolution to keep perfectly quiet and wake no one else, she jumped and shrieked. a huge black spider had spun silently down before her, and now dangled just under her nose.
[pg 69]
"what is it?" cried margy, rushing to the window. "what is it, polly?"
a snicker made polly look up. there was ward perched on the upper balcony, holding the make-believe spider by a string.
"you're a wretch," polly informed him, laughing. "how can you be playing tricks the very first morning, ward? how long have you been up?"
"hours," said ward confidently. "i'm hungry."
polly's shriek had wakened the others, and, as she waited for margy and jess to get dressed, they found the grown-ups downstairs when they went down. the boys did not wait for the warning bell, but came tumbling down, three steps at a time.
"did you know there were bathhouses under the porch?" demanded fred, who had made an inspection tour, when he came in to breakfast. "dinky little closets where we can dress and not have to bring wet suits into the house. say, i think this is a great place."
after breakfast, the three mothers announced that they wanted a morning to "put things to rights," and they said they would work much better if every one went down to the beach and stayed till lunch time.
[pg 70]
"the children won't rest till they get into their bathing suits," said mrs. marley; "so they might as well do that first. then, with three daddies to see that they stay out of the water for an hour or so, i think they will be all right. take the old sweaters down with you and leave them in a pile on the sand. our beach is so far from the crowd that it is safe to leave things unwatched—mrs. meeker wrote me that."
mrs. meeker owned the cottage, and that was why it was called "meeker's cottage." it had been known by that name for years, and once the governor of the state had rented it for a summer. mrs. meeker was very proud of that. in those days, meeker's cottage had been in the fashionable part of sunrise beach.
you may be sure it did not take the riddle club long to get into their bathing suits. very pretty the suits looked, too, with the white initials "r.c." on each. the girls had caps to match their suits—polly blue, jess red and margy green. each had a sweater—"a last year school sweater," as margy described hers—to put on if it was chilly when they came out of the surf. as soon as they were ready, they raced across the road, scrambled over a sand dune, and were out on the beach and capering about as though they had just been released from some box.
[pg 71]
"can't go in for a couple of hours," said mr. williamson firmly, capturing fred, who seemed inclined to meet a breaker more than halfway. "now we'd like to run through the papers before we go in. will you promise to stay on the beach until we give the word?"
"of course," promised polly, and the others nodded. "i'll tell you what we will do—we'll walk up the beach as far as the fishing pier and back, and then we'll hold a meeting of the riddle club. by that time we can go in bathing."
"but i can't collect the dues," fred objected. "no one has any money and i haven't any pocket."
"it won't be a regular meeting," argued polly. "we'll just ask as many riddles as we can remember."
"well, let me tell you this club can't go on forever and not collect any dues," fred declared earnestly. "we're always having special meetings, and 'special' means no dues taken up. ever since we put our money in the bank, you all seem to think we have a fortune and don't need any more."
"calm yourself, fred," said his father. "as this is a special meeting, i'll pay the dues."
"no, we'll chip in," mr. marley suggested. "i'll pay twenty cents for polly and artie."
[pg 72]
"here is twenty for jess and ward," said mr. larue.
mr. williamson took the money and added another twenty cents for his two children, margy and fred.
"i'll be acting treasurer till the real treasurer gets to his trousers pockets," said mr. williamson. "now then, let's carry out the program."
the children started to walk to the fishing pier while the fathers settled down comfortably in the sand, under a section of abandoned boardwalk that served to shade them nicely. they were anxious to read their morning papers.
"i wonder how far the beach goes?" speculated jess, as she let a breaker come up almost to her ankles before she retreated.
"florida," artie said promptly.
"could we walk to florida?" said jess a little doubtfully.
"sure we could! don't you remember how the coast looks on the map?" fred reminded her.
"we could walk all around the united states if we went on the top of canada," said ward, screwing up his eyes as though he were looking at a map a long way off. "say, that would be fun, wouldn't it?"
"don't let's start in our bathing suits," margy[pg 73] cautioned, with something of her father's teasing seriousness.
polly had stopped to examine a shell.
"let's pick up all the prettiest shells we see," she suggested. "we can save them and then, just before we go home, select six perfect ones for our clubroom."
"what do we want shells for?" jess asked.
"oh, to remind us of sunrise beach," said polly.
"you can use clam shells for dishes," artie now announced. "i read it in a book. you wash 'em and bake things in them."
"all right, we'll get some for mother," decided fred, approving of this practical idea. "here's a dandy clam shell."
there were many clam shells on the beach, and the boys and girls carried home a dozen that morning. these were scrubbed, and the riddle club was filled with surprise and delight when they appeared on the table that evening at supper—the clam shells, not the children—with escalloped potatoes in them.
"but try and find larger ones next time," said mrs. williamson. "large shells make excellent dishes; they sell them in some stores for ramekins."
picking up shells and seeing how near they could come to going into the ocean without actu[pg 74]ally getting wet, made the walk to the fishing pier seem short. it was a long pier and the end was black with people, all trying their luck with line and pole.
"dad likes to fish from a boat," remarked fred. "he said we could go with him, if he goes to-morrow."
"we can't go—i asked mother," said jess. "just you boys, because girls don't go out. ward says men have a better time fishing by themselves."
"well, i should think they would," polly declared. "i don't see any fun in catching fish, and mother doesn't, either. so of course we wouldn't have a very good time."
"fish are too smelly," said margy, as though that settled the matter for her.
"let's go back and have our meeting," ward suggested. "i've just thought of a dandy riddle."
"we'll run, so you won't forget it," said fred, wheeling suddenly and setting off down the beach at top speed.
