Part 5 (1/2)
”I'd say she didn't look very much like a fairy boat just now. She needs considerable polis.h.i.+ng and scrubbing. Why don't you girls get busy, anyhow?”
”Just hear who's talking,” yawned Grace, disposing herself lazily in a comfortable chair on deck. ”I haven't noticed you waving a broom and mop frantically around these parts lately, Mollie dear.”
”In fact,” Betty added with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, ”I think I remember suggesting that the _Gem_ needed grooming the other day.
Whereupon some one who shall be nameless suggested a motor ride instead.”
”She's got you there, old dear,” drawled Grace, taking the inevitable box of chocolates from her pocket and opening it lovingly. ”I remember the incident pre-zactly as it has been described.”
Mollie, who was still standing on the dock, regarding them frowningly, started to reply but Betty interrupted her with a shout. She had started the engine and the boat began to move slowly away from the dock.
”Better hurry up,” suggested the Little Captain wickedly. ”We'd rather not leave you behind, but if you insist--”
However, Mollie had not the slightest intention in the world of being left behind. With a gasp of mingled surprise and dismay she made a jump for it, cleared the foot of s.p.a.ce between the dock and the boat and landed square in the middle of Grace's astonished and outraged lap. She would have sat on the candy box, too, and would, in all probability, have ruined it and her dress as well, had not Grace, with rare presence of mind, whipped the box out of danger just in the nick of time.
”Well,” said Mollie, too surprised and indignant to move for a moment, while, at the comical picture she made, both Betty and Amy laughed merrily, ”I surely like this!”
”You do, do you? Well, I don't!” cried Grace, recovering both her breath and her dignity at the same moment. ”If you don't stop sitting on my lungs this minute, Mollie Billette, I'll--I'll--stick this pin into you.”
With a yell Mollie stumbled to her feet and shook out her dress belligerently.
”You had better not. I'm stronger than you, Grace Ford, and I've a good mind to let you see what the bottom of the river looks like.”
She advanced toward her prospective victim, and Betty stopped laughing long enough to call to her.
”You'd better change your mind, Mollie,” she cautioned merrily. ”You can't give Gracie a ducking without ruining her dress and she might charge you damages. Reconsider--I beg of you, reconsider!”
Mollie condescended to reconsider and plumped herself down cross-legged on the deck, disdaining a chair.
”Oh, very well,” she said, adding as she glared darkly at Grace: ”You will probably never know, woman, how near to death you were.”
To which Grace replied with unexpected ferocity.
”And you may never know, woman, just how near to death you are this minute. Look at what you have done to my best sport skirt. I don't believe I will ever be able to get those wrinkles out.”
”If you two will stop quarreling just long enough to tell me where you want to go,” Betty requested, ”I should be very much obliged. Up or down the river?”
”Anywhere,” answered Grace, still regarding her crumpled sport skirt gloomily. ”We are just trying to kill time this afternoon anyway, so I don't see that it makes much difference where we go.”
”Suppose we take her up to the Point,” suggested Mollie, getting up from the deck and going over to Betty who still had the wheel. ”Maybe we can get some ice-cream and a drink of ice water. I am getting dreadfully thirsty already.”
Betty looked tempted but a little doubtful.
”You know it is pretty dangerous to run in there, Mollie,” she protested.
”There are so many other boats driven by Percy Falconer's crazy lot who don't care whether they capsize you or not--”
”Goodness, Betty, it isn't like you to be afraid,” Mollie started, but stopped at the look in the ”Little Captain's” eye.
”I'd rather you didn't ever say that again, Mollie,” she said. ”I'll take you in there since you want it, but if anything should happen remember that I warned you.”