"She fought hard. I believe I would have scratched that fat woman's face myself, if I'd been her. Anyway, she wasn't in any uniform. Don't they always put orphans in blue denim?"

"Not always. And that girl would have looked awful in blue. She was too dark. She wasn't very well dressed, but her clothes and their colors were tasteful."

"Aren't you the observing thing," agreed Amy. "She was dressed nicely.

And those women were never guards from an inst.i.tution."

"Oh, no!"

"It was a private kidnaping party, I guess," said Amy.

"And we let it go on right under our noses and did not stop it,"

sighed Jessie Norwood. "I'm going to tell my father about it."

Amy grinned elfishly. "He will tell you that you had a right, under the law, to stop those women and make them explain."

"Ye-es. I suppose so. But a right to do a thing and the ability to do it, he will likewise tell me, are two very different things."

"Wisdom from the young owl!" laughed Amy. "Well, I don't suppose, after all, it is any of our business, or ever will be. The poor thing is now a captive and being borne away to the dungeon-keep. Whatever that is," she added, shrugging her shoulders.

INTEREST IN RADIO SPREADS

CHAPTER III

INTEREST IN RADIO SPREADS

Over the George Washington sundaes at the New Melford Dainties Shop the girls discussed the mysterious happening on Dogtown Lane until it was, as Amy said, positively frayed.

"We do not know what it was all about, my dear, so why worry our minds? We shall probably never see that girl again, or those two women. Only, that lean one--well! I know I have seen her somewhere, or somebody who looks like her."

"I don't see but you are just as bad as I am," Jessie Norwood said.

"But we did not come to town because of that puzzling thing."

"No-o. We came to get these perfectly gorgeous sundaes," declared Amy Drew. "Your mother, Jess, is almost as nice as you are."

"We came in to get radio books and buy wire and stops and all that for the aerials, anyway. Of course, I shall have to send for most of the parts of the house set. There is no regular radio equipment dealer in New Melford."

"Oh, yes! Wireless!" murmured Amy. "I had almost forgotten that."

They trotted across the street to the bookstore. Motors were coming up from the station now, and from New York. They waved their hands to several motoring acquaintances, and just outside Ye Craftsman's Bookshop they ran into Nell Stanley, who they knew had no business at all there on Main Street at this hour of the afternoon. Nell was the minister's daughter, and there were a number of little motherless Stanleys at the parsonage (Amy said "a whole raft of them") who usually needed the older sister's attention, approaching supper time.

"Oh, I've a holiday," laughed Nell, who was big and strong and really handsome, Jessie thought, her coloring was so fresh, her chestnut hair so abundant, her gray eyes so brilliantly intelligent, and her teeth so dazzling. "Aunt Freda is at the house and she and the Reverend told me to go out and not to show myself back home for hours."

"Bully-good!" declared Amy. "You'll come home to dinner with me, and we will spend the evening with Jess helping her build a radio thing so we can do without buying the New Melford _Tribune_ to get the local news."

"Oh, Jess, dear, _are_ you going to have a radio?" cried Nell. "It's just wonderful. Reverend says he may have to broadcast his sermons pretty soon or else be without an audience."

The pet name by which she usually spoke of her father, the Reverend Doctor Stanley, sounded all right when Nell said it. n.o.body else ever called the good clergyman by it. But Nell was something between a daughter and a wife to the hard working Doctor Stanley. And she certainly was a thoughtful and "mothering" sister to the little ones.

"But," Nell added, "you are too late inviting me to the eats, Amy, honey. It can't be done. I'm promised. Mr. Brandon and his wife saw me first, and I am to dine with them. Then they are going to take me in their car out to the Parkville home of their daughter--Oh, say! If your radio isn't finished, Jess, why can't you and Amy come with us?

The Brandon car is big enough. And they tell me Mrs. Brandon's daughter has got a perfectly wonderful set at her home. They have an amplifier, and you don't have to use phones at all. Has your radio set got an amplifier, Jess?"

"But I haven't got it yet," cried Jess. "I only hope to have it."

"Then you and Amy come and hear a real one," said Nell.

"If the Brandons won't mind. Will they?"

"You know they are the loveliest people," said Nell briskly. "Mrs.

Brandon told me to invite some young friends. But I hadn't thought of doing so. But I must have you and Amy. We'll be along for you girls at about seven-forty-five, new time."

"Then we must hurry," declared Jess, as the minister's daughter ran away.

"I'm getting interested," announced Amy. "Is this radio business like a talking machine?"

"Only better," said her chum. "Come on. I know several of the little books I want to get. I wrote down the names."

They dived down the four steps into the bas.e.m.e.nt bookshop. It was a fine place to browse, when one had an hour to spare. But the chums from Roselawn were not in browsing mood on this occasion.

They knew exactly what they wanted--at least, Jessie Norwood did--and somewhat to their surprise right near the front door of the shop was a "radio table."

"Oh, yes, young ladies," said the clerk who came to wait upon them only when he saw that they had made their selections, "we have quite a call for books on that topic. It is becoming a fad, and quite wonderful, too. I have thought some of buying a radio set myself."

"We're going to build one," declared Amy with her usual prompt a.s.surance.

"Are you? You two girls? Well, I don't know why you shouldn't. Lots of boys are doing so."

"And anything a boy can do a girl ought to do a little better," Amy added.

The clerk laughed as he wrapped up the several books Jessie had charged to her father's account. "You let me know how you get on building it, will you?" he said. "Maybe I can get some ideas from your experience."

"We'll show 'em!" declared Amy, all in a glow of excitement. "And why do you suppose, Jess, folks always have to suggest that girls can't do what boys can? Isn't it ridiculous!"

"Very," agreed Jessie. "Although, just as I pointed out a while ago, it would have been handy if Darry or Burd had been with us when we saw that poor girl kidnaped."

"Of course! But, then, those boys are college men." She giggled. "And I wager Burd is a sea-sick college man just now."

"Oh! Have they gone out in the _Marigold_?" cried Jessie.

"They left New Haven the minute they could get away and joined the yacht at Groton, over across from New London, where it has been tied up all winter. Father insisted that Darry shouldn't touch the yacht, when Uncle Will died and left it to him last fall, until the college year was ended. We got a marconigram last night that they had pa.s.sed Block Island going out. And _now_--well, Burd never was at sea before, you know," and Amy laughed again.

"It has been rather windy. I suppose it must be rough out in the ocean. Oh, Amy!" Jess suddenly exclaimed, "if I get my radio rigged why can't we communicate with the _Marigold_ when it is at sea?"