<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
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<h1>The <br/>Seven Sleuths’ Club</h1>
<p class="tbcenter"><span class="large"><b><i>By</i> CAROL NORTON</b></span></p>
<hr />
<p class="center"><span class="sc">Author of</span>
<br/>“The Phantom Yacht,” “Bobs, A Girl Detective,” etc.</p>
<div class="fig">><ANTIMG src="images/logo.jpg" alt="(logo)" width-obs="180" height-obs="191" /></div>
<hr />
<p class="center"><span class="sc">The Saalfield Publishing Company</span>
<br/><span class="small">Akron, Ohio</span> <span class="hst"><span class="small">New York</span></span></p>
<p class="center"><span class="smaller"><span class="sc">Copyright MCMXXVIII</span>
<br/>The Saalfield Publishing Co.
<br/><i>Printed in the United States of America</i></span></p>
</div>
<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
<span class="jl"><span class="small">CHAPTER</span></span> <span class="small">PAGE</span>
<br/><SPAN href="#c1">I. Enter the S. S. C.</SPAN> 3
<br/><SPAN href="#c2">II. Snow Maidens</SPAN> 9
<br/><SPAN href="#c3">III. A Merry Adventure</SPAN> 15
<br/><SPAN href="#c4">IV. Interesting News</SPAN> 29
<br/><SPAN href="#c5">V. A Mischievous Plan</SPAN> 36
<br/><SPAN href="#c6">VI. Milk Maids and Butter Churners</SPAN> 44
<br/><SPAN href="#c7">VII. An Unwilling Hostess</SPAN> 51
<br/><SPAN href="#c8">VIII. Three Letters</SPAN> 59
<br/><SPAN href="#c9">IX. A Returned Call</SPAN> 72
<br/><SPAN href="#c10">X. Wanted—A Housekeeper</SPAN> 80
<br/><SPAN href="#c11">XI. A Rebellious Boy</SPAN> 93
<br/><SPAN href="#c12">XII. A Sleigh-ride Party</SPAN> 98
<br/><SPAN href="#c13">XIII. A Bag of Gold</SPAN> 106
<br/><SPAN href="#c14">XIV. Two Conspirators</SPAN> 118
<br/><SPAN href="#c15">XV. A Boy’s Repentance</SPAN> 125
<br/><SPAN href="#c16">XVI. The Heart of a Snob</SPAN> 137
<br/><SPAN href="#c17">XVII. First Day in a New School</SPAN> 144
<br/><SPAN href="#c18">XVIII. A Mystery to Solve</SPAN> 153
<br/><SPAN href="#c19">XIX. Searching for Clues</SPAN> 163
<br/><SPAN href="#c20">XX. The Sleuths Sleuthing</SPAN> 171
<br/><SPAN href="#c21">XXI. A Valentine Party</SPAN> 183
<br/><SPAN href="#c22">XXII. A New Resolve</SPAN> 194
<br/><SPAN href="#c23">XXIII. A Proud Cook</SPAN> 201
<br/><SPAN href="#c24">XXIV. Kindness Rewarded</SPAN> 211
<br/><SPAN href="#c25">XXV. A Much Loved Girl</SPAN> 219
<br/><SPAN href="#c26">XXVI. A Happy Reunion</SPAN> 225
<br/><SPAN href="#c27">XXVII. Home, Sweet Home</SPAN> 231
<div class="pb" id="Page_3">[3]</div>
<h1 title="">THE SEVEN SLEUTHS’ CLUB</h1>
<h2 id="c1">CHAPTER I. <br/><span class="small">ENTER THE S. S. C.</span></h2>
<p>A musical gong, resounding through the corridors
of the Sunnyside seminary, was the signal for
the opening of doors and the trooping out of
girls of all ages, in twos and threes and groups;
some with ribboned braids, a few with long curls
but most of them with saucy bobs. It was a ten-minute
recreation between changing classes. Had
it been summer, one and all would have flocked out
on the wide green lawns to play a game of toss
ball for a few merry moments, or to rest on benches
under the great old elms, or to saunter up and down
the flower-bordered paths, but, since it was a wild,
blustery day in January, the pupils of Miss Demorest’s
school for select young ladies contented themselves,
some of them with opening the heavy front
door and uttering little screams of pretended fear
or of sincere delight when a snow-laden gust
brushed past them, leaving those nearest with wind-tossed
hair.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_4">[4]</div>
<p>Six of them, having no curiosity, it would seem,
concerning the weather, gathered about the wide
fireplace in the library for a few moments of hurried
gossip.</p>
<p>“Where’s Merry?” Peggy Pierce asked as she
glanced toward the open door that led into the
music-room. “She said we were to come in here
and wait for her. She’s made a wild and wonderful
discovery, she told me in class. If Miss Preens
didn’t have eyes in the back of her head, Merry
would have told me what it was, but, just as she was
starting, around whirled that living skeleton and
pointed an accusing bony finger at us as she moaned
in that deep, uncanny voice of hers: ‘Miss Marion
Lee, one demerit for whispering. Miss Peggy
Pierce, one demerit for listening.’ Say, <i>can</i> you
beat that?”</p>
<p>“I don’t think she’s human,” Rosamond Wright
declared, her iris-blue eyes, round and serious.
“Honest, true, I think she has demoniacal powers.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_5">[5]</div>
<p>“That’s too much for me!” laughed little Betty
Byrd. “Where do you learn such long words, Rose?
I’m still using monosyllables.”</p>
<p>“Sounds like it!” Bertha Angel commented.</p>
<p>“To return to the subject under discussion, where
do you suppose the president of the ‘S. S. C.’ is?”
Peggy Pierce glanced at her wrist watch, but, as
usual, it had stopped running.</p>
<p>“Time, Peg? According to my old reliable
there’s just five minutes more of recess and——”
Doris Dreel broke off to exclaim gleefully:</p>
<p>“Here she comes! Here’s Merry!” Then to the
girl who, laughing and towsled, appeared in the
doorway leading from the corridor, Rosamond
cried: “What’s the big idea, Merry? Didn’t you
call a fireplace meeting for the very minute after
the gong rang, and now it’s time for the next gong
and we haven’t heard what you have to tell us.”</p>
<p>But Merry, although she tried to look repentant,
was laughing so hard that still another moment was
wasted while she made an effort to compose herself.
Down on a comfortably upholstered chair she sank,
thrusting her feet out toward the blaze. She had
laughed herself limp.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_6">[6]</div>
<p>“What, pray tell, <i>is</i> the joke? I suppose you are
aware of the fact that this is January the tenth and
not April the first?” Peggy could be quite sarcastic
at times.</p>
<p>“O, I say, Peg, have a heart! I did mean to be
here, but just as I was leaving class the Living
Skeleton laid a bony hand on my shoulder and told
me to remain in my seat through the recess and
think of my sins, and of course I had to, but all I
could think of was the peach of a news-item which
I have to impart, and so, the very minute she left
the room, I broke through that mob out in the corridor
and here I am.” Then, twinkling-eyed,
she looked up at the others who were standing
about her. “In a thousand years, not one of you
could guess what I’ve found out.”</p>
<p>“Heavens, Merry! Don’t start that old gag of
yours, trying to keep us in suspense. Out with it
or the gong will——” Peg’s conclusion was not
heard, for the gong, evidently hearing its cue, pealed
out six malevolent strokes.</p>
<p>“Tragic fate!” The culprit was too mischievous-looking
to seem sincerely repentant. “Terribly sorry,
girls, but I’d hate to spoil the thrill you’ll all get
when you hear my news by rattling it off in such
a short time.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_7">[7]</div>
<p>“Well then, after school. What say?” Betty
Byrd asked, but the gold-brown bobbed curls were
being shaken. “Can’t be done, my love. I’ve got
to practice with Professor Long-locks. Hadn’t
opened my music book since last week, and say, but
didn’t he lay down the law! If I won’t practice by
myself,” says he, “then I shall practice in his presence.”
She drew a long face. “Heaven pity me!”
Then hurriedly, as they joined the throng in the
corridors, she whispered to Rose, who was next to
her: “Tomorrow will be Saturday. If I live till
then, round up the crowd and come over to my
house after lunch and be prepared to hear <i>some</i>
news.”</p>
<p>“Merry Lee, <i>are</i> you whispering again?”</p>
<p>“Yes’m, Miss Liv—er—I mean, Miss Preens,
but it was awful important. Please excuse me this
time and I will try not to again offend.”</p>
<p>Such penitence was in the brown eyes that glanced
beseechingly up at the spindlingly tall monitress that
for the moment Miss Preens was almost inclined
to accept the apology. Herding forty girls to the
study hall and being sure that none of them whispered
<i>was</i> rather of a task, and, right at that very
moment she was sure that she saw two heads near
the front suspiciously close together, and so she
pushed through the ranks, at least a head and a half
taller than any girl in the school.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_8">[8]</div>
<p>“What a wife she’d make for an ogre!” Merry
turned, laughing eyes, toward the girl following her.</p>
<p>It happened to be one of the seniors, and a blue
ribbon one at that, and so the humorous suggestion
was not met with appreciation.</p>
<p>Merry’s mental comment was, “When <i>I</i> get to be
a senior, at least I’ll be human.”</p>
<p>Just as they were entering the study hall for a
brief moment Betty Byrd was close. “I just can’t
wait till tomorrow,” the youngest member of the
S. S. C. whispered.</p>
<p>Merry put a warning finger on her lips. Betty
glanced up and saw the sharp eyes of Miss Preen
turning in their direction.</p>
<p>“Poor Miss Preen!” Merry thought as she sank
into her seat and drew a French book from her
desk preparing to study. “I wouldn’t be her, not
for a million!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_9">[9]</div>
<h2 id="c2">CHAPTER II. <br/><span class="small">SNOW MAIDENS</span></h2>
<p>The picturesque village of Sunnyside had one
main road, wide, elm-shaded, which began at a
beautiful hill-encircled lake, and which from there
climbed gently up through the business part of town
to the residential, passed the orphanage, the fine old
seminary for girls and the even older academy for
boys, and then led through wide-open spaces, fertile
farms, other scattered villages and on to Dorchester,
a large, thriving city forty miles away. Merry
Lee’s father was a builder and contractor whose
offices were in Dorchester, but whose home was a
comfortable old colonial house on the main
thoroughfare in the village of Sunnyside.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_10">[10]</div>
<p>The large, square library of the Lee home was
warm and cheerful on that blustery, blizzardy Saturday
afternoon. A log was snapping and crackling
on the hearth and a big slate-colored Persian cat on
the rug was purring loudly its content. A long lad,
half reclining on a window seat, was reading a detective
story and making notes surreptitiously now
and then. At a wide front window, Merry Lee
stood drumming her fingers on the pane and peering
out at the whirling snow. A chiming clock announced
that the hour was three. “And I told the
crowd to be there by two-thirty at the latest.”
Although the girl had not really been addressing
him, the boy glanced up to remark: “Might as well
give up, Sis. Girls wouldn’t venture out in a storm
like this; they are like cats. They like to stay in
where it’s warm and comfy. Hey, Muff?” The
puss, upon hearing its name, opened one sleepy blue
eye, looked at the boy lazily and then dozed again.</p>
<p>Suddenly there was a peal of merry laughter.
“Oh, Jack,” his sister exclaimed gayly, “do look out
of the window. Did you ever before see such a
funny procession?”</p>
<p>Jack looked and beheld coming in at the front
gate five maidens so covered with snow that it was
impossible to tell which was which.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_11">[11]</div>
<p>Merry whirled to defy her brother. “Now, sir,
you see girls aren’t afraid of a little blizzardly
weather. I’m certainly glad they came. I’d burst
if I had to keep my secret any longer.”</p>
<p>“Secret?” Jack’s voice held a rising inflection
and he looked up with interest, but Merry was on
her way to open the front door that Katie, the
maid, need not be summoned by the bell.</p>
<p>A gust of wind and a flurry of flakes first entered,
then, what a stamping as there was outside on the
storm porch.</p>
<p>“Hail! Hail! The gang’s all here!” Merry sang
out, but quickly added: “Oh, don’t mind about
the snow. Come on in. Katie put matting over the
carpet.” Then as she looked from one ruddy, laughing
face to another, the hostess exclaimed: “But
you aren’t all here. What’s the matter with Rose?
Why didn’t she come?” Then before anyone could
reply, Merry guessed: “O, I suppose her lady mother
was afraid her precious darling would melt or be
blown away! I don’t see how Rose ever gets to
school in the winter. Her mother coddles her so!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_12">[12]</div>
<p>“Drives, my dear, as you know perfectly well, but
it seems that today the snow-plough hasn’t been
along Willowbend Lane, and her mother won’t hear
to having the horses taken out. Rose tried to call
you up, but your ’phone is on the blink, so she called
me.” Peg paused for breath, then went on: “She’s
simply heart-broken; she said she’d give us all the
chocolates we could eat and a nice hot drink if we’d
beg, borrow or steal a sleigh somewhere and hold
our meeting out there at her house.”</p>
<p>Merry’s face brightened. “Say, that’s a keen
idea! I was wondering how I could divulge my
secret with Jack hanging around in the library, and
I couldn’t turn him out very well, being as it’s about
the only warm spot in the house except the kitchen.
What’s more, I’m crazy to go for a tramp in this
snow storm. Wait till I get on my leggins and
overshoes.”</p>
<p>They had not long to wait, for in less than five
minutes Merry reappeared from the cloakroom,
under the wide, winding stairway, a fur cap hiding
her short curls, a fur cloak reaching to her knees
and her legs warmly ensconced in leggins of the
same soft grey. She opened the door to the library
and called to her brother, who was again deeply
engrossed in his book: “The ‘cats’ are about to
leave. We’ve decided to hold today’s <i>most</i> important
meeting of our secret society in the palatial
home of the Widow Wright. I am enlightening
you as to our destination, Brother dear, so that if
we happen to be lost in a snow drift, you will know
where to come to dig us out.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_13">[13]</div>
<p>Jack had leaped to his feet when he saw the merry
faces of the five girls in the hall, but before he could
join them, they had darted out through the storm
porch, and the wind slammed the door after them.</p>
<p>The boy laughed to himself, then shrugged his
shoulders as though he was thinking that the modern
girl was beyond his comprehension. Then he returned
to the fireplace, dropped down into the comfortable
depths of a big easy chair and continued to
read and scribble alternately. He was preparing a
paper to be read that night before the secret society
to which he belonged: The C. D. C. The boys had
long ago guessed the meaning of the letters that
named the girls’ club “The S. S. C.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_14">[14]</div>
<p>“Dead easy!” Bob Angel had told them. “Sunny
Side Club, of course.” But the girls had never been
able to guess the meaning of the boys’ “C. D. C.,”
nor did they know where the secret meetings were
held. These meetings were always at night, and,
although Sunnyside girls were modern as far as
their conversation went; due to their parents’ antiquaited
ideas, perhaps, they were not considered old
enough to roam about the dark streets of the town
at night unless accompanied by their brothers or
someone older. And, of course, they couldn’t find
out the secret meeting-place of the boys when the
members were along, and so up to that particular
date, January 11, 1928, the seven “S. S. C.” girls
had not even a suspicion of where the boys’ clubrooms
were located.</p>
<p>They had vowed that they would ferrit it out if
it took a lifetime.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_15">[15]</div>
<h2 id="c3">CHAPTER III. <br/><span class="small">A MERRY ADVENTURE</span></h2>
<p>The snow-plough had been along on the wide
street and sidewalks of the main thoroughfares of
the town and the girls had no trouble at all in making
headway through the residential and business parts
of Sunnyside, but when they turned toward the hills,
on the west side of the village, they found that the
snow-ploughs had not been so accommodating.
Willowbend Lane was covered with deep, soft snow
and when Bertha Angel, who chanced to be in the
lead, tried to stand on it, she sank down to her knees.
Wading was out of the question. Willowbend Lane
was on the outskirts of town and it was fully a mile
back to the main road. They looked ahead of them
across the unbroken snow to where, on a low hill,
stood the big brownstone, turreted house in which
lived the wealthy Mrs. Irving Earle Wright and her
daughter, Rosamond.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_16">[16]</div>
<p><SPAN name="frontref" href="#front">“I wish we’d brought along some snowshoes,” Merry remarked.</SPAN>
“I hate to let a storm stump me.
Brother will certainly tease us well if we go back
without having reached our destination.”</p>
<p>“I don’t think snowshoes would have helped us
much,” Bertha Angel commented. “It’s quite a feat
to walk on them until one gets on to the trick of it.”</p>
<p>“Hark ye!” Merry exclaimed, lifting a finger of
her fur-lined glove. “I hear sleigh bells! Somebody
is coming, and if that somebody’s destination
happens to be up Willowbend Lane, we’ll beg a
ride.”</p>
<p>“What if it’s somebody we don’t know?” little
Betty Byrd ventured to inquire, to which Merry
“How <i>could</i> it be? Wasn’t I born here, and don’t
I know everybody within a million miles?”</p>
<p>“That sounds rather like hyperbole,” Bertha exclaimed.</p>
<p>“Like which?” Doris Drexel teased; then added:
“Wouldn’t Miss Preen be pleased to hear her prize
pupil rattle off that fine sounding word in——”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_17">[17]</div>
<p>“Ssh! Ssh!” Merry’s hand was on Dory’s arm.
“Our victim is now in sight. My, what a swell
turnout! Some cutter that, isn’t it?” The six girls
had stepped to one side of the road and were watching
with interest the approach of a large sleigh
which was being drawn at a rapid pace by two big
white horses perfectly matched. The driver, as they
could discern as it drew nearer, was a young man
who was almost hidden in a big brown fur coat and
cap, but his eyes were peering out and he was
amazed to see a bevy of girls standing by the unbroken
lane, so evidently in distress.</p>
<p>Stopping his horses, he snatched off his fur cap
and revealed a frank, boyish face that had not been
seen in that neighborhood before.</p>
<p>“Young ladies,” he said courteously, “can you
direct me to the home of Colonel Wainwright? In
the village they told me to follow this road for a mile
and then ask someone which turn to take.”</p>
<p>“Oh, yes, we can tell you,” Merry replied. “This
lane is a short-cut to the Colonel’s place.”</p>
<p>The lad thanked her and was about to drive on;
then he hesitated and turned back.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_18">[18]</div>
<p>“Young ladies,” he said, “I have always told my
sister never to ride with strangers, but if your destination
is in this direction I would be glad to convey
you to it. I am Alfred Morrison of Dorchester.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” Merry exclaimed brightly, “my brother,
Jack Lee, is acquainted with you, I am sure. He
goes to school in the city.”</p>
<p>The boy’s good-looking face plainly showed his
pleasure. “Indeed I know old Jack well,” he exclaimed.
“We’re doing college prep work together.
I planned looking him up as soon as I had finished
my business call on the Colonel.”</p>
<p>Feeling sure that their mothers could not object,
since the strange boy was so well acquainted with
Merry’s brother, they swarmed into the luxurious
sleigh, sitting three deep, which but added to their
gaiety. The horses were obliged to travel slowly
through the drifts, but they soon came to a part
of the lane where the wind had blown the snow
from the road to be caught at the fences, and then
they made better time. In a very few moments the
sleigh was turning in between two high stone gate
posts, as Merry had directed, and shortly thereafter
the six girls were tumbling out under a wide sheltering
portico. “We’re terribly grateful to you, Mr.
Morrison.” Merry exclaimed. “Maybe we’ll be able
to pick you up some time when you’re stranded
somewhere.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_19">[19]</div>
<p>The boy laughed good-naturedly. “I hope I won’t
have that long to wait before I can see you all
again.” He included the group in his smiling glance,
then, because the spirited horses were restive, he
lifted his fur cap and turned his attention toward
the prancing span.</p>
<p>Laughingly the girls climbed up the stone steps
and were about to ring the bell when the door was
thrown open and their “prettiest member,” as Rose
was often called, welcomed them effusively.</p>
<p>“Say, but you missed the time of your young
life,” Peggy Pierce informed her as the girls removed
their overshoes and leggins in the storm
vestibule. “Such a handsome boy as we had to drive
us up the lane.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_20">[20]</div>
<p>“O, you don’t have to tell me,” Rose laughingly
replied. “I was standing in the drawing-room
window watching you from the time you appeared
at the foot of the lane. If you had turned back,
I should have been simply heart-broken. Mother
thinks that I have a cold, and she wouldn’t let Tony
drive me to town, and, of course, I can’t use my
runabout in weather like this.” Then, when cloaks
and caps had been removed and they were gathered
about the wide fireplace in Rose’s very own sitting-room,
that maiden passed around a five-pound box
of chocolates to keep the first part of her promise;
then she demanded: “Merry Lee, you haven’t told
the others your exciting news yet, have you?”</p>
<p>Bertha Angel answered for their president:
“Nary an inkling of it. Truth to tell, we didn’t
even ask her. I guess we all thought we’d rather
wait until the meeting was called.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I say, let’s cut out formality, for once, can’t
we?” Peggy Pierce implored. “Why read the minutes
of the last meeting when all we did was entertain
the little orphans with a big Christmas tree?”</p>
<p>“All?” Gertrude West lifted her eyebrows questioningly.
“I believe, if you left it to the orphans,
they would tell you that we did a whole lot to add
to their Christmas cheer.”</p>
<p>“Sure thing we did, I’ll acknowledge that,
but——”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_21">[21]</div>
<p>“Come to order, if you please!” the president
tapped on the arm of her chair, which was upholstered
in rose-colored brocade as were the other
chairs and the gilt-framed sofa piled high with
silken pillows. “We’ll omit reading the minutes,
because we really mustn’t stay long. It gets dark
so early this month and we’ll have to wade back
through the lane. And we won’t call the roll, because,
of course, we know that we’re all here, so,
since I believe you are properly curious, I will now
tell my news-item. I, Marion Margaret Lee, have
discovered the meaning of the letters ‘C. D. C.,’ and,
what is mere, I now know <i>what</i> the boys <i>do</i> at their
secret meetings.”</p>
<p>“Merry, do you really? How ever did you find
out? I’ve asked Bob over and over to tell me, but
he has always refused and has actually declared that
we girls never would know.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_22">[22]</div>
<p>“Well,” their president said, “we <i>do</i> know, at least
in part. I hate eavesdropping just as much as anyone,
but when Jack himself shut me in the stuffy
little room off the library where we store our old
magazines and books, and where I had gone to hunt
up an article I needed for a composition, <i>how</i> could
I help hearing? Two or three of their ‘C. D. C.’
club had come over for a special session, I guess.
I was just about to burst out when I heard Jack
say, ‘Yes, we’re alone, all right! Sis went to the
library, I think, to do some reference work.’ Then,
before I really could do anything (I was so wedged
in among piles of magazines). Jack had announced:
‘Say, fellows, but I’ve got the keenest Conan Doyle
book. Best ever. I call it!’”</p>
<p>Merry paused and looked around the group, her
eyes sparkling triumph. For a moment there was
silence, then, with a wild Indianish whoop, Peggy,
her dark face glowing, cried gleefully: “I tumble!”
After glancing about at the others, who were looking
rather more puzzled than intelligent, Peg demanded:
“Don’t any of you get what Merry is driving
at? Bertha, <i>you</i> surely know what the boys
mean by their ‘C. D. C.’”</p>
<p>“Of course. How beautifully stupid we are!”
Bertha acknowledged. “The Conan Doyle Club!
O, wouldn’t the boys rage and tear their hair if they
knew we had guessed even that much.”</p>
<p>But, it was quite plain to the group that Merry
had still more to divulge.</p>
<p>“Who is Conan Doyle, anyway?” their youngest
asked. “What kind of books did he write?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_23">[23]</div>
<p>“My child,” Bertha said condescendingly, “hast
never heard of Sherlock Holmes, the great detective?”</p>
<p>“O, of course, I have,” Betty Byrd replied. “Then
the boys have a detective club. Is that it, Merry?”</p>
<p>The girl addressed finished eating an especially
big oozy chocolate before she noddingly replied:
“That’s it, all right. I gathered from the little I
heard that each member of that club <i>wants</i> to become
a detective when he is of man’s estate, and the
thing they do at their club is to take turns making
up a mystery and the other boys have to try to
solve it.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_24">[24]</div>
<p>“Say, <i>what</i> fun that would be! I wish they would
let girls join their club,” Doris Drexel remarked,
but Merry put in: “You wouldn’t wish it, young
lady, if you knew, as I do, how little they think of
<i>our</i> intelligences. One of them, I couldn’t tell which,
had written to a lawyer uncle in New York, telling
about <i>their</i> club, and in reply their uncle had told
about some young woman detective in his employ
and how clever she was. At which Jack sniffed:
‘Well, <i>she</i> must be an exception all right. I can’t
imagine <i>my</i> sister Merry or any of <i>her</i> crowd solving
a mystery, not if the clues were spread out right
in front of them.’ Bob laughed at that in his good-natured
way and replied that there wasn’t much
danger of <i>any one</i> getting a chance to solve a mystery
in <i>this</i> little lakeside town where nothing ever
happened that was in the least unusual. Then he
said: ‘That’s why we have to make up our own
mysteries, since we can’t unearth any real ones to
practice on.’”</p>
<p>All the while that Merry had been talking, Peg
had been sitting on the edge of her chair looking
as though she would burst if she didn’t soon get a
chance to say what was on her mind. The moment
their president paused, she leaped in with: “Girls,
I’ve thought of the most scrumbunctious idea! Let’s
have a detective club of our own, and let’s find a
<i>real</i> mystery to solve and show those boys a thing
or two. Won’t they be humiliated, good and proper,
when they learn that <i>we</i>, seven mere girls, without
intelligence, have solved the greatest mystery that
ever occurred in the village of Sunnyside.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_25">[25]</div>
<p>“Hold on, Peg! Your imagination is running
away with you. Anyone would think you had
already found the mystery to solve. I’m of the
opinion that Jack is right, or Bob, whoever said it,
that there never is anything mysterious happening
in this quiet, sleepy old town, and if there isn’t, <i>how</i>,
pray, can we solve it?” Bertha was always logical
and practical. Their “balance wheel,” she was
sometimes called.</p>
<p>“I bet you I find a mystery.” Peg stood up as
though she were going to start right out on the
search. “I’ve always been wild about mystery
stories; read every one at the library, and I’ll know
<i>just</i> how to go about solving one, when it’s found.”</p>
<p>“Sit down, friend sleuth, and tell us your plan.
There <i>are</i> possibilities in it, I’ll agree.” Merry
smiled up into the olive face of their most energetic
member, as she continued reminiscently: “In the
beginning we named our club The S. S. C. because
we lived in Sunnyside; then we gradually added a
second meaning to please our saintly Gertrude——”</p>
<p>“You’re a tease!” The sweet-faced girl, their
minister’s daughter, smiled lovingly at the speaker,
who continued as though unconscious of the interruption,
“which was ‘Spread Sunshine Club.’ We
proceeded to sew for missionary barrels, though
heaven help the heathen who had to wear the clothes
<i>I</i> made if they care anything about a stylish fit.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_26">[26]</div>
<p>A burst of merry laughter proved that her listeners
were recalling some garment made by their president
that had not come up to specifications. “Then
we decided to center our spreading sunshine efforts
on our home orphanage. Shh! Don’t say anything,
Trudie! I know we’ve done nobly, and all that, but
<i>now</i> I feel about the way Peg does, that if we keep
on being <i>so saintly</i>, I’ll be drawn up heavenward
before I’ve had a real fling, so what I am going to
suggest is that we add a third meaning to our club
letters, which shall be——”</p>
<p>“Oh, Madame President, may I say what?”
Peggy was again on the edge of her chair waving
a frantic hand as though she were a child in school.</p>
<p>“Sure thing! Shoot!”</p>
<p>“How would ‘Seven Sleuths’ Club’ do for the
new meaning?”</p>
<p>“Actually inspired, I should say. Now, all that
is left is to find a mystery to solve. Peggy Pierce,
I appoint you and your twin friend, Doris Drexel, a
committee of two to find a mystery before our next
meeting, which is to be held at Bertha Angel’s home
one week from today. If, by that time, you have
failed, I will appoint——”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_27">[27]</div>
<p>“Fail? Dory and I don’t know the meaning of
the word.” that slender maid retorted.</p>
<p>Bertha, who was nearest the window, then exclaimed:
“Someone is driving in. Why, if it isn’t
that nice Alfred Morrison.”</p>
<p>“Great!” Merry declared. “Now we can get a
ride out of the lane. I do believe that is why he is
coming.”</p>
<p>And she was right. Rose answered the ring before
a maid could appear, and the youth, cap in hand,
informed her that he had happened to think that
since the young ladies had had no way to get into
the lane, perhaps they had no way to get out. Rose
replied in her pretty manner that she knew the girls
would be glad to go with him. Then she invited
him in to have a cup of hot chocolate, which, even
then, a maid was passing to the club members, having
been told to appear at that particular hour.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_28">[28]</div>
<p>Without the least sign of embarrassment the boy
joined the girls in the cosy little sitting-room off
the big library, and drank a cup of chocolate as
though he really enjoyed it. Half an hour later,
as the sun was setting, Merry said with apparent
solemnity, “We will now adjourn the meeting, which
I believe has been most satisfactory, and let me urge
each and every one of our members to remember
that all that has passed today is <i>most secret</i> and
that no matter how the boys of the ‘C. D. C.’ may
<i>pry</i>, not an inkling of what has here occurred is to
be divulged to them.” Then, twinkling-eyed, she
changed her tone to one more natural. “Won’t they
have the surprise of their young lives, though, if we
do succeed?”</p>
<p>“No ifs!” Peg interjected with determination.
