CHAPTER XV
TALKING IT OVER
"You haven't really sold out?" Ruth demanded incredulously.
"Going, going, going, gone!" sang back Nancy. "Manny is a wonder. Shejust sells and goes on with her preparations, and girls, when my storeis all cleaned out I wouldn't wonder but we'll have a model class room,instead of the Whatnot Shop." Nancy was flitting around like some fullgrown elf. The three girls, Isabel was with them, were out on the broadsloping grounds surrounding Ruth's home, and it was perfectly plain thatNancy was already enjoying her freedom from business.
"I think it's splendid," Isabel joined in. "We took millinery lastAugust, you know, so we don't want any more hat making. Mother is simplythrilled, as Vera would say, and you know, Nan, Vera is due backTuesday. I guess the stores ran out of post cards and she couldn't liveat Beverly without cards. I've got enough of mine to paper our atticroom."
"And you'd never guess," enthused Nancy, "that salesman who came in withthe fishing tackle for our big sale, you know, is going to send Manny agas range! Just think of it, a gas range for us to use, to practicecooking on."
"For nothing?" Ruth inquired.
"For the advertising. It seems, a demonstrator for a special line of gasranges used to go to Raleigh, that's Manny's old school, and, of course,when the salesman came in to sell and _we_ weren't buying," she wasdrawling her words to assume an imposing air, "of course," shecontinued, "he became deeply interested in our plans, and at onceoffered to send his friend, the lady demonstrator, out to make planswith Manny."
"And we're to be demonstrated," chimed in Isabel, imitating Nancy'stwang. "I choose pie. I want my picture 'took' curling the edge of alemon meringue," and she executed a few very 'curly' steps toillustrate.
There was no denying it. Nancy was happy on these the first days of herreal vacation. It had been splendid, of course, to have twenty-fivedollars of her very own to offer to advance Miss Manners, to clear upthe rent worry, but the store had not been all fun, she was willing toadmit that.
"And do you know, girls," Nancy confided, "we, mother and I, had somedoubts about the way Miss Townsend would take the news? Do sit down,Belle," she broke off. "How can I tell a story while you're doinghand-springs?"
"These are flip-flaps," insisted Isabel. "Just watch this one."
She was leaning with both hands on a long low bench, and the "flip"consisted of a violent spring of both feet from the ground. Afterbringing the feet down again with the unavoidable jerk, she performedthe "flop" by pivoting around until she sat on the bench and stuck bothher feet out straight in front of her.
"It's very pretty," commented Nancy. "But if you want to hear my storyyou have got to flop. I insist upon a sitting audience."
This demand restored comparative quiet and Nancy continued with hernarrative.
"I was telling you about Miss Townsend," she went on. "You just shouldsee that lady. She's all 'set up.' We understood she was a nervouswreck--"
"She was," interrupted Ruth, "but I heard mother say her brother'sbusiness affairs are being mysteriously adjusted. Maybe that's why shehas become rejuvenated."
"Yes, that's exactly it," snapped Nancy. "And how the great, grand trickworked is one of the stories we have missed. I never saw such a place asLong Leigh for floating stories that no one can explain. Miss Townsendtalked all around her good luck, but never touched it. Of course, Icouldn't be so rude--"
"Of course _you_ couldn't," mocked Isabel.
"Just the same," retorted Nancy, "I did ask right out straight, withouthint or apology, where--Mr. Sanders lived."
"And you got snubbed for your pains," flung in Ruth.
"Nothing of the kind, I became informed for my pains," asserted Nancy.
"Land sakes tell us!" pleaded Isabel. "First thing you know I'll hearour car, and miss the--mystery."
"Well," began Nancy, deliberately and provokingly, "I asked her: 'Wheredoes Mr. Sanders live?' And just as I was gulping hard to control myemoting emotions, Miss Townsend shook her necklace like a dinner bell,and said softly--"
Nancy paused. The girls were threatening to throw her over the benchinto the flower bed but she seemed about ready to divulge the secret, sopresently they desisted.
"Well," she said, "Miss Townsend answered, 'Mr. Sanders lives right herein this hotel. He moved in yesterday and the poor man needed the changeafter all he's been through.' Now girls," pouted Nancy, "did you eversee anything as mean as that? Just when I'm free to dig up the wild andwoolly mystery, our hero goes and rents a room in the Waterfall House,"and she affected a pose intended to excite pity, but in reality causingmirth.
"I see it all!" cried Isabel, jumping up on the bench and laying asprawled hand over the heart location. "All, girls, all." Her voice wasdroning like a school boy reciting the Charge of the Light Brigade."What happened was this!"
"This!" interrupted Ruth, pinching Isabel's ankles until she literallyfell from her perch.
"Whow!" yelled Isabel. "Can't one elocute without being plucked by cruelhands? I tell you, girls, we have lost a lot of fun in not keeping upwith our little brothers." This was said in a very different and quiteserious tone. "If you were to ask Ted, Nancy, very confidentially, whatis or was the secret of the hidden treasure place, I'm almost sure hewould tell you. He _knows_!" she declared loudly, "and so does mybrother Gerard know, but _he_ won't tell me."
"Then it is or was a question of hiding a treasure," reflected Nancy."I'm so sorry it is only that. I perfectly hate treasure mysteries,they're so horribly common. I had in mind some sort of great, grand,spooky, now-you-see-me and now-you-don't trick. That would have beenheaps more fun than just the old hidden treasure business. Well, at anyrate, _we_ seem to have missed it, for Mr. Sanders is really living atthe hotel," she wound up finally.
"Is that any reason why we shouldn't find out the secret?" demandedRuth. "It seems to me we would be better able to do so, now that everyone else has suddenly grown rich, and there's no more danger of gettingfolks into trouble by prying into their business. I just wish SibylSanders would come up again. I fancy she would be just tickled to tellus the whole thing," declared Ruth.
"I must trot along," Nancy suddenly announced. "And girls, please don'tforget about the first lesson in domestic science, to be held at theresidence of--"
A loud and insistent honking of a motor horn interrupted Nancy'sflattering announcement, and presently all three girls were scamperingdown to the roadside to pile into Gerard's Duryea car, for Isabel'sbrother was taking them for a ride into town, ostensibly to do someimportant family errands, but really to have one of those unplannedjolly times that go to make up the happy summer time.
"I must be back by five," warned Nancy. But her companions only pushedher back further in the over crowded car-seat as they sailed along.