Under summer skies

Front matter

I

Book— ±LXL

copyright nEPOsrr.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Longest Day in the Year . 11

II. First Visitors at Emerald Lake . 33

Chapter One The Longest Day in the Year

T ^HE bright sun blazed early into Flopsy’s bedroom that June morning. In fact, it could not have blazed its way more early, for it was the dawn of the longest day of the year. Flopsy’s eyes were positively pried open by its dazzling beams, and as she blinked towards her eastern windows her whole face reflected the radiance of the rising sun. She was happy—very happy. Never, in the thirteen years of her life had she gone to sleep so blissfully content that she was a small girl who had been christened Flora Madden Moore, and that those who loved and knew her best called her by the silly nick-name Flopsy .

She lay very still day-dreaming, and her dreams were as rosy as the dawn of a beautiful day. What a night the one before had been! Could she ever be done talking about it? After she and her family had returned from that simply marvelous graduation, they had talked and talked, laughed and laughed. Yes, and cried a bit from sheer unexpected joy. It had been long after two o’clock, before anyone as much as mentioned bed. She had never stayed up that late in her whole life. And she had not been in the least sleepy when she had thrown her arms about her mother’s neck for one last good-night kiss.

One? There had been a baker’s dozen of good-night kisses. For hours, it seemed she had lain awake, going over and over the events of the evening. She had at last put her self to sleep repeating the words of her composition that she had recited before the whole auditorium. Over and over she chanted the familiar words, and a sweeter lullaby she had never heard in her whole life. She never knew when she was done saying the words and began dreaming them. “Sweet dreams” her mother had said as she had left her. And, oh, they had been! Around and around whirled the joyous triumphs, like the tiny rainbow pieces she had once seen in a kaleidoscope.

But not for ever could she be content to lie still and dream. She sat up in bed and then crawled down to its foot, and peered out into the back garden. She drew a long deep sigh of contentment. It was a lovely world! With this deeply drawn breath she had in¬ haled the perfume of her mother’s lilac bush. It was the most beautiful lilac bush in the entire neighbor¬ hood. “And it’s older than you,” her mother once said.

“It’s a sweet smelling world! It’s a beautiful look¬ ing world! It’s a lovely sounding one!” (The birds in the great oak tree were all atwitter.) Flopsy lay back upon her bed again and turned her head towards her little bureau and discovered to her dismay that her small green clock said exactly half-past five.

“Goodness!” she sighed again, but this was not a long drawn sigh of satisfaction, but a short one of exasperation. “No one will be up for a long time. Not until seven at least. And I want to talk some more about last night.”

A faint frown clouded the radiance of her face.

She simply must talk—and talk about last night. She longed for the day to begin in earnest. She could scarcely wait to see again her new found friend, Babbie, whose startling appearance on that platform last night didn’t seem real this morning. Could she have dreamed it all? She must as soon as possible reassure herself that Babbie had actually come way across the country from her ranch in Rawhide, and had received a diploma with the other grammar school graduates of Number Nine. It had been an almost unbelievable surprise when Mr. Shirley, the President of the Board of Education, had held out that last diploma and had said, “Barbara Hilton.”

Flopsy wriggled with ecstasy when she recalled that moment. It was an enchanted moment. It cast a spell over the entire auditorium. Although Miss Hilton had more than once spoken to her pupils of her frail little sister about their age who lived on a ranch and who had never been to school—they never could have dreamed that she would graduate with them. Flopsy knew more about Babbie than her classmates, but she never even in her wildest imagina¬ tion could have fancied anything so exciting.

Something of this excitement swept over her again —and she sat bolt upright in bed. She was getting very tired of being by herself. The perfume of the lilac bush, the sweet twitter of the birds, and rosy sun itself, were beginning to bore her. She longed for some one to talk to. She fell back in a little heap at the foot of the bed.

“I wonder what the very first thing Daddy will say, when he sees me this morning. Something very silly, I bet.” She grinned to herself. He would make fun of her, tease her, she knew only too well.

But he couldn’t fool her! He had been very proud of her the night before, he could not disguise this fact, no matter how much he tried. She leaped out of bed and ran to the door, opened it and stuck her head out in the hall. There wasn’t a sound.