“<i>We will!</i>”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_29">[29]</div>
<h2 id="c4">CHAPTER IV. <br/><span class="small">INTERESTING NEWS</span></h2>
<p>The midwinter blizzard continued, and so intense
was the cold and so unceasing the cutting, icy blast
that Miss Demorest, at the request of several parents,
sent forth a messenger to inform the day
pupils that classes would not be resumed until the
storm had subsided. But wind, ice and snow had
no terrors for the members of the “S. S. C.,” and,
since important matters were afoot in the reorganization
of their club, it was decided, by those whose
’phones had not been put out of use by the tempest,
to beg or borrow a sleigh and hold the meeting at
the home of Bertha Angel on Monday instead of the
following Saturday. Mr. Angel, being a grocer,
possessed several delivery sleighs, and since Bertha
could drive as well as her brother Bob, Merry, whose
’phone was out of order, was amazed to see such
an equipage draw up in front of her door at about
two on that blizzardy afternoon. Her first thought
was that Bob was delivering groceries, but why at
the front of the house, since he always went in
at the side drive? Then, as the snow curtain lifted
a little, she discerned the forms of several persons
warmly wrapped and actually huddled on the straw-covered
box part of the delivery sleigh. The driver
was tooting on a horn and looking hopefully toward
the house. Then it dawned on Merry that it was
Bertha who was driving, and not Bob, as she had
supposed. In a twinkling she leaped to the door of
the storm vestibule and called that she would be right
with them. And she was, clad in her warmest; an
Esquimaux girl could not have been more hidden in
fur. How her brown eyes sparkled as she climbed
up on the front seat by the driver, which place had
been reserved for her since she was president.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_30">[30]</div>
<p>“Of all the grand and glorious surprises!” she
exclaimed, glancing back at the laughing huddle, as
Bertha drove out of the gate. “Why, I declare to it,
you’ve even got our rose-bud. How did you manage
that? I didn’t think her mother would let her
out of the house again until next summer.”</p>
<p>“It took lots of loving ‘suasion’, I can assure
you.” Rose replied. “And I don’t even know if
<i>that</i> would have worked had it not been that an old
friend whom Mother hadn’t seen in years arrived
in a station sleigh to spend the afternoon, and in
order to be freed from my teasing, the lovely lady
said, ‘Wrap up well and take a foot-warmer.’”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_31">[31]</div>
<p>“Three cheers for the friend!” Merry said; then
added, drawing her fur coat closer: “My, how dense
the snow is! Give me that horn, Bursie; I’ll toot
so that other vehicles will know that we are coming.”</p>
<p>The comfortable old white house set among tall
evergreen trees that was the Angel’s home was in
the center of town on the long main street and not
far from the Angel grocery, the best of its kind in
the village. Bertha drove close to the front steps,
bade the girls go right in and wait for her in the
sitting-room while she took the delivery sleigh back
to the store, but hardly had they swarmed out when
a merry whistle was heard through the curtain of
snow and the form of a heavy-set boy appeared.
“Oh, good, here comes Bob!” his sister called. “I’d
know that whistle in darkest Africa. It outrobins
a robin for cheeriness.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_32">[32]</div>
<p>“Hello, S. S. C.’s,” a jolly voice called, and then
a walking snowman stopped at the foot of the steps
and waved a white arm to the girls who were standing
under the shelter of the porch roof. “Going to
spread some more sunshine today? Well, it sure is
needed.”</p>
<p>Bertha, having climbed down, Bob leaped up on
the high seat and took the reins, then with a good-natured
grin on his ruddy, freckled face, the boy
called: “It was shabby of us to guess what your
S. S. C. meant, wasn’t it? Boys <i>are</i> clever that way,
but girls aren’t supposed to be very clever, you know.
If they’re good looking and good cooks, that’s all
we of the superior sex expect of them.”</p>
<p>“Indeed, <i>is that so</i>, Mr. Bob?” Peggy just could
not keep quiet. “I suppose you think <i>we</i> never
could guess the meaning of your ‘C. D. C.’”</p>
<p>“I know you couldn’t,” Bob replied with such
conviction that Merry, fearing it would tantalize
Peg into betraying their knowledge, changed the
subject with: “S’pose you’ll take us all home, Bob,
before dark sets in.”</p>
<p>“Righto!” was the cheery response as the boy
started the big dapple horse roadward.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_33">[33]</div>
<p>Fifteen minutes later the girls were seated about
the wide fireplace in the large, comfortably furnished
living-room. This home lacked the elegance that
was to be found in the palatial residence of Rose,
nor did it have the many signs of culture that
Merry’s father and mother had collected in their
travels, but there was a homey atmosphere about it
that was very pleasant.</p>
<p>Mrs. Angel, short, plump, cheerful, whom Bob
closely resembled, appeared for a moment to greet
the girls and then returned to a task in another part
of the house.</p>
<p>Bertha, who had disappeared, soon returned with
a huge wicker basket. “I thought we might just as
well keep on with our ‘Spread Sunshine’ activities,”
she explained, “even though we have added a new
meaning to our ‘S. S. C.’” She was taking out small
all-over aprons of blue gingham as she spoke. The
name of a girl was pinned to each one.</p>
<p>“Sure thing.” Merry reached for her garment.
“Our fingers can sew for the orphans while our
tongues can unravel mysteries if—” her eyes were
twinkling as they turned inquiringly toward Peggy
Pierce, “our committee of two has unearthed one
as yet.”</p>
<p>“Of course we haven’t!” was the maiden’s indignant
response. “How could we find a mystery in a
snow-storm like this?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_34">[34]</div>
<p>“True enough!” Merry said in a more conciliatory
tone. “I really had not expected you to.”</p>
<p>“In truth,” Rose, curled in the big easy chair
near the fire, put in teasingly, “for <i>that</i> matter, we
don’t expect a real mystery to be unearthed in this
little sound-asleep town of Sunnyside. Goodness,
don’t we know <i>everybody</i> in it, and don’t our parents
know <i>their</i> parents and their grandparents and——”</p>
<p>“Well, somebody new <i>might</i> come to town,”
Doris, the second member of the sleuth committee,
remarked hopefully.</p>
<p>“Sure thing, someone <i>might</i>,” Merry said with
such emphasis on the last word that Bertha dropped
her work on her lap to comment: “You speak as
though you <i>knew</i> that someone new is coming.”</p>
<p>“I do!” Merry replied calmly, bending over her
sewing that the girls might not see how eager she
was to tell them her news.</p>
<p>“Stop being so tantalizing, Merry! What in the
world do you know today that you didn’t know
Saturday?” Peg inquired.</p>
<p>“Oh, I know, I know!” Rose sang out. “It’s
something that handsome boy, Alfred Morrison, told
you when he went to call on Jack. Out with it,
Merry; don’t keep us in suspense.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_35">[35]</div>
<p>“Of course! How stupid we didn’t think to ask
what happened after you and Alfred Morrison had
left us at our homes,” Doris put in. “We knew he
was going with you to call on Jack. Is <i>he</i> coming
to live in Sunnyside? Say, wouldn’t it be keen if
he did?”</p>
<p>“Well, you are all warm anyway,” Merry conceded.
“The someone who is coming to live in
Sunnyside; I mean the someone to whom I am
referring, is a girl, but I guess <i>we won’t</i> want to cultivate
<i>her</i> acquaintance at all, at all.”</p>
<p>“Merry Lee, if you don’t tell us, I shall come
over there and shake you until you do.” Betty Byrd
was so tiny that this threat made the girls laugh
gaily, but it had the desired effect, for their president
ceased teasing and told them a story which
interested them greatly.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_36">[36]</div>
<h2 id="c5">CHAPTER V. <br/><span class="small">A MISCHIEVOUS PLAN</span></h2>
<p>“Well, to begin at the beginning, Jack was
pleased as punch to see Alfred Morrison, and for the
first fifteen minutes they talked of nothing but college
prep, athletics, fraternities and the like. Then
Mother called me and I left them alone in the library.
When I returned, half an hour later, Alfred was
gone, but this is the tale Brother told me. It seems
our new friend has a sister about our age, Geraldine
by name.”</p>
<p>“Oho,” Bertha put in, “then <i>that</i> is who the newcomer
to our town is to be.”</p>
<p>Peg laughed. “We’ll have to put you on the
sleuth committee, Bursie, but do hurry and tell us
the worst.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_37">[37]</div>
<p>“Perhaps it’s the best,” Gertrude suggested, but
Merry shook her head. “Worst is more like it. But
here goes: Mr. Morrison, their father, lived in this
village when he was a boy. He was mischievous
and wilful and he had trouble with his father, who
was stern and unrelenting. When he was sixteen he
ran away to sea and was gone three years on a
voyage around the world. When he returned he
went West, where he married and made a good deal
of money in railroads and mines. During this time
he had often written to his Mother begging to be
forgiven, but his letters were always returned to him
and so he supposed that his parents no longer cared
for him. At last, however, when his wife died,
leaving him with two small children, he came back
to Dorchester only to find that his father and mother
were gone and the old home falling into rack and
ruin.</p>
<p>“Sad at heart, he settled in the city where Alfred
and his sister were brought up by tutors and governesses.”</p>
<p>“Oh, the poor things!” Doris Drexel said pityingly.
“My heart aches for any boy or girl brought
up without knowing the tenderness of a mother’s
love.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_38">[38]</div>
<p>“That brings the story up to the present,” Merry
continued. “Last week Mr. Morrison left very suddenly
for Europe in the interests of his business
and he may be gone all winter. He did not want to
leave his son and daughter alone in the city house
with the servants, and so he sent Alfred down here
to see Colonel Wainright, who was his pal when he
was a boy, to ask him if they might remain with him
for a few months. The Colonel was delighted,
Alfred told Jack, and so they are both coming to
our village to spend the winter.”</p>
<p>“But, Merry, <i>why</i> do you think that is <i>not</i> good
news? I think it will be jolly fun to have another
girl friend. There’s always room for one more.”</p>
<p>Gertrude said this in her kindly way, but Peg
protested: “There certainly isn’t room for one more
in the Seven Sleuths’ Club.”</p>
<p>“Indeed not!” Merry seconded. “But don’t worry,
the haughty Miss Geraldine won’t <i>want</i> to associate
with simpering country milkmaids.”</p>
<p>“<i>With what?</i>” Every girl in the room dropped
her sewing on her lap and stared her amazement.</p>
<p>Merry laughed as she replied: “<i>Just that</i>, no less.
I knew how indignant you’d all be. I would, too,
if it weren’t so powerfully funny. I’d pity the cow
I’d try to milk.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_39">[39]</div>
<p>“What reason have you for thinking this girl,
Geraldine, will be such a snob?” Gertrude asked as
she resumed her sewing.</p>
<p>“Reason enough!” Merry told them. “Alfred
said that his sister was very angry when she heard
that her father was going to send her to such a
‘back-woodsy’ place, meaning our village, and she
declared that she simply would not go. She,
Geraldine Morrison, who was used to having four
servants wait upon her, to live in an old country
house where she would probably have to demean
herself by making her own bed? No, never! She
raged and stormed, Alfred said, and declared that
she would go to visit some cousins in New York,
but to that her father would not listen. He told
her that he wanted his little girl, who is none too
robust, to spend a winter breathing the country air
in the village where he was a boy. Of course, since
Geraldine is only sixteen, she had to give in, and so
next week she is to arrive, bag and baggage. She
told Alfred that he needn’t think for one moment
that she was going to hobnob with silly, simpering
country milkmaids! Alfred said that he hated to
tell Jack all this, but he liked us so much he wanted
us to be prepared, so that we would not be hurt by
his sister’s rudeness.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_40">[40]</div>
<p>There were twinkles appearing in the eyes of the
mischievous Peggy. “Oh, girls,” she said gaily,
“I’ve thought up the best joke to play on this
haughty young lady who calls us simpering milkmaids.
Let’s pretend that is <i>what we really are</i>,
and let’s call on her and act the part. We’re all
crazy about private theatricals. Here’s our chance.”</p>
<p>“Say, but that’s a keen idea!” Merry agreed
chucklingly.</p>
<p>Then they chattered merrily as they laid their
plans. They would give the new girl a few days
to become used to the village, then, en masse, they
would go up to Colonel Wainright’s and call upon
her.</p>
<p>There was so much laughter and such squeels of
delight in the next half hour that Mrs. Angel, appearing
in the doorway with a platter heaped with
doughnuts, was moved to inquire: “What mischief
are you girls up to? I never before heard so much
giggling.” Her beaming expression proved to them
that she was not displeased.</p>
<p>“Oh, Mrs. Angel, you surely were well named.”</p>
<p>“<i>Such</i> doughnuts! Do leave the platter, please;
this one has melted in my mouth already!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_41">[41]</div>
<p>“I do hope Bob won’t come before we have them
eaten!” were among the remarks that were uttered
as the doughnuts vanished. Bertha, her eyes brimming
with laughter, had disappeared to return a
second later with a tray of glasses and a huge blue
crockery pitcher. “This drink is appropriate, if
nothing else,” she announced gaily as she placed her
burden on the long library table and began to pour
out the creamy milk.</p>
<p>“It didn’t take <i>you</i> long to milk a cow,” Peg
sang out “Yum, this puts the fresh into the
refreshments.”</p>
<p>“Oh-oo, Peg, <i>don’t</i> try to be funny. Can’t be
done, old dear,” Merry teased, then held up a warning
finger. “Hark! I hear sleigh bells coming.
It’s Bob, and Jack is with him. Alak for us and the
six left doughnuts.”</p>
<p>“Oh, well, they deserve them if anyone does, coming
after us in a storm like this,” Gertrude remarked
as she folded her sewing. “I’m glad they have
come, for Mother doesn’t feel very well and I
wanted to be home in time to get supper.”</p>
<p>A second later there was a great stamping on the
side porch and the boys, after having brushed each
other free of snow, entered, caps in hand.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_42">[42]</div>
<p>“Bully for us!” Bob said. “Believe me, I know
when to time my arrival at these ‘Spread on the
Sunshine’ Club meetings. However, wishing to be
polite, I’ll wait until they’re passed.” Courteous as
his words were, he did not fit his action to them, for,
having reached the table, he poured out a tumbler
of milk for Jack and tossed him a doughnut, which
Jack caught skillfully in his teeth.</p>
<p>The girls, always an appreciative audience,
laughed and clapped their hands. “Bertha, it was
nice of you to provide a juggler to amuse your
guests,” Rose remarked.</p>
<p>“Jack must have been a doggie in a former
existence,” Peg teased.</p>
<p>“Sure thing I was!” the boy replied good-naturedly.
“I’d heaps rather have been a dog than
a cat.”</p>
<p>“Sir!” Peg stepped up threateningly near. “Are
there any concealed inferences in that?”</p>
<p>“Nary a one. I think in a former existence <i>you</i>
girls must have all been sunbeams.”</p>
<p>“Ha! ha!” Bob’s hearty laughter expressed his
enjoyment of the joke. “That’s a good one, but do
get a move on, young ladies; I’ve got to deliver
groceries after I have delivered you.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_43">[43]</div>
<p>The girls flocked from the room, leaving the boys
to finish the doughnuts. In the wide front hall, as
they were donning their wraps, they did a good
deal of whispering. “Meet at my house tomorrow
afternoon.” Peggy told them. “Bring any old duds
you can find; we’ll make up our milkmaid costumes
and have a dress rehearsal.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_44">[44]</div>
<h2 id="c6">CHAPTER VI. <br/><span class="small">MILK MAIDS AND BUTTER CHURNERS</span></h2>
<p>The next day arrived, as next days will, and, as
the blizzard had blown itself away and only a soft
feathery snow was falling, the girls, communicating
by the repaired telephone system, decided to walk to
the home of Peggy Pierce, which was centrally
located. In fact, it was on a quiet side street “below
the tracks,” not a fashionable neighborhood, but
that mattered not at all to the girls of Sunnyside.
The parents of some of the seven were the richest
in town, others were just moderately well off, but
one and all were able to send their daughters to the
seminary, and that constituted the main link that
bound them together, for they saw each other every
day and walked back and forth together. Peggy’s
father owned “The Emporium,” a typical village
dry-goods store.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_45">[45]</div>
<p>Peg threw the door open as soon as the girls
appeared at the wooden gate in the fence that surrounded
the rather small yard of her home.</p>
<p>“Hurray for the ‘S. S. C.’!” she sang out, and
Merry replied with the inevitable, “Hail! Hail!
The gang’s all here!”</p>
<p>When they were in the vestibule and Peg, with
a small broom, had swept from each the soft snow,
they flocked into the double parlors which were
being warmed by a cosy, air-tight stove. On the
walls were old-fashioned family portraits, and the
haircloth furniture proclaimed to the most casual
observer that it had seen its best days, but, as in the
home of Bertha, there was an atmosphere of comfort
and cheer which made one feel pleased to be
there. A dear little old lady sat between the window
and the stove. She pushed her “specs” up on
the ruffle of her lavender-ribboned cap, and beamed
at the girls as they entered. Then, laying down her
knitting, she held out a softly wrinkled hand to
Gertrude, who was the first at her side.</p>
<p>“I hope you girls won’t mind my being here,”
she said, looking from one to another. “I could go
somewhere else, if you would.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_46">[46]</div>
<p>“Well, Grandmother Dorcas, I’ll say you’ll not go
anywhere else,” Peggy declared at once. “For one
thing, there <i>isn’t</i> another real warm room in this
house except the kitchen, and secondly, we all want
you to help us plan this prank.”</p>
<p>The old lady, who had partly risen, sank back as
she looked lovingly at her grandchild. To the others
she said: “It’s mighty nice of Peggy to want me to
share her good times. Some young folks don’t do
that. They think grandparents are too old to enjoy
things, I guess, but I feel just as young inside as
I did when I was your age, and that was a good
many years ago. Now go right ahead, just like I
wasn’t here.” The dear old lady took up her knitting,
replaced her glasses, and began to make the
needles fly dexterously.</p>
<p>“Did you all find suitable costumes?” the hostess
asked. “I didn’t,” Betty Byrd declared. “You
know when Mother and I came up from the South
to keep house for Uncle George, we only brought
our newest clothes, and nothing that was suitable
for a milkmaid costume.“</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_47">[47]</div>
<p>“Well, don’t you worry, little one,” Peggy
laughingly declared, for Betty’s pretty face was
looking quite dismal. “My Grandmother Dorcas
has saved everything she wore since she was a little
girl, I do believe, and now she is eighty years old.
There are several trunks full of things in the attic.
I told Grandma about our plan, and she was so
amused, more than Geraldine will be, I’m sure of
that. I thought we’d go up there to dress. It’s
real warm, for Mother has been baking all the
morning and the kitchen chimney goes right through
the storeroom and it’s cosy as can be.” Then to the
little old lady, who was somewhat deaf, the girl said
in a louder voice: “Grandma, dear, when we’re
dressed, we’ll come down here and show you how
we look.”</p>
<p>The sweet, wrinkled old face beamed with pleasure.
“Good! Good!” she said. “I’ll want to see
you.”</p>
<p>All of the girls except Betty had bundles or
satchels and merrily they followed their young
hostess upstairs to the attic.</p>
<p>They found the small trunk-room cosy and warm,
as Peggy had promised. On the wall hung a long,
racked mirror, and few chairs that were out of repair
stood about the walls. Several trunks there
were including one that looked very old indeed.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_48">[48]</div>
<p>For a jolly half hour the girls tried on the funny
old things they found in the trunks, utilizing some
of the garments they had brought from their homes,
and at the end of that time they were costumed to
their complete satisfaction.</p>
<p>In front of the long, cracked mirror Rose stood
laughing merrily. “Oh, girls,” she exclaimed, “don’t
I look comical?”</p>
<p>She surely did, for, on top of her yellow curls,
she had a red felt hat with the very high crown
which had been in vogue many years before.</p>
<p>This Peggy had trimmed with a pink ribbon and
a green feather. An old-fashioned calico dress with
a bright red sash and fingerless gloves finished the
costume. The other girls were gowned just as outlandishly,
and they laughed until the rafters rang.</p>
<p>“Peggy, you are funniest of all,” Merry declared.</p>
<p>“That’s because she has six braids sticking out in
all directions,” Betty Byrd said, “with a different
colored piece of calico tied to each one.”</p>
<p>“Honestly, girls, I have laughed until my sides
ache,” Doris Drexel said, “but what I would like to
know is how are we ever going to keep straight
faces when we get there? If one of us laughs that
will give the whole thing away.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_49">[49]</div>
<p>“We had practice enough in that comedy we gave
last spring at school,” Bertha Angel said. “Don’t
you remember we had to look as solemn as owls all
through that comical piece? Well, what we did
once, we can do again.”</p>
<p>“I did giggle just a little,” their youngest confessed.</p>
<p>“Betty Byrd, don’t you dare giggle!” Peggy
shook a warning finger at the little maid. Then she
added: “It’s such a lot of work to get all decked up
like this, I wish we could make that call today.”</p>
<p>Merry’s face brightened. “We can! I actually
forgot to tell you that Alfred Morrison was over
last night to see Brother and told him they had
arrived a day sooner than they had expected.”</p>
<p>“Hurray for us!” Doris sang out. “It does seem
like wasted effort to get all togged up this way just
for a rehearsal.”</p>
<p>“Let’s go downstairs and speak our parts before
Grandma Dorcas, then we’ll find someone to drive
us out. I’ll phone the store and see if I can borrow
Johnnie Cowles. He’s delivering for The Emporium
now, and I guess this snowy day he can spare the
time.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_50">[50]</div>
<p>This being agreed upon, they descended to the
living-room. The girls pretended that Grandma
Dorcas was the proud Geraldine and that they were
calling upon her. The old lady enjoyed her part
and did it well; then Johnnie appeared with the
sleigh and the girls gleefully departed.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_51">[51]</div>
<h2 id="c7">CHAPTER VII. <br/><span class="small">AN UNWILLING HOSTESS</span></h2>
<p>Meanwhile in the handsome home of Colonel
Wainright, on the hill-road overlooking the distant
lake, a very discontented girl sat staring moodily
into the fireplace of a luxuriously furnished living-room.
Her brother stood near, leaning against the
mantlepiece.</p>
<p>“I won’t stay here!” Geraldine declared, her dark
eyes flashing rebelliously. “I won’t! I won’t!
Father has no right to send me to this back-woods
country village. What if he <i>was</i> born here? <i>That</i>
surely was <i>his</i> misfortune, and no sensible reason
why <i>I</i> should be condemned to be buried here for
a whole winter.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_52">[52]</div>
<p>“But, Sister mine,” the boy said in a conciliatory
tone. “I’ve been trying to tell you that there are
some nice girls living in Sunnyside, but you won’t
let me. If you would join their school life, you
would soon be having a jolly time. That’s what
<i>I</i> mean to do.”</p>
<p>“Alfred Morrison, I don’t see how you came by
such plebian ideas. I should think that you would
be ashamed to have your sister attending a district
school when you know that I have always been a
pupil at a most fashionable seminary and have associated
only with the <i>best</i> people.”</p>
<p>“What makes them the best, Sister?”</p>
<p>The girl tapped one daintily slippered foot impatiently
as she said scathingly: “Alfred, you are <i>so</i>
provoking sometimes. You know the Ellingsworths
and the Drexels and all those people are considered
the best in Dorchester.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_53">[53]</div>
<p>Alfred was about to reply that there was a family
of Drexels living in Sunnyside, but, luckily, before
he <i>had</i> said it, his attention was attracted by the
ringing of a cow-bell which seemed to be out in
the driveway. Geraldine also heard, but did not
look up. Some delivery wagon, she thought, but
Alfred, who stood so that he could look out of the
window, understood what was happening when he
saw the village girls descending from a delivery
sleigh. They slipped out of their fur coats, leaving
them in Johnnie’s care, and appeared in shawls and
old-fashioned capes. For a puzzled moment Alfred
gazed; then, as something of the meaning of the
joke flashed over him, he almost laughed aloud.
Luckily Geraldine continued to stare moodily into
the fire, nor did she look up when Alfred left the
room. Before the girls on the porch had time to
ring the bell, the boy opened the door and, stepping
out, he asked quietly but with twinkling eyes: “Why
the masquerade?”</p>
<p>“Don’t you dare to spoil the joke?” Merry warned
when she had told him that since his sister had expected
them to be milkmaids, they had not wanted
to disappoint her. Then she informed him: “My
name is Miss Turnip. You introduce me and I’ll
introduce the others.” Alfred’s eyes were laughing,
but in a low voice he said, “I’m game!”</p>
<p>Then aloud he exclaimed: “How do you do, Miss
Turnip. I am so glad that you came to call. Bring
your friends right in. My sister will be pleased to
meet you.”</p>
<p>Merry, in telling Jack about it afterwards, said
that Alfred played his part as though he had been
practicing it for weeks.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_54">[54]</div>
<p>“Sister Geraldine,” he called pleasantly to the girl
who had risen and was standing haughtily by the
fireplace, “permit me to present the young ladies who
live in Sunnyside. They have very kindly called to
welcome you to their village.”</p>
<p>The newcomers all made bobbing curtsies, and,
to her credit be it said, that even little Betty did not
giggle, but oh, how hard it was not to.</p>
<p>Of course there had been classes in good breeding
in the Dorchester seminary. One of the rules often
emphasized was that it did not matter <i>how</i> a hostess
might feel toward a guest, she must not be rude in
her own home. So Geraldine bowed coldly and
asked the young ladies to be seated.</p>
<p>Alfred, daring to remain no longer, bolted to his
room and laughed so hard that he said afterwards
that he couldn’t get his face straight for a week.</p>
<p>Peggy Pierce, being the best actress among “The
Sunny Seven,” had been asked to take the lead, and
so, when they were all seated as awkwardly as possible,
she began: “My name is Mirandy Perkins.
We all heard as haow yew had come to taown, and
so we all thought as haow we’d drop in and ask if
yew’d like to jine our Litery Saciety. We do have
the best times. Next week we’re a goin’ to have a
Pumpkin Social. Each gal is to bring a pumpkin
pie and each fellow is to bring as many pennies as
he is old to help buy a new town pump for the
Square. That’s why it’s called Pump-kin Social.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_55">[55]</div>
<p>This remark was unexpected, not having been
planned at the dress rehearsal, and it struck Rosamond
as being so funny that she sputtered suspiciously,
then taking out a big red cotton handkerchief,
she changed the laugh into a sneeze.</p>
<p>Geraldine sat stiffly gazing at her callers with an
expression that would have frozen them to silence
had they been as truly rural as they were pretending,
but, if she had only known it, these country girls
had been attending a school every bit as fashionable
as the seminary of which she so often boasted.</p>
<p>“I thank you,” that young lady replied, “but it is
not my intention to remain in this backwoodsy place.
I plan leaving here next week at the latest.”</p>
<p>“Wall, naow, ain’t that too bad? We thought as
how yew’d be seech an addition to our saciety,”
Peggy continued her part. “Of course we all feel
real citified ourselves. We get the latest styles right
from Dorchester for our toggins.”</p>
<p>“Toggins?” Geraldine repeated icily. “Just what
are they?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_56">[56]</div>
<p>There surely was a titter somewhere; but Peggy,
pretending to be surprised, remarked: “Why, toggins
are hats and things like Jerushy’s here.” She
nodded at the caricature of a red hat with green and
pink trimmings which was perched on Rosamond’s
head.</p>
<p>Merry returned to the rehearsal lines from which
they had sidetracked.</p>
<p>“Yew’d enjoy our Litery Saciety, I’m sure,” she
said, “bein’ as yew have a litery sort of a look. We
meet onct a week around at differunt houses.
We sew on things for the missionary barrel, and
then one of us reads aloud out of The Farmers’
Weekly.”</p>
<p>Just then the clock on the mantelpiece chimed the
hour of four, and Peggy sprang up. “Crickets!”
she exclaimed, “Here ’tis comin’ on dark most, and
me not home to milk the caows.”</p>
<p>“An’ I’ve got to churn yet before supper,” Doris
Drexel ventured her first remark. Luckily Geraldine
did not glance at the soft, white hands of the speaker.
They were all smiling in the friendliest fashion, but
as soon as they were outside and riding away in
their queer equipage, they shouted and laughed as
they had never laughed before.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_57">[57]</div>
<p>“Her highness will probably leave town tomorrow,”
Doris remarked, “but if she does, the town
will be well rid of her.”</p>
<p>“I wonder if we put it on too thick,” Bertha questioned
as they were slipping on their fur coats, which
they had left in the sleigh. “I was afraid she would
see through our joke.”</p>
<p>“I don’t believe she did,” Merry said. “Alfred
told Jack that his sister got her ideas of girls who
live in country villages from the moving pictures,
and they are always as outlandishly dressed as we
are.”</p>
<p>“Well it will be interesting to see what comes of
our nonsense,” Gertrude remarked. “On the whole
I feel rather sorry for that poor, unhappy girl.”</p>
<p>When Alfred saw the queer equipage disappearing,
he descended to the library. “Oh, hello, Sis,”
he said, “Have your callers gone?”</p>
<p>Geraldine’s eyes flashed and she stamped her small
foot as she said:</p>
<p>“Alfred Morrison, I just know that you asked
those dreadful creatures to call on me. I suppose
you would like to have <i>me</i> attend their Pumpkin
Social, which is to be given to raise money to buy
a town pump.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_58">[58]</div>
<p>This was too much for Alfred and he laughed
heartily.</p>
<p>“Well,” he said at last, when he could speak, “I
take off my hat to the young ladies of Sunnyside.
