<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<h1>BOBS, <br/>A GIRL DETECTIVE</h1>
<h3><b><i>By</i> CAROL NORTON</b></h3>
<h2 id="c1">CHAPTER I <br/><span class="small">FOUR GIRLS FACE A PROBLEM</span></h2>
<p>“Now that the crash is over and the last echo has
ceased to reverberate through our ancestral halls, the
problem before the house is what shall the family
of Vandergrifts do next?”</p>
<p>“Gloria, I do wish you wouldn’t stand there grinning
like a Cheshire cat. There certainly is nothing
amusing about the whirlwind of a catastrophe that
we have just been through and are still in, for that
matter.” Gwendolyn tapped her bronze-slippered toe
impatiently as she sat in a luxuriously upholstered
chair in what, until this past week, had been the
library in the Long Island home of the proud family
of Vandergrifts.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_4">[4]</div>
<p>Gloria, the oldest of the four girls, ceased to smile
but the pleasant expression, which was habitual to
the blue eyes, did not entirely vanish as she inquired,
“What would you have me do, Gwen? Fret
and fume as you are doing? That is no way to readjust
your life to new and changed conditions.
Face the facts squarely, say I, and then try to find
some way to surmount your difficulties. Now first
of all, we ought——”</p>
<p>The dark, handsome Gwendolyn, whose natural
selfishness was plainly portrayed in a drooping
mouth and petulant expression, put her fingers in
her ears, saying: “If you are going to preach, I
can assure you that I am not going to listen; so you
might as well save your breath until——”</p>
<p>“Hush. Here comes Lena May in from the garden.
Don’t let her hear us scrapping. It effects her
sensitive soul as discord effects a true musician.”</p>
<p>Lena May entered through the porch door, her
arms filled with blossoming branches.</p>
<p>“Look, sisters, aren’t apple blossoms even sweeter
than usual this year?” the slip of a girl began, then
paused and glanced from one face to the other.
“Gwen, what is wrong?” she asked anxiously.</p>
<p>But it was Gloria who replied, “Nothing at all,
Pet. That is, nothing ‘wronger’ than usual, if you
will permit my lapse of grammar.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_5">[5]</div>
<p>But the dark-eyed sister threw down the book
which she had been trying to read, as she exclaimed,
“You both know perfectly well than nothing
could be in more of a muddle than our lives
are at the present moment and your ‘look for the
silver lining,’ philosophy, Gloria Vandergrift, doesn’t
help <i>me</i> in the least.”</p>
<p>The fawn-like eyes of the frail, youngest sister
turned inquiringly toward the oldest. “Has anything
more happened, I mean, anything new?” she
asked.</p>
<p>“Yes, dear, we had a letter from Father’s lawyer
and he states than beyond a doubt our place here on
Long Island does not belong to us and, for that matter,
it never did really. Grandfather bought it in
good faith, I am sure, but he did not receive a clear
title.”</p>
<p>“Then why doesn’t our lawyer clear it up? That’s
what I’d like to know,” Gwen said, throwing herself
petulantly into another position. “Why did
Father employ him, if he cannot attend to our legal
matters?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_6">[6]</div>
<p>“But, Gwen, dear, can’t you understand?” Gloria
began to explain with infinite patience. “When Father
died, leaving four orphaned daughters, we knew
that the fortune he had inherited had been lost
through unwise investments, but we did think that
the income from this vast acreage and the tenants
would be sufficient to permit us to live in about the
same comfortable way that we always have, but
now we find that even this place is not ours and
that we are—well, up against it, as Bobs would
say.”</p>
<p>“Where is Bobs?” This from Lena May, who
was arranging the sprays of apple blossoms in a
large pale-green bowl on a low wicker stand.</p>
<p>“Look out of yonder window and you will see
the object of your inquiry,” Gloria laughed as she
pointed toward the park-like grounds where a hoidenish
young girl of 17 could be seen riding astride
a slender high-spirited black horse with a white star
in his forehead.</p>
<p>“I do wish Roberta wouldn’t wear that outlandish
costume,” Gwendolyn began, “and what’s more
I can’t see why she wants to be galloping around
the country in that fashion when a calamity like
this is staring us in the face.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_7">[7]</div>
<p>The horse had disappeared beyond the shrubbery.