“Not even a mouse,” she groaned, and shut her door as noisily as she dared. “Perhaps,” she thought hopefully, “that closing door may disturb someone. Gosh,” she complained as she walked slowly over to her bed, “this is as bad as Christmas morning, waiting and waiting for people to get up! Goodness, I never knew Dickie and Frankie to be so quiet in the morn¬ ing. They just never are when I want to sleep. They are usually imps and holy terrors.”

The rosy sun which had awakened her was rapidly becoming uncomfortably hot. She threw herself at the foot of the bed again, and propped herself so she could look down into the garden. She turned her nose up at the lilac bush in full bloom. Scenery could get very tiresome, she pouted. There was nothing she could do at this minute but to go on thinking. But prolonged and solitary thinking proved too much for her—as it always did. She fell fast asleep with one arm crooked under her head.

“Flopsy! Flopsy! FLOP-SY!” her mother’s voice came singing from down stairs. “You little sleepy head!”

Flopsy sat up with a start. Where was she? What had happened? She had a crick in her neck, her arm was asleep. O-o-OH—it was hot! She couldn’t seem to get her wits together.

“How did I get down here at the foot of the bed?” She frowned sulkily, and shook her arm to get the prickers out of it. Sleepy head, indeed! She could at least remember that she had practically been awake all night. Through heavy eyes she glared sleepily at her little green clock. Her eyes sprang open with surprise—sleep was torn from them in a twinkling. Nine o’clock! She sprang out of bed. The sounds and perfumes of the early morning had disappeared. The house was no longer quiet. Dickie and Frankie were making a terrific racket out on the sun porch, quite unlike the twittering of the birds at dawn. Mr. and Mrs. Moore were laughing and talking in the dining room. The perfume which now came to her nostrils was that of coffee and bacon. That moment of heavy sleepiness and crossness vanished in a flash. To think she had wasted some very precious moments sleeping when she might have been down stairs talking over that graduation from School Number Nine!

Flopsy made short work of dressing. She slipped into her green shorts, fastened to them a gay top with its sun back—poked her feet into a pair of sandals —dashed for the bathroom. She rubbed a wash rag in a circular motion about her face after the manner of a cat washing its face, but not as thoroughly. She fairly bounced down the stairs and leaped over the last balustrade and sprang into the dining room. Her father looked up over his paper startled by the sudden rush and commotion. Instantly he covered his face with the paper.

Flopsy did look so self-conscious, so self-satisfied, as she stood in the doorway. Mr. Moore did not want her to see the keen relish he took in her. She did look so—funny. Waiting for praise, the little minx! p ert —but sweet! Crazy kid—but smart— All this to himself, of course. He wouldn’t tell her. It was far more fun teasing her. He lowered his paper and looked up over its rim with a wide-eyed innocent expression.

“It’s a mighty good thing for you, Miss Flopsy Wopsy Moore, that today wasn’t yesterday. It’s hotter than all get-out. Would you be interested in knowing what the thermometer is at this moment?” he asked her gravely and as though it were of the greatest possible interest to her.

Flopsy shook her head from side to side vigor¬ ously, and wrinkled up her nose in disdain. No one could have mistaken her complete contempt for the thermometer—no one but her father.

a Ah, I see you are concerned. And, I will hasten to enlighten you at once. The temperature at this moment, my child, is 83—and the promise is that it will reach the 100 mark before the day is out. Consider, my dear daughter, what that auditorium would have been like if the outside temperature had been 100? Our clothes would have stuck fast to the chairs, and imagine if you can, what would have happened when we arose patriotically to the Star Spangled Banner. They would have been ripped right off us. Wouldn’t that have been embarrass¬ ing, wouldn’t it have spoiled the whole beautiful effect? Tch! Tch!” he chuckled dismally. “My, you are lucky! And, by the way, I want to pay you a compliment.” Flopsy’s eyes brightened with hope. “Your hair comb, this morning is beyond all description. Marvellous! Now, I see why you were late for breakfast.”

Flopsy’s hands went to her head. Her curls were standing up on end. Oh dear, she hadn’t combed them!