They are the cleverest damsels that I ever met.” So
saying, he disappeared, fearing that he would break
his promise to Merry and reveal that it was all a
joke if he remained any longer with his indignant
sister.</p>
<p>Geraldine would probably have packed her trunk
that very night and departed the next day if she had
had sufficient money with which to buy a ticket, but
for some reason her monthly allowance from her
father had been delayed.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_59">[59]</div>
<h2 id="c8">CHAPTER VIII. <br/><span class="small">THREE LETTERS</span></h2>
<p>The following morning Colonel Wainright called
the girl into his study, and, laying his hand on her
shoulder, he said: “Little lassie, why don’t you try
to please your daddy and go to school in the village
here at least until the spring vacation. Then, as you
know, you will be able to return to Mrs. Potter’s
seminary, if you wish.”</p>
<p>“If I wish, Colonel Wainright?” the maiden exclaimed.
“Why, of course I wish to go back there
this very minute, where I can associate with girls
who are my equals. I am sorry to seem ungrateful
to you, Colonel, but I simply must leave this horrid
village. I wish you could have seen the outlandish
girls who called on me yesterday. What would
Adelaine Drexel or Muriel Ellingworth think if
they knew I was associating with milkmaids and—and
butter churners!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_60">[60]</div>
<p>Alfred had told the older man about the joke
which had been played on poor Geraldine and he
had been much amused. Before he could reply, however,
the door bell rang. “The postman, I expect!”
the Colonel said as he went into the hall.</p>
<p>“Good!” Geraldine exclaimed. “I do hope he has
a letter for me from Papa. It is long past time for
my allowance, and I simply must have it.”</p>
<p>There were two letters for the girl, but neither
bore the desired postmark. “Oh, dear, it is so provoking!”
she declared, and then she climbed the
stairs to her room. Colonel Wainright did not tell
her that one of his envelopes bore her father’s handwriting.
Again in his study, he opened and read
the letter.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_61">[61]</div>
<p class="tb">“<span class="sc">Dear old Pal</span>:—Your report of my little girl
is discouraging, but we must remember that she was
brought up without a mother and has undoubtedly
received false ideas of life from her associates, a
few of whom I do not approve. Geraldine had,
while in Dorchester, two intimate friends who were
very unlike. Adelaine Drexel is a very nice, wholesome
girl, whose ancestors have been gentry for
generations, but my chief reason for sending my
daughter to Sunnyside was to separate her from her
chosen companion, Muriel Ellingworth. Alfred has
been much concerned about this friendship. He has
often told me that Muriel, who is pretty in doll
fashion, makes secret engagements with boys of
whom her mother would not approve, and she invites
my little girl to join them. Now I want
Geraldine to have boy friends in a frank, open way,
but of this sub-rosa business, my son and I heartily
disapprove, and since my daughter hasn’t a mother
to guide her, I decided that nothing would do her as
much good as a winter spent in the wholesome
atmosphere of Sunnyside, where the rich and poor
play together in a happy, healthy way.</p>
<p>“Geraldine will feel terribly about it at first, but
I am hoping that she is intrinsically too much like
her splendid mother to remain a snob when she is
convinced that among that class she will not find the
worth-while people.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_62">[62]</div>
<p>“It was mighty good of you, old pal, to help me
out in this matter, but if you find the task a troublesome
one, pack her up and send her to a good boarding
school until I return. I am enclosing a check.
Do not give my little girl much at a time, just
sufficient for her needs. Some day I will do something
for you.</p>
<p class="center">“Yours,</p>
<p><span class="jr">“<span class="sc">Al</span>.”</span></p>
<p class="tb">The Colonel re-read the letter and then, leaning
over the fireplace, he carefully burned it. The check
he placed in his long pocketbook.</p>
<p>“Poor girl,” he mused, as he watched the last bit
of white paper charring among the coals. “How
disappointed she will be just at first. She has many
hard lessons to learn, but her father was wise to send
her here, where the girls are all so wholesome and
still children at heart.”</p>
<p>Then his pleasant face wrinkled into a smile as
he thought of the prank which those same wholesome
girls had played only the day before upon the
poor, unsuspecting city maiden.</p>
<p>“I wonder if she will ever forgive them when she
finds out that it was all a joke. She’ll probably be
very indignant at first. Well,” he added, as he
turned away and put on his great coat preparing to
take his daily constitutional into town, “this winter’s
experience will prove of what fiber the girl is really
made, and, somehow, in spite of her present snobbishness
and vanity, I have faith in her.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_63">[63]</div>
<p>Meanwhile Geraldine, up in her pleasant room,
was seated in an easy chair close to the fire on the
hearth. She was reading the letters, which were
from her two best girl friends.</p>
<p>Out of the first letter that Geraldine opened there
fluttered a kodak picture. A pretty yet weak face
smiled out at her. It was Muriel Ellingworth and
it had been taken at the Public Baths. Tom Blakely
was also in the picture and, as Geraldine well knew,
Muriel’s mother had forbidden her daughter to go
either with that boy or to the public bathing pool.</p>
<p>In a languid scrawl, the letter assured her “dearest”
friend that she was just terribly missed and
suggested that Geraldine run away.</p>
<p>“I do wish I had some money to send to you,
poor dear, but I haven’t. I spent the last penny of
my allowance buying a pair of silk stockings. They
are simply adorable! They have open work edged
with gold thread, and of course I had to buy the
slippers to match and they have gold buckles. You
remember Mother said positively that I must not
have them, and so I keep them over at Kittie Beverly’s,
and when I go out with Tom, I stop there
and put them on. As usual, I was asked what I had
done with my allowance, but I was expecting it and
had an answer ready. I said that I had given it to
the poor babies’ milk fund.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_64">[64]</div>
<p>Geraldine dropped the letter in her lap and gazed
at the fire. Lying was repugnant to her. She had
always told the truth fearlessly and had taken the
consequences. Then she continued reading the indolent
scrawl: “Oh, Gerry dear, I have another
piece of news to tell you. Adelaine Drexel took it
upon herself to preach to me the other day after
school. She told me that if I continued to meet boys
and go to public baths and places like that, she
feared that I would be asked to leave the seminary.
And then, if you please, the minx told me that she
hoped the advice would be taken as kindly as it was
given. I told her in my best French to mind her
own business, and I haven’t spoken to her since, and
if you are <i>my</i> friend, you will snub her too. She is
expecting a letter from you, but if I hear that you
have written her I shall know that you have taken
her side against your devoted Duckie Muriel.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_65">[65]</div>
<p>Again Geraldine gazed in the fire. All these dishonorable
things looked so different in cold black
and white. When Muriel herself was telling them
in her vivacious, chattery manner, they didn’t seem
half so, well, yes, dishonest was the word, and
Geraldine had inherited her father’s scorn for dishonesty.</p>
<p>With a sigh she opened the other letter and read
the pretty, evenly written words:</p>
<p class="tb">“Dear little neighbor who is so far away. You
can’t think how lonely it seems to have the big
house next door closed up so tight. Every morning
I go to the window hoping to wave you a greeting
in the old way, but all I see is a drawn curtain and
a snow-piled ledge. How suddenly everything happened!
Truly, Geraldine, I do envy you. One can
have such a nice time in a village and I have the
dearest cousin living in Sunnyside. You have often
heard me speak of Doris Drexel, but you were away
last year when she visited me. I’ll write a little note
of introduction, and I do wish that you would take it
today and call upon my dear Cousin Doris. Tell
her that you are the friend I love most and that we
have been chums ever since our doll days, though
truly my doll days aren’t over yet. I have the tenderest
feeling for Peggoty Anne and I tell her all
my secrets.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_66">[66]</div>
<p>“You will be sorry to hear that Muriel and I are
not on speaking terms. I did not mean to hurt her,
but she thinks I did. Now, dear little neighbor, do
write real soon to your loving, lonesome friend.</p>
<p><span class="jr">“<span class="sc">Adelaine.</span>”</span></p>
<p class="tb">And so she had to choose between them. How
different the two girls were, she mused. Both sixteen,
but one was vain and pretty, thinking only of
clothes and boys, while the other, still a little girl at
heart, told secrets to her doll.</p>
<p>Geraldine smiled as she remembered the Christmas
when that doll had first arrived. What happy
times she and Adelaine had had together. They had
been playmates for years, and what a loyal friend
her little neighbor had always been. Springing up
from her chair, she opened her desk as she thought,
“I’ll write to Adelaine this very moment and tell her
that I am just as lonely for her as she is for me.”</p>
<p>For the next half hour, the only sound in the room
was the crackling of the fire and the scratching of
the pen. Geraldine had made her choice.</p>
<p>When the letter was finished, the girl arose and
slipped on her beautiful blue velvet coat with its
deep squirrel fur collar and cuffs and a jaunty blue
velvet cap. Then, going down the hall, she tapped
on a closed door.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_67">[67]</div>
<p>“Who’s there?” the voice sounded as though it
came from the depths of many cushions, as indeed
it did, for Alfred, buried among them on his lounge,
was reading an absorbing story.</p>
<p>“Brother, I wish you would drive me into the
village. I have a letter that I would like to mail
today.”</p>
<p>The door was flung open and the lad exclaimed:
“I’ll tell you what, Sis! Let’s walk to town! It’s
glorious weather and Dad told me especially that he
wanted us to tramp about the way he did when
he was a boy.”</p>
<p>Geraldine pouted. “Oh, Alfred,” she said, “you
know I don’t like to walk, and certainly you wouldn’t
expect me to wade through snow drifts like a country
girl. I do wish I had stayed in the city. When
I wanted to go anywhere, all I had to do was ring
for Peters and he brought around the car.”</p>
<p>The lad was getting into his great coat, and he
said wheelingly:</p>
<p>“I feel like taking a hike today, Sis. Try it once,
just to please me, won’t you? Be a good pal.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_68">[68]</div>
<p>Geraldine hesitated. “Well, just this once,” she
said. Then Alfred, happening to look down at her
daintily shod feet, laughed gaily. “But, my dear
girl!” he exclaimed. “You certainly couldn’t walk
through snow drifts with those slipper things on.
Trot along and put on the hiking shoes that Dad
bought for you, and I’ll see if I can unearth some
leggins.”</p>
<p>“But those shoes are so heavy,” Geraldine protested,
“and I’m sure I don’t know where you could
get leggins, whatever they are.”</p>
<p>“Never you mind, Sis, you do as little Alfred
asks this once; I’ll be back in a jiffy.”</p>
<p>True to his word, the lad reappeared as soon as
the strong hiking shoes were on, and triumphantly
he held aloft a pair of warm knitted leggins.
“Alfred Morrison,” cried the horrified girl, “do you
expect me to wear those ugly things? Why, I’d be
the laughing stock of Dorchester if I appeared in
thick woolen stockings like those.”</p>
<p>“But, Sister mine, geographically speaking, Dorchester
and Sunnyside are so far apart that your
exclusive friends are not likely to see you today.”</p>
<p>At last Geraldine stood arrayed in the first pair
of heavy shoes and leggins she had ever worn. As
they were walking along the sparkling highway, the
boy asked, “Who have you been writing to? Dad?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_69">[69]</div>
<p>“No, to Adelaine Drexel. I had a letter from her
this morning, and oh, Buddy, I forgot to tell you,
Adelaine writes that she has a first cousin living in
this town. I am so thankful to find that after all
there is at least one girl of my own set in this dreadful
place, but what I would like to know is, why
didn’t she call upon me instead of those——”</p>
<p>“Butter churners and milkmaids,” Alfred finished
for her.</p>
<p>Geraldine, who had been carefully picking her
way through a snowdrift, trying to step just where
her brother did, happened to look up suddenly and
saw the shoulders of the boy ahead shaking with
silent laughter. Before she could ask the cause of
this, sleigh bells were heard back of them and a
merry voice called: “Ho there, Alfred Morrison!
Through stage for Sunnyside! Any passengers
wish to ride?”</p>
<p>Jack Lee and Bob Angel were beaming down from
the high seat of a delivery sleigh belonging to the
father of the latter boy.</p>
<p>Bob often assisted his father after school hours,
sometimes acting as clerk in the busy little grocery,
or again doing the rural delivering.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_70">[70]</div>
<p>Geraldine was indignant. “Ride with a grocer
boy? Indeed not!” she was thinking. “Probably
a brother to one of the milkmaids.” She flushed
angrily when she saw Alfred turn back and answer
the salutation with a hearty, “Hullo there, boys.
Sure thing, I’d like to ride! Would you, Geraldine?”</p>
<p>The girl drew herself up haughtily as she said in
a low tone: “A Morrison ride in a delivery cart?
Never.”</p>
<p>Bob, not having heard a word of the conversation,
stopped the horse, and Jack, leaping down from the
high seat, snatched off his hat and acknowledged
the introduction to Geraldine with as much courtesy
as a city boy would have done; and what was more,
the girl’s eyes, even though they were disdainful,
quickly perceived that Jack was unusually good
looking.</p>
<p>So, too, was the beaming face of the driver, who
called pleasantly: “Miss Morrison, please pardon me
for not getting out, but my steed is restless today.
Our conveyance is not a fashionable one, I know,
but if you will honor us, we will gladly take you to
your destination.” Geraldine hardly knew how to
reply. This boy seemed nice, but of course he belonged
to the trades-people, and—Bob was again
speaking: “Why don’t you let me drive you over to
our house? The girls are having a sewing bee, I
think they call it. Doris Drexel and all the rest of
them are there.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_71">[71]</div>
<p>Geraldine looked up brightly: “Thank you,” she
said, “I would like to go.”</p>
<p>If the seven girls seated around the fireplace in
the pleasant Angel library had known that the
haughty Geraldine was unconsciously about to return
their call, they would have been filled with
consternation for fear the joke they played upon her
would be found out.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_72">[72]</div>
<h2 id="c9">CHAPTER IX. <br/><span class="small">A RETURNED CALL</span></h2>
<p>Fifteen minutes later as the delivery sleigh
turned into the drive of the unpretentious Angel
home, Betty Byrd, who sat near the window, declared:
“Here come the boys.” Then she uttered
an exclamation of surprise.</p>
<p>“What is it, Betty?” the others asked, springing
up and crowding about her.</p>
<p>“Girls!” Doris exclaimed tragically. “Something
terrible is just about to happen. Alfred Morrison
and his sister, Geraldine, are in the sleigh. What
shall we do? Of course she will recognize us and
more than likely she will be mad as a hornet, and we
can’t much blame her if she is.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_73">[73]</div>
<p>The girls were filled with consternation, but before
they could form a plan, the front door opened
and Bob’s cheery voice called: “Ho, Sis, where are
you?” So of course Bertha had to go into the hall
and he introduced her to the haughty young damsel.
Luckily, Geraldine could not see very clearly, having
just come in from the dazzling sunlight.</p>
<p>After laying aside her fur-lined coat, the unexpected
guest was led into the library, where six
anxious maidens stood about the fireplace. Peggy
declared afterwards that she didn’t see how Bertha
ever got through the introductions so calmly. She
was just sure that she would have called someone
Matilda Jane Turnip.</p>
<p>Of course, Geraldine greeted Doris with utmost
warmth and sat beside her as she exclaimed: “Oh,
Miss Drexel, I had a letter from your cousin
Adelaine this morning, and she was so eager to have
me meet you. We are next-door neighbors and have
been the best of friends for years. I wonder why
I never met you before.”</p>
<p>“Probably because my mother is an invalid and
we have been in California and Florida so much of
the time. I am ever so glad to know a friend
of Adelaine’s. She is the dearest girl, isn’t she?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_74">[74]</div>
<p>The two were seated apart by themselves and
Doris dreaded the moment when their visitor should
recognize them as the seven who had called upon
her in milkmaid garb the day before. Once she did
look very steadily at Peggy, and Doris, noticing this,
hurriedly asked some question about her city cousin,
hoping to keep the guest’s thoughts in safe channels.</p>
<p>At last Alfred arose, saying: “Well, Sister, if
we are to visit the post office and then walk home
before dark, we would better be going.”</p>
<p>“Wait just one moment,” Bertha urged. “Bob
has gone out to hitch up our two-seated sleigh. Oh,
here he comes now.”</p>
<p>A comfortable, roomy sleigh appeared and Jack
said: “Miss Geraldine, may I accompany you?
Alfred and Bob may have the driver’s seat?”</p>
<p>The girl smilingly consented and then bade each
of the maidens a gracious farewell. When the
sleigh with its jingling bells and prancing horses
was out of sight, the girls sank down on their chairs
and one and all uttered some exclamation. Then
Merry Lee said: “The question before the house is,
did she recognize us?”</p>
<p>“I don’t see how she could help recognizing
Rose,” Peggy said, to tease. “She looks very much
as she did as Jerusy.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_75">[75]</div>
<p>That pretty maiden took the teasing good-naturedly,
then tongues and needles flew, until half an
hour later when the boys returned. They were
laughing merrily when they entered the room and
bent over the burning log to warm their hands. The
girls looked up from their sewing and Peggy asked
eagerly: “Tell us the worst! Did Geraldine recognize
us?”</p>
<p>“Yes, she did,” Bob declared. “She told Jack
that she knew Peggy at once. She decided, however,
that it had been a good lesson for her and she
wished Jack to thank you all for having taught her
that people may live in the country and not be backwoodsy
or rubes.”</p>
<p>“Well, I’m glad she forgives us!” Bertha declared.
Then, when the boys had again departed, she added:
“But now, to return to the subject we were discussing
when we were interrupted. Peggy, have you
and Doris found a mystery yet for the Seven Sleuths
to unravel?”</p>
<p>“Nary a mystery,” Doris confessed, “but it isn’t
Saturday yet. You remember we were to have a
week.”</p>
<p>“There might be some kind of a mystery connected
with that old Welsley house out on the lake
road. If ever a place looked haunted, that one
surely does.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_76">[76]</div>
<p>“Righto, my dear little Betty, but ghosts and mysteries
are two different things. Some unhappy old
man shot himself in that dismal farmhouse and
nobody ever wanted to live there after that; and so
it has just fallen to pieces. But everybody knew the
old man and just why he was so sad and discouraged,
and so there isn’t any mystery to it at all, at all.”</p>
<p>“Where did the boys go?” Bertha looked up suspiciously.
“Heavens, I hope they aren’t anywhere
around. They might overhear us talking about mysteries
and then our new name wouldn’t be secret any
more.”</p>
<p>“They drove out of the yard; I saw them,” Betty,
still near the window, remarked.</p>
<p>“Jack had a book. Probably that one of Conan
Doyle. Perhaps they’re going to return it.”</p>
<p>Suddenly Bertha dropped her sewing and her eyes
were bright “Say, girls, we’ve wondered a million
times where the boys hold their secret meetings, but
never once did we even suspect that it <i>might</i> be in
that dreadful old Welsley place.”</p>
<p>“Bertha Angel, I believe you’re right. No one
would ever interrupt them <i>there</i>.” Peg shuddered.</p>
<p>“And what better meeting-place for a boys’ detective
club than an old ruin haunted by a ghost that
had committed suicide!” Doris commented.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_77">[77]</div>
<p>“Well,” Merry sighed, “we’re not likely to find
out, since our dear parents will not permit us to
prowl around at night unless the boys are along to
protect us.”</p>
<p>Then Peggy had an idea. “Girls,” she exclaimed,
“we ought to have some kind of a party for Geraldine
and Alfred. Let’s have a moonlight skating
party and a sleigh ride combined, and when we’re
out that way, let’s suggest visiting the old ruin. If
the boys refuse, we will know that they don’t want
us to see what they have in there. If they agree to
the plan, then we will know that is <i>not</i> where they
hold their secret meetings.”</p>
<p>“Bright idea!”</p>
<p>“That will be a jolly lark!”</p>
<p>“Hope the haughty Geraldine knows how to
skate.”</p>
<p>“Ssh! Here come the boys to take us home. We
mustn’t let them suspect our deep-laid plans. We’re
some sleuths all right, I’ll say.”</p>
<p>When the two boys entered the room they found
the girls, except the hostess, warmly wrapped and
ready to be taken to their homes.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_78">[78]</div>
<p>“Isn’t the sunset going to be wonderful this evening?”
Merry, in the open door, called over her
shoulder. Then to the boys: “When is our next
full moon? We girls thought we’d have our annual
skating and sleigh ride party then, and invite the
newcomers.”</p>
<p>“Great!” Jack cried. “It ought to be soon. What
say, Bob?”</p>
<p>“Sure thing!” that ruddy-cheeked lad agreed.
Then to the girl he was assisting into the sleigh, he
said in a low voice: “Rosie, may I have the first
skate and the last, and all in between?”</p>
<p>“No whispering allowed,” Merry warned as they
climbed in, the girls sitting two and three deep.</p>
<p>The blizzard had disappeared as completely as
though it never had been, but the high snowbanks
that lined the road and reached to the window sills
of the houses remained to testify that it had been
“some storm,” as Bob said.</p>
<p>“Well, we sure have it to thank for a week of
good times instead of school,” Merry declared. “I
hope Miss Preen and Professor Lowsley enjoyed
being snowed in together.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_79">[79]</div>
<p>Much laughter greeted this remark, but Gertrude
said rebukingly: “I think it’s shabby of us to make
fun of those two. Of course they <i>are</i> sort of queer
looking outside, but in their hearts and souls they
may be just like the rest of us.”</p>
<p>“Trudie, dear, it wouldn’t take a detective to
know that <i>you</i> are a minister’s daughter,” Merry
remarked, then, as the sleigh was stopping in front
of her home, she added: “Now, everybody decide
what to take to the skating party. We’ll find out
about the moon and make our final plans tomorrow.
All of you come over to my house. Tra-la. Good
night!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_80">[80]</div>
<h2 id="c10">CHAPTER X. <br/><span class="small">WANTED—A HOUSEKEEPER</span></h2>
<p>Meanwhile Colonel Wainright was facing a
new problem. While living alone he had needed
very little waiting on, a faithful Chinese cook had
provided his meals, and the wife of his hired man
had come in daily from their quarters over the
stables to clean the house, but the O’Haras had decided
to return to Ireland. Geraldine, of course,
was absolutely helpless and the Colonel decided that
what he needed was a refined and somewhat elderly
housekeeper, one who would be a good influence in
the home. Just where to find such a person he could
not think at first, but he happened to recall his old
friend Mrs. Thompson, who had transformed her
fine house on Hickory lane, not far from the girls’
seminary, into a home for old ladies. It wasn’t a
charitable plan, exactly; it was a home for homeless
old ladies of some means whose last days would be
made far happier there than they could be elsewhere.
Mrs. Thompson, herself, retained a large
front room overlooking the beautiful grounds, and
spent her summers there; winters she lived either in
Europe or with her son in New York. But only
that day he had seen in the paper that for some
reason Mrs. Thompson was spending a few weeks
at her country home, and the courtly old gentleman
decided to visit her and ask her advice about how
best to solve the problem with which he was confronted.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_81">[81]</div>
<p>An hour later he was walking under the leafless
hickory trees that formed a veritable grove surrounding
a very large turreted wooden house, one
of the oldest in the village. A pleasant-faced little
old woman answered his ring, ushered him into the
small reception room, and went to summon Mrs.
Thompson. He had not long to wait, for his elderly
friend, dressed in a simple black silk, as she had been
all through the years since her husband had died,
soon appeared and greeted him graciously. After
explaining that her return had been because of a
need for quiet and simpler fare than she could
obtain easily in her son’s New York home, the old
gentleman explained his mission, telling how he had
unexpectedly acquired a family and so had need of
a housekeeper. Before his story was finished, he
knew by the brightening expression in the fine face
of the old lady that she had someone in mind to
suggest. Nor was he wrong.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_82">[82]</div>
<p>“I believe Mrs. Gray is just the one for you,” she
told him. “She admitted you just now.” Then
before Mr. Wainright could reply, Mrs. Thompson
continued: “Mrs. Gray came to us recently, during
my absence. I know nothing at all about her past
life; we ask no questions here. It is, as you know,
merely a home boarding-house for gentlewomen.
I asked Mrs. Gray this morning if she were happy
with us, and she said, with a wistful expression on
that unusually sweet face of hers, that she was
afraid she never would be entirely contented without
a home to keep, and she asked me if she might go
down in the kitchen now and then and stir up a
pudding or something. Now my theory is that she
is a born housekeeper and just the one you need.”</p>
<p>Colonel Wainright agreed, and the little old lady
who longed to putter about a kitchen was called
and the proposition was made to her. The other
two knew by the brightening of her softly wrinkled
face that she was delighted to accept. The Colonel
had told about the two Morrison “children,” as he
called them, who had come to spend the winter with
him, and by the tender light that glowed in her eyes
he was assured that she loved young people and
would have for them an understanding sympathy.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_83">[83]</div>
<p>“Mrs. Gray,” he said, when the arrangements had
been completed, “there is about you a haunting suggestion
of someone whom I once knew. Ever since
you admitted me an hour ago I have been trying to
think who it is that you resemble, but I have given
it up.”</p>
<p>The little old lady smiled pleasantly as she replied:
“It does seem that everywhere I go, folks
think I look like somebody they’ve known.”</p>
<p>“Well, that’s about all there is to it,” the old man
acknowledged. “I have had the same thing happen
to me. Judge Crow, up in Dorchester, and I are
supposed to be doubles.” Then, holding out his
hand, first to one and then another of the old ladies,
he expressed his deep gratitude to them both, ending
with a promise to send for Mrs. Gray and her baggage
that very afternoon.</p>
<p>And so it happened that on the third day after
the arrival of the young people, another member
was added to their household. Colonel Wainright
had welcomed the little old lady and had at once
introduced her to Geraldine and Alfred, then he had
walked to town, leaving them to their own devices.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_84">[84]</div>
<p>It was quite evident that Geraldine’s good humor
of the day before had departed, for she acknowledged
the introduction with a barely perceptible nod
and had risen at once to go to her own room. Never
before had she been <i>introduced</i> to a housekeeper as
though she were one of her own class. Colonel
Wainright was certainly old-fashioned. Servants
were servants, she considered, whatever they were
called.</p>
<p>Alfred, who had promised to go skating with
Jack and Bob, had welcomed the old lady in the
friendliest manner, and she knew at once that she
was going to love the boy, but the girl—that was
quite a different matter.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_85">[85]</div>
<p>The Colonel had shown the housekeeper to her
pleasant room overlooking the orchard when her
trunk and bags had been taken there; he had also
introduced her to Ching Lee, the plump, smiling
Chinaman in the kitchen. When she was quite
alone, the old lady stood by a window in her room
gazing out at a sparkling snow-covered scene, and
her eyes were misty. How happy she had been
when the Colonel had told her she was to make a
home, a real home, for a boy and girl. One of the
unfulfilled desires of her life was to have had grandchildren.
She blinked a bit, then wiped her eyes
with her handkerchief and smiled at the scene before
her. “Well,” she comforted herself by thinking,
“I’ll pretend these two are my grandchildren, and I’ll
treat them just as lovingly as though they really
were, and I’ll begin that game right now.”</p>
<p>Putting a clean white apron over her soft grey
dress, she went down the wide upper hall toward the
front room, which was Geraldine’s.</p>
<p>Meanwhile that rebellious girl was unpacking her
trunk in a manner which showed that it was a most
distasteful task. Never before had she lifted her
finger to wait on herself. Susan, her maid, had
always done everything for her. She had asked her
father to permit her to bring Susan to Sunnyside
with her, but he had said that he could not ask his
old friend to take three people into his home. As
she thought of this injustice, her anger mounted
higher and higher, and she took things from her
trunk and actually threw them over the bed, chairs
and lounge. Every conceivable spot was littered
when there came a tap on the door.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_86">[86]</div>
<p>“Come in!” the girl said sullenly, supposing that
it was her brother who wished to speak with her.
Instead a smiling little old lady opened the door.</p>
<p>“Why, Geraldine, child,” she said kindly, “you
<i>are</i> busy, aren’t you? Unpacking and hanging
things up is quite an undertaking, but I think folks
like to do it themselves, then they know where
things were put.”</p>
<p>The girl’s face reddened in very evident displeasure.
“Well, <i>I</i> don’t like it,” she said coldly,
“and I don’t see why I should have to. I’ve <i>always</i>
had a maid to wait on me, and I’ve simply got to
have one. Now that you’ve come, I suppose you’ll
make my bed and keep my room in order.”</p>
<p>The old lady had had a talk with the Colonel about
this very matter, and he had definitely said that
waiting on the girl was <i>not</i> one of her duties, explaining
that Mr. Morrison had especially requested
that she learn how to care for herself. Very quietly
Mrs. Gray replied: “No, little girl, that is <i>not</i> one
of my duties.”</p>
<p>Then, as the front door bell was ringing, the
housekeeper went to answer it. Geraldine, standing
among the confusion and litter, watched the retreat
with flashing eyes.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_87">[87]</div>
<p>“Little girl, indeed! Our housekeeper always
addressed me as Miss Geraldine. Country ways and
country servants are certainly hard to understand.”</p>
<p>Her torrent of angry thoughts was interrupted
by a sweet voice calling: “Geraldine, two girls are
coming up to see you.”</p>
<p>Geraldine looked around the room wildly, but before
she had time to decide what she could do to
prevent the girls from entering, they were standing
in the open door.</p>
<p>“Oh, good morning, Miss Drexel and Miss Lee,”
the unwilling hostess exclaimed, with a quickly
assumed graciousness which had been acquired at
the young ladies’ select seminary. “Wait until I remove
a few dresses from the chairs and I will ask
you to be seated.”</p>
<p>Doris and Merry exchanged puzzled glances.
