UNDER SUMMER SKIES by GRACE IRWIN
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I Book— ±LXL Oor/yiight N°_lAnx- copyright nEPOsrr. dej^y cL UNDER SUMMER SKIES By GRACE IRWIN Little Miss Redhead Under Summer Skies Flopsy's knees were wobbling. UNDER SUMMER SKIES By GRACE IRWIN 'V Illustrated by the Author 1937 Boston New York LOTHROP, LEE AND SHEPARD COMPANY Copyright 1937 BY LOTHROP, LEE AND SHEPARD COMPANY All rights reserved. No part of this book may be re¬ produced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in magazine or newspaper. FRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA SEP -4 1937 ©Cl h 109283 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. The Longest Day in the Year . 11 II. First Visitors at Emerald Lake . 33 III. More Visitors at Emerald Lake . 56 IV. Flopsy Gets Some News ... 79 V. Alice, Flopsy and Two Horses . Ill VI. Alice Holt Spends the Night and Flopsy Hears of a Plan . 132 VII. Flopsy Takes a Journey . 155 VIII. Sunday at Camp . .180 IX. Letters and a Canoe Test . .197 X. An Over-Night Canoe Trip . .212 XI. “And They Lived Happily Ever After” 229 UNDER SUMMER SKIES 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. 11 12 UNDER SUMMER SKIES 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. THE LONGEST DAY 13 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. 14 UNDER SUMMER SKIES 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 THE* LONGEST DAY 15 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.