“Isn’t Flopsy’s hair picturesque, my dear?” Mr. Moore turned to his wife who had just come into the dining room from the kitchen. “It looks for all the world like a hay rick in the glow of the setting sun.”

“Oh daddy!” Flopsy fell into her place at the table with a long drawn out sigh.

Mrs. Moore shook her head, but she was smiling, Flopsy noted.

“Flopsy, you never combed your hair this morn¬ ing.”

“A little,” Flopsy fibbed cheerfully. Her mother looked good natured enough to play a little trick upon.

“A little—this way—a little that way—but never once in the same direction, I could swear to that. But the result is so amazing, that I can only offer you' my congratulations,” Mr. Moore said with a broad grin.

“Flopsy,” Mrs. Moore laughed tolerantly, and changed the subject mercifully, “you have had four telephone calls this morning.”

“Four!” Flopsy gasped in dismay, and her orange

juice went down the wrong way.

“Yes, four. Fleurette at seven. Alice at fifteen minutes after seven. Then Dottie—and—”

“Babbie,” Flopsy sputtered between gasps and much pounding of her chest.

“No, not Babbie—a reporter.”

“A what?” Flopsy turned white.

“A reporter from a newspaper. Surely you have heard of reporters—after all the movies you have seen —” Mr. Moore suggested hopefully.

Flopsy’s face went even whiter—the faint freckles stood out on her nose. Her eyes were dark and large, her mouth was parted breathlessly.

“A reporter—not a policeman,” Mr. Moore com¬ forted her. “At any rate, we may be thankful that you were frightened out of your choking fit—I was afraid you were going to strangle to death.”

“A reporter?” Flopsy said weakly. “A reporter?” she repeated.

Mr. Moore took out his watch and looked at it, then he glanced under his eyebrows at his daughter who showed signs of being frightened stiff with a nameless horror.

“I must run along—but I know your mother can soothe your fears. Perhaps she can make you re¬ member last night. You thought then that your graduation was like none other that had ever gone before it. Quite apparently others agree with you. It will make a very pretty newspaper story. Little lame sister, miraculously cured leaves her ranch in the west to graduate in big sister’s class in the east. Big sister surprises everyone by wearing a beautiful diamond ring given to her by one of the local heroes! All very thrilling and touching.” Mr. Moore stood up, and went to his daughter’s side, and started to put his hand on her head. “No, I will not touch the artistic creation you have made of your hair, I might spoil some of its artistic—abandon. Good¬ bye, my child, I’ll read about you in the afternoon papers—”

Mrs. Moore followed her husband out into the hall. Flopsy never looked up, never moved a hair’s breath.

“Gone up two points!” Mr. Moore called back, after he had examined the thermometer. “It’s a good thing we are going to get out of this. It’s going to be a sizzler all right—all right—” his last words seemed to burn up in the hot sun.

Mrs. Moore came back into the dining room, and laughed outright. She did not mean to make fun of Flopsy but she did look so funny. She was still sitting in the same position and her expression had not changed since she had heard the dreadful word —reporter.

“Good gracious! I see I have a frozen stiff child on my hands this roaring hot day. What is it, Flopsy?”

Flopsy stirred and shivered.

“Mother, what did that reporter want, and why did he call me?” she faltered.

Mrs. Moore sat down at the table and poured

herself another cup of coffee.

“Flopsy you funny child, you would think it was a policeman as your father suggested and that you had a guilty conscience. It seems he wanted to get. in touch with Miss Hilton, but Mrs. Jackson with whom she boards has no telephone. Some one had told the reporter that you were a great friend of Babbie’s. You recall, she shared your seat with you last night. Besides, he thought perhaps you could give some specially interesting details about her -a new slant. They—the newspaper people are going to make a very nice story about it all. It was a very unusual grammar school graduation, you know.

Smile, my dear, all is well!”

Flopsy’s eyes brightened and she smiled faintly.

“You see, it was very unusual for a little girl, who had never been in school before, to graduate and receive a diploma from a grammar school. And, it was still more unusual that the teacher who coached her was her own sister.”