They felt Geraldine’s true attitude of mind, and the
former said: “Oh, Miss Morrison, we really ought
not to have made so early a morning call, but we
have decided to go to the Drexel Lodge on Little
Bear Lake tomorrow, and there are so many things
to talk about. We did try to telephone, but the line
is out of order, but first do let us help you put away
your things.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_88">[88]</div>
<p>To Geraldine’s amazement, the two girls removed
their wraps, laughing and chatting the while
in a most social fashion.</p>
<p>“I’m going to suggest that we drop formality,”
Merry said, “and call each other by our first names;
and now, Geraldine, I just know that you are ever
so tired with unpacking, so you sit here and tell us
where you want these dresses hung, and presto,
we’ll have them up in a twinkling.”</p>
<p>“But I cannot permit you girls to wait upon me!”
the hostess protested.</p>
<p>“Why not?” Doris inquired. “My mother says
that the most beautiful thing that we can do is loving
service for one another. Oh, what a darling dress
this is! It glows like jewels, doesn’t it, Merry?”</p>
<p>The city girl was rather pleased to be showing off
her elaborate wardrobe to these village girls, who
were evidently quite impressed.</p>
<p>“Oh, that’s just one of my party gowns,” she
said indifferently. “I have several.” Then she confessed:
“I honestly don’t know how to go about
hanging them up. I have just stepped out of my
clothes and Susan, my maid, has put them away.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_89">[89]</div>
<p>“My, how I would hate to have anyone tagging
<i>me</i> around all the time like that,” Merry exclaimed,
not any too tactfully. “It would get on my nerves.”</p>
<p>Geraldine drew herself up haughtily and bit her
lip to keep from replying. Her two guests, with
many exclamations of admiration for the dresses,
hung them up in the long closet, and then, when that
task was finished, Merry announced: “Now I will
show you my latest accomplishment, of which I am
real proud.”</p>
<p>Her chum laughed as she explained: “You see,
Geraldine, my mother has a companion, who is also
a trained nurse, and last week she taught Merry
how to make a bed in hospital fashion, and the next
day when I went over to the Lees’, Merry had made
and unmade her bed seven times trying to get it
perfect.”</p>
<p>“There’s quite a knack to it,” that maiden
smilingly declared, as she stretched, smoothed and
tucked in sheets and blankets. Then as she stood
back proudly and surveyed her accomplishment, she
said, “Mother thinks my bed-making is a work of
art.”</p>
<p>Geraldine wanted to say that she did not consider
menial labor of any kind an art, but she refrained
from making the comment.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_90">[90]</div>
<p>Merry sank down in an easy chair by the fireplace
and looked around with a radiant smile. “Everything
was cleared away like magic, wasn’t it?” she
said sociably; then she added philosophically: “If
one dreads a thing, that makes the doing of it doubly
hard, but when one pretends that it is going to be
great fun, it gets done much more quickly; don’t
you think so, Geraldine?”</p>
<p>Poor Geraldine’s head was in a whirl. Somehow
she could not adjust herself to the view of things
held by these country girls.</p>
<p>The Colonel had told her that Mr. Lee was the
wealthiest man in the countryside, and, of course,
she knew the financial and social standing of the
Drexel family, and yet these girls had been taught
that it was a privilege to render loving service and
that bed-making was an art.</p>
<p>“Now, we must tell you all of our grand and
glorious plans for tomorrow’s lark,” Doris began
as she drew her chair up cosily. Then they chattered
about the sleigh ride and the skating party,
and when at last the little clock on the mantle chimed
the hour of twelve, Merry sprang up and looked out
of the window. “Here come the boys!” she said.
“I made them promise that they would call for us
at noon. They’ve been down to the lake to clean off
a space on the ice for our skating party.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_91">[91]</div>
<p>“I’m so glad, Geraldine, that you like to skate,”
Doris exclaimed as she slipped on her fur coat.
“You’ll want to wear your heaviest shoes and
leggins on the sleigh-ride party and your oldest,
warmest clothes. You won’t need to bring anything
toward the picnic part. You and Alfred are to be
our guests of honor tomorrow. Good-bye.”</p>
<p>That night the Colonel, finding Geraldine standing
alone in front of the fireplace in the living-room,
slipped a fatherly arm about her, saying: “Little
girl, I know how hard it is going to be for you to
get used to our country ways, and I was just thinking
that perhaps you would like to go to Dorchester
with me tomorrow and spend the day with your
friends.”</p>
<p>“Oh, but I couldn’t, Uncle-Colonel!” was the unexpected
reply, brightly given. “The girls and boys
of Sunnyside are giving a welcome party for Alfred
and me. It’s a sleigh ride out the lake road to the
Drexel lodge; then there is to be skating, and a ride
home in the moonlight. I never was so interested
in anything before in all my life.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_92">[92]</div>
<p>“That’s good news!” the Colonel replied, deeply
touched because the girl had, almost unconsciously,
used the name which he had taught her when she
was very small. “Well, some other time you may
go with me to the city. I go there often to attend
to business matters.”</p>
<p>That night after the young people had retired to
their rooms, the Colonel and Mrs. Gray exchanged
confidences and each felt hopeful that the unfortunate
motherless girl was soon to have a change of
heart.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_93">[93]</div>
<h2 id="c11">CHAPTER XI. <br/><span class="small">A REBELLIOUS BOY</span></h2>
<p>The next morning when Colonel Wainright
entered the cheery, sun-flooded breakfast-room, he
saw a slender girl standing by the window looking
out at the glistening white orchard. She turned
with a truly radiant face.</p>
<p>“Oh, Colonel,” she exclaimed, “isn’t this the most
wonderful, sparkling day? I will have to confess
that I have never seen anything so beautiful in the
city, for there, even in the parks, the snow becomes
sooty almost as soon as it has fallen.”</p>
<p>The elderly gentleman was indeed pleased and
he said heartily: “Well, little lady, I am glad that
there is at least one thing that you like in our
country village. Aha! Here is Alfred. Good
morning, lad, I judge by your ruddy face that you
have already been out-of-doors.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_94">[94]</div>
<p>“Indeed I have,” the boy replied as they took their
places at the table. “I saw a chap shoveling and
so I went out to help him. Who is he, Colonel?
Sort of a surly boy, I thought. He only grunted
when I asked if he didn’t think the snow was great.”</p>
<p>“He is Danny O’Neil,” the old gentleman replied.
“His father is a tenant on one of my farms and he
has had a great deal of trouble with the boy, he tells
me. Danny is seventeen and has sort of taken the
bit in his mouth. He doesn’t want to go to school
nor help his father on the farm. Mr. O’Neil came
to me yesterday and asked my advice about sending
Danny to a reform school. I advised him not to do
so unless he feared the boy might do something
really criminal. Then I suggested that he send the
lad over here to take the place of my man Patrick,
who has gone to Ireland to visit his old parents.
I thought, perhaps, if Danny were earning good
wages, that might straighten him out. I wish you
would talk with him, Alfred. I’m sure it would do
him good.”</p>
<p>“I will, sir,” the boy replied. “There must be
some reason that doesn’t show on the surface for
Danny O’Neil’s rebelliousness. Perhaps his father
doesn’t understand him.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_95">[95]</div>
<p>Mrs Gray smiled over the silver coffee urn at the
boy and nodded encouragement. “That often leads
to a lot of trouble and unhappiness, as I have reason
to know,” she replied.</p>
<p>An hour later, true to his promise, Alfred tried
to make friends with Danny O’Neil. Having procured
another wooden shovel from the tool shed, he
was tossing snow from the front walk which had
not been entirely cleaned off since the blizzard. He
did not wish his efforts to become acquainted with
Danny to seem too pointed, and so he had taken this
way to make them appear natural, but the other boy
was taciturn, giving no information about himself
or his plans, answering all direct questions with
monosyllables. Discouraged, Alfred was about to
give up when he heard the jolly jingling of sleigh
bells, and to his surprise saw a two-seated cutter,
drawn by a familiar big dapple mare and driven by
Bob. Rose sat at his side, while Doris and Jack
were on the back seat.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_96">[96]</div>
<p>They sang out merry greetings as they approached
and came to a halt near where the two boys were
working. Jack leaped out and, after a wave of his
hand toward the Morrison boy, he turned to the
other with, “Hello, old Dan, how are you? I haven’t
laid eyes on you in twenty moons. Why don’t you
ever come around?” adding by way of explanation
to Alfred: “Danny O’Neil and I were champion
snowballers when we were kids. I always chose
him to be on my side when I was captain of the
Brick School gang.” Then to the still sullen-looking
boy, who kept on shoveling: “I haven’t seen a thing
of you since you stopped going to school. You
made a mistake to drop out, Dan.” Fearing that
he was embarrassing the still silent boy, Jack turned
to explain their early visit. “We four are a committee
on arrangement. Stopped by to tell you and
your sister to be ready along about two. We’ll call
for you.”</p>
<p>Doris, seeing Geraldine in the doorway, skipped
up the front steps for a few words, and on her return,
seeing that Danny was alone, she stopped and
spoke to him in a low voice. “Danny O’Neil,” she
said. “I’ve often wished I could see you to tell you
how my heart aches for you since your mother died.
Every week, when I drove out to your little farm to
get fresh eggs for my mother, Mrs. O’Neil was so
cheerful and brave, although we know now that she
must have been suffering for a long time. She was
always telling me that her one desire was to save
enough money to send you up to the Dorchester Art
School. She showed me things you drew, Danny.
I’m sure you have talent. I hope you’ll carry out
her wishes. Won’t you try, Danny, for her sake?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_97">[97]</div>
<p>The boy for a moment seemed to find it hard to
speak, then he said in a tone gruff with emotion:
“If I can get hold of any money, I will. It’s all
that’s left, now Ma’s gone.”</p>
<p>“But, Dan, if you’re working for the Colonel,
you can save that money, can’t you?”</p>
<p>“Not much I can’t! The old man gets it paid to
him. That’s how much <i>I’ll</i> get it.” His voice
expressed bitterness and hatred.</p>
<p>Rose was calling and so, with a pitying expression
in her eyes, Doris said, “Good-bye, Danny,” and
skipped away. After they were gone, Alfred tried
once more to be friendly, but found the surly lad
even less inclined to talk than before, and so he went
indoors to prepare for the afternoon frolic.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_98">[98]</div>
<h2 id="c12">CHAPTER XII. <br/><span class="small">A SLEIGH-RIDE PARTY</span></h2>
<p>Promptly at two, Geraldine and Alfred, well
bundled in furs, were waiting in the hall when a
joyous shouting, ringing of bells and blowing of
horns announced that the merry sleigh-ride party
was coming up the drive.</p>
<p>Alfred threw open the door and gave an answering
halloo, then, turning, he assisted Geraldine down
the icy steps.</p>
<p>“I wonder where Danny O’Neil is,” the Colonel
exclaimed. “I told him to put ashes on the icy
places, but he has not done so.”</p>
<p>The girls graciously welcomed Geraldine and
made room for her on the deep, blanket-covered
straw between Doris and Merry.</p>
<p>“This is for you to blow upon,” the former
maiden said, producing from her coat pocket a small
tassled horn.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_99">[99]</div>
<p>For one moment Geraldine hesitated. Then, as
the two big white horses raced along the snowy
road with bells jingling, she soon caught the spirit
of merriment and found herself tooting upon a horn
as gayly as the rest of them. Never before had she
had such a jolly time, and she was actually feeling
a bit sorry for the city girls who had never been
on a straw ride.</p>
<p>The sun was bright, and long before they reached
their destination they could see the ice glistening on
Little Bear Lake.</p>
<p>As they drew up at the Inn, to rest the horses
a moment before turning up the seldom traveled East
Lake Road, Mr. Wiggin, who lived in that lonely
spot all the year round with only now and then an
occasional guest for a week-end, came out to greet
them.</p>
<p>Usually his face beamed when he saw these young
people, but today he looked greatly troubled.</p>
<p>“What’s up, Mr. Wiggin?” Bob drew rein to inquire.
“You look as though you’d seen a ghost.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_100">[100]</div>
<p>“Well, I came out to warn you young people
you’d better turn back. Old Man Bartlett, who
lives a mile up the wood road, was robbed an hour
ago. He’d been to town to get five hundred dollars
he had in the bank; got a queer notion that the bank
was going to pieces. He had the money in an old
bag. Someone must have seen him getting it out
of the bank and followed him. Anyway, when he
reached the wood road, he was held up and robbed.”</p>
<p>“Well, with all the unbroken snow there is about
here, it will be easy enough to catch the thief,”
Bob said.</p>
<p>“You’re wrong there!” Mr. Wiggin replied.
“Several teams have been along the lake road since
the blizzard, and he could walk in the ruts.”</p>
<p>“Was poor old Mr. Bartlett hurt?” Gertrude
asked anxiously.</p>
<p>“No, not at all. He was blindfolded and tied to
a tree, but he worked himself loose before long, but
the robber was gone. The old man came right down
here and we telephoned to the sheriff. He and his
men will be along most any minute now. There may
be some shooting, and so I’d advise you boys to take
the girls right back to town.”</p>
<p>Jack looked anxiously at Merry, who was vigorously
shaking her head. “We aren’t afraid, are we,
girls?”</p>
<p>“Not with all these boys along to protect us,” Peg
declared.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_101">[101]</div>
<p>Then Doris explained: “We’re only going as far
as our cabin. Mr. Wiggin; that’s not more than a
mile from here. We’ll be all right.”</p>
<p>“That crook is probably headed for Dorchester
by this time,” one of the boys put in. “We don’t
want to miss our fun for him.”</p>
<p>The innkeeper watched the sleighload of young
people until they had disappeared over a rise on the
East Lake Road. Then he shook his head solemnly
and, having entered the inn, he said to his wife:
“That’s what I call a foolhardy risk. It might be
all right for the young fellows if they were alone,
but to take a parcel of girls into, nobody knows
what, I call it downright foolishness and maybe
worse. Why, if they cornered that highwayman,
he would shoot, of course, and there’s no tellin’ who
he would hit. Well, not being their guardeen, I
couldn’t prevent their goin’, and so they’ll have to
take their chance.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile the two big white horses were slowly
ploughing their way along the east side of the lake.
In some spots the road was quite bare where the
wind had swept across the fields, but in other places
the horses floundered through deep snow drifts.
The road, which led close to the lake, was hilly and
winding, and, as it neared the cabin, it entered a
dense wood of snow-covered pines.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_102">[102]</div>
<p>“Girls, why don’t you blow on your horns?” Bob
called as he looked back. “There’s nothing to be
afraid of. That highwayman would make straight
for Dorchester, where he could lose himself in the
crowd.”</p>
<p>Suddenly Merry called out excitedly: “Bob, stop
a minute. Look there. That highwayman must
have been riding on a horse. If he was, this is where
he turned and cut through the pine woods to the
old Dorchester road.”</p>
<p>Jack and several other boys leaped over the side
of the sleigh and followed the tracks for some distance
through the woods where there was little snow
on the ground.</p>
<p>“Say, boys, I believe Merry’s got the right idea,”
Jack said as he climbed back to his former place
next to Geraldine.</p>
<p>“Glad we saw those tracks,” Alfred put in. “Now
we know for sure that the highwayman won’t be
lurking around the Drexel cabin.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_103">[103]</div>
<p>“Sure thing! Let’s proceed to forget about him
and have a good time,” Bob called in his cheerful
way. “Blow on your horns, girls. Make this
silent pine wood ring.”</p>
<p>“Ohoo! Isn’t it silent, though, and dark, too?
Hurry up, Bob. We’ll blow hard enough when we
get out into the sunshine,” Betty Byrd said as she
huddled close to Merry.</p>
<p>Peggy took occasion to say to Doris in a low aside
that the boys of the “C. D. C.” probably thought
they now had a mystery to solve, but they wanted
the girls to think that they weren’t interested.</p>
<p>“That’s what I thought,” was the whispered reply.
“Wouldn’t it be great if we solved the mystery
first?”</p>
<p>“Say, cut out the secret stuff,” one boy across
from them called; then, taking his companion’s horn,
he blew a merry blast. The others did likewise and
so noisily they emerged into the sunshine, but some
of the girls glanced back at the silent, somber woods
as though fearing that the robber had been there
all of the time.</p>
<p>Just in front of them and built close to the lake
was a picturesque log cabin.</p>
<p>“Hurray for the Drexel Lodge!” someone called.</p>
<p>“You girls stay in the sleigh,” Bob said, “while
we boys see if the robber is hiding in the cabin.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_104">[104]</div>
<p>Five minutes later the lads reappeared. “He certainly
isn’t here!” Jack declared. “The heavy
wooden doors and blinds are all padlocked just as
they were left last fall, and there is no other way
of entering, so let’s forget the highwayman and have
the good time we planned.”</p>
<p>“Jack is right,” Bertha said as she leaped from
the sleigh. “Doris, you have the key. Let’s open
the doors while the boys get wood from the shed.
Isn’t the ice just great? I can hardly wait to get
my skates on, can you, Geraldine?”</p>
<p>The young people were convinced that the highwayman
was not in their neighborhood, and, with
fear gone, they resumed their merrymaking. The
blinds were opened, letting in a flood of sunlight.
A big dry log was soon burning on the wide hearth
and a fire was started in the kitchen stove.</p>
<p>“Now, girls,” Doris announced, “I want you all
to go skating with the boys while I prepare our
supper.”</p>
<p>“Why, won’t you be afraid to stay here alone?”
Betty Byrd, the timorous, inquired. “I wouldn’t
do it for worlds.”</p>
<p>“No, I’m not afraid,” Doris replied. “The house
was locked, so why should I be?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_105">[105]</div>
<p>“Sure thing. You’re safe enough!” Bob declared.
“But if you do get frightened, blow on your horn.”</p>
<p>Ten minutes later Doris was alone, or at least she
<i>thought</i> she was alone in the log cabin.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_106">[106]</div>
<h2 id="c13">CHAPTER XIII. <br/><span class="small">A BAG OF GOLD</span></h2>
<p>Doris sang softly to herself as she busily unpacked
the lunch baskets and spread the long table
in the living-room. The tea kettle was soon humming
on the stove and bacon was sizzling in the
frying pan.</p>
<p>“We’ll have an early supper,” she was thinking,
“and I’m going to suggest that we start home early,
too. Our parents will have heard about the holdup
and they’ll be terribly worried. I do hope Mother,
ill as she is, won’t hear of it, but of course she won’t.
That’s the advantage of having a trained nurse with
her all the time.” Then, she glanced at her skates
lying near the door. “I suppose they’re disappointed
not to get out on the ice. Well, so am I, but my
ankle doesn’t feel as strong as I had hoped it would.
I turned it a little getting into the sleigh, and I don’t
want to sprain it again as I did last winter.” She
opened a box which Bertha had brought.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_107">[107]</div>
<p>“Yum! Yum!” she said aloud. “What delicious
tarts!” Then she counted them. “Two apiece! I’m
glad they’re big ones.”</p>
<p>Carrying them into the living-room, she placed
them around on the long table, then, stopping to
sniff, she darted back into the kitchen to turn the
strips of sizzling bacon. A few minutes later she
returned to the living-room with a huge plate of
sandwiches. Suddenly she stood still and stared at
the door of a small closet. She thought she had seen
it move just ever so slightly. She knew that it had
been locked, for Bob tried it just before he went
out to skate.</p>
<p>The crack widened and Doris saw eyes peering
out at her. Wildly she screamed, but the windows
were closed and no one heard.</p>
<p>She started to run, when a familiar voice called,
“Doris, don’t be frightened. I won’t hurt you. It’s
Danny O’Neil.”</p>
<p>The girl turned in amazement toward the boy to
whom she had been talking not six hours before.</p>
<p>“Danny,” the girl gasped, “what are you doing
here?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_108">[108]</div>
<p>The boy looked around wildly: “I—I was the
one who robbed old Mr. Bartlett,” he said rapidly.
“I didn’t set out to do it, Doris! Honest, I didn’t!
I was just a running away from home. Pa has been
so hard on me ever since Ma died, and so I thought
I’d clear out of it all, but I didn’t have any money.
And then this morning, when you told me how Ma
wanted me to get money and go to art school, well,
I don’t know, Doris, what did happen to my brain,
but I was just crazy mad to get money and get away
from that man who calls himself my father. After
you left I started walking to town. I didn’t even
know I was doing it till I got to the bank. Then
I saw Old Man Bartlett stuffing all that money in
his handbag and I followed him, hiding behind trees,
till he got to the wood road—then—I don’t know
what I did—knocked him over, I guess. There was
a long rope, one end tied to a tree, and I wound it
about him, then I took his bag and ran.”</p>
<p>“But how did you get in here, Danny? The doors
and windows were all locked and we didn’t see any
tracks.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_109">[109]</div>
<p>“I know! I stepped on the places where the snow
was blown away and I climbed to the roof and came
down the chimney. Then I went in that closet and
locked the door on the inside. But, Doris, I don’t
want the money. All these long hours there in the
dark I’ve been seeing Mom’s face looking at me so
reproachful, and she kept saying, ‘Danny-boy, you
promised me you’d go straight.’ If she’d a lived,
Doris, I’d have been different, but ’tisn’t home without
her.”</p>
<p>The lad drew his coat sleeve over his eyes, then
he said gloomily: “The sheriff will be hunting for
me and they’ll put me in jail, but anyhow, here’s the
money. Take it back to Old Man Bartlett and tell
him I didn’t really mean to rob him. I did it just
sudden-like, without thinking.”</p>
<p>There were tears in the eyes of the girl and she
held out her hand: “Danny,” she said, “I know
how lonely you’ve been without your mother and
I’ll help you. Quick, hide! Someone is coming.”</p>
<p>Danny darted back and locked himself in the
closet. Doris hid the bag of gold and hurried
toward the front door. Someone was pounding and
she was sure it was the sheriff.</p>
<p>When Doris opened the heavy wooden door, she
found that her surmise had been correct. Mr. Ross,
the sheriff, stood without, and waiting near were
several other men on horseback.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_110">[110]</div>
<p>“Oh. Miss Drexel, it’s you, is it?” The sheriff
was evidently much surprised. “We saw smoke
coming from the chimney and believed that we had
cornered our highwayman. Thought he might be
hiding here. Of course it would be a daring thing
to make a fire in a deserted cabin, but these criminals
are a bold, hardened lot. Who else is with you,
Miss Drexel? I guess I’ll step inside, if you don’t
mind. No use holding the door open and letting
the heat all out.”</p>
<p>The sheriff entered and closed the door, then he
went to the fireplace and held his hands over the
blaze.</p>
<p>Doris’s heart was filled with a new fear. What
if Danny should make a sound of some sort and
betray his hiding place? Hurriedly she said: “All
of our crowd is here. Mr. Ross. There are seven
boys and as many girls, but the rest of them are out
on the ice skating. I remained in the cabin to prepare
our supper.”</p>
<p>The sheriff straightened and leaned his back
against the closet door as he said: “Miss Drexel,
because of this robbery, I feel it my duty to tell you
and your friends that you would better return to
town as soon as you have had your lunch. It gets
dark early these wintry days and there’s no telling
what might happen.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_111">[111]</div>
<p>“Thank you, Mr. Ross.” Doris said, “I will tell
the boys when they come in.”</p>
<p>When the sheriff was gone, the girl closed and
bolted the front door, then she tapped on the closet,
saying softly: “Come out, Danny. I have a plan
to suggest. Bob and the rest of them may be in at
any minute.”</p>
<p>Then, when the lad appeared, she added: “I want
you to take my skates, fling them over your shoulder,
and go boldly out of the front door and up the lake
road. Anyone, seeing you leave here, will think
you are one of our party. Whistle and stride along
as though you were out for fun. Half a mile above,
as you know, the lake is narrow. Skate across and
go back to your work at Colonel Wainright’s, but
before you go, Danny, promise me that from now
on you’ll be the kind of a boy your mother wanted
you to be.”</p>
<p>The lad held out his hand and, with tears falling
unheeded, he said huskily: “I give you my word,
Doris. You’ve been my good angel and saved me
from nobody knows what.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_112">[112]</div>
<p>Then he shouldered the skates and started down
the snowy road with long strides, whistling fearlessly.
A load had been lifted from his heart and
he was sure that his mother had forgiven him.</p>
<p>Doris watched him until he disappeared beyond
a bend in the road and then she breathed a sigh of
relief. She heard a stamping without and the laughing
young people swarmed into the kitchen.</p>
<p>“Ho, Doris, who was the chap that just went
by?” Bob called—but before the girl could reply,
something else happened to attract their attention.
Bertha, in the kitchen, was crying in dismay:
“Where is the cook? What has she been doing?
We’ll have to discharge her. I’m thinking. The
bacon is burned to a cinder.”</p>
<p>Doris, thankful indeed for this timely interruption,
ran into the kitchen and declared remorsefully:
“Oh, isn’t that too bad, and I suppose you are all
hungry as bears, but luckily I brought an extra supply.
Throw that out, Bertha, please, and I’ll get
some more.” Then, as she searched in her basket,
she added hurriedly: “I suppose I left it burn while
the sheriff was here.”</p>
<p>“The sheriff!” was the surprised chorus.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_113">[113]</div>
<p>“Why, what did he want?” Jack asked. “He
didn’t suppose that we had the highwayman here
as one of our guests, did he?”</p>
<p>Doris purposely did not look at any of them as
she put the strips of bacon into the pan which Bertha
had prepared. “Oh, Sheriff Ross and his men were
just passing by,” she said with an effort at indifference,
“and so he thought he would stop and ask us
if we had any idea where the bold robber might be.”</p>
<p>“He is wasting his time,” Bob declared. “I am
positive that Dorchester holds his man by this
time.”</p>
<p>Peggy and Dick Jensen entered the kitchen at
this moment and the girl exclaimed: “Oh, Doris,
I’ve had bad luck. I broke one of my straps, but
since you aren’t going to skate today, may I take
one of yours?”</p>
<p>What could Doris say? How could she explain
the absence of her skates? She was busy at the
stove and she pretended that she had not heard,
but before the other girl could repeat her question,
Bob called: “Here’s one for you, Peg. I always
carry an extra strap in my pocket.”</p>
<p>Doris again breathed a sigh of relief, but it was
a short one, for, a second later, she thought of
something which set her heart to throbbing wildly.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_114">[114]</div>
<p>The bag of gold! She had hidden it under a
cushion on one of the chairs when the sheriff was
knocking.</p>
<p>The seven boys were now in the living-room and
she heard Bob teasingly say: “Jack, you’re the
oldest. Sit down in this grandfather’s chair and
see what you’re coming to.”</p>
<p>That old-fashioned armchair was the very one
where the bag of gold was hidden. In another
moment Jack would be sitting on it.</p>
<p>“Here, Bertha!” Doris called wildly. “Please
turn the bacon. I must sit down for a moment.
I feel faint!”</p>
<p>Rushing into the living-room, the girl sank into
the grandfather’s chair just as Jack was about to
occupy it.</p>
<p>“Why, Doris,” Dick exclaimed, “you look as
white as a sheet! Are you ill?”</p>
<p>“I guess it must have been the heat from the
stove or—or something,” was the vague reply.
Doris was thinking wildly. How could she get the
money from beneath the chair cushion with thirteen
boys and girls bringing her water and watching her
every move with troubled solicitude.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_115">[115]</div>
<p>The skating party, which had started out so merrily,
seemed destined to be a succession of troubled
events. The boys and girls, gazing anxiously at the
pale face of their friend, had not the slightest suspicion
of the real facts, supposing only that Doris
was suddenly faint.</p>
<p>“Perhaps it is caused by the wrench that you gave
your ankle this morning,” Bertha said; then added
self-rebukingly: “I had completely forgotten it,
Doris, or I would not have permitted you to stand
for the past hour and prepare our supper.”</p>
<p>The object of their solicitation, believing that for
the time being the gold was safe, smiled up at them
as she exclaimed brightly: “Oh, I’m just lots better
now. Please, all of you sit down and eat your lunch
or the bacon will be cold instead of burned. I’ll just
sit here and watch you. Why, yes, thank you, Bob,
I would like a cup of cocoa,” she added to the lad
who offered to bring it.</p>
<p>While Doris was slowly sipping the hot drink, she
closely watched the others as they sat about the table
and began to pass the tempting viands. When she
believed that no one was observing her, she slipped
a hand down under the cushion of the chair and
grasped the bag of gold. Then, hiding it under her
apron, she arose to carry her cup to the kitchen.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_116">[116]</div>
<p>Bob sprang to assist her, but Doris laughingly
waved him back. “I’m as good as new, Bobbie,”
she said. “I’ll be right back, so save me some food.”</p>
<p>Upon reaching the kitchen she looked around
hastily to see where she could again hide the money.