The sisters supposed that the young rider would
go down to the stables and so they were somewhat
startled, a second later, by seeing Bobs vault over
the sill of an open window and land in their midst.</p>
<p>Gwendolyn, of course, rebuked her. “Roberta
Vandergrift, aren’t you ever going to become ladylike?”
she admonished.</p>
<p>The newcomer was about to retort that she hoped
not if Gwen was a sample, but Gloria intervened.
“Don’t be ladylike, Bobs,” she said. “Now, more
than ever, we need a man in the family. But come,
let’s talk peaceably together and decide what we
are to do.”</p>
<p>“All right,” Roberta tossed her hat to one side
and sat tailor-wise on the floor, adding: “Fire
ahead, I’m present.”</p>
<p>“Such language,” was what Gwendolyn refrained
from saying, but Bobs chuckled in wicked glee. She
thought it jolly fun to shock “Miss Prunes and
Prisms,” as she called the sister but one year her
senior.</p>
<p>“Gloria, whatever you suggest, I know will be
best,” little Lena May said, as she slipped a trusting
hand into that of the oldest sister. “Now, tell us,
what is your plan?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_8">[8]</div>
<p>The oldest girl was thoughtful for a moment,
then said: “Honestly, I don’t know that I have
made one very far ahead, but of course we must
leave here. That is the inevitable, and, equally of
course, we must find some way of earning our daily
bread.”</p>
<p>“Bread, indeed,” sniffed the disdainful Gwendolyn.
“You know that I never eat such a plebian
thing as bread.”</p>
<p>“Well, you may work to earn cake if you prefer,”
Bobs told her, then leaning forward she added
eagerly: “I say, Gloria, it’s going to be a great adventure,
isn’t it? I’ve always been so envious of
people who actually earned their own way in the
world. It shows there is something in them. Anyone
can be a parasite, but the person who is worth
while isn’t contented to be one. Ever since Kathryn
De Laney went to little old New York town to take
a course in nursing that she might do something
big in the world, I’ve had the itch to do likewise.
Getting up at noon and then dwaddling away the
hours until midnight is all very well for those who
like it, but not for mine! I’ve been wishing that
something would jar us out of the rut we’re in, and
I, for one, am glad that it has come.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_9">[9]</div>
<p>“Kathryn De Laney is a disgrace to her family.”
This, scornfully, from Gwen. “A girl with a million
in her own name could hire people to do all the
nursing she wished done without going into dirty,
slummy places herself, and actually waiting on immigrants,
the very sight of whom would make me
feel ill. I never even permit Hawkins to drive me
through the poorer sections of the city and, if I am
obliged to pass through the tenement district, I close
the windows that I need not breath the polluted air;
and I also draw the curtains.”</p>
<p>“I’ve no doubt that you do,” Bobs said, eyeing her
sister almost coldly. “I sometimes wonder where
our mother got you, anyway. You haven’t one resemblance
to that dear little woman who, when the
squalid hamlet down by the sound was burned,
opened her home and took them all in. We were too
small to remember it ourselves, but I’ve heard Father
tell about it time and again, and he would always
end the story by saying, ‘My dearest wish is that my
four girls each grow up to be just such an angel
woman as their mother was.’”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_10">[10]</div>
<p>“Nor was that all,” Lena May put in, a tender
light glowing in her soft brown eyes. “Mother herself
superintended the rebuilding of the hamlet which
has now grown to be the model town along the
sound.” Then, looking lovingly up at the oldest
sister, she continued: “I’m glad, Gloria, that you are
so like our mother. But you haven’t as yet told me
your plan and I am sure that you must at least have
the beginning of one.”</p>
<p>“Well, as I said before, we must leave here and go
to work,” Gloria replied. “I suppose the best thing
would be for us to go to New York, where so many
varieties of endeavor await us. Mr. Corey thinks
that there will be about one hundred dollars a month
for us to live on. That will be twenty-five dollars
for each of us, and——”</p>
<p>“Twenty-five dollars, indeed? I can’t even get a
hat for that, and I certainly shall need one to wear
to Phyllis De Laney’s lawn party on the 18th of
June if——”</p>
<p>“But you won’t be here then, Gwen, so you might
as well not plan to attend,” Gloria said seriously.