“Did you tell him—” Flopsy burst out, all eager¬ ness now, “did you tell him about the ranch, and how she fell from a horse and it made her lame for a while? Did you tell him Miss Hilton wrote to her sister about me and that she liked me best of all her sister’s pupils? Did you tell him she thought I was very funny? And she liked red hair? Did you tell him she never saw me until last night? Did you say—”

“Hold on, you little publicity seeker. When you talk for publication—you talk!”

“I bet he wanted my picture,” Flopsy’s eyes were shining, she was all in a quiver of excitement. “Wouldn’t that be terrific? Alice and Fleurette would be just green with jealousy. But it would be only right, because Miss Hilton wrote to Babbie more about me than she did them. Oh dear—I bet I haven’t got a picture.”

“Yes, he did mention a picture—but—”

“But, don’t you think it ought to be my picture and not Alice’s or Fleurette’s?” Flopsy’s face fell. “After all, I was the one who—”

“Just a minute, just a minute. You haven’t a decent picture that I can lay my hands on at this minute—”

“Oh dear, isn’t that awful! Can’t you find one? And, I hope you told him that—”

“Flopsy, reporters work for newspapers—he wasn’t asking to write a book about you—” Mrs. Moore stood up. “There are things to be done this day. We can’t sit here talking forever. Daddy is going to see

Mr. Morton this morning, he has decided to take their cottage for the month of July at Emerald Lake. Or before, if we can get it. Now, my dear child may I hope for some help from you? It’s a large hope I realize fully—your head is in the clouds. The boys have been on the warpath ever since they got up—too little sleep. Flopsy,” Mrs. Moore’s tone was almost sharp. “Please, come down to earth for one minute! I want you to collect all your clothes which need washing and bring them down to me.”

Flopsy stood up and stared at her mother blankly.

“Oh dear—!” Mrs. Moore was completely dis¬ couraged by her daughter’s vacant expression. “Lis¬ ten to me, we, the Moore family bag and baggage are leaving this house in a few days and there are a million and one things to do. Please help me.” Mrs. Moore almost wailed.

Flopsy deliberately made her eyes blink with in¬ terest and excitement. She hoped that she looked the picture of rapt attention. But, she was muddled inside. Things were happening too fast.

“Emerald Lake is much nearer than the shore we’ve always gone to, isn’t it?” Flopsy backed towards the door, as though to obey her mother’s command to go upstairs.

“Yes! Yes! Much nearer—daddy will be able to come up every night. It’s not much more than an hour’s ride by car. Now, please skip along.”

Flopsy darted for the door and started up the stairs. She stopped short and hung over the balus¬ trade.

“Mother,” she called gaily, her voice trembling with a sudden brilliant idea. “Now, I can have some of my friends up to see me for a few days. Can’t I? It was always too far to ask them before. Oh boy, will that be nice!”

“Oh yes, by all means. Heavens! The boys are all but killing each other. Boys! Boys! BOYS!” she made a dash for the sun parlor.

Flopsy walked slowly up the stairs—very slowly. Her mother had said her head was in the clouds. But this could hardly express it. The clouds were way below her—her head was in the stratosphere— that space where few mortals have ever gone—and none except in a balloon. All was clear and beautiful about her. Down, down below her was the earth and still farther down in some remote and forgotten place were the clothes her mother had asked her to get.

“I’ll ask Alice, first—no, I’ll ask Babbie and Miss Hilton—then Fleurette—then Dottie—then Mary. No, I won’t invite Mary, she’s a big stick-in-the-mud.” Flopsy frowned a little. “No, Mary would be a big pain—she never can do anything.” As she walked into her room a happy thought struck her. “It will be just swell to have Janet. She always thinks she has everything—I’ll show her, we can have a summer cottage. I won’t ask her though, until I can make a beautiful dive. And swim across the lake.” By this time Flopsy had reached her bureau and stood staring at herself in its mirror. She raised her arms above her head and bent her body as though about to dive into the water. Her reflection did not altogether please her, for she could not see her legs and feet. So, she got up on her bed—and stood on it and curled her toes over its edge, as though it were the end of a diving board. She raised her arms again, bent her body. The effect, she felt must be perfect, but when she tried looking down at the “water” and into the mirror at the same second, she lost her balance and took a very unexpected nose dive to the floor. She lay still a few minutes hardly realizing what hit her. Then she giggled.