A drawer being partly open, she thrust the bag to a
far corner and, with a sigh of relief, she went into
the living-room and sank down on the part of the
long bench which had been reserved for her.</p>
<p>Bob looked at her curiously. It seemed strange
to him that after a fainting spell one could suddenly
be so ravenously hungry, but he said nothing and
tried with his usual witty nonsense to make the meal
a merry one.</p>
<p>It was just as they were rising from the table that
Bob saw something. that caused him to stare in
amazement. Luckily no one noticed him as the girls
were good-naturedly disputing about the matter of
dish-washing, and the boys were donning their great
coats and caps preparing to return to the ice.</p>
<p>What Bob saw was the door of the closet standing
ajar, and well he knew that when they had first
arrived, the door had not only been locked but the
key had been nowhere in evidence.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_117">[117]</div>
<p>What could it mean? he wondered, and again he
glanced curiously at Doris.</p>
<p>Then he said with assumed gaiety: “Girls, stop
squabbling and get into your things and go skating
with the boys. I’ll remain in the cabin and help
Doris repack the baskets. Since she cannot skate,
I’ll stay and be her brave and bold protector.”</p>
<p>When they were alone the lad turned to the girl,
whom he had known since her baby days, and he
said kindly: “Now, Doris, tell me what is troubling
you. What has happened?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_118">[118]</div>
<h2 id="c14">CHAPTER XIV. <br/><span class="small">TWO CONSPIRATORS</span></h2>
<p>Doris, knowing that she could trust Bob, made
him promise eternal secrecy and then she told him
the whole story, withholding only the name of the
highwayman.</p>
<p>The lad was indeed surprised at this sudden turn
of affairs and he said at once: “You don’t need to
tell me who it is, Doris. I know it was Tom Duffy.
He was expelled from High last week and he said
he was going to skip the town.”</p>
<p>Doris wondered if she ought to deny this, but,
desiring to shield Danny, she said nothing at the
time.</p>
<p>Bringing forth the bag of gold, she gave it to
the boy.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_119">[119]</div>
<p>He concealed it in the deep pocket of his heavy
overcoat; then he said: “Now, Doris, you just leave
it to me. I’ll find some way to return this to the old
man tonight so that he may be relieved of his worrying.
I’ll wait for a hunch.”</p>
<p>Then, as the work of tidying the kitchen was
finished, Bob exclaimed: “Now bundle up, Doris,
I’ll draw you on the sled while I skate. We can’t
let you miss all of the fun.”</p>
<p>They were greeted with jolly shouts when they
appeared, and Dick Jensen slid up to them, stopping
only to do a double figure eight, in which accomplishment
he excelled. Then, taking the rope of the
sled from Bob’s warmly gloved hand, he said: “I’ll
be Doris’ pony. I’m sure she would rather have
me, and, if I’m not mistaken, you’ll find Rose waiting
for you beyond the point.”</p>
<p>Bob’s face lighted. It was understood among
these young people that some day, when they were
older, Rose and Bob would be engaged, and since it
was the only real romance in their midst, they all
took a delighted interest in it.</p>
<p>For an hour the gleaming ice was the picture of
a merry mid-winter frolic, but, as soon as the sun
began rapidly to descend to the horizon, Bob took
Rose’s horn and blew thereon a long, clear blast,
while the maiden at his side, with cheeks as glowing
as her ruddy name flower, beckoned the skaters
shoreward.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_120">[120]</div>
<p>“Time to be going!” Bob called as they flocked in.
“The sky is so cloudy, the moon won’t be able to
light us home, so we’ll try to make it before dark.”</p>
<p>Half an hour later the cabin had been securely
locked, the sleigh filled with merrymakers, and the
horses eager to be away after their long rest in the
shelter of a shed.</p>
<p>It was nearly dark when the inn was reached. Mr.
Wiggin appeared in the door to exclaim, “Well, I’m
mighty glad to see you young folks headed for town.
My wife’s been worrying the whole afternoon,
knowing that highwayman was still at large. The
sheriff and his men found some tracks just back of
the inn leading toward the pine wood.” Merry put
in excitedly: “Oh, Mr. Wiggin, if that robber was
riding a horse, we know where he turned toward
the old Dorchester road.” But the innkeeper shook
his head.</p>
<p>“No, he was afoot, old man Bartlett said. Hal
Spinney, from the milk farm, went by a spell earlier
on horseback.”</p>
<p>“How is Mr. Bartlett now?” Gertrude asked
solicitously.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_121">[121]</div>
<p>“Well, he’s pretty much all in,” Mr. Wiggin replied
sympathetically. Then, jerking his thumb over
his shoulder, he said in a low voice, as though not
wishing to be heard: “My wife wouldn’t hear to his
going back to his shack up in the woods, so she’s
got him in there by the fire. He’s pretty hard hit,
as you can guess, that five hundred dollars being
his lifetime savings.”</p>
<p>Bob was thinking hard. Now was the time to
give the money back to Old Man Bartlett, but he
had promised Doris that he would not tell how
she had procured it. He thought it queer that the
girl should care to protect that ne’er-do-well of a
Tom Duffy; nevertheless he had given his word and
would keep it. Jack was driving and was about to
start the horses when Bob called: “Wait a minute,
Jack, will you? I’d like to take a look at those
tracks. Mr. Wiggin, I’m a shark at recognizing
shoeprints. I wish you’d show them to me.”</p>
<p>The girls, who were not in the secret, smiled at
each other knowingly. This carried out their theory
that the members of the “C. D. C.” were trying to
solve the mystery of the highwayman.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_122">[122]</div>
<p>“Sure thing. I’ll show them to you,” the garrulous
innkeeper replied. “Wait till I get a lantern.
Dark’s settling down fast.”</p>
<p>A couple of the other boys climbed out of the
sleigh, idly curious, and accompanied Bob and Mr.
Wiggin, who had reappeared with a lighted lantern.
Doris clenched her hands together nervously under
the buffalo rope. That Bob had his “hunch” she
was sure, but what he was about to do, she could
not guess.</p>
<p>Five minutes passed, and ten; then the boys returned
greatly excited. They were all talking at
once. “What happened?” Merry called out.</p>
<p>“Happened?” Dick Jensen exclaimed. “The
money’s been found. Mr. Wiggin stumbled right
over that bag of gold. The robber must have been
frightened and dropped it in the snow close to his
tracks. Every cent of it was there.”</p>
<p>“O, thank goodness!” Gertrude exclaimed. “Now
the old man can stop worrying.”</p>
<p>Mr. Wiggin held the lantern up, his round face
glowing. “It sure was a lucky thing that Bob, here,
wanted to look at those tracks,” he said. “No telling
but what that robber might have come back in
the night, knowing where he had dropped it.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_123">[123]</div>
<p>“Do hurry in, Mr. Wiggin, and give it to old Mr.
Bartlett,” Doris begged, and if there was an unusual
tenseness in her voice, none of the others noticed it.
Bob glanced meaningly in her direction as he sat
beside his Rose, and Doris, who had been silent
before that, suddenly became the life of the party.
“Oh, boys, please change your minds about taking
us right home,” she pleaded. “We girls want to
turn up the wood road just a little distance.”</p>
<p>“Why, Doris Drexel,” Betty Byrd cried in evident
alarm, “<i>what</i> a wild suggestion! Why in the world
should we want to go up the very road where the
robbery took place!”</p>
<p>“That’s what I’d like to know!” Bertha began,
then she remembered that Doris’ suggestion was
merely the carrying out of their plan to try to discover
if the boys of the “C. D. C.” held their secret
meetings in the old Welsley “haunted” house. If
the boys were willing to take the girls through the
old ruin, it would mean that it was <i>not</i> their meeting
place.</p>
<p>“Oh, yes—do let’s go!” Bertha then seconded.</p>
<p>“All right,” Jack sang out willingly. “I’ll have
to back up a little. We’ve passed the wood road.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_124">[124]</div>
<p>“O, girls,” Merry gave Doris and Bertha a wink
of understanding, “let’s go there some other time.
I think we’ve given our guests of honor enough
thrills for tonight.”</p>
<p>To which Geraldine heartily agreed, and so the
horses were turned out upon the highway. When
the girls had been left at their homes, the boys
laughed and shouted as though at a good joke. The
girls would indeed have been mystified if they had
heard them.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_125">[125]</div>
<h2 id="c15">CHAPTER XV. <br/><span class="small">A BOY’S REPENTANCE</span></h2>
<p>Danny O’Neil, meanwhile having skated across
the lake, had returned to his work as he had promised
Doris that he would.</p>
<p>The Colonel was away and the lad hurriedly did
the tasks expected of him. When these were finished,
he went to his barren room over the garage, and,
throwing himself down on his bed, he sobbed and
sobbed. “Oh, Mom,” he said aloud, “I don’t know
how I’m going to get on without you. There’s
nobody now that cares, but I promised you I’d be
brave and go straight, and I’ll try, Mom, but it’s
hard, hard!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_126">[126]</div>
<p>There was a light tap on the door and the boy sat
up and hurriedly drew his coat sleeve over his eyes.
Then he rose and opened it. There stood the dearest
little old lady, dressed in gray. She was smiling at
him in a most loving way and she said: “Danny,
I’m the Colonel’s new housekeeper. I want to look
after everyone living on the place, and so I came out
to see what I can do for you.”</p>
<p>The lad wondered if this little woman had heard
what he, believing himself to be alone, had said but
a moment before. Mrs. Gray had indeed heard and
she longed to take the lonely, motherless boy in her
arms and try to comfort him, but, since she could
not do this, she hurriedly planned to try in some
measure to fill the place of the dear one the lad had
so recently lost.</p>
<p>Mrs. Gray took the Colonel into her confidence
and that kindly man said: “Well, well, I might have
known how lonely the boy would be without his
mother. I remember how proud she was of him,
and, come to think of it, she asked me at one time
if there wasn’t some school where he could go without
much expense and study drawing. She said he
was always making pictures on his books or on anything
that was handy, and it caused a good deal of
trouble between the boy and his father, because Mr.
O’Neil declared that only a shiftless, no account
would idle his time away making pictures. I’m glad
you spoke to me about the lad, Mrs. Gray. I’ll send
for him this evening perhaps, and have a talk with
him. In the meantime, do anything you wish to
make his quarters more comfortable.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_127">[127]</div>
<p>That very morning, at the housekeeper’s request,
the Colonel sent Danny on an errand which would
necessitate his being away for several hours.</p>
<p>During that time two easy chairs that were not
needed in the big house were taken to the boy’s room
in the garage. Curtains made of colored prints
were hung at the windows and another piece covered
the bureau on which stood a picture of the mother
who had so loved her son.</p>
<p>Mrs. Gray, with the Colonel’s permission, looked
through his library and found several books that a
boy would enjoy, “Ivanhoe,” “The Last of the
Mohicans,” and a complete set of the writings of
Mark Twain.</p>
<p>These, with a few pictures, gave the room, formerly
so barren, a pleasant, home-like appearance.</p>
<p>The little woman was busily renovating the lad’s
bed when Danny returned.</p>
<p>“Mrs. Gray,” he said, and there was a catch in
his voice, “have you been doing all this just for
me?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_128">[128]</div>
<p>“Why of course Danny-boy,” that little woman
replied brightly. “What is a housekeeper for, if not
to make things cheerful and tidy?” Then she hurried
on to say, “The Colonel would like you to come
to his study tonight at eight.”</p>
<p>When the boy was alone, he stood gazing out at
the snowy fields, although he did not see them. He
was wondering if by any chance the Colonel had
heard of the highway robbery, and was going to
rebuke him, perhaps discharge him.</p>
<p>Half an hour later he was called to the house by
Mrs. Gray. “You’re wanted at the phone,” she said.
“It’s a lassie with a sweet voice as is askin’ for you,”
she added.</p>
<p>The boy was sure that it must be Doris who
wished to speak to him, and he was right. “Danny,
come over to my house tonight at eight o’clock
promptly. I have something important to tell you.”</p>
<p>The lad turned away. Perhaps Doris knew that
the sheriff was again on his trail and wanted to
warn him. What should he do, and how could he
explain his absence to the Colonel?</p>
<p>As Danny was leaving the telephone, he met the
housekeeper, who smiled at him pleasantly.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_129">[129]</div>
<p>“Mrs. Gray,” the boy said, “a friend has just
called up and asked me to be in town tonight at
eight. Do you think the Colonel would be willing
to see me at another hour?”</p>
<p>“I’m sure of it,” the little old lady replied. “He
is alone in his study now. Wait here. Danny, and
I will ask him.”</p>
<p>A moment later she returned and told the boy
that the Colonel would see him. Almost fearfully
the lad entered the pleasant room, where the walls,
lined with books, statues and paintings, told the
artistic and literary taste of the gentleman who spent
there many quiet hours each day. The kindly welcome
that Danny received banished his fear, and
when he left the study half an hour later, in his
heart there was a new hope and a strengthened
resolve. He whistled as he tramped into town that
evening, and when Doris opened the door at his
ring, his radiant face was so unlike the one she had
last seen in the cabin, she marveled at the change.</p>
<p>“Do tell me what has happened,” she said as soon
as they were seated.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_130">[130]</div>
<p>“It’s almost too wonderful to believe,” the boy
exclaimed. “It seems that last year my mother asked
the Colonel’s advice about sending me to some inexpensive
art school, and today he told me that if
I still desired to go, he would help me accomplish
that end. I’m to prove that I can stick at a thing
by working for him faithfully all winter and then,
in the spring, he will permit me to go to the Dorchester
Art Institute. The days will be long, and
I can be up with the birds and work in the garage
and garden before I go to the city and again when
I return. I want to do commercial drawing of some
sort.” Then the boy paused and a deep flush
mounted his face. “Good Angel,” he said, “I forgot
that you probably think of me as a criminal and
a highwayman.”</p>
<p>“Indeed I do not,” Doris protested. “I’m so
happy for you, and I just know that you will make
good, but, Danny, you haven’t asked me about the
gold. I want you to know that it has been returned.”</p>
<p>The boy’s sensitive face expressed his great relief,
then, unexpectedly, tears brimmed his eyes. “Doris,”
he said, “the rest of my life will not be long enough
to atone for that terrible wrong. I hope I may be
able to do a real service for that old man some day.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_131">[131]</div>
<p>“I know you will, Danny,” the girl put her hand
lightly on his arm. “Now, I want you to promise
me that we will never again mention or even think
of what happened. Promise me, Danny.”</p>
<p>Before the boy could reply, the door bell had
pealed and laughing voices were heard without. The
lad rose at once.</p>
<p>“Danny, don’t go!” Doris urged. “Geraldine and
Alfred and some of the others are out there, and
they would be glad to meet you.”</p>
<p>The brightness left the boy’s face, and he said
bitterly, “You are wrong, Good Angel. Geraldine
Morrison has never spoken a pleasant word to me.
You must remember I am only their gardener.”</p>
<p>The bell was ringing insistently and so Doris
swung open the door. A laughing crowd of girls
and boys trooped into the hall. Danny tried to leave
but Bob stopped him.</p>
<p>“Hello, Dan,” he said good-naturedly, “don’t
hurry away on our account. The more the merrier,
you know.”</p>
<p>“Have you met Miss Morrison?” he asked, then
quickly added: “Of course you have. I forgot at
the minute that you both live at the Colonel’s.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_132">[132]</div>
<p>Geraldine, pretending not to have heard her name,
was talking to Doris and her back was toward the
boys.</p>
<p>Bob noticed this, and then he realized that the
proud city girl might consider Danny’s position in
the Wainright home a menial one.</p>
<p>“Sorry you are going, Dan,” Alfred now came
forward. “Why don’t you wait and ride home with
Sis and me?”</p>
<p>“Thanks,” the other replied as he reached for his
great coat. “I think I would better be going now.”</p>
<p>Suddenly there was a crashing noise in their
midst, and a loosely wrapped bundle containing a
pair of skates fell to the floor from beneath Danny’s
coat.</p>
<p>“Why, Doris,” Peggy exclaimed in astonishment,
“those are your skates, aren’t they? This morning
when I asked if I might borrow them, you said you
weren’t able to find them.”</p>
<p>Bob hurried to the rescue. “Guess you must have
left them in the sleigh. Good thing Danny found
them for you. Well, so long, old man, if you must
go. See you again.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_133">[133]</div>
<p>When the Irish boy had gone Doris glanced at
Bob, wondering if he had surmised that Danny
O’Neil was the real highwayman, but that boy said
nothing to confirm her suspicion that evening nor
ever after. However, Bob did know, and he determined
that he would do all he could to help Danny
O’Neil.</p>
<p>“Take off your things and stay a while,” Doris
urged, but Merry shook her head. “No, we just
came to get you. We’re so noisy when we’re all
together, I know we would disturb your mother.
Mums and Dad have gone to a concert and good
old Katie doesn’t mind how much noise we make, so
put on your duds and let’s go through the hedge.
Jack shoveled a path today from your door to ours.
One of his daily good deeds.”</p>
<p>The Drexels and Lees were next-door neighbors
with a pine hedge between them, but of course there
was a gate in it.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_134">[134]</div>
<p>Fifteen minutes later they were in the big comfortable
Lee library with the victrola turned on.
Jack at once asked Geraldine to dance with him,
and since she thought him nicest of all the boys, she
was pleased to accept. After a time he led her to the
settee in front of the fireplace, on which a log was
burning. “I’d rather talk a while,” he said, but,
instead of talking, he sat looking into the fire.
Geraldine, glancing at him, thought how good-looking
he was. At last she asked lightly, “Are
your thoughts worth a penny?” Then she added,
“I don’t believe that you even know that you are
here.”</p>
<p>The boy laughed as he replied: “I will have to
confess that my thoughts had taken me far away.
I was traveling years into the future when you recalled
me to the present.”</p>
<p>Then, because of the girl’s very evident interest,
the lad continued: “Dad and I had a heart to heart
talk this morning. He thinks that if I plan taking
up his business of building and contracting, I would
better begin to specialize along those lines, but I told
him that, first of all, I want to go West and try
cattle ranching.”</p>
<p>“Oh, Jack, what a dreadful thing to do!” the girl
protested.</p>
<p>The boy’s face was radiant as he replied: “You
are mistaken. It’s great out there!”</p>
<p>But it was quite evident that his companion did
not agree with him.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_135">[135]</div>
<p>“A man who goes out to live on a desert ranch
must expect to be a bachelor all his life,” Geraldine
ventured, “for no girl of our class would want to
live in such a desolate place.”</p>
<p>The boy looked up brightly. “Wrong again,
Geraldine!” he said. “The girl I would want to
marry would love it out there.” Then he laughingly
added: “You see, I never intend to marry
until I find someone who will be as fine a little homemaker
as my mother is. Mom could be a rich man’s
wife or a poor man’s wife and shine in either position.
She can make her own dresses and hats if
need be and enjoy doing it, and, as for cooking,
Kate can’t compare with her. Of course I wouldn’t
expect my wife to be a drudge, but I do want her to
know how to do all of the things that make home a
place of solid comfort. None of these pretty,
dolled-up, society girls for me!”</p>
<p>The lad was not looking at his listener and so he
did not know that the rose in her cheeks had deepened,
or that she was biting her lips angrily.
Although she had no real reason for thinking so,
she was convinced Jack was expressing his very poor
opinion of her, Geraldine Morrison. She rose and
said coldly, “It is late. Alfred and I must be going.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_136">[136]</div>
<p>That night she cried for a long time, though she
could not have told why, and she decided that the
very next morning she would ask the Colonel to
permit her to return to the city where the boys
admired and understood her.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_137">[137]</div>
<h2 id="c16">CHAPTER XVI. <br/><span class="small">THE HEART OF A SNOB</span></h2>
<p>The Colonel glanced anxiously at his young guest
the next morning. She had been so bright and
animated for days that the good man was beginning
to hope that the city girl was becoming acclimated,
but again she was looking pale and disinterested.
When she had finished her breakfast and had retired
to her room, the Colonel called Mrs. Gray into his
study and together they had a long talk about
Geraldine.</p>
<p>“Poor little girl,” the kind old lady said. “She
has never known a mother’s love and I would be
glad to help her, but I can’t reach her heart. She
treats me courteously, but her attitude says as plainly
as words: ‘Mrs. Gray, you are only an upper servant
from whom I wish no familiarity.’ I have tried ever
since I came to find something which would be the
open sesame of this stone barrier which the little
girl has raised between us, but I am beginning to
think that there is none.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_138">[138]</div>
<p>“Try just once more,” the Colonel said anxiously,
“and then, if you do not succeed, I will comply with
her father’s suggestion and send her away to a boarding
school if she is unhappy here.”</p>
<p>The little old lady went directly to Geraldine’s
room and tapped on the door. There was no reply
and so she softly entered.</p>
<p>The girl had thrown herself down on the window
seat and her shoulders were shaken with sobs.
Strangely enough in one hand she held a stocking
which she had evidently been attempting to darn.</p>
<p>Truly touched, the kind old lady went toward her
and said with infinite tenderness: “Dear, dear little
girl! Won’t you tell me why you are unhappy?”
She sat beside Geraldine and smoothed her hair.</p>
<p>“Oh, why didn’t my mother live?” was the sobbing
reply. “She would have taught me the things
that other girls know how to do, and then no one
could have called me a pretty dolled-up butterfly.”</p>
<p>Mrs. Grey realized that someone had deeply hurt
Geraldine’s pride, but perhaps this was the very cleft
in the stone wall for which she had been seeking.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_139">[139]</div>
<p>“Little girl,” she said kindly, “you cannot know
how my heart has yearned through the years, first
for a daughter of my own and then for a granddaughter
to whom I might teach the things that
would help her to become a truly womanly woman.
It would mean so much to me, Geraldine; it would
give me so much happiness, if you would let me just
pretend that you are that little girl.”</p>
<p>The wondering lassie sat up, her beautiful violet
eyes brimming with unshed tears. There were also
tears in the eyes of the old lady, and, perhaps, for
the first time in her sixteen years the girl felt a rush
of sympathy in her heart for someone not herself.</p>
<p>“You, too, are lonely, Mrs. Gray?” she asked.
Then she added sorrowfully: “I guess I never really
knew what I had missed until I heard the boys and
girls here telling about their wonderful mothers.
Father has often told me that my mother was wonderful,
too. She would have taught me to sew and
make my own dresses and hats and to cook, if that
is what a girl should know.”</p>
<p>The housekeeper marveled. This was not the
Geraldine of yesterday. What had happened? Mrs.
Gray could not know, but what she did know was
that it was a moment to seize upon, and this she did.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_140">[140]</div>
<p>“Geraldine,” she said, “let me teach you these
things.”</p>
<p>“Oh, will you?” was the eager reply. “How long
will it take me to learn, do you think? May I begin
a dress today?”</p>
<p>Mrs. Gray laughed, and, stooping, she kissed the
girl’s wet cheek, then she said: “Get on your coat,
dearie, and we will go into town and buy the
material.”</p>
<p>This was the beginning of happy days for these
two.</p>
<p>A week later Geraldine stood in front of the long
mirror in her sun-flooded room, gazing with shining
eyes at her own graceful self, clothed, for the very
first time, in a garment of her own making.</p>
<p>She had begged Mrs. Gray to permit her to put in
every stitch so that she might truthfully say that she
made it all herself. To whom she wished to say
this, the little old lady could not surmise.</p>
<p>“Isn’t it the prettiest color, Mrs. Gray?” Geraldine
asked for the twentieth time as she looked at
the clinging folds of soft blue cashmere.</p>
<p>“It is indeed, dearie,” the housekeeper replied,
“and it’s the blue that makes your eyes look like two
lovely violets.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_141">[141]</div>
<p>The girl’s gaze wandered to the reflection of her
face and she smiled. “Daddy says that my eyes are
just like Mother’s. I’m so glad.” Then she added
happily: “It’s all done, isn’t it, Mrs. Gray, except a
collar, and we haven’t decided how to make that yet,
have we? Oh, there’s the telephone. I wonder who
it is?”</p>
<p>Skipping to the little table near her bed, she lifted
the receiver and called, “Good morning.”</p>
<p>Merry’s voice said: “Geraldine, we want you to
come over this afternoon.”</p>
<p>“I’ll be there!” the seamstress replied, and then,
whirling around, she exclaimed: “It was Merry
Lee. She wants me to be at her house about three.
How I wish I could wear my new dress.”</p>
<p>“Why, so you can, dearie. I’ll cut out a deep
muslin collar and you can sew tiny ruffles around
the edge and the dress will be complete long before
that hour.”</p>
<p>In the early afternoon, all alone, Geraldine
tramped down the snowy road and her heart was
singing. She could not understand why she felt so
happy.</p>
<p>The girls were gathered in the cheerful library
of the Lee home when Geraldine entered.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_142">[142]</div>
<p>They welcomed her gladly, and when her wraps
were removed Merry, in little girl fashion, exclaimed:
“Oh, do look, everybody. Isn’t that the
sweetest new dress Geraldine has on?”</p>
<p>The wearer of the dress, with flushed cheeks and
glowing eyes, turned around that the girls might all
examine her gown, and then, unable longer to keep
her wonderful secret, she exclaimed: “You’ll never
believe it, but it’s honestly true. I made every stitch
of this dress myself. Of course, Mrs. Gray cut it
out and showed me how, but truly I made it, and
I never enjoyed doing anything more in my whole
life.”</p>
<p>Then it was that Geraldine chanced to glance at
the open door of the music room, and the rose in her
cheeks deepened, for Jack, with book in hand, was
standing there. Luckily he had completely forgotten
the conversation of the week before and so he did
not even dream that his theories had been the incentive
for Geraldine’s experiments in dressmaking.</p>
<p>“Jack,” his sister called, “isn’t this a pretty dress?
Geraldine made it all herself.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_143">[143]</div>
<p>“It surely is!” the lad replied as he entered the
room. “It’s the color I like best.” Then, as Merry
and Doris served hot chocolate and cookies, the lad
sat on the window seat beside Geraldine and talked
about his favorite subject, cattle-raising in Arizona.
An hour later, when the girls were about to depart,
he reappeared to announce that he would take them
all home in his father’s big sleigh if they did not
mind being crowded. It was with a happy heart
that Geraldine noticed that one by one Jack left the
town girls at their homes, and then went round
the longest way to the Wainright place.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_144">[144]</div>
<h2 id="c17">CHAPTER XVII. <br/><span class="small">FIRST DAY IN A NEW SCHOOL</span></h2>
<p>It had been decided between Mr. Morrison and
the Colonel, who had been corresponding about the
matter, not to start Geraldine in the Sunnyside
Seminary until she appeared to be quite contented
to stay in the village. But on the Monday morning
following the making of her dress, Geraldine herself
appeared in the breakfast room unusually early and
asked her “uncle-colonel” if he would not take her
out to the seminary and introduce her to Miss
Demorest. How the old gentleman’s face brightened
as he asked: “And so you are really content to
stay and be the sunshine of my home?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_145">[145]</div>
<p>Impulsively the girl kissed his cheek. “I’m glad
you <i>want</i> me,” she said sincerely, “and I’ll <i>try</i> to be
sunny.” Then, as Mrs. Gray had entered the room
with a cheery good morning, the Colonel shared the
good news. There was a mistiness in the grey eyes
of the little old lady and a song of thanksgiving in
her heart. Geraldine, to prove to them that <i>her</i>
heart was changed, went over and kissed Mrs. Gray
also as she said: “My dear little Make-believe
Grandmother is helping me to see things in a different
light, more as I would have seen them if
Mother had lived.”</p>
<p>Then into the room came Alfred, and the good
news was told to him. “That’s great!” he exclaimed.
“Dad will be so pleased. He certainly has a soft
spot in his big heart for this little old town. Say,
Mrs. Gray, do you mind if I eat in a rush? I’m
afraid I’ll be late for the students’ special if I don’t
hurry.”</p>
<p>Alfred and Jack went every morning to the
“Prep” school in Dorchester.</p>
<p>During the sleigh ride to the seminary Geraldine
chatted happily about how surprised the girls would
be to see her there. She had purposely timed their
going, when classes would be occupied, that she
might surprise them at the recess of which they had
told her.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_146">[146]</div>
<p>And that is just what happened. After making
arrangements with Miss Demorest for his ward to
complete the winter term at the seminary, the
Colonel departed, promising to return at the closing
hour, but Geraldine said that she would like to walk
to town with the other girls and that she would
wait at Merry Lee’s house until Jack and Alfred
returned from Dorchester. Then she and her
brother could return together.</p>
<p>The Colonel noticed a slight flushing of her pretty
face as she made the suggestion, and he wondered
about it as he drove home through the crisp, sunlit
morning.</p>
<p>After planning with Miss Demorest about the
classes she would enter, Geraldine was told that she
might wait in the library, where a cheerful fire was
burning in the hearth, and that, after the midmorning
recreation, she might accompany her
friends to Miss Preen’s English class.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_147">[147]</div>
<p>As Geraldine sat in the big comfortable chair in
front of the fire, she had time to think how very
different her stay in Sunnyside was turning out from
what she had expected. How she had dreaded it,
and how selfish and stubborn she had been! It was
a wonder that the Colonel had even <i>wanted</i> her to
stay; and how could that dear Mrs. Gray be so nice
to her when she had snubbed her so rudely? Even
the girls had been generous to overlook her snobbishness
when they came to call upon her. She
actually laughed aloud when she thought of the
prank they had played upon her. Then she curled
up in the chair and tried to hide, for the gong was
announcing recess. A moment later merry laughter
was heard as doors up and down the long corridor
opened and the day pupils and boarding pupils
emerged from their classes. Geraldine was wondering
where her group of friends would go. She had
hoped they would flock to the library, nor was she
disappointed. Although she could not see them, she
knew their voices. Merry was saying, “Girls, come
in the library a minute. I have some news for you.”</p>
<p>“Is it secret?” Bertha asked.</p>
<p>“I’ll say it is—that is, just at first; after a time
we’ll tell it to Geraldine. Are we all here? Close
the door, will you; nobody will notice.”</p>
<p>“No, we’re <i>not</i> all here. Gertrude isn’t. Where
<i>can</i> she be? Why didn’t she come to school today?”
