Chapter 9 GOSSIP OUT OF THE ETHER

Jessie's cry startled everybody on deck and Darry and Burd came running from the stern.

"Where is she? Do you see her? Throw out a buoy!" exclaimed the young owner of the yacht. "Hey, Skipper Pandrick! Lower the boat."

"Man overboard!" shouted Burd Alling.

"Get out!" exclaimed Darry. "It's not a man at all. It's little Hen. Is that right, Jessie? Did you see her fall?"

"No-o," replied Jessie. "But she's not here. Where else could she have gone?"

Burd stared up and all about. Amy said promptly:

"You needn't look into the air, Burd. Hen certainly didn't fly away."

The skipper arrived, but he was not excited. "Who did you say had gone overboard, Mr. Darry?" he asked.

"What does it matter? Can't we save her without so much red tape?" snapped Darry. "Come on, Skipper! Get out the boat."

"You mean the little girl who stood right here?" asked the man. "Well, now, I saw how she was playing her line. She didn't have it fastened to a cleat. And she sure didn't just now fasten it when she went overboard. No, I guess not."

"Oh! Maybe he is right," cried Jessie, with much relief.

"Well, I declare!" grumbled Darry. "It takes you girls to stir up excitement."

"But where is little Hen?" Amy asked, whirling around to face her brother.

They all stared at one another. The skipper wagged his head.

"You'd better look around, alow and aloft, and see if she ain't to be found. If she did go down, she ain't come up again, that's sure."

"But that splash!" cried Jessie, anxiously.

"Wasn't any splash except when I threw that big flatfish overboard," said the skipper. "And the little girl didn't scream. I guess she's inboard rather than overboard-yes, ma'am!"

The four young people separated and scoured the yacht, both on deck and below. At least, the girls looked through the cabin and the staterooms and the boys went into the tiny forecastle. They met again in five minutes or so and stared wonderingly at each other. Little Henrietta had as utterly disappeared as though she had melted into thin air.

"What can have happened to the poor little thing?" cried Amy, now almost in tears.

"Of course, she must be on the boat if she hasn't fallen overboard," Jessie replied hesitatingly.

"That is wisdom," remarked Burd Alling, dryly. "She hasn't flown away, that's sure."

The two mothers were on the afterdeck in comfortable chairs; Jessie hated to disturb them, for Mrs. Norwood and Mrs. Drew had not heard the first outcry regarding Henrietta. Mr. Norwood and Mr. Drew were busy with their fishing-lines. Neither of the four adult passengers had seen the child.

"I'll be hanged, but that is the greatest kid I ever saw!" exclaimed Darry Drew with vigor. "She's always in some mischief or other."

"I am so afraid she is in trouble," confessed Jessie. "You know, we are responsible to her cousin Bertha Blair for her safety."

"If the kid wants to dive overboard, are we to be held responsible?" demanded Burd, somewhat crossly.

"You hard-hearted boy!" exclaimed Amy. "Of course it is your fault if anything happens to Hennie."

"I told you, Drew, that you were making a big mistake to let this crowd of girls aboard the Marigold," complained the stocky youth, sighing deeply. "While this was strictly a bachelor barque we were all right."

Jessie, however, was really too much worried to enter into any repartee of this character. She ran off again to the cabin to have a second look for Henrietta. She found no trace of her except the doll she had brought aboard and the green parasol.

She went back on deck. The fishermen were beginning to haul in weakfish and an occasional tautog, or blackfish. Amy, with a shout, hauled in Henrietta's line and got inboard a fine flounder.

"Anyway, we'll have a big fish-fry for supper. The men will clean the fish and Darry and Burd will fry them. Your mother and mine, Jess, say that they have got through with the galley for the day."

"Oh!" ejaculated Jessie and, whirling suddenly around, started for the galley slide.

"Where are you going?" cried Amy. "Do help me with this flopping fish. I can't get the hook out."

Her chum did not halt. She knew that nobody had thought to look into the cook's galley that had been shut up after lunch. She forced back the slide and peered in.

There on the deck of the little compartment, with her back against the wall, or bulkhead, was Henrietta. On one side was a jar of strawberry jam only half full. Much of the sticky sweet was smeared upon the cracker clutched in the child's hand and upon her face and the front of her frock. Henrietta was asleep!

"What is it?" demanded Amy, who had followed her more excited chum. "What's happened to her?"

"Look at that!" exclaimed Jessie, dramatically.

Darry and Burd drew near. Amy burst into stifled laughter.

"What do you know about that kid? She asked me if she could have a bite between meals and I told her of course she could. But I never thought she would take me so at my word." Amy's laughter was no longer stifled.

"Fishing in the jam jar is more to Hen's taste than fishing in the ocean," observed Darry.

"Nervy kid!" exclaimed Burd. "I'd like some of that jam myself."

"Bring him away," commanded Jessie, pushing to the slide. "She might as well sleep. We will know where she is, anyway."

This little scare rather broke up the fishing for the Roselawn girls and the college boys. They went to the wireless room which had been built on deck behind the wheelhouse, and Darry put on the head harness and opened the key by which he took the messages he was able to obtain out of the air.

The girls were particularly interested in this form of radio telegraphy at this time. Darry had bought and was establishing a regular radio telephone receiving set, too. He could give Jessie and Amy a deal of information about the Morse alphabet as used in the commercial wireless service.

"Practice makes perfect," he told them. "You can buy an ordinary key and sounder and practice until you can send fast. While you are learning that you automatically learn to read Morse. But I'll have the radio set all right shortly and then we can get the station concerts."

"How near we'll be to that station on the island!" Amy cried. "It ought to sound as though it were right in our ears."

"Not through your radiophone," said her brother. "That station is a great brute of a commercial and signal station. It sends clear to the European shore. No concerts broadcasted from there. Now, let's see if we can get some gossip out of the air."

The girls took turns listening in, even though they could not understand more than a letter or two of Morse. Darry translated for their benefit certain general messages he caught. They learned that operators on the trans-Atlantic liners and on the cargo boats often talked back and forth, swapping yarns, news, and personal information. Occasionally a navy operator "crashed in" with a few words.

Calls came for vessels all up and down the North Atlantic. Information as to weather indications were broadcasted from Arlington. The air seemed full of voices, each to be caught at a certain wave-length.

"It is wonderful!" Jessie exclaimed. "'Gossip out of the air' is the right name for it. Just think of it, Amy! When we were born there was very little known about all this wonderful wireless."

"Sh!" commanded her chum. "Don't remind folks how frightfully young we are."