“What a belly wopper, that was!” she snickered and sat up. “Yes, Janet will be the very last one to come up to our lake. Wouldn’t she love it? Oh glory!”

In fact, any and all of her friends would take a wicked joy in seeing her take such a flip flop—and how she would have laughed at them!

“But Janet—that’s different!” Flopsy wouldn’t have admitted it for the world—but she was a little envious of Janet. Janet had such a superior air about her at times. And she had been to an expensive camp for girls and thought she knew everything about swimming, diving, horseback riding, and canoes.

“Janet will be last—” she repeated as she brushed the damp curls back from her face. “Glory it is— HOT!” she was still lying on the floor.

From down stairs came a few furious howls. Mrs. Moore had evidently shaken up her two small sons. Flopsy jumped to her feet suddenly brought to her senses by the uproar. She stood in front of her mirror again. In a husky, melodramatic voice she began to recite her composition “In the Old Lighthouse Garden.” She waved her arms in all directions and rolled her eyes in as many more. This, needless to say, was not the way she had done it the night before. She had delighted the whole audience with the quiet simplicity of her manner and her deep rich voice. She broke off abruptly—

“Oh heck, I haven’t a picture for the newspaper. That reporter will be just —disgusted .” She stopped and sat down and felt very sorry for the reporter. She wished she could give him a beautiful picture of herself—so beautiful that people would be so amazed that they would say, “My, she is as beautiful as she is smart!”

The telephone was ringing frantically. Flopsy was jarred right out of her day-dreaming. She started for the door. Probably, she thought, it was the re¬ porter again. Poor man, they would have to disap¬ point him. Her mother was answering the telephone. She hung over the balustrade and listened.

“Oh yes, Alice. Flopsy is up now. She is helping me—or perhaps I should say—I hope she is—but I have my doubts. FLOPSY!” Mrs. Moore called. “Flopsy, Alice wants you and for the land’s sake will you please bring me those clothes I asked you for. You haven’t such an extensive wardrobe that it should have taken you all this time to do your sort¬ ing.”

Flopsy spun around like a top. She was eager to dash down stairs and talk to Alice—but she didn’t dare appear anywhere in sight of her mother with¬ out her clothes which needed washing.

“Oh dear!” she wailed running this way and that like a chicken with its head off. “I hope Alice will wait—oh goodness!”

Her mother, something told her, would not wait. Her patience showed unmistakable signs of growing very thin. And as her mother was right on hand and Alice at the other end of the telephone wire, she had better appease her mother first. She dashed for her closet—grabbed up everything in sight helter skelter

—and flew down stairs. She dropped the bundle beside her on the floor as she sat at the telephone table.

“Oh, Alice,” she panted, “isn’t it HOT! I am boiling over—I—am—oh!” her voice faltered and she stopped off short. Her mother was standing be¬ side her. There was something in her expression— something that made her forget Alice.

“May a kind and merciful heaven give me pa¬ tience,” Mrs. Moore said with a long drawn out sigh. “Mrs. Titmouse ironed that dress beautifully only two days ago—and you have not worn it.” “That dress” was now a mass of wrinkles. Her mother was sorting the bundle. Under her breath she murmured—

“No wonder mothers grow gray!”

“Alice,” Flopsy said into the telephone, glad to avoid the cold glitter in her mother’s eyes, “I am helping mother—”

“Indeed?” Mrs. Moore raised her eyes to heaven.

“You see,” Flopsy went on in a rush. “We are going away in a few days. Do you mind—I’ll call you back in a few minutes?” Flopsy hung up and with a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth expres¬ sion looked up at her mother.

“Flopsy, I am only going to ask one more favor of you. Just one. Will you please go over to Alice’s —go to Fleurette’s—go anywhere, but keep from under my feet. You are worse than useless this mornmg.”

Flopsy could scarcely believe her ears. But she wouldn’t ask her mother to repeat this order—it would be like tempting fate.

“I will try to get Mrs. Titmouse over to help me,” her mother went on, and then turned to go into the kitchen. “I suppose, I can’t very much blame you after all this excitement. But, will you please—COMB YOUR HAIR!”