Rose wondered.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_148">[148]</div>
<p>“That’s why I have called this special meeting,”
Merry explained. “Gertrude has gone to Dorchester
to spend the winter. It was very sudden; she didn’t
have time even to call you all up to say good-bye.
Her mother’s sister was taken very ill last night
and they sent for Gertrude to take care of the children.
Her aunt thinks everything of Trudie, and
as she has to go to the hospital for an operation, she
said she just couldn’t go contentedly unless Gertrude
was there to look after her two babies. It will be
spring before she can return.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I say, that <i>is</i> too bad! She’ll miss all the
fun we’ve planned for this winter,” Bertha said.
“But you have more to tell, Merry. What is it?”</p>
<p>“Yes, I have,” their president confessed. “Gertrude
suggested that, since we need seven girls in
our secret society, she would like us to invite——”</p>
<p>There was a sudden rustling noise. “Hark!
There’s someone in this room,” Peggy announced.</p>
<p>The girl in hiding sprang up. “I’m terribly sorry,
girls,” she said. “I didn’t want to eavesdrop. I was
crouching down so that I could leap out and surprise
you when you came over by the fire, as I supposed
of course you would.”</p>
<p>With a glad cry of surprise her friends surrounded
Geraldine, asking a dozen questions at
once. How did she happen to be there? Was she
going to stay?</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_149">[149]</div>
<p>And when she had answered them all satisfactorily,
Merry announced: “This is like a play.
Characters enter just when they’re needed.”</p>
<p>Geraldine’s face was beaming. “O, I am <i>so</i> glad,
if I am <i>wanted</i> even,” she told them. “I can’t understand,
though, how I can be <i>needed</i>.”</p>
<p>“We’ll have to tell you later,” the president announced.
“The ten-minute recess is over. Hear
that cruel gong! Now, Gerry, what class are you
to start in?”</p>
<p>“Miss Demorest said that if I would accompany
Merry Lee everywhere that she went, I couldn’t go
wrong.”</p>
<p>“Oh, goodie-good!” Betty Byrd exclaimed. “That
means we are all in Miss Preen’s English class.”</p>
<p>“Shh! Come on!” Rose called to them from the
open doorway.</p>
<p>Merry introduced the new pupil to the angular
Miss Preen and Geraldine thought she never had
seen a thinner person or one with sharper eyes. She
felt sure that she would heartily dislike the English
teacher, but what did <i>that</i> matter as long as she was
in the class with all of her friends.</p>
<p>Before the hour was over Geraldine had, at least,
to acknowledge to herself that Miss Preen knew
how to teach and that she made the subject very
interesting. After all, what more did one require
in a teacher?</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_150">[150]</div>
<p>From there they went to a song service conducted
in the basement recreation hall by Professor Lowsley,
whose hair, soft, grey and wavy, rested on his
shoulders. His near-sighted eyes were gentle and
light blue, and his manner one of infinite patience.
For half an hour the forty girls in the school practiced
vocal scales all together, then sang songs, some
old and some new, until the gong announced for
them a change of activities. Geraldine was interested
to know what was to happen next.</p>
<p>“We go to lunch now,” Merry informed her.
“After we’ve washed up in yonder lavatory.”</p>
<p>The dining-rooms were also in the basement, beyond
the recreation hall, and Geraldine was delighted
to find that she was to occupy Gertrude’s place at a
table with her six friends and one teacher, a Miss
Adelaine Brockett, young, who had charge of the
gym, understanding theatricals and games. In reality
she was Miss Demorest’s assistant and often had
entire charge of the seminary during the principal’s
absences. The girls seemed to adore Miss Brockett,
but of course Merry could not talk about their club
plans with anyone else present.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_151">[151]</div>
<p>“Isn’t it great that we day pupils are allowed to
have lunch here these wintry days? It’s a long mile
to the middle of town and that poky old street car
never could get us home and back in time for
classes,” Peg said to Geraldine, who agreed that it
was a jolly plan.</p>
<p>“You missed math,” Rose informed her. “We
have that torturous subject first thing in the
morning.”</p>
<p>Then the afternoon classes began: History, General
Sciences, Drawing, and French. But at last
three o’clock arrived and the girls started to walk to
town. “I’m so glad you didn’t have your ‘uncle-colonel’
call for you,” Merry informed Geraldine,
who was walking at her side, the other girls following
two by two, that being as wide as the walk had
been shoveled in that suburban part of town. They
passed fine old homes set far back on wide snow-covered
grounds among bare old trees. “We are
having a most important club meeting at my house
today, and——”</p>
<p>Geraldine stood still, exclaiming with sincere disappointment:
“Then I can’t stop there and wait for
Alfred as I told my uncle-colonel that I would.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_152">[152]</div>
<p>“Why not?” Merry asked; then before her companion
could reply, she exclaimed: “Oh, I understand
now! You think we wouldn’t want to discuss
club business with you there. You’re wrong, Gerry,
my dear! We <i>especially do</i> want you there. Now,
don’t ask me any questions. This is a secret club
and it wouldn’t do for me to tell you a thing about it
until the meeting is called.” And with that explanation
the curious Geraldine had to be content.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_153">[153]</div>
<h2 id="c18">CHAPTER XVIII. <br/><span class="small">A MYSTERY TO SOLVE</span></h2>
<p>“Meeting is called to order!” Merry turned to
beckon the girl, who, feeling rather like an intruder,
had seated herself some distance from the others.
“Gerry, come over and sit in Jack’s favorite easy
chair,” their hostess said. “Then you’ll be in the
circle with the rest of us.”</p>
<p>Geraldine was conscious of the slight flush which
she always felt in her cheeks when Jack’s name was
mentioned, but she gladly joined the others, sinking
into the luxurious depths of a softly upholstered
cosy-comfort chair.</p>
<p>“You’ll have to say interesting things to keep me
awake,” she laughingly warned them as she snuggled
down in it.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_154">[154]</div>
<p>“Don’t worry about <i>this</i> meeting not being interesting.
It’s going to be a thriller,” the president
announced. Whereupon the members all sat up
ready to ask a chorus of questions, but Merry
pounded on the table before her with her improvised
gavel, an ornamented paper-cutter, as she said imperatively:
“Silence, if you please! We will now
have the roll call. Sleuth Rose, are you present?”</p>
<p>A laughing response: “I am!”</p>
<p>And so on until each had been called. Geraldine
was very much awake. “Madame President,” she
burst in, “if I’m not too much out of order, will you
please tell me <i>why</i> you call these pretty maidens by
such a terrible name? Sleuths! Ohoo!” she shuddered.
“I thought sleuths were long, lank, stealthy
creatures who steal around slums and underworld
places trying to find criminals.”</p>
<p>“Well, perhaps some sleuths do,” Merry acknowledged,
“but <i>we</i> aren’t quite that desperate.”</p>
<p>Then Peg put in: “O, I say, Merry, have a heart;
don’t mystify Gerry any longer. Begin at the beginning
and tell her what our club has stood for in
the past, and what it will accomplish in the future.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_155">[155]</div>
<p>“How can I reveal what nobody knows?” their
president inquired. However, she turned to Geraldine
and told how the seven girls who always walked
back and forth to school together had formed a
clique, which at first they had named Sunnyside Club
with “Spread Sunshine” for a motto. “Our Saint
Gertrude’s suggestion, you may be sure,” Rose
interjected.</p>
<p>“Well, we <i>did</i> do a great deal to make the children
up in the orphanage happy,” Betty Byrd championed
as though feeling that the absent member was in
some way being maligned.</p>
<p>Bertha Angel agreed with her emphatically: “Of
course we did, little one, and we intend to keep it up.
Being sleuths won’t in any way keep us from doing
good deeds.”</p>
<p>“But what is there to be sleuthing about in this
sleepy little town of Sunnyside?” Geraldine wanted
to know. “And why do you want to do it if
there is?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_156">[156]</div>
<p>“O, we don’t really,” Rose told her. “It’s sort
of like taking a dare. The boys have a club which
they call ‘C. D. C.,’ and they’re terribly secret about
it. They have a mysterious meeting-place, and since
we girls aren’t allowed to roam about nights unless
our brothers are along to protect us, we never can
find out where they meet. We sort of thought it
might be in the old Walsley ruin on the East Lake
Road. That’s why we asked them to take us there
Saturday after that robbery. We thought if that
<i>was</i> their secret meeting-place, they would have it
fitted up like a clubroom some way, and then of
course they wouldn’t want us to visit it. But when
they said ‘sure thing,’ they’d take us if we wanted
to go, why then we were convinced that’s <i>not</i> where
they hold their secret meetings.”</p>
<p>Peggy interrupted with: “Maybe <i>you</i> were convinced,
old dear, but I was <i>not</i>. You say we can’t
go up the East Lake Road at night when the boys
hold their meetings. Of course we can’t, but what’s
to hinder us from going up there alone some time in
the daylight. If that old man who killed himself
haunts the place at all, it wouldn’t be while the sun
is shining.”</p>
<p>“Ugh!” Gerry said with a shudder. “Now I believe
you <i>are</i> sleuths. Wanting to visit a haunted
house! But tell me, what kind of a club is the
‘C. D. C.’?”</p>
<p>“It’s a detective club, and we, that is, Merry,
figured out, by putting two and two together, that
it means ‘Conan Doyle Club.’ Jack shut her in a
closet one day, and before she could let him know
she was there, she heard enough to know that he and
his friends have tried to find some mystery to solve
in Sunnyside, and have decided that there isn’t one,
and so they take turns making up mysteries. They
read them at these secret meetings and let the others
try to figure out clues.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_157">[157]</div>
<p>“Is that why you girls started to be sleuths?”
Gerry wanted to know.</p>
<p>Bertha nodded. “Merry heard one of the boys
say that an uncle of his in New York, who is a
lawyer, had written about a famous girl detective,
and the others scoffed at the very idea. They said
they couldn’t imagine <i>girls</i> ever solving a mystery,
not if they were all like girls in Sunnyside. So, you
see, <i>that</i> was sort of a dare, and we made up our
mind we would <i>find</i> a mystery and solve it, and then
crow about it; but the joke is, we haven’t found a
mystery!”</p>
<p>Merry continued with: “Peggy and Doris were
a committee of two to find one, and they were to
make their report last Saturday, but——”</p>
<p>“But nothing,” Peg interrupted, “you know we
were so busy planning that impromptu skating party
out at the Drexel Lodge we didn’t have time to call
a meeting.”</p>
<p>“Well, if we had called one,” the president persisted,
“you girls wouldn’t have had a mystery to
present.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_158">[158]</div>
<p>“Wouldn’t we, though?” Peg’s eyes fairly glistened.
“Doris, <i>now</i> is the psychological moment, as
Miss Preen would say, for springing our find.”</p>
<p>The girls, except Geraldine, gasped. She was yet
too mystified to realize the importance of the announcement.
They watched Doris, who unstrapped
her school books and drew from her history a clipping
from a newspaper. “This is from the Dorchester
<i>Chronicle</i>,” she announced, “and it certainly
sounds mysterious to Peg and me.” She looked
around at them, deliberately, tantalizing.</p>
<p>“Oh, for goodness sakes, do hurry and read it,”
Bertha Angel urged.</p>
<p>“Peg, you read it. You can do it full justice.”
Doris passed it over to her fellow-committeeman,
who pretended to study it leisurely.</p>
<p>“Peg, if you don’t hurry and tell us, we’ll mob
you.” Bertha stood up and seized a pillow from the
window seat, holding it threateningly. “Be calm,
Sister Sleuth,” Peg said. Then she held the small
scrap of paper close to a window as the short afternoon
was drawing to a close. “It is headed, ‘Information
wanted.’ A man owning a cattle ranch in
Arizona has written the <i>Chronicle</i> asking that the
following letter be given publicity:</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_159">[159]</div>
<p class="tb">“‘Dear Sirs:</p>
<p>“‘My young and pretty sister, Myra, was sent
East to be educated. Our parents wanted to get her
away from a ne’er-do-well gambler she had met in
Douglas. He followed her East and married her.
We never heard from her again, but believe she
settled in some small community near Dorchester.
I am running the ranch, but half of it belongs to
Myra, and, as I believe if she is living she must be
in need, I want to find her.</p>
<p><span class="jr">“‘(Signed) <span class="sc">Caleb K. Cornwall</span>.’”</span></p>
<p class="tb">Peg looked up triumphantly. “There! What do
you think of <i>that</i> for a mystery?”</p>
<p>Merry acknowledged that it <i>was</i> a mystery, of
course, but why think the pretty young Myra settled
in Sunnyside? “There are at least six small villages
within a radius of forty miles,” she reminded them.</p>
<p>“Oh, of course, maybe it isn’t our town, <i>but</i>, also,
<i>maybe</i> it is.” Peg was not going to let them lose
sight of whatever value there was in the “find” she
and Doris had made.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_160">[160]</div>
<p>“Oh, how provoking, here come Jack and Alfred!
Now we’ll have to adjourn just when the meeting is
most interesting. Ssh! Don’t let them hear us talking
about it. Let’s meet here again tomorrow afternoon.”
Merry said hurriedly.</p>
<p>“But you won’t want <i>me</i> to come, will you?”
Geraldine asked, very much hoping that they would
say that they <i>did</i> want her. Nor was she disappointed.</p>
<p>“Why, of course we do, Gerry.” Then Merry
exclaimed self-rebukingly: “How <i>stupid</i> of me! I
started to tell in school that Gertrude wanted us to
invite <i>you</i> to take her place in the ‘S. S. C.’ for the
rest of the winter, while she is away, but I remember
now, the gong rang, then I forgot and sort of
thought I <i>had</i> told you.”</p>
<p>Then Peg asked: “You’d like to be Sleuth Gerry,
wouldn’t you?”</p>
<p>How the older girl’s eyes were glowing! “I’d
like it more than anything that has ever happened in
my life,” she answered them. Then Merry put a
finger on her lips and nodded toward the hall door.
Doris, taking the hint, exclaimed: “And those dear
little orphans will be simply delighted to have a
Valentine party. We can fix things up so prettily.
I do think——”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_161">[161]</div>
<p>The door had opened and Jack sang out: “Our
Sunnyside Spreaders, I observe, are holding one of
their most commendable meetings. Unlike the
‘C. D. C.’s,’ they have no secrets to hide.” He
winked at Alfred, who laughed so understandingly
that the observers were led to believe that Geraldine’s
brother had also been admitted to the boys’ club.
Nor were they wrong.</p>
<p>“How did you like your first day in our country
school?” Jack asked Gerry as he crossed to where
she sat by the fire and stooped over the blaze to warm
his hands.</p>
<p>“O, I loved it!” that maiden frankly confessed;
then acknowledged, “It’s really nicer in lots of ways
than the Dorchester Seminary.” Then she rose.
“We’d better be going, Brother,” she began when
the telephone whirred. Merry turned from it to say
that the Colonel was in town and would call for them
in five minutes.</p>
<p>“Well, we’ll be over tomorrow to plan that Valentine
party for the orphans,” Peg called as the girls
trooped away. Then the Colonel’s sleigh bells were
heard coming up the drive. Just before she left,
Geraldine drew Merry to one side to say in a low
voice: “Tell the girls how <i>very</i> grateful I am to
them for having taken me in after I had been so
unforgivably horrid.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_162">[162]</div>
<p>Merry gave her friend’s hand a loving squeeze.
“I think <i>we</i> are the ones to ask forgiveness for the
prank we played,” she said; then impulsively added:
“Let’s be <i>sister-friends</i>, shall we?”</p>
<p>Gerry felt the tell-tale flush in her cheeks, but
Alfred was calling, “Do hurry, Sister. This isn’t
good-bye forever.” And so laughingly they parted.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_163">[163]</div>
<h2 id="c19">CHAPTER XIX. <br/><span class="small">SEARCHING FOR CLUES</span></h2>
<p>The next afternoon the girls found Bob waiting
near the seminary with the delivery sleigh. Geraldine,
for half a moment, was amazed to hear the
squeels of delight uttered by her companions as they
swarmed up into the straw-covered box part of the
cutter.</p>
<p>“This is great!” Merry exclaimed. “How did
you happen to do it, Bobbie dear?”</p>
<p>The boy nodded toward his sister, who replied for
him: “Bob said he would be returning from Dorchester
about this hour, and I asked him to pick us
up, like an angel child, so that we could have a longer
meeting. It gets dark so early and it takes a full
half hour to walk the mile to Merry’s.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_164">[164]</div>
<p>“Sort of a ruddy-looking angel child,” Rose, at
the boy’s side, teased him. The round, pleasant face
of the boy was always ruddy, but today it was unusually
so, partly because of the long drive he had
had in the frosty air and partly because of his
pleasure at having Rose with him.</p>
<p>Down the wide, snow-covered road they sped,
and Geraldine could not but compare this ride with
those that were being taken by the pupils of the
Dorchester Seminary, where most fashionable turnouts
each day awaited the closing hours. But she
had to honestly confess that she was having much
more fun than she ever had before. Merry smiled
across at her and Gerry smiled back, happily recalling
the whispered request of the evening before:
“Let us be sister-friends, shall we?”</p>
<p>“All out for Merry-dale!” Bob was soon calling
as he drew rein in front of the Lee house. Then to
the girl at his side he said in a low voice, “I’ll be
through at the store at five. May I drive you
home?”</p>
<p>“Yes, indeed, and stay to supper,” Rose said
brightly, adding as an afterthought: “Gerry and
Alfred can go with us, can’t they? Then the Colonel
won’t have to come after them.”</p>
<p>“Sure thing,” the good-natured boy replied. “So
long!”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_165">[165]</div>
<p>“There now,” Merry announced when they were
sitting about the fire five minutes later, “we have a
good two hours, if nobody interrupts us, and we
ought to be able to delve deeply into our mystery.
Peg, will you or Doris review the facts in the case?”</p>
<p>“Shouldn’t we call them clues?” Bertha inquired.</p>
<p>“O, I don’t know. I haven’t been a sleuth long
enough to be sure about anything,” the president
smilingly admitted. Then Doris reminded them that
it was a ranchman in Arizona named Caleb K. Cornwall
who was searching for a young and pretty sister
named Myra, who had married a ne’er-do-well and
supposedly had settled in some small community near
Dorchester, in New York State.</p>
<p>“Well, Sleuth Bertha, you look wise. What would
<i>you</i> suggest that we do first?” Merry had turned
toward the tall maiden, whose expression was habitually
serious and thoughtful.</p>
<p>“I was just wondering if there is any woman in
town named Myra. Our mothers might know, for
I suppose this lost person is about their age.”</p>
<p>“How come?” Peg asked. “There is no mention
of age in the letter. Merely that she was a young
and pretty girl when she was sent East to school.”</p>
<p>“That might have been ten years ago or twenty,
thirty, or any number,” Rose reminded them.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_166">[166]</div>
<p>“True enough,” Merry conceded. “Wait a moment.
Mother is in her sewing-room, I think. I’ll
ask her if she ever heard of a woman in Sunnyside
named Myra.”</p>
<p>“Won’t she wonder at your asking?” Peg was
fearful lest their secret would be divulged.</p>
<p>“No, indeed,” Merry shook her head. “Mums
isn’t even remotely curious about what our club is
doing. She knows we are holding a meeting, but
that’s all.”</p>
<p>In less than ten minutes she was back again with
two names written on a magazine cover. “I don’t
think these will help us much,” she informed the
girls, whose alert attitudes proved their eager interest.
“One is Myra Comely. She lives below the
tracks and takes in washing. Mother thinks she
may be about forty. The other is Myra Ingersol.
She lives out on the old Dorchester road. Mother
doesn’t just know where, but it’s a farm that makes
a specialty of chickens and eggs. The woman makes
jelly and sells it, too. That’s really all Mother knows
about her. The name is on each jar, Mums says.
‘Myra Ingersol’s Jams,’ like that. We get them
from the grocery. You ought to know about them,
Bertha.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_167">[167]</div>
<p>“I do,” that maiden replied, “and, what’s more,
I know the woman. I’ve been in the store when she
brought in her wares. I’ve been trying to picture
her, Merry, while you were talking, as having ever
been young and pretty, but I just can’t. She is a
big-boned, awkward person with red-grey hair
drawn back as though it had a weight on it, and
sharp blue eyes.” The girl shook her head. “I’m
convinced she is <i>not</i> the Myra Mr. Cornwall wants
to find.”</p>
<p>“How old is the jam person?” Gerry contributed
her first inquiry.</p>
<p>“Oh, close to sixty, perhaps, although she may be
younger. She’s had a hard life, I judge.”</p>
<p>“We might call them up on the telephone and ask
them if they ever lived in Arizona,” Betty Byrd
naively suggested. How the others laughed. “Little
one,” Bertha remonstrated, “don’t you know that if
they ran away from Arizona and are in hiding, so
to speak, they would, of course, refuse to tell that it
had once been their home. I mean in answer to such
an abrupt question as would have to be asked over
the ’phone. My suggestion is that we make some
legitimate excuse for calling at the homes of the two
Myras and finding, if we can, some clues without
arousing their suspicion.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_168">[168]</div>
<p>“Hats off to Sleuth Bertha!” Peg sang out.
“When and how shall we make the first call?”</p>
<p>Doris leaped up in her eagerness. “If one of the
Myras is a washwoman, let’s drive over there tomorrow
with the Drexel weekly laundry. Mother
said yesterday that the Palace New Method injures
the clothes and she wants to find someone to do it by
hand.”</p>
<p>“Say, Boy, but we’re in luck!” the slangy member
exulted.</p>
<p>“And as for the other Myra,” Rose said, “we
might chip together and buy a chicken or two, and
that would give us an excuse to visit <i>her</i> farm.”</p>
<p>“Bravo! Keen idea! Hurray for our Rosebud!”
were the exclamations which proved that the suggestion
met with general approval.</p>
<p>“But what would we do with two chickens?”
round-eyed, the youngest member inquired.</p>
<p>“Eat ’em, little one,” Peg began.</p>
<p>“Not till they’re cooked, I hope,” Gerry laughingly
put in.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_169">[169]</div>
<p>“Say, fellow-sleuths, I have a peachy idea,” Peg
announced. “Let’s get up a Valentine dinner and
invite the boys. Saturday’s the fourteenth, and we
can make quite a spread of it and kill two birds with
one stone, so to speak.”</p>
<p>“Two hens, do you mean?” Rose inquired. A
sofa pillow was hurled at her. “You need submerging,”
Doris told her.</p>
<p>“How about that Valentine party for the orphans?”
Merry asked slyly. “It seems to me one
was suggested last night just as the boys came
home.”</p>
<p>“Sure thing, we’ll have one, but that will be different.
Now, this Valentine party——”</p>
<p>Peg could say no more, for the door had opened
and two laughing boys stood there. Merry rose and
confronted her brother. “Jack Lee, how long have
you been out there in the hall listening to our club
doings?”</p>
<p>“Not a fraction of a second, have we, Alf?” he
turned to his companion for corroboration. “All I
heard is just what you were saying last night, that
you are going to give a party for the orphans on
Valentine’s day.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_170">[170]</div>
<p>The girls looked still unconvinced, and so Alfred
leaped into the breach with, “Here’s proof sufficient,
I should think.” He held out his coat sleeve, on
which there were frosty snow stars as yet unmelted.
“If we’d been long in the house, they would be dewdrops.
Is it not so?”</p>
<p>“Verily.” Peg seemed relieved, as did the others,
but when the boys had gone into Jack’s study, which
adjoined the library, the girls were puzzled to hear
laughter that the boys were evidently trying to
muffle. Merry put a warning finger on her lips,
which meant that they would postpone further discussion
until another day.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_171">[171]</div>
<h2 id="c20">CHAPTER XX. <br/><span class="small">THE SLEUTHS SLEUTHING</span></h2>
<p>“Isn’t it keen that we have this whole Friday
afternoon off?” Peg pirouetted about on the snowy
road in front of the girls. “Now we can carry out
all of our plans before dark, if——” She hesitated
and Doris continued with: “‘If’—the biggest word
in the language. If we can beg, borrow or hire a
cutter large enough to take us all out the East Lake
Road. Bertha, you’ll have to drive, being our expert
horsewoman.”</p>
<p>The girls had lunched at the school and were
trooping townwards, having been excused for the
afternoon, as none of them happened to be in a play
which was to be rehearsed from two to four.</p>
<p>“Here’s another if,” Rose put in. “If the snow
wasn’t so deep on the Lake Road, we might all pile
in my runabout. I can drive <i>it</i> as skillfully as Bertha
can drive her father’s horses.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_172">[172]</div>
<p>“But there <i>is</i> snow on the roads as soon as you
leave town,” Geraldine contributed. “The snow
plough hasn’t even reached as far as the Wainright
home.”</p>
<p>“Well, let’s go to the Angel grocery first and see
if a delivery sleigh can be borrowed, and if not, why
then maybe I can inveigle my papa-dear to loan me
one of his,” Peg suggested.</p>
<p>This plan was followed, and fifteen minutes later
the girls were seated on the bottom of a box sleigh
with Bertha and Merry up on the driver’s seat.
“Dad needs this fashionable turnout by five o’clock,”
Bertha said as she urged the big dapple-grey horse
to its briskest trot. “Now, first we are to stop at the
Drexels and get the bundle of laundry, I believe.”
The driver glanced over her shoulder and Doris
nodded in the affirmative. “It’s all done up and
waiting.”</p>
<p>Another fifteen minutes and Dapple, having
crossed the tracks, turned into a narrow side street
where the houses were small, with many evidences
of poverty. Merry had found the address in the
telephone book, and when the right number was
reached, Dapple was brought to a standstill.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_173">[173]</div>
<p>“This house looks real neat,” Betty Byrd commented.
“Clean white curtains at the windows and
a big backyard, and a lot of washing hung out.”</p>
<p>Doris patted their youngest as she approved:
“Observation is surely an excellent trait for a sleuth
to develop.”</p>
<p>“Won’t our victim think it queer that it takes
seven girls to deliver one bundle of wash?” Geraldine
paused to inquire as they trooped through the
gate.</p>
<p>“What care we?” Merry was already up on the
step and turned to knock on the door, when it was
opened by a girl of about their own age.</p>
<p>“How do you do, Miss Angel,” she addressed
Bertha, whom she knew by sight. “Won’t you all
come in?”</p>
<p>They entered a small but spotlessly clean sitting-room
and Doris asked, “Is Mrs. Myra Comely
here?”</p>
<p>“No, Mother isn’t here just now. Won’t you be
seated?”</p>
<p>Doris hesitated. “I—er—wanted to ask her a
few questions about—well, about her methods of
laundering.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_174">[174]</div>
<p>The girl had a pleasant face and she seemed not
at all abashed to have so many of the town’s “aristocracy”
calling upon her at once.</p>
<p>“Mother is careful to use nothing that could harm
the clothes, if that is what you mean,” she informed
them. “I expect her home directly, if you care to
wait.” Then, seeing that there were not chairs
enough, she excused herself and brought two from
the kitchen and placed them for Doris and Bertha.</p>
<p>When they were all seated, Merry, with a meaning
glance at her fellow-sleuths which seemed to
say, “We <i>may</i> be able to get the information we
need from the daughter,” glanced out of the window
as she said idly, “We’re having a pleasant winter,
aren’t we?”</p>
<p>“Yes, there’s lots more snow in your town,
though, than where we came from.” Blue eyes and
brown flashed exulting glances at one another.</p>
<p>“Then Sunnyside has not been your home for
long?” Merry inquired.</p>
<p>The girl shook her head. “No, we lived in Florida
for years, but I was born in Ireland. That was
father’s home, but Mother came from—” She hesitated
and glanced about apologetically. Every eye
was upon her, every ear listening, but of their eager
interest the girl could not guess. “I chatter on about
my folks as though you’d care to hear where we all
came from,” she said.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_175">[175]</div>
<p>“O, we do care an awful lot,” Betty Byrd assured
her, then, catching a reproving glance from Doris,
their youngest wilted and the older girl said: “I
think it’s always interesting to hear where people
came from, don’t you, Miss——”</p>
<p>“My name is Myra Comely, just as my mother’s
is.” Then she added brightly: “Here she is now.”
The door opened and a pleasant-faced woman of
about forty entered and removed a shawl which she
had worn over her head.</p>
<p>“Howdy do,” she said with a smile which included
them all.</p>
<p>Doris stepped forward and explained that her
mother wished to have her laundry done by hand,
and so they had brought it to her. Mrs. Comely
thanked her and told about her methods and prices.
After that there was nothing for the girls to do but
rise, preparing to go. Merry, in a last desperate
effort to obtain the information they desired, turned
at the door to say, “Your daughter tells us that you
are from Ireland. I have always been so interested
in that country and hope to visit there some day.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_176">[176]</div>
<p>The woman smiled. “I liked Ireland,” she said.
“I was about your age or a little older when I left
the States as a bride for that far-away island.”</p>
<p>It was cold out and the door was open. What
<i>could</i> the girls do to obtain the needed information?