“We are obliged to vacate this place by the first of
June. The Grabbersteins, who claim their ancestors
were the original owners, will move in on that day,
bag and baggage, and so my suggestion is that we
leave the week previous, that we need not meet
them.”</p>
<p>“Have you thought what you will do to earn
money?” Lena May asked Gloria.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_11">[11]</div>
<p>“Yes. Miss Lovejoy of the East Seventy-seventh
Street Settlement has asked me to take charge of the
girls’ clubs and I have accepted.”</p>
<p>“Gloria Vandergrift; you, a daughter of one of
the very oldest families in this country, to work,
actually work in those dreadful smelling slums.”</p>
<p>Gloria looked almost with pity at the speaker, who,
of course, was Gwendolyn, as she said: “Do you
realize that being born an aristocrat is merely an
accident? You might have been born in the slums,
Gwen, and if you had been, wouldn’t you be glad to
have someone come to you and give you a chance?”</p>
<p>There being no reply, Gloria continued: “I take
no credit to myself because I happened to be born in
luxury and not in poverty, but we’ll have to postpone
this conversation, for our neighbors are evidently
coming to call.”</p>
<p>Bobs sprang to her feet and leaped to the open
window. “Hello there, Phyl and Dick! Come
around this way and I’ll open the porch door.”</p>
<p>Gwendolyn shrugged her shoulders. “Why doesn’t
Roberta allow Peter to admit our visitors,” she
began, but Gloria interrupted: “One excellent reason,
perhaps, is that all our servants except the cook left
this morning. You, of course, were still asleep and
did not know of the exodus.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_12">[12]</div>
<p>The sharp retort on the tongue of Gwendolyn was
not uttered, for Phyllis De Laney and her big, good-looking
brother, Richard, were entering the library.</p>
<p>“You poor dear girls! Just as soon as I heard
the news I came right over,” Phyllis De Laney exclaimed
as she sank down in a deep, comfortable
chair and looked about at her friends with an expression
of frank curiosity on her doll-pretty face.
“However, I told Ma Mere that I knew there wasn’t
a word of truth in the scandalous gossip, and so I
came to hear how it all started that I may be able
to contradict it.” Phyllis took a breath and then
continued her chatter: “Your maid, Gwen, told my
Fanchon, and she said that every servant in your
employ had been dismissed with two weeks’ advance
pay; and she said a good deal more than that too,
which, of course, isn’t true. Just listen to this and
then tell me if it isn’t simply scandalous. That maid
declared that you girls are going to work, actually
work, to earn your own living.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_13">[13]</div>
<p>“I’ll say it’s true!” Roberta put in, grinning with
wicked glee. Her good pal, Dick, smiled over at her
as he remarked with evident amusement: “You
don’t look very miserable about it, Bobs. In fact,
quite the contrary, you appear pleased. If the truth
were known, I envy you, honestly I do! I’d much
rather go to work than go to college. I’m no good
at Latin or Greek. If languages are dead, bury
them, I say. I’m not a student by nature, so what’s
the use pretending; but the pater won’t hear to it.
Just because our grandfather left us each a million,
we’ve got to dwaddle away our lives spending it. Of
course I’m nineteen now, but you wait until I’m
twenty-one years old and see what will happen.”</p>
<p>His sister Phyllis lifted her eyebrows ever so
slightly and looked her disapproval. “In that time
you will have changed your mind,” she remarked.
Then turning to her particular friend, she added:
“But, Gwen, you aren’t going to work, are you?
Pray, what could you do?”</p>
<p>Gwendolyn was in no pleasant frame of mind as
her sisters well knew, and her reply was most ungraciously
given. Curtly she stated that she did not
care to discuss her personal affairs with anyone.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_14">[14]</div>
<p>Phyllis flushed and rose at once, saying coldly:
“Indeed? Since when have you become so secretive?
