A little later, before either of them fell asleep again, they heard shouting and confusion at a distance. In the morning they learned that two of the tents in the Enterprise Camp had blown down.
The shore was strewn with wreckage, too, when daybreak came; but the wind seemed to have blown itself out. Many small craft had come ashore, and some were damaged. It was not often that the summer visitors at Pleasant Cove saw any such gale as this had been.
Everything was all right with the Corner House girls, and Ruth decided they would stick to the tent, in spite of the fact that some of the camping families were frightened away from the tent colonies by this disgraceful exhibition of Mr. Wind!
The smaller Kenways, as well as the bigger girls, were enjoying the out-of-door life immensely. They were already as brown as berries. They ran all day, bare-headed and bare-legged, on the sands. It was plain to be seen that the change from Milton to Pleasant Cove was doing all the Corner House girls a world of good.
And during the extremely pleasant days that immediately followed the night of the big wind, many new colonists came to the tents. Two big tents were erected in the Willowbend Camp, for Joe Eldred and _his_ friends--and that included, of course, Neale O'Neil. But the Milton boys would not arrive until the next week.
On Monday afternoon the Corner House girls walked down to the railroad station to greet Rosa Wildwood. It had been a very hot day in town and it was really hot at Pleasant Cove, as well.
"Oh! you poor thing!" gasped Ruth, receiving Rosa in her strong arms as she stumbled off the car steps with her bag.
"I'm as thin as the last run of shad, am I not?" asked Rosa, laughing. "That train was _awful_! I am baked. It's never like this down South. The air is so much dryer there; there isn't this humidity. Oh!"
"Well, you're here all right now, Rosa," cried Ruth. "We have a nice, easy carriage for you to ride in. And the _dearest_ place for you to live!"
"And scrumptious eating, Rose," added Agnes.
"With the little old woman who lives in a shoe," declared Tess, eager to add her bit of information.
Dot's finger had strayed to the corner of her mouth, as she stared. For she had never met Rosa before, and she was naturally rather a bashful child.