Peg plunged in with, “Which state did you come
from, Mrs. Comely?” The girls gasped, but, if the
woman thought it a strange question, she made no
sign of it. “I was born in a little village on the
other side of Dorchester. Your laundry will be delivered
on Tuesday, Miss Drexel.”</p>
<p>As the girls were driving away. Peg said: “I suppose
it was awful of me to come right out with that
question, but we just had to know.”</p>
<p>“O, probably sleuths have to ask questions sometimes,
although it’s more clever to get information
in a round-about way,” Doris said; then asked:
“Bertha, how did Myra Comely happen to know
<i>your</i> name?”</p>
<p>“She trades at our store,” was the reply. “Everyone
in town, sooner or later, sees me in there helping
Dad. I post his books for him.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_177">[177]</div>
<p>Geraldine felt somewhat shocked. To think that
<i>she</i> was associating with a girl who sometimes
worked in a grocery. The snob in her was not
entirely dead, she feared. But she <i>must</i> kill it! How
Jack would scorn her if he knew her thoughts.</p>
<p>They were all in the sleigh and the big horse,
Dapple, glad to be again on the move, for the air
was snappily cold even though the sun was shining,
started toward the Lake Road at his merriest pace.
Snowballs flew back at the laughing girls from his
heels.</p>
<p>“It’s three now!” Bertha glanced at her wrist
watch. “Shall we stop at the old ruin before or after
we visit the Ingersol farm?”</p>
<p>The opinions being divided, as was their usual
custom they permitted the president to decide, and
she said wisely that she thought it more important
to visit the farm than it was the ruin, and so they
would better go there first.</p>
<p>They were glad when they passed the Inn that
Mr. Wiggin or his wife were not in evidence. Mr.
Wiggin was so garrulous that, if he saw any of the
boys in town, he would ask what the girls had been
doing out that way alone.</p>
<p>Betty Byrd held fast to Doris as they turned into
the side wood road which was a shortcut to the old
Dorchester highway.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_178">[178]</div>
<p>“Skeered, little one?” the older girl smiled down
at her.</p>
<p>“Well, sort of,” the younger girl confessed. “This
is where that old man was robbed, and——”</p>
<p>“O, fudge,” Peg sang out. “Forget it! That
was the first holdup that ever occurred around here,
and probably will be the last.”</p>
<p>“Where is the Welsley farm?” Geraldine inquired
after a time.</p>
<p>“Beyond that tall pine-tree hedge,” Merry indicated
with a wave of her fur-lined glove. “You’ll
see the crumbling cupulo in a second.”</p>
<p>The girls gazed intently at the little they could see
of the house as they passed the long high hedge.</p>
<p>“I don’t believe the boys come way out here for
their meetings,” Bertha, the sensible, remarked when
they had turned into the old Dorchester road.</p>
<p>“In fact, I don’t believe they could, much of the
time, because of the snow drifts. I think if we want
to find where their clubrooms are, we’ll have to look
somewhere nearer home.”</p>
<p>A moment later Peg called: “There it is! See
the name on that signboard, ‘The Ingersol Chicken
Farm,’ and under it, ‘Jams and jellies a specialty.’”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_179">[179]</div>
<p>They turned in at a wide gate in the picket fence
and found themselves in a large dooryard in front
of a substantially built white farmhouse. In the
back was an orchard and long rows of berry bushes
and at the side were many chicken runs wired in.</p>
<p>A tall, angular woman, wearing a man’s coat and
hat, appeared from a barn carrying a basket of eggs.
The girls climbed from the sleigh and walked toward
her. “Peg, suppose you do the talking this time,”
Merry suggested, “but use diplomacy. Don’t plunge
right in.”</p>
<p>“No, <i>thanks</i>!” That maid shook her head vehemently.
“It’s up to you, Merry.”</p>
<p>And so their president advanced with her friendliest
smile. “Mrs. Ingersol?”</p>
<p>The woman, without a visible change of features,
acknowledged that to be her name, and so Merry
said: “We would like to buy a couple of chickens
of about two or three pounds each.” This surely
sounded innocent enough. The woman was most
business-like. To the surprise of the girls, she took
from her coat pocket a whistle and blew upon it a
shrill blast. Instantly, or almost so, a long, lank
youth appeared out of a nearby chicken yard and
called, “What yo’ want, Ma?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_180">[180]</div>
<p>“Two threes fixed,” was the terse reply. Then to
the girls: “Come along in and get yerselves warm.
Beastly cold winter we’ve been havin’, tho’ it’s let
up a spell.”</p>
<p>The girls followed the woman into a large, clean
kitchen. A fire snapped and crackled in the big wood
stove. There was a long wood box near it which
served as a window seat, and four of the girls ranged
along on it, the others sat on white pine chairs, stiff
and just alike.</p>
<p>The woman eyed them with an expression which
revealed neither interest nor curiosity as to who they
were. The girls found it harder to ask questions of
this adamant sort of a creature than they had of
Myra Comely. But she it was who broke the ice by
asking, “Do you all live in Sunnyside?”</p>
<p>Merry nodded, smiling her brightest. “Yes, we’re
all from town.” Then she hurried to take advantage
of the opening. “Have you been here long,
Mrs. Ingersol?”</p>
<p>“Yep, born clost to here. Never been out’n the
state in my life. Hep, my son, he-uns was born here
and ain’t so much as been out o’ the <i>county</i>. Don’t
reckon he’s like to, as he’s set on marryin’ a gal down
the road a piece.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_181">[181]</div>
<p>The woman turned abruptly and went through a
door. The girls looked at each other tragically.
“That didn’t take long, but, alas and alak for us, no
clues!”</p>
<p>Doris put a finger on her lips and nodded toward
the door, which was again opening. The woman
reappeared, divested of her masculine outer garments.
She had on a dull red flannel dress, severely
plain, and a white apron, the sort farmer’s wives
reserve for company wear. She was carrying a dish
of cookies and an open jar of jam. She actually
smiled as she placed them on the spotless white wood
table. “Help yerselves,” she said hospitably. “Here’s
a knife to spread on the jam with. An’ there’s a tin
dipper over by the sink if yo’ need water to help
wash ’em down.”</p>
<p>When they were again in the sleigh, and a safe
distance from the house, the girls laughed merrily.
“Mrs. Ingersol’s kernel is sweeter than her husk,”
Bertha remarked. Then added: “Girls, we’ll have
to go home on this road and leave our visit to the
old ruin until some other time. It’s four-thirty
now.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_182">[182]</div>
<p>“Well, we’ve got our chickens anyway,” Merry
said as she held the brown paper bundle aloft. “Kate
said we may have her kitchen tomorrow from two
o’clock on for the rest of the day. Now let’s plan
what else we must get. I’ll tell Jack to invite the
boys to our Valentine dinner. Won’t they be surprised
when they think we were planning it for the
orphans?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_183">[183]</div>
<h2 id="c21">CHAPTER XXI. <br/><span class="small">A VALENTINE PARTY</span></h2>
<p>On Saturday afternoon, when Geraldine was
leaving Colonel Wainright’s home at about one-thirty,
she saw Danny O’Neil working at the summer
house, where he was replacing some of the
lattice work which had broken under the heavy
weight of snow. Suddenly she remembered something
Doris had said when they had been planning
the Valentine dinner: “I wish Danny O’Neil could
be invited, but he probably wouldn’t come. He
thinks that some of us consider him merely a
servant.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_184">[184]</div>
<p>The city girl could not understand <i>why</i> Doris
wanted the boy, and she realized that it was <i>her own</i>
attitude that was keeping him away. Then she remembered
what Mrs. Gray had told her about his
great loneliness for the mother who had so recently
died. Geraldine also knew what it was to be motherless.
Then, once again, she felt the sweet influence
of real sympathy, and, turning back, she called:
“Danny O’Neil, we girls are giving a surprise Valentine
party at Merry Lee’s home tonight at six, and
Doris particularly wants you to come with Alfred.”</p>
<p>Then, before the amazed lad could reply, the girl
turned and hurried down the walk to where her
brother waited in a cutter to drive her into town.
On the way she told Alfred what she had said to
Danny, and she asked him to persuade him to accept
since Doris so wanted him.</p>
<p>“Sure thing, I will!” the boy replied heartily.
“He’s a mighty nice chap. Lots of talent, too, I
should say. I was up in his room last night for
a while. He was carving book ends. I thought it
mighty clever work.”</p>
<p>Geraldine, upon reaching the Lee home, found the
other girls there before her. The big, cheerful
kitchen swarmed with them. They had agreed to
wear white dresses with red sashes, and red ribbon
butterfly bows in their hair, but their aprons were
of all colors.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_185">[185]</div>
<p>Merry was giving orders. “Here, Doris, you
crack these walnuts, will you? Bertha is going to
make one of her famous nut cakes.” Then she interrupted
herself to say, “Oh, Gerry, hello! You’ve
arrived just in time to—to—” She looked around to
see what the newcomer could do.</p>
<p>“Send her over here to help me pare potatoes,”
Peg sang out. But Merry saw, by the almost startled
expression in the city girl’s face, that she would be
more apt to cut her fingers than the humble vegetable,
and so she replied: “No, Peg, that’s <i>your</i> work.
Gerry shall help me set the table.” Then she apologized:
“I’m sorry to do the pleasantest thing myself,
but no one else knows where the dishes and things
are.”</p>
<p>“Oh, it’s <i>all</i> pleasant,” Bertha commented, “when
we’re all together.”</p>
<p>“What’s our Rosebud doing?” Gerry sauntered
across the kitchen to the stove where their prettiest
member stood stirring something in a pot. The
“our” proved how completely the city girl felt that
she was one of them.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_186">[186]</div>
<p>“Making Valentine candy,” that maiden replied.
“This is a sort of a white fudge. It’s ever so creamy
when it’s whipped. Just delicious with chopped nuts
in it. We’re going to make heart shapes, then dip
them in red frosting.”</p>
<p>For an hour they all worked busily at their appointed
tasks; then Merry and Gerry called the
others into the dining-room to see the table.</p>
<p>“Oh-oo, how pretty!”</p>
<p>“Girls, will you look at the red ribbons running
from that heart-shaped box in the middle to each
place! What’s the idea, Merry?”</p>
<p>“You’ll know later,” their president laughingly
informed them. “That’s a surprise for everybody
which Jack and I planned last night.”</p>
<p>Then Geraldine exclaimed: “Why, Merry, you
have made a mistake, haven’t you? There are sixteen
places instead of fifteen.”</p>
<p>“Nary a mistake,” Doris replied. “We have
invited that pretty Myra Comely and she has
accepted.” Then before the astonished Geraldine
could say, “What? Invited a washwoman’s daughter,”
Doris was hurrying on to explain how it had
happened. “Myra brought our laundry home this
morning, and we had quite a long visit. Merry was
over at my house, and we both liked her ever so
much, and when she said that she had never been to
a party, why we just invited her to ours. I hope <i>you</i>
don’t mind.” There was a shade of anxiety in the
voice of Doris as she glanced at the taller girl, whose
expression was hard to read.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_187">[187]</div>
<p>There was indeed a struggle going on in Geraldine’s
heart, but good sense won out. She slipped
an arm affectionately about her friend as she said:
“Anyone who is good enough for <i>you</i> to associate
with is good enough for me!” The other girls had
drifted back to the kitchen to resume their tasks,
and these two were alone. “Doris, dear,” Gerry
said, “I told your friend, Danny O’Neil, I hoped he
would come, and I made Alfred promise to bring
him.”</p>
<p>How the pretty face of Doris brightened. “That
was mighty nice of you!” she exclaimed. “Now I
<i>know</i> he will come. I telephoned him early this
morning, but he seemed to think you wouldn’t care
to associate with him; that is, not socially.”</p>
<p>Then an imperative voice called from the kitchen:
“Say, you two ornaments in there, come on out and
help with this chicken.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_188">[188]</div>
<p>At six o’clock all was in readiness, and the seven
girls, divested of aprons, waited the ringing of the
door bell with cheeks as rosy as their ribbons. They
had the house quite to themselves, as Mrs. Angel
had obligingly invited Merry’s parents to dinner and
Katie had been only too glad to spend the afternoon
and evening with her friends below the tracks.</p>
<p>“Here comes somebody. Who do you suppose
will arrive first?” Merry had just said when the
front door burst open and Jack ushered in Myra
Comely. Merry had asked her brother to bring her,
but, almost before the door had closed, the bell was
jingling, and all of the others arrived at once.</p>
<p>In the whirl of excitement that followed, with
everybody welcoming everybody else, no one noticed
that Danny had drawn Doris to one side and was
giving her a package. “It’s a valentine that I made
for you. Book-ends that I carved,” he said in a low
voice. “Don’t open it here.”</p>
<p>Geraldine glanced in their direction just as Doris
lifted sweet, brown eyes and smiled her appreciation
at the boy. But before she could puzzle about the
meaning of it, Jack had taken her hand and was
leading her into the living-room, which was festooned
with strings of red paper hearts. Jokingly
he began: “Fair Queen o’ Hearts, I’m the Jack o’
Hearts, won’t you please tell me where you’ve hidden
the tarts?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_189">[189]</div>
<p>What a throng of them there was as they swarmed
into the brightly lighted living-room.</p>
<p>“Don’t sit down, anybody,” Merry warned. “The
party-part is going to start right away. But first
you have to draw for partners.” Then she explained
that she would pass a basket to the boys that would
contain halves of valentines, and that at the same
time Gerry would pass one with the other halves to
the girls. “You are each to take one, and the two
who have the parts of one valentine are to be partners.
The girls are to stand still and the boys to do
the hunting.”</p>
<p>For ten merry minutes boys darted about matching
halves of valentines. The result was rather disappointing
to several of them, for Rose was <i>not</i> for
Bob, and Jack drew Myra Comely, while Gerry, of
all the queer tricks of Fate, was Danny O’Neil’s
partner; but they took it in good part, and when
Merry put an appropriate song record on the victrola
they all marched out to the dining-room. The girls
felt quite repaid for their efforts when they heard
the sincere exclamation of approval which the boys
uttered. Then Merry, as hostess-in-chief, explained
that each couple was to select seats and that they
should do this thoughtfully, as the ribbons had at
the other ends prophecies as to their future. There
were tiny bows on the ribbons for girls.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_190">[190]</div>
<p>Amid much laughter from the fair ones and “wise
cracks” from the boys, places were chosen, and then
when they were all seated, one by one the ribbons
were pulled and out of the box-heart on the middle
of the table a small red paper heart was drawn, and
on it, in jolly jingle, was a prophesy for the future.</p>
<p>As each was drawn, it was read aloud and was
followed by much laughter and teasing, especially
when Bob read:</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“A dark brunette shall be your wife,</p>
<p class="t0">And she will lead you <i>such</i> a life</p>
<p class="t0">Of woe and worry and of strife.”</p>
</div>
<p>“Oh, I say, Rose,” Bob grinned across the table
at the girl who sat opposite him, “are <i>you</i> going to
let that dark brunette get me?”</p>
<p>“Read yours, Rosie,” Merry called gaily, and so
Rose read:</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_191">[191]</div>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“A long, lank spinster you will be;</p>
<p class="t0">A cat your only company;</p>
<p class="t0">Your favorite pastime drinking tea.”</p>
</div>
<p>“Oh, <i>that’s</i> a horrid one,” Their prettiest pushed
it from her and pretended to frown. “I’m going to
choose another place. I really wanted to sit where
you are, Peg. Read yours, so I’ll know what I
<i>might</i> have had.” Gleefully Peg complied:</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0">“You’ll marry a gay young millionaire,</p>
<p class="t0">You’ll travel together just everywhere,</p>
<p class="t0">And in all your life have never a care.”</p>
</div>
<p>“Hurray for me!” Peg sang out, but Bob put in:
“Well, I’m glad Rose didn’t choose <i>that</i> ribbon. A
grocer doesn’t often get to be a millionaire.”</p>
<p>And so around the table they read their futures,
then the dinner was served, and so excellent was
every dish that had been prepared by the fair hands
that Jack was led to exclaim: “Lucky will be the
swains who win these cooks for their valentines
through life.” Then, to the actual embarrassment
of one of them, he asked: “Gerry, which of these
good things did <i>you</i> cook?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_192">[192]</div>
<p>But, before the city girl, who knew <i>nothing</i> whatever
about cooking, could acknowledge the fact,
Merry said gaily: “Gerry and I did the decking of
the table this time. Some other time we’ll show you
what <i>we</i> can do as cooks.”</p>
<p>Then, to her own amazement, Geraldine heard
herself saying: “I’m going to give a party soon all
by myself, and everyone who is here now is invited.”
Her glance even included Myra Comely and Danny
O’Neil. Then she concluded with, “I’ll let you know
the date later.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_193">[193]</div>
<p>Her brother was delighted to think that his sister
had entered into the social life of the village with so
much evident enjoyment, and that night when they
reached home he took occasion to tell her how
pleased he had been with the impromptu invitation.
They were standing alone in the living-room in front
of the fireplace where they had stood on that first
day when the “milkmaids and butter-churners” had
come to call. Alfred smiled as he thought of that
other day which seemed so long ago, but wisely he
did not remind his sister of her rudeness and snobbishness
on that other occasion. Brightly she was
saying, “Oh, Alfred, I’m going to write Dad tomorrow
and tell him what a wonderful time I’m having
and how glad I am that he wanted us to spend the
winter in the town where he was born.” Indeed
<i>some</i> influence, not clearly understood by Alfred,
was working miraculous changes in his sister.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_194">[194]</div>
<h2 id="c22">CHAPTER XXII. <br/><span class="small">A NEW RESOLVE</span></h2>
<p>On Monday morning Geraldine awoke with a
new resolve. Never again would she be put in the
embarrassing position of not being able to do anything
really useful when the “S. S. C.” got up a
dinner, and not for worlds would she have Jack Lee
know that she had considered cooking menial: an
accomplishment far beneath her. His ideas and
ideals were very different from those she had
acquired at the fashionable seminary in Dorchester.</p>
<p>When the girl went down to breakfast, she found
that the Colonel and Alfred had gone early to town.
Mrs. Gray was waiting for her, sitting in the sunny
bow window reading the morning paper. “Oh, here
you are, dearie.” She rose briskly as she added,
“I’ll have to go down to the kitchen to get the things
I’ve been keeping warm for us.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_195">[195]</div>
<p>Geraldine looked surprised. “But why doesn’t
Sing send them up on the lift?” she asked.</p>
<p>Mrs. Gray, at once sober, shook her head as she
said: “Poor Sing! It seems that he went to Dorchester
to the Chinese quarters yesterday to see a
sick friend, and while there the place was quarantined
for smallpox and he will have to remain away
at least two weeks.”</p>
<p>“Oh, Mrs. Gray, whatever <i>shall</i> we do? How
can you do all the housekeeping and—the cooking
as well.”</p>
<p>The old lady smiled at the girl lovingly. “Do you
know, Geraldine,” she began, “I sort of thought that
perhaps <i>you</i> would like to help me. Now that you
can make a bed the way Merry Lee taught you, if
you would make the Colonel’s and Alfred’s——”</p>
<p>“Of course I can, and will!” was the almost unexpected
rejoinder. “And better than that,” the girl
flashed a bright smile at the old lady, “I’m <i>glad</i> Sing
is going to be away for two weeks, because that will
give us a chance to use the kitchen all we want to,
won’t it Mrs. Gray?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_196">[196]</div>
<p>“Use the kitchen, Geraldine?” The old lady could
hardly believe that she had heard aright. “I thought
I once heard you say that you hoped you would
never have to step inside of a kitchen.”</p>
<p>The girl flushed, but she answered frankly: “You
are right, I did! But yesterday, when I saw those
girls, all of them from nice families, cooking such
a very good meal, I felt sorry. Oh, more than that.
I was actually ashamed when Jack Lee asked me
<i>which</i> of the dishes <i>I</i> had prepared, and if someone
hadn’t changed the subject, I would have felt terribly
humiliated to have had to confess that I couldn’t
cook at all.”</p>
<p>A ray of light was penetrating the darkness for
Mrs. Gray. Briskly she replied: “I shall enjoy
teaching you to cook, dearie, as I would a granddaughter
of my own.” Then Geraldine further surprised
the old lady by leading her to her seat and
declaring that she would go down to the kitchen and
bring up the breakfast.</p>
<p>While they were eating it cosily in the sun-flooded
room with snow sparkling on window sill and icicle,
Geraldine confided that she had impulsively invited
all of the girls and boys, who had been at Merry’s,
to a dinner party which she had said that <i>she</i> would
cook.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_197">[197]</div>
<p>How Mrs. Gray laughed. “Good! Good!” she
said. “I shall enjoy that. When is it to be?”</p>
<p>“I thought I would like to have it on Doris
Drexel’s birthday. That will be in about two
weeks.”</p>
<p>That very afternoon the lessons began. No one
was in the secret except the Colonel, and every day
he drove to the seminary to get Geraldine that she
might reach home the sooner for the lesson in dinner
preparing. The girls wondered, especially when
they were so eager to search for more clues in their
“Myra Mystery,” as Peg called it.</p>
<p>“What <i>are</i> you up to?” Doris asked her at last.
“<i>Why</i> do you rush home every day after school?”</p>
<p>“I believe she has a mystery of her own,” Betty
Byrd teased.</p>
<p>Geraldine flashed a merry glance in the speaker’s
direction. “Righto! I have,” she confessed. “However,
I am going to reveal it to you all at our next
meeting of the ‘S. S. C.’ Where is it to be?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_198">[198]</div>
<p>“At Bertha’s again. That is the most central
place,” Merry told her. “We’re all going to try to
unearth something which will help solve the ‘Myra
Mystery.’”</p>
<p class="center"><span class="gs">* * * * * * * *</span></p>
<p>When the girls met on the following Saturday
afternoon, it was quite evident that at least two of
them could hardly wait for the formalities to be over
before they could reveal something of interest. The
president, being aware of this, said as soon as
Sleuth Bertha had read the minutes of the last meeting:
“Geraldine and Doris look as though they
would burst if they didn’t tell us something. Have
you both unearthed clues in the Myra Mystery?”</p>
<p>But Gerry shook her head. “Nary a clue!” she
confessed. “My news item is far less interesting
than that.”</p>
<p>Doris, on the edge of her chair, was waiting to
speak, and when the president nodded in her direction,
she exclaimed: “Girls, Danny O’Neil’s mother’s
first name began with M. And wouldn’t it be wonderful
if <i>she</i> should have been that Myra Cornwall?
Then Danny would own <i>her</i> share of the ranch. Of
course he wouldn’t have to go out there to live, but
he could have the money it brings in for his art
education.”</p>
<p>The girls, gazing at the flushed, eager face, wondered
why Doris was so greatly interested in the
boy, but Bertha, the practical, asked: “Why should
you think that the initial M. would mean Myra?
There are ever so many Christian names beginning
with that letter.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_199">[199]</div>
<p>“Oh, of course, I’m just grasping at a straw. I
only learned about it this morning. Mother had me
go over a box of old receipts and throw out many
of them, and I found one from Danny’s mother
signed merely ‘M. O’Neil.’”</p>
<p>“That would be splendid!” Merry commented.
“I <i>do</i> wish we could find that Myra, especially if she
is someone in need, and then we would be spreading
sunshine as well as having a mystery club.”</p>
<p>“I’m going to see Danny tonight,” Doris told
them. “Mother was so interested in—in some carving
that he did that she wants to meet him, and so
she had me invite him to supper.”</p>
<p>“You call us up as soon as you find out. We’ll
be wild to know,” Merry said; then turned toward
Geraldine: “Now, may we hear <i>your</i> news item?”</p>
<p>The city girl beamed on them. “I invited you all
to a dinner party, you remember, and told you that
later I would let you know the date.”</p>
<p>“Oh, goodie!” Betty Byrd clapped her hands.
“I adore parties. When is it to be?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_200">[200]</div>
<p>Geraldine told them, and Doris said: “My birthday!
I certainly appreciate that.” What Gerry did
not tell them was that <i>she</i> was to cook every bit of it.
She had the menu all planned, except the dessert, and
she wanted that very afternoon to find out what
Jack Lee liked best. To achieve this she asked:
“What do most boys like for dessert?” She looked
at Bertha and then at Rose, but just as she had
hoped, Merry was one of the first to reply: “Jack
likes whipped-cream cake with banana filling best.”
This information was rapidly followed with other
suggestions which Geraldine scarcely heard.</p>
<p>The only dessert that she <i>cared</i> to remember was
the one that Jack liked, and she could hardly wait
for the Colonel to call for her that she might go
home and practice making one for the family’s
Sunday dinner.</p>
<p>That night every member of the “S. S. C.” received
a telephone call, and the voice of Sleuth Doris
regretfully told them that Danny’s mother’s name
was Martha O’Neil, and so the mystery was no
nearer a solution than it had been.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_201">[201]</div>
<h2 id="c23">CHAPTER XXIII. <br/><span class="small">A PROUD COOK</span></h2>
<p>On the day of the party Geraldine was up early
and at once donned a pretty blue bungalow apron.
Then followed merry hours, each one filled with
preparations for the dinner. Alfred offered to help
stone dates and crack walnuts, while Danny O’Neil
was sent on frequent trips to the village.</p>
<p>At five o’clock, with the help of both boys, the
dining-room was prettily decorated; then Geraldine
went to put on the dress she had made. Later, with
Alfred, she stood near the fireplace waiting the coming
of the guests.</p>
<p>They arrived in a procession of sleighs with ringing
of bells and tooting of horns.</p>
<p>When Geraldine threw open the door, planning to
say “Happy Birthday, Doris!” she was met by a
laughing throng of young people, but Doris was not
among them.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_202">[202]</div>
<p>“Why, where is our guest of honor?” the amazed
hostess exclaimed as the others trooped into the
brightly-illuminated hall.</p>
<p>Merry it was who replied: “Doris told me to tell
you that she had company arrive unexpectedly. It
was so late that there wasn’t time to telephone and
ask permission to bring her friend. She knew you
would say yes, but she feared it would inconvenience
you.”</p>
<p>The gladness left Geraldine’s face. “But, Merry,”
she protested, “we can’t have Doris’ birthday party
without Doris here. It would be like giving the play
‘Hamlet’ and leaving Hamlet out.” Then turning
to Alfred she said, “Brother, please drive down and
bring back both Doris and her guest.”</p>
<p>Just then Danny O’Neil appeared, and, after having
greeted the newcomers, she said: “Miss Geraldine,
there’s a beggar at the back door and she
insists that she must see you at once.”</p>
<p>A month previous Geraldine would have tossed
her head and replied haughtily that a beggar woman
most certainly could have nothing to say to <i>her</i> that
she would care to hear. Perhaps even then she
might have replied impatiently had she not chanced
to see Jack Lee intently watching her.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_203">[203]</div>
<p>Turning to Merry, she asked her to escort the girls
upstairs to remove their wraps (Alfred was leading
the boys to his den), then she hurried into the kitchen
wondering why a beggar should ask to see her.</p>
<p>In the dimly-lighted back entry stood a frail
woman, shabbily dressed, who was leaning on a cane.
A black bonnet shaded her face, and Geraldine believed
that she had never before seen this beggar
person. The stranger began to speak in a weak,
wavering voice. “Miss Geraldine,” she said, “I am
a poor widow with one child and seven husbands.
Oh, no, I mean one husband and seven children. My
husband is sick, my young ones are starving.
I heard as how you were going to have a fine party
tonight and I came to beg you to save a few crumbs
for my poor babies.”</p>
<p>Geraldine was puzzled. The woman before her
was shabby enough to be a beggar, but her plea did
not ring true.</p>
<p>“If you will come into the kitchen,” the girl replied,
“I will pack a basket for you to take to your
seven husbands and one child.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_204">[204]</div>
<p>There was a shout of laughter from the door leading
into the dining-room, and Geraldine, turning,
beheld the boys and girls peering over each other’s
shoulders watching the fun.</p>
<p>“I just knew it was a prank,” Geraldine laughingly
exclaimed. Then to the beggar woman she
said, “You’re Doris, of course.”</p>
<p>“No, she isn’t,” a merry voice called from the
doorway, and there, among the others, stood the
missing Doris.</p>
<p>The supposed beggar suddenly removed her bonnet
and the laughing face of Geraldine’s dearest
friend from the city was revealed.</p>
<p>With a cry of joy, the delighted hostess embraced
the beggar, rags and all.</p>
<p>“Adelaine Drexel,” she exclaimed, “this is the
most wonderful surprise. Why didn’t you write me
that you were coming? Or, Doris, why didn’t you
tell me?”</p>
<p>Then turning to the smiling housekeeper, the girl
exclaimed: “Mrs. Gray, this is my dear little playmate.
We have lived next door to each other ever
since our doll days. You’ve heard me speak of
Adelaine Drexel just steens of times.”</p>
<p>Then slipping her arm about the laughing beggar
girl, she led the way up to her room. Ten minutes
later they reappeared. Adelaine had shed her shabby
costume and looked like a rose fairy in a pretty pink
gown.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_205">[205]</div>
<p>When the young people were seated around the
blazing log in the library, the stately Colonel Wainright
appeared and was gladly greeted by all. Then
Mrs. Gray called: “Come, children; supper is ready.”</p>
<p>Geraldine laughed. “I just can’t impress Mrs.
Gray with my age and dignity. She always will call
me ‘little girl.’”</p>
<p>“I think she is the dearest old lady,” Adelaine
Drexel declared. “She’s just my ideal of a grandmother.
