Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

THE CRASH ON THE HILL

"Smooth as glass!" ejaculated Nan Sherwood, as she came in sight of Pendragon Hill and noted the gleaming stretch of snow and ice that ran down to the very edge of Lake Huron.

"And you're the girl that said coasting time would never, never come," laughed her chum, Bess Harley, who was walking beside her with her hand on a rope attached to a bobsled that four girls were drawing.

"Never is a long word," admitted Nan. "I didn't quite mean that; but the weather's been so mild up to now that I was getting desperate."

"Nan registering desperation," put in Laura Polk, she of the red hair and irrepressible spirits.

Laura struck an attitude of mock desperation, but the effect was marred when her foot slipped and she went down with a thump.

Her laughing mates helped her to her feet and brushed the snow off her dress.

"The wicked stand on slippery places," quoted Grace Mason mischievously.

"Yes," Laura came back, as quick as a flash, "I see that they do, but I can't."

The shout of laughter that followed atoned somewhat for her loss of dignity—although she had not lost much, for Laura and dignity were hardly on speaking terms.

Laughing and chattering, all trying to talk at once and all succeeding, the bevy of light-hearted girls reached the top of the hill.

Before them stretched Lake Huron, extending farther than their eyes could see. For a long distance out from shore the lake seemed frozen solid. A small island rose above the ice about half a mile distant, and this was the limit fixed upon for the coasters. The cove between the foot of the hill and the island had a glassy coating of ice that had been swept and scraped and served for skating as well as coasting.

"I wonder if it's perfectly safe," remarked Grace Mason, a little timidly. "You know this is the first time the cove's been frozen this winter, and we haven't tried it yet."

"Bless your little heart, you'll be as safe as if you were on a battlefield," was the dubious comfort that Laura held out.

"Much safer than that," interposed Professor Krenner, the teacher of mathematics and architectural drawing at the Lakeview Hall school that the girls were attending. "You can be sure that neither Dr. Prescott nor I would take any chances on that score. A heavy logging team went over it yesterday, and the ice didn't even creak, let alone crack. And every day that passes of this kind of weather makes it thicker and stronger."

"My, but that's a comfort," remarked Laura. "I'd hate to have this young life of mine cut off just when it's so full of promise."

"How Laura hates herself," put in Bess Harley.

"You're perfectly safe, Laura," Nan assured her. "Only the good die young, you know."

The professor's kindly eyes twinkled as he looked from one to the other of the rosy-cheeked, sparkling-eyed girls, bubbling over with fun and vitality. He had just come up from the queer little cabin in which he lived at the edge of the lake. It was part of his work to supervise the coasting and, as far as possible, keep it free from accident.

About his sole diversion was playing on a key bugle, and the long-drawn-out notes of the instrument, sometimes lively and sometimes in a minor strain, were familiar sounds to the girls, and often an occasion of jesting.

Professor Krenner held the bugle in his hand now, and after glancing at his watch, he raised the instrument to his lips and blew a clear call that had the effect of hastening the steps of some of the groups that were coming toward the hill from the Hall, the roof of which could be seen over the tops of the trees.

Outdoor sports were made much of at Lakeview Hall, not only in the catalogue designed for the perusal of parents, but in actual fact. "A sound mind in a sound body" was Dr. Beulah Prescott's aim for her pupils, and exercise was as obligatory as lessons....