You always tell me everything you do and
so I had no reason to suppose that you would object
to my friendly inquiry; but you need have no fear,
I shall never again intrude upon your privacy. I will
bid you all good afternoon and good-bye, for, of
course, since you are going to New York to work,
I suppose as clerks in the shops, we will not likely
meet again.”</p>
<p>“Aw, I say, Sis, cut it out! What’s the big idea,
anyway? A friend is a friend, isn’t he, whether he
wears broadcloth or overalls?” Then as his sister
continued to sweep out of the room, the lad crossed
to the oldest sister and held out his hand, saying,
with sincere boyish sympathy, “Gloria, I’m mighty
sorry about this—er—this—well, whatever it is, and
please let me know where you go, and as soon as
you’re settled I’ll run over and play the big brother
act, if you’ll let me.”</p>
<p>Then, turning to Bobs, he said: “Go riding with
me at sunrise tomorrow morning, will you, like we
used to do before I went away to school. There’s
a lot I want to say, and the day after I’m going to
be packed off to the academy again to be tortured
for another month; then, thanks be, vacation will
let me out of that prison for a while.” Roberta hesitated,
and Dick urged: “Go on, Bob! Be a sport.
Say yes.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_15">[15]</div>
<p>“All right. I’ll be at the Twin Oaks, where we’ve
met ever since we were little shavers.”</p>
<p>When the door closed behind the departing guests
Gloria turned to the sister, who was but one year
her junior, and said: “Gwendolyn, I am sorry to say
this, but the good of the larger number requires it.
If you cannot face the changed conditions cheerfully
with us, I shall have to ask you to make your plans
independent of us. We three have decided to be
brave and courageous, and try to find joy and happiness
in whatever may present itself, just as our
mother and father would wish us to do, and just as
they would have done had similar circumstances
overtaken them.”</p>
<p>Gwendolyn rose and walked toward the door, but
turned to say, “You need not concern yourselves
about me in the least. I shall not go with you to
New York. I shall visit my dear friend Eloise
Rochester in Newport, as she has often begged me
to do.”</p>
<p>“An excellent plan, if——” Gloria began, then
paused.</p>
<p>Gwendolyn turned and inquired haughtily, “If
what?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_16">[16]</div>
<p>“If Eloise wants you when she hears that you
have neither home nor wealth. If I am anything of
a character reader, I should say that the invitation
about which you have just told was merely a bait,
so to speak, for a return invitation. It is quite evident
that Eloise has decided to marry Richard De
Laney’s million-dollar inheritance, and since Phyllis
will not invite her to their home you, as a next-door
neighbor, can be used to advantage.”</p>
<p>“Indeed? Well, luckily Miss Vandergrift, you
are <i>not</i> a character reader, as you will learn in the
near future. You three make whatever plans you
wish, but do not include me.” So saying, Gwendolyn
left the room and a few moments later the three
sisters heard her moving about in the apartment
overhead, and they correctly assumed that she was
packing, preparatory for her departure to Newport.</p>
<p>Gloria sighed: “I wonder why Gwen is so unlike
our mother and father?” she said.</p>
<p>“I have it,” Bobs cried, whirling about with eyes
laughingly aglow. “She’s a changeling! A discontented
nurse girl wished to wreak vengeance upon
Mother for having discharged her, or something like
that, and so she stole the child who really was our
sister and left this——”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_17">[17]</div>
<p>“Don’t, Bobsie!” Lena May protested. “Even if
Gwen is selfish, maybe we are to blame. She was
ill for so long after Mother died that we couldn’t
bear the thought of having two deaths, and so we
rather spoiled her. I believe that if we meet her
contrariness with love and are very patient we may
find the gold that must be in her nature, since she <i>is</i>
our mother’s child.”</p>
<p>“You can do it, if it’s do-able, Lena May,” Bobs
declared. “Now, Gloria, break the glad news! When
do we hit the trail for the big town?”</p>
<p>“I’m going in tomorrow to find a place for us to
live. If you girls wish, you may accompany me.”</p>
<p>“Wish? Why, all the king’s oxen and all the
king’s men couldn’t keep me from going.”</p>
<p>Gloria smiled at her hoidenish sister but refrained
from commenting on her language. She was so
thankful that there was only one Gwen in the family
that she could overlook lesser failings. Bobs was
taking the mishap that had befallen them as a great
adventure, but even she did not dream of the truly
exciting adventures that lay before them.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_18">[18]</div>
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