I am so glad that she is here with you.”</p>
<p>Geraldine’s own ideas about how one should feel
toward an “upper servant” had undergone such a
complete change that she now replied with enthusiasm:
“I do love Mrs. Gray. She is very superior
to her position. She is the Colonel’s housekeeper,
you know.”</p>
<p>In the brightly lighted dining-room the young
people were standing while the little old lady designated
their places. Geraldine noticed that she was
giving up her own seat at one end of the table for
the unexpected guest.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_206">[206]</div>
<p>“Oh, Mrs. Gray,” she intervened. “You have
forgotten our plan. You are to sit there. I won’t
need a chair just at first, for I am going to serve.”</p>
<p>“And I am going to help,” Jack Lee declared.
Then, taking the self-appointed waitress by the hand,
he led her kitchenward.</p>
<p>“That was great of you, Geraldine,” he said when
they were alone. “Lots of girls would have let the
old lady wait on them. Now give me a towel to
throw over my arm, and a white apron so that I will
look like a regular garcon.”</p>
<p>This added to the fun, and for the first time in
her sixteen years Geraldine found herself actually
serving others in what she would have scornfully
called, two months before, a manner degrading and
menial.</p>
<p>Now and then Bob Angel sprang up to lend a
hand, and when Jack and Bob tried to be comedians
there was always much laughter and playful bantering.</p>
<p>The whipped-cream cake was praised until the
cheeks of the maker thereof glowed with pleasure.
Then, when the others had been served, they moved
closer and made room for Geraldine and Jack.
When they were leaving the table, Doris said softly
to the Irish lad:</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_207">[207]</div>
<p>“Danny, I want to see you alone as soon as
possible.”</p>
<p>When the young people were in the library playing
old-fashioned games, with dear Mrs. Gray and the
Colonel joining in now and then, Doris and Danny
slipped away unobserved.</p>
<p>They sat on a window seat in the hall and the girl
turned such glowing eyes toward the boy that a load
of dread was lifted from his heart.</p>
<p>“Good angel,” he said, “after all it isn’t anything
about the highway robbery that you have to tell.
I can see that by your face. I was so afraid
that——”</p>
<p>The girl placed a finger on his lips. “Danny
O’Neil,” she said seriously, “I want you to promise
me that you will never again refer to that mistake
in your life. I myself would completely forget it if
you did not speak of it so often. I want you to forget
it, too. We must not let the mistakes of our
past hold us down. It is what we are, and what we
are going to be that count, not what we have been.
Now, remember, sir,” Doris shook a finger at him,
“your ‘good angel’ will be good to you no longer if
you ever mention that subject again.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_208">[208]</div>
<p>The lad looked at the pretty girl at his side and
said earnestly: “Doris, I can’t understand why you
are so kind to me, a no-account Irish boy who isn’t
anybody and never will be anybody.”</p>
<p>Doris laughed. “Danny, would you mind if we
changed the subject? I wish to do the talking, so you
be as quiet as a little brown mouse while I tell you my
glorious plan, but first of all I want to thank you
for the beautiful bookrack that you carved for me.
It’s hanging on the wall of my room this very minute
and my prettiest books are in it.” Then, laying
her hand on the boy’s arm, she added: “Danny,
please don’t call yourself good-for-nothing. It is not
right for us to speak that way of the gifts that God
has given us. Mother thinks that the carving of the
bookrack shows that you have unusual talent and
that the wild rose design is very pretty.”</p>
<p>The boy’s face glowed with pleasure. “Oh,
Doris,” he said eagerly, “do you really think that
maybe, sometime, I could make good with my designing?
You don’t know what it would mean to
me if I could.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_209">[209]</div>
<p>“It would mean a whole lot to me, too, Danny,”
the girl said, rising. “Now we must go back to join
the others, but there, I have forgotten the very thing
that I wanted to ask you, which is this: Are you
willing that I send the bookrack to a friend of
Mother’s who is an artist? He would be able to tell
just which course of training you ought to have.”</p>
<p>“Good angel, would you do it for me?” the boy
asked eagerly. “Then I wouldn’t have to be just
groping in the dark. I’d know better how to plan
my life.”</p>
<p>These two joined the others, who had not missed
them. Merry was talking to Geraldine and Doris
joined them.</p>
<p>“Why didn’t Myra Comely come to your dinner
party?” the president of the “S. S. C.” was asking
their hostess. “You invited her that night at our
house.”</p>
<p>Geraldine nodded. “And, more than that, I
dropped her a card telling her the date and that
I would send my brother after her, but she ’phoned
early this morning that her mother had caught a
severe cold that might develop into pneumonia and
she could not possibly leave her.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_210">[210]</div>
<p>“Poor girl!” Doris said. “I’m glad tomorrow
will be Saturday again. I shall drive around and
see if there is anything I can do for them. Mother
would want me to. She likes Myra ever so much.
She wanted to meet her when she returned the laundry
last Thursday, and she said she thought her an
unusually fine girl. Myra told Mother that she had
hoped to be able to go through Teachers’ College
that she might care for her mother, who is not
strong. But now I suppose she will have to give
up, just as she is about to graduate from High.”</p>
<p>“O, I hope not!” Merry said. Then three of the
boys approached to claim them as partners for a
dance.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_211">[211]</div>
<h2 id="c24">CHAPTER XXIV. <br/><span class="small">KINDNESS REWARDED</span></h2>
<p>Merry, Geraldine and Doris went alone the next
day to the home of Myra Comely. Danny O’Neil
drove them there, then waited in the cutter until
they came out.</p>
<p>Myra opened the door slightly, saying that perhaps
they would better not come in, but Geraldine
declared that she never caught anything, and as
Merry and Doris had no fears, they entered the neat
little living-room and sat down, while Doris gave
the message from her mother.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_212">[212]</div>
<p>Tears sprang to the girl’s eyes. “How very kind
of your mother to offer to send us her own private
nurse,” she said with sincere appreciation. “Dr.
Carson was with us all night, and he says that the
crisis is now over and that Mother will not have
pneumonia, but that she is worn out and will need
absolute rest for a long time. The doctor said that
she ought to go where the winters are milder.”
Myra was wiping her eyes, trying, as the girls could
see, to keep from breaking down. Doris went to her
and put an arm across her shoulders. With tender
sympathy she said: “Myra, you’re just worn out
with these three days and nights of watching and
anxiety. I wish you would let me telephone Mother
to send our dear old nurse; then I would like to take
you home with me for a rest.” But the girl was
shaking her head. “O, no, no! I couldn’t leave
Mother. She still has spells of wandering in her
mind. She thinks she is a girl again on her father’s
ranch in Arizona——”</p>
<p>She got no farther, for three girls exclaimed in
excited chorus: “Was <i>your</i> mother Myra Cornwall?
Has she a brother Caleb in Arizona?”</p>
<p>The girl dropped her handkerchief and stared in
unbelieving amazement. “How in the world did you
know my mother’s maiden name?” she gasped.
“Mother has told no one. Not that she was ashamed
of it, but—but—you see, she married against her
parents’ wishes and she knew they would never want
to see or hear from her again. Her brother Caleb
disliked my—my father, more even than her parents
did, and so she never wrote, not even after my father
died and we were so poor.” Then with mouth trembling
and eyes tear-brimmed, the girl asked: “Won’t
you tell me what you know about it?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_213">[213]</div>
<p>And so Doris told about the clipping they had
found in the Dorchester paper, and how they had
called on all the Myras they could find. “But <i>your</i>
mother was born in New York state,” Merry recalled.
“<i>That</i> is why we decided that she could <i>not</i>
be the one.”</p>
<p>Myra nodded. “Yes, that is where Mother was
born, but her parents went West when she was five,
and she lived on a ranch in that beautiful desert
country until she was sent East to school.”</p>
<p>Suddenly she sprang up, a glad light in her face.
“Mother is awake! I hear her calling me. I must
go and tell her the wonderful news.” Then impulsively
she held out a hand to Doris as she said:
“How can we thank you. Now, as soon as Mother
is well, I can take her to the home she has so yearned
to see, knowing that her brother Caleb wants her,
<i>really wants</i> her.”</p>
<p class="center"><span class="gs">* * * * * * * *</span></p>
<p>When the girls were again in the sleigh, they told
Danny to race for town. They were to attend the
weekly meeting at Peg’s house and they had wonderful
news to tell.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_214">[214]</div>
<p>In a remarkably short time they reached there and
found the others assembled. “Girls,” Doris burst
out before she had removed her outdoor wraps. “The
mystery is solved! Myra Comely, I mean the mother,
<i>is</i> the one we wanted. And now that she may go
back to her Arizona home and won’t have to take
in washing any more, she will get well, I am sure,
just ever so soon. Myra is going to send a telegram
at once to her uncle, and I know that he will send
money to them for the journey.”</p>
<p>“Now all of the mysteries are solved except where
the boys have their clubroom,” Peg began, when
Bertha laughingly told them that that even wasn’t
a mystery any longer.</p>
<p>“How come?” Peg asked.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_215">[215]</div>
<p>“Well, last night Mother wanted a yeast cake
from the store just before bedtime that she might
put some dough to rise. Dad had gone to lodge and
Bob had left early with the boys, so I took a lantern
and went to the store. I had a key to the side door
and I went in. At first I was very much startled to
see a light coming through cracks in the floor of a
storeroom over the back part. One has to go up
a ladder on the side wall and then crawl through a
trapdoor to get to it. I was just wondering why
thieves would want to go up there where Dad keeps
hardware supplies and things like that, when I heard
a laugh, and I <i>knew</i> it was Bob. Then I realized
that I had stumbled on the secret meeting place of
the ‘C. D. C.’”</p>
<p>“Well, that’s a much more sensible place than the
old Welsley ruin would be,” Merry commented.</p>
<p>Having removed their wraps, they all sat about
the cosy fire and Peg passed around the garments
they were making for the orphans.</p>
<p>“There’s one thing sure, the solving of our mystery
spread sunshine all right, and so we lived up to
our first motto without really meaning to,” Merry
commented.</p>
<p>Peg inquired: “Did you hear anything that the
boys were talking about?”</p>
<p>“I tried not to,” Bertha said. “I went at once to
the front of the store and got my yeast cake, but,
just as I was stealing back out again, so that they
wouldn’t hear me, I heard Bob say: ‘Four o’clock
Saturday. That’s tomorrow! Surprise the girls.’”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_216">[216]</div>
<p>The seven sleuths looked at each other in puzzled
amazement. “Hum! Another mystery, I should
say,” Peg commented.</p>
<p>Merry glanced at her wrist watch. “Well, if the
boys are planning a surprise for us, since it is three-thirty
now, we won’t be kept long in suspense.”</p>
<p>Nor were they, for in a half hour, punctually at
four, the boys arrived and stated that they had received
permission from the parents of the girls to
take them somewhere on a sleigh ride.</p>
<p>“Oh, what fun!” Merry sprang up, as did the
others. Little blue garments were folded and outdoor
wraps were donned upstairs in Peg’s room.</p>
<p>“I know! I know!” Peg sang out. “You remember
that time at the Drexel Lodge when we wanted
to stay and ride home by moonlight, we couldn’t,
and the boys said they would take us for a moonlight
ride at some other time.”</p>
<p>Merry nodded. “I believe you’re right. <i>Where</i>
do you suppose we are going?”</p>
<p>It was half an hour later, and the village had been
left far behind before the answer was revealed to
them. “Up the East Lake Road!” Bertha exclaimed.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_217">[217]</div>
<p>It was half past five and dark when they drew up
in front of the Inn. Mr. Wiggin, the genial host,
popped out to welcome them. “Come right in!
Come right in!” he called good-naturedly. “Everything
is piping hot and ready to serve.” The girls
were delighted.</p>
<p>“Oh, boys, you’re giving us a surprise supper,
aren’t you?”</p>
<p>“That’s jolly fun!”</p>
<p>“Aren’t we glad we know them!” were a few of
the many expressions of appreciation from the girls
as they were helped from the long sleigh.</p>
<p>That “something” that was piping hot and ready
to be served proved to be the wonderful combination
clam chowder for which the Lakeside Inn was
famous. The dining-room was warm and cheerful,
with red-shaded lamps around the walls, and the
jolliest hour was passed while the boys joked and
told stories, which they had evidently learned for
the occasion.</p>
<p>When the dessert, Mrs. Wiggin’s equally famous
plum pudding, had been removed, Bob tapped on the
table for attention. “Young ladies,” he said, “we
boys of the ‘C. D. C.’ having heard how cleverly
you solved a mystery——”</p>
<p>“What? <i>How</i> did you hear?” two of the girls
exclaimed in surprise.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_218">[218]</div>
<p>“Well, that <i>is</i> an important point to clear up,”
Bob acknowledged. “Jack, here, was in the telegraph
station about three this afternoon, and Myra Comely
was there sending a message to some uncle of hers
in Arizona. She was so excited, she spilled the
beans, and told Jack all about your mystery club and
how you found her mother’s brother.” He paused
to look about at the astonished group. Then, seeming
to be satisfied, he continued: “We boys are
working on a mystery, and since you girls are so
clever (no bouquets, please; he pretended to dodge)
we thought we would invite you to—er—be associate
members of <i>our</i> club. We hope that you will
consider it an honor.”</p>
<p>Merry sprang up and, lifting her glass of water,
she said: “Here’s to the combined Conan Doyle and
Seven Sleuths’ Clubs. Long may they wave.”</p>
<p>“Ditto!” Bob lifted his glass, as did the others.
Then they all rose, for Jack had dropped a nickel
in the automatic organ and it was playing dance
music which could not be resisted.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_219">[219]</div>
<h2 id="c25">CHAPTER XXV. <br/><span class="small">A MUCH LOVED GIRL</span></h2>
<p>“Geraldine, dearie, why don’t you get up?
Aren’t you feeling well this morning?”</p>
<p>It was the day after the sleigh-ride party. Mrs.
Gray had purposely permitted the girl to sleep late,
but now it was nearing the hour of noon.</p>
<p>Geraldine tossed restlessly and her face was
feverish. “Oh, Mrs. Gray,” she said, “I have such a
headache. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t. Then
I tried to call, but you did not hear.”</p>
<p>The little old lady was truly worried. She placed
her cool hand on the hot forehead, and then she hurried
from the room, promising to be back in a few
moments. She went at once to the Colonel’s study,
hoping that he had returned from his morning constitutional,
but he was not there. Going to the
telephone, Mrs. Gray was soon talking to Doctor
Carson.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_220">[220]</div>
<p>“I’m so afraid our little girl has been exposed to
some contagious disease,” she said. “Won’t you
please come over at once?”</p>
<p>The kindly doctor was at the house fifteen minutes
later and with him was the Colonel, whom he had
met on the highway.</p>
<p>The doctor examined the girl, who was too listless
to heed what was going on. “Geraldine is very
ill,” he said seriously.</p>
<p>“Come to think of it, Myra Comely told me
that three of the girls, Geraldine among them, had
brought her the wonderful news that she had to tell
me about her mother’s brother. Mrs. Comely had
been ill for nearly a week with a form of influenza
which is often fatal.” Then, noting the startled
expressions on the faces of his listeners, the doctor
added: “Do not be alarmed, however, for we have
taken <i>this</i> case in time. I am sure of that.”</p>
<p>But, as days passed, the Colonel and Mrs. Gray
were not so sure, for, in spite of their constant and
loving care, Geraldine grew weaker. The little old
lady would permit no one else to nurse the girl, but
day and night she was near the bedside, ministering
with an unceasing tenderness and devotion.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_221">[221]</div>
<p>The Colonel procured two capable young women
to assist in the household. They were Matilda and
Susan Rankin, who for years had worked for the
Morrisons in Dorchester. Merry Lee and Doris
Drexel, having been equally exposed, were kept home
from school for a week, but they had evidently been
able to resist the contagion and were not ill.</p>
<p>Jack Lee called often to inquire about Geraldine,
and his heart was heavy when the news was so discouraging.
Then, at last, came a day when, with
hope almost gone, the Colonel, with an aching heart,
cabled to Geraldine’s father. He was in England
still and he could not reach Sunnyside for two weeks,
but Geraldine often called faintly for her “Dad,”
and the Colonel knew that he must send for him.</p>
<p>“I expect the crisis tonight,” the doctor said late
one afternoon. Jack Lee, hearing of this, sat up
with Danny O’Neil in his room over the garage.
Alfred had promised to place a lighted candle in a
rear window as soon as the doctor believed Geraldine
to be out of danger.</p>
<p>The long dark hours passed and it was nearing
dawn. Danny had fallen asleep, but Jack, alone in
the dark, sat watching for the candle which did not
appear.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_222">[222]</div>
<p>At sunrise, as his friend had not awakened, Jack,
unable to stand the suspense longer, went out in the
garden hoping that he might see someone from
whom he might make inquiries. As he passed beneath
a window, it was softly opened and Alfred
leaned out. His face was drawn and white.</p>
<p>“Jack,” he called, “please telephone Merry and
the other girls and tell them that Geraldine seems
to be asleep. We thought for hours that she would
never awaken, but now the doctor reports that her
breathing is more normal. He is confident that the
worst is over.”</p>
<p>The listener’s face brightened. “Good!” he ejaculated.
“Is there anything you want from town? I
am going to take Danny home with me to breakfast
and he can bring back anything you may need.”</p>
<p>Alfred disappeared to consult the housekeeper as
to what supplies might be required, and Jack, leaping
up the garage stairs two steps at a time, found
Danny awake and wondering what had become of
his friend.</p>
<p>He, too, was indeed glad to hear the good news,
and a few moments later, when Alfred had dropped
a list out to them, they drove away with lighter
hearts than they had had in many a day.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_223">[223]</div>
<p>Great was the rejoicing in the town of Sunnyside
as the news was telephoned from one home to another,
and a week later, when Geraldine was strong
enough to sit up for a few hours in her sunny bow
window, the six girls, wrapped in furs, stood beneath
it waving to her and smiling and nodding to assure
her of their friendship. When they were gone, there
were tears in the eyes of the invalid as she turned
toward the ever watchful old lady who sat sewing
nearby.</p>
<p>“Mrs. Gray,” she said, “am I different or is everyone
else different? When I first came I did not want
to know these country girls, but now I love them all
dearly.” Then, before the little old lady could reply,
Geraldine asked, “Is my Dad coming today?”</p>
<p>The housekeeper looked troubled. The Colonel
could not account for the fact that Mr. Morrison
had not been heard from since he first cabled that he
would return as soon as possible.</p>
<p>“Surely he will be here tomorrow by the latest,”
was the evasive answer.</p>
<p>The girl’s gaze then rested on the soft, silvery hair
of the bent head.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_224">[224]</div>
<p>“Mrs. Gray, why have you been so good to me?
An own relation couldn’t have been kinder. You
have tired yourself all out, I know, caring for me
day and night. I don’t deserve it.”</p>
<p>There was a twinkle in the eyes that looked at the
girl. “I’ve been playing a game, Geraldine,” she
said. “I’ve been pretending that you were my make-believe
granddaughter.” Then wistfully she added:
“You don’t know how all these last ten, long years
I have yearned for someone who really belonged to
me, someone to care for.”</p>
<p>Before Geraldine could reply, the door bell pealed.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_225">[225]</div>
<h2 id="c26">CHAPTER XXVI. <br/><span class="small">A HAPPY REUNION</span></h2>
<p>The tall, fine-looking man who stood on the front
porch lifted his hat as Mrs. Gray opened the door.</p>
<p>“I’m Mr. Morrison,” he said, and then he hastened
to inquire: “How is my little girl today?”</p>
<p>The housekeeper’s face brightened. “Oh, I’m so
glad that you have come,” she said. “Geraldine was
asking for you but a moment ago. She is much
better, but I am not sure that she is strong enough
to see you unless I first tell her that you are here.
Sudden joy may be as great a shock as sudden
sorrow.”</p>
<p>But, as they ascended the stairs and went quietly
down the corridor, they heard the girl calling,
“Daddy! Oh, I know it’s you, Daddy. I’ve been
expecting you all day long.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_226">[226]</div>
<p>When the tender greeting was over, with shining
eyes the girl looked at him as she said, “I’m going
to get well right away now, I know. I’ve been so
lonesome for you, Dad.” Turning toward the little
old lady, she added lovingly: “Mrs. Gray is my
make-believe grandmother, and you can’t guess how
good she has been to me.” Then suddenly thinking
of something, she smilingly declared: “Why, that
makes Mrs. Gray your make-believe mother, doesn’t
it, Dad?”</p>
<p>The man, because of his great anxiety about his
daughter, had scarcely noticed the old lady. He now
turned and looked at her, intending to thank her for
her kindness to his little girl. To his surprise tears
were rolling unheeded down the wrinkled cheeks,
although, in the sweet face, there was an expression
of radiant joy. Then Mrs. Gray held out her arms
to the amazed man and said in a voice that trembled
with emotion, “Alfred, my boy, don’t you know
me?”</p>
<p>A few moments later when the Colonel entered
the room he smiled around at the happy group.</p>
<p>“Well, Mrs. Gray,” he said after he had exchanged
greetings with the newcomer, “we don’t
have to keep our secret any longer, do we?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_227">[227]</div>
<p>“Oh, Colonel Wainright,” Geraldine exclaimed,
“have you known all the time that Mrs. Gray was
my real grandmother?”</p>
<p>“Yes, lassie, but she did not want me to tell you.
She wished first of all to win your love.”</p>
<p>A door banged below and Alfred leaped up the
stairs two steps at a time, Susan having told him
that his father had arrived.</p>
<p>He, too, was amazed to learn that Mrs. Gray was
their grandmother. “I’m bully glad,” the lad exclaimed,
as he kissed the beaming old lady. Then
he added: “Of course I knew that Dad ran away
from home when he was sixteen and that he had
never since seen his parents, but you thought they
were dead, didn’t you, Dad?” His father nodded.</p>
<p>“I’ve been alone for ten years,” Mrs. Gray told
them, “and during that time I’ve been hunting for
my boy.”</p>
<p>“All’s well that ends well!” Alfred said, and his
father added: “Just as soon as Geraldine is able to
travel, we must return to our home in Dorchester.”</p>
<p>“Oh, Dad!” the girl protested, “I do wish we
might stay in the country forever.”</p>
<p class="center"><span class="gs">* * * * * * * *</span></p>
<p>The next day, at Mrs. Gray’s suggestion, her son
took her for a drive in the light buggy. Although
the Colonel had two automobiles, the little old lady
preferred the old-fashioned way of traveling. They
drove along Willowbend Road, where the last bits
of snow were rapidly disappearing and where reddish
green buds were to be seen on the drooping
trees that gave the country road its name.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_228">[228]</div>
<p>Mrs. Gray lifted a beaming face and smiled up
at her long lost son from under her quaint Quaker-like
bonnet. “You haven’t asked me, Alfred, why
my name is Gray?”</p>
<p>“No,” he acknowledged, “I supposed that you
would tell me in time if you had married again.”</p>
<p>She shook her head. “No, I never did. Because
I always dressed in grey, friends began to call me
that, and when I came here once more searching
for some trace of you, I thought I would use that
name; and I am glad that I did, for by so doing
I won the love of my granddaughter. She might
otherwise have cared merely from a sense of duty.”
Then, as they turned in between two stone gate posts,
the man said: “How strange it seems to be, coming
back to our old home. I thought it had been sold
for taxes long ago.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_229">[229]</div>
<p>“It was nearly sold,” Mrs. Gray replied, “but I
heard of it in time to pay the back taxes and keep it.
At first I thought, when I couldn’t find you, that I did
not care to own it, for every corner and tree reminded
me of you when you were a boy, but now
I am so glad that I have kept our old home. It is
rather dilapidated,” she added brightly, “but in a
week or so we can have it all in readiness before we
tell the children a word about it. Then, when Geraldine
is strong enough to be moved, we will bring
her over here.”</p>
<p>“How pleased she will be,” Mr. Morrison declared.
“I will go to Dorchester tomorrow and see
about selling our other place and have the furniture
sent down here.”</p>
<p>“I thought we’d let Alfred have the room that
was yours when you were a boy,” Mrs. Gray continued,
“and that sunny bay window room which
overlooks the garden is the one I have planned for
Geraldine.”</p>
<p>“Mother,” the smiling man protested, “you know
how completely I have been spoiling our girl. You
aren’t going to do the same thing, are you?”</p>
<p>The little old lady shook her head. “Geraldine is
a changed lassie. She won’t spoil now.”</p>
<p>“And it’s all due to your loving influence, I am
sure,” Mr. Morrison declared.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_230">[230]</div>
<p>There were twinkles in the eyes that looked up at
him. “I can’t take all of the credit,” Mrs. Gray
replied. “I think someone else had even more to do
with the change in Geraldine than I have had.”</p>
<p>She was thinking of Jack Lee, but at that time she
did not care to tell her son about him.</p>
<p>The old house was one of those charming places,
pillared in front, with wide halls and large, many
windowed rooms that could easily be transformed
into just the kind of a home that Geraldine liked best.</p>
<p>Busy days followed for Mrs. Gray and her son.
Then, three weeks later, Doctor Carson announced
that Geraldine was strong enough to be moved.</p>
<p>So well had the secret been kept that the lassie
supposed that they were going to Dorchester.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_231">[231]</div>
<h2 id="c27">CHAPTER XXVII. <br/><span class="small">HOME, SWEET HOME</span></h2>
<p>Geraldine, supposing that they were about to
leave for the city, could not understand why her
friends had not called to say good-bye.</p>
<p>“Perhaps they will be waiting at the station,” she
said to Alfred when they were all in the big car,
with Danny O’Neil at the wheel.</p>
<p>“Like as not,” the unsuspecting lad replied.</p>
<p>The Colonel glanced at his watch. “Morrison,”
he said, “it’s a whole hour before train time. Would
you mind if we went farther out on the Willowbend
Road? I have a little business there that I would
like to attend to.”</p>
<p>“It’s all right with me,” the other man replied,
and Alfred, happening to look at his father, was
sure that he had turned away to hide a smile.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_232">[232]</div>
<p>Ten minutes later the car turned into the circling
drive and stopped in front of the pillared porch of
an old colonial home.</p>
<p>“What a pleasant place this is,” Geraldine said.
“Who lives here, Colonel Wainright?”</p>
<p>“Some good friends of mine,” that gentleman
replied as he prepared to leave the car. Then, as
though it were a sudden afterthought, he added: “I
wish you would all come in for one moment. We’ll
have plenty of time to get the train.”</p>
<p>It seemed odd to the girl that they should call
upon strangers just before leaving town, but she was
too fond of the Colonel not to willingly do whatever
he suggested, and so, leaning upon his proffered arm,
she slowly climbed the wide steps.</p>
<p>To Geraldine’s surprise, the door was opened by
Susan, and when they entered the wide hall she saw
Matilda, who was beaming upon them. What could
it mean? Glancing into the attractive room on either
side, the girl was amazed to see the furniture which
had been in their city home. Then suddenly she
understood and, turning a radiant face toward her
father, she exclaimed: “Oh, Dad, we aren’t going
to Dorchester, are we? I’m so glad! But do tell
me, how did you happen to find this wonderful place?
I just adore old-fashioned colonial houses.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_233">[233]</div>
<p>“It’s where I was born,” her father replied.
“Your grandmother and I have been planning it
all to surprise you and Alfred.”</p>
<p>“Well, it sure is a surprise to me,” the lad declared,
“and I’m bully glad that we’re going to stay
in the country.”</p>
<p>“Do the girls know about it?” Geraldine asked,
but before anyone could reply there sounded in the
driveway the ringing of a cowbell, the tooting of
horns and the gay laughter of young people.</p>
<p>Doris was the first to enter the hall of the Morrison
home when the door opened, but a troop of
laughing boys and girls followed closely.</p>
<p>“Oh, Geraldine,” Doris exclaimed, “isn’t this a
grand and glorious surprise. We didn’t know a
thing about it until this morning. We had supposed
that you were going to Dorchester, and we planned
being at the station to say good-bye when someone
phoned Jack for us to come here instead.”</p>
<p>“We are all so glad that you are to stay in Sunnyside,”
Merry declared. Tears gathered in the lovely
eyes of the girl, who was still not strong, and Jack,
noticing this, held out his arm.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_234">[234]</div>
<p>“Princess Geraldine,” he said, “permit me to lead
you to your throne, where you may receive the homage
of your rejoicing subjects.”</p>
<p>A moment later, when the happy girl was seated
near the fireplace, with Jack standing at her side,
Doris, looking about the group, exclaimed: “Where
is Danny O’Neil? Why isn’t he here with us?”</p>
<p>“I think he went to the garage,” Alfred said. “I’ll
bring him in.” The two lads soon entered the house
together and Alfred’s arm was thrown over the other
boy’s shoulder to assure him that he considered him
a friend and an equal. Doris walked up to them
and, holding a long envelope before the Irish boy,
she exclaimed: “Mister Danny O’Neil, if you can
guess what this envelope contains, you may have it.”</p>
<p>“Why, Doris, how should I know?” the mystified
lad replied. “I never had a letter written to me by
anyone.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_235">[235]</div>
<p>“Well, you certainly have one now,” Doris declared,
“but I’m going to read it out to the entire
company, so please lend me your ears.” Then, opening
the important looking envelope, she read:</p>
<p class="tb">“Dorchester Art Institute, March the first.</p>
<p>“Mr. Danny O’Neil: We are glad to inform you
that the carving which you submitted in our recent
contest has been awarded first place, and as a result
you will receive a scholarship in our institution for
one year from this date, all of your expenses to be
paid. We advise you to