Flopsy walked slowly up the stairs. Her lovely bubble had burst. She felt very uncomfortable and guilty. However, her guilt did not weigh her down for too long for in five minutes she was out the door and racing up the street. She spied Mary Howard coming towards her.

“Oh—Yoo-hoo, Mary!” she yelled wildly and, as though Mary was the one person in the world she had hoped most to meet, she broke into a run.

Mary and Flopsy stood talking for only five min¬ utes but in that short time Flopsy had not only asked her—but urged her to come up and spend a few days at Emerald Lake. She had told her all about the reporter who had called up and wanted her pic¬ ture for the paper. Mary’s eyes had positively popped right out of her head. She had been even more im¬ pressed than Flopsy might have hoped. A reporter! Flopsy’s picture in the paper! My, but Flopsy was an important person! Mary was enormously flattered that such a celebrity should invite her to her summer cottage. She accepted the invitation at once and with great pleasure. Flopsy dashed on, leaving Mary abruptly. She had to see Alice immediately, Alice simply had to hear about the reporter’s calling her up—Alice had to be invited to Emerald Lake.

As the morning blazed away, Flopsy blazed with it—to new heights of glory. She was decidedly the most important personage in her small world. Lav¬ ishly and generously she tossed about invitations to her summer cottage. Before she returned home, she had asked Mrs. Holt and Alice, also Alice’s big sister; Mrs. Muldoon and Fleurette; Dottie Green and her mother. But at the Green’s she managed to hold in on some of her generosity. She did not ask Dottie’s young sister Margaret. No siree! What a pest Margaret was! Then she ran home in high spirits. What a wonderful morning it had been. And, wasn’t she happy she had not asked Margaret Green! Everything was perfect.

When she reached her house her mother was wait¬ ing for her on the top step.

“Flopsy, where on earth have you been—I’ve been telephoning in all directions? You had just left Alice’s—you had just left Fleurette’s. Miss Hilton and Babbie were here, they were very sorry not to have seen you.”

Every bit of happiness and joy within Flopsy promptly withered and died. She looked at her mother in dismay.

“Oh dear—isn’t that awful!” she wailed. “I wanted more than anything to see Babbie. When will they come back?”

“Not all summer I am afraid, Flopsy. They are leaving tonight on a sleeper for Maine ”

“Maine!” Flopsy squealed in dispair. “That’s so far away. Oh dear, that’s awful.” She sat down on the top step and slowly wiped off her hot face with one arm.

Mrs. Moore sat down beside her, her expression was very sympathetic. She put one arm across Flopsy’s shoulders.

“I know how disappointed you must be. Babbie was just as disappointed as you are. She was all eager¬ ness to see you—”

Tears welled up in Flopsy’s eyes. “I’ll never see her again.”

“Oh, yes you will, darling. Miss Hilton said you would—well, I don’t know what she meant, but she said that she had some very happy plans for you and Babbie—”

“Plans?” Flopsy echoed. “What were they?”

“She would not say—but she promised to write you in a few weeks. She will be too busy next week. You see, she is taking Babbie to a girl’s camp, where she herself is going to be a counselor. But as soon as they get settled, she is going to write you.”

“Plans?” Flopsy’s face brightened. “Maybe, she is going to take me out on the ranch, maybe—. If they wait too long, I couldn’t go—I wouldn’t get back in time for high school. But—” she broke off with a sigh, “I guess I better not count my bridges before they are hatched—”

“Pretty fancy they must be—I’d like to see them, very much,” Mr. Moore’s voice startled both Flopsy and her mother, he had come up across the grass and they had not heard him.

“What, are pretty—fancy?” Flopsy looked around in a puzzled fashion.

“The eggs from which those bridges of yours are hatched,” Mr. Moore said solemnly. “Didn’t I hear you say something about hatching out bridges? The eggs must be something worth seeing.”

“Why, what are you doing home at this hour?” Mrs. Moore asked in surprise.

“Oh, I had to see Mr. Morton about the cottage— and by the way Flopsy, I asked your boy friend and his father up to the lake—I hear that he is quite a fisherman—and there is mighty fine bass fishing at Emerald Lake.”