chapter ii

“to the rescue!” shrieked tavia, charging back to the stepping stones. “forward, my bold hearties! man overboard! who’s got a rope?”

then she lost the power of speech in a burst of laughter; for certain it was, poor ned ebony was an awfully funny sight!

but dorothy was at hand to do something practical. she sprang back upon the nearest boulder to the one that had turned under her unfortunate schoolmate, and in half a minute she had dragged edna out of the cold water.

“oh! oh! oh!” sputtered edna in crescendo. “i—i’m drowned—dead! oh, do help me out! you mean thing, tavia! oh, i’m frozen!”

the water was ice cold, and the temperature of the air was close to the freezing point. this adventure might easily become serious, and dorothy knew it.

“we must hurry her to the belding station,” she cried. “come on, neddie! you must run.”

11 “run? i can’t. see how water-soaked my skirt is. i can’t run.”

“you must!” declared dorothy. “come, tavia—take her other hand. have you her bag, cologne? we’ll run ahead with her and see if we can find somebody to take her in. she must be dried and have other clothing. oh, hurry!”

“i can’t run, doro dale! i tell you i can’t,” wailed the saturated girl.

but they made her hurry, and in fifteen minutes had her in the sitting room belonging to the station agent’s wife, where she was helped to disrobe, dried, dosed with hot tea, and finally managed to dress herself in dry garments borrowed from the bags of her schoolmates, the contents of her own bag being wet, too.

there was no chance to get on to glenwood for two hours; so the party of schoolgirls must of necessity occupy themselves as best they might around the belding station. meanwhile a better introduction to dorothy dale and her friends, as well as a brief sketch of “what has gone before” in this series, may not come amiss.

in “dorothy dale: a girl of to-day” my heroine was some three years younger than she is when she makes her bow in this present volume. but even then she was a bright, sprightly girl, more thoughtful than the average of her age, perhaps; yet thoroughly a girl. nevertheless, because12 of the illness of her father, major dale, of dalton (she was motherless) dorothy took up the work of publishing his weekly paper, the dalton bugle.

at that time the paper was all the dales had to depend on for a livelihood; therefore dorothy’s success as a publisher and editor meant much to herself and her immediate family which, beside the major, consisted of her two much younger brothers, joe and roger. with her closest chum, octavia travers, dorothy had many adventures while running the paper—some merely amusing but others of a really perilous nature.

dorothy, however, survived these adventures, major dale recovered, and in the end secured a generous legacy which had been left him, which enhancement of the family’s fortune made possible the writing of the second volume of the series: “dorothy dale at glenwood school.”

this story served, too, to introduce more effectually dorothy’s aunt, mrs. winnie white, and her two boys, nat and ned, who lived at north birchlands and with whom major dale and his motherless children had now, for some time, made their home. at school dorothy had some fun, many adventures, and several little troubles; but with the help and companionship of tavia, who was enabled to go to the school, too, after a very few months both chums decided that glenwood13 was the very finest school “that ever happened.”

“dorothy dale’s great secret” came very nearly being tavia travers’ undoing, and that sprightly damsel’s adventures, and her friend’s wholesome influence over her, are fully related in the third volume of the above name.

in the fourth volume, “dorothy dale and her chums,” dorothy came into really startling association with some gypsies and their queens; but there is likewise in the story plenty of school fun and excitement and almost a rebellion of the glenwood girls against a harsh teacher who had charge while mrs. pangborn, the principal, was away.

dorothy and her chums, with the help of nat and ned white and some of their friends, solved the mystery of the “castle” in the next volume, which is well entitled, “dorothy dale’s queer holidays.” the holidays were queer, indeed, and there was a time when serious trouble seemed to threaten them all.

in “dorothy dale’s camping days,” the sixth volume of the series, dorothy was mistaken for a demented girl who had escaped from a sanitarium, and our heroine suffered imprisonment and much anxiety before the mistake was explained. in this, as in “dorothy dale’s school rivals,” the seventh book, tavia travers had a prominent part in the action of the story; but tavia was a14 flyaway and often dorothy was anxious about her. the irresponsible tavia had a heart of gold, however, and her love for dorothy, and her loyalty to her in any and every difficulty, kept the girl from going very far wrong.

the girls had boarded the train for glenwood, which had met this obstruction of the burning bridge, after the winter vacation; and that vacation had been spent by dorothy and tavia in new york. the account of the fun and adventures they had there is too long to tell here, but it is all related in the volume next preceding this, entitled, “dorothy dale in the city.”

the chums not only found the great metropolis a veritable fairyland of surprises, but they had adventures galore. by a fortunate turn of circumstances the two girls were able to save dorothy’s aunt winnie from the machinations of a dishonest real estate agent who had been handling some of that lady’s property; and likewise they had been able to befriend miss mingle, the music teacher at glenwood school, and her invalid sister.

as the other girls were looking after ned ebony, and offering her the contents of their own bags—from “mule” slippers to powder-puffs—dorothy was not needed; so she went back to the railroad station to make sure that no train was made up for glenwood without her and her friends being aware of it.

15 there, in the waiting room, she spied a tall, burly woman, with a very hard red face, who had just placed upon one of the benches a little girl of some six or seven years. the child was poorly dressed, and although she was not crying, she looked very woe-begone indeed.

the big woman gave the child a little shake when she had placed her on the bench.

“there now, celia moran!” she snapped. “you stay put; will yer? i never seen no child more like an eel than you be.”

“am—am i really like a—neel, mrs. hogan?” demanded the little girl, timidly. “do—does a—neel have feets an’ hands?”

“you shet up with your questions!” commanded the woman, shaking a finger at her. “as sure as me name’s ann hogan i’d never tuk ye from that findling asylum if i’d knowed ye had a tongue in your mout’ that’s hung in the middle and wags both ends. sorra the day i tuk ye!”

little celia moran put a tentative finger in her mouth to see if it was verily so—that her tongue was “hung” different from other people’s tongues.

“are—are you sure my tongue’s that way, mrs. hogan?” she asked, plaintively as the big woman was turning away. “it—it feels all right.”

“now, you shet up!” warned mrs. hogan, wrathfully. “ax me another question an’ i’ll spank ye—so i will! i’m goin’ now to find jim16 bentley’s waggin’. do you sit right there still—don’t move! if ye do, i’ll know it when i come back an’ ’twill be the wuss for ye.”

with this threat the big woman departed with an angry stride. dorothy had stopped to listen to the conversation; and she was greatly interested in the little girl. she immediately went and sat down by celia moran.

she was not a very big girl for her age, being thin and “wriggly.” it did seem quite impossible for her to keep either her limbs or her tongue still.

but she was, without doubt, a most appealing little thing. dorothy smiled at her, and dorothy’s smile was bound to “make friends” with any one.

“i guess you don’t know me; do you?” asked the child, looking up from under long, black lashes at dorothy. those lashes, and the velvety black eyes they almost hid, were all the really pretty features the child possessed. she was not plump enough to be pretty of form, and the expression of her features was too shrewd and worldly-wise to make a child of her age attractive.

“i guess you don’t know me; do you?” she repeated, looking in a sly little way at dorothy.

“oh, yes, i do,” declared dorothy dale, laughing outright. “you are celia moran,” she added,17 remembering the name the sour-faced woman had used.

“but you don’t know where i come from?”

the ugly gingham uniform she wore told that story only too well. dorothy became grave at once.

“you come from some orphan asylum, my dear.”

“from the findling,” said the little girl, pursing up her lips and nodding.

“from a foundling asylum?”

“yes’m. but i wasn’t really a ‘findling.’ i didn’t come there like the babies do. i was two an’ a ha’f years old when they took me in. that ain’t no baby; is it?”

“two and a half? why, that’s a big girl,” agreed dorothy.

“’course it is. but my papa had been dead a long time; and my mamma, too. and then my auntie died, so i had to go to the findling.”

“and wasn’t there anybody else to look out for you?” asked the interested dorothy.

“only tom. and he went away.”

“tom who?”

“tom moran. he’s my brother. i don’t suppose you know him; do you?”

“i don’t think i do,” said dorothy, shaking her head.

“oh, you’d remember him—of course,” confided18 celia, impressively. “for he is so big, and strong, and—and red-headed. yes. he’s got awful red hair. and he builds bridges, and things. oh, i can remember him—just as easy! so i must have been a big girl when they brought me to the findling.”

“and you haven’t seen your brother since?”

“no’m. and he’d gone away before auntie died. that’s why he doesn’t come for me, i s’pose. so the matron says. he don’t know where i is,” she added, with a little sigh.

“and now mrs. hogan’s got me. she’s tooked me to bring up. and she says she’s going to bring me up right strict,” added the child, pursing her lips and shaking her head in her queer, old-fashioned way. “she spects it’s goin’ to be jes’ a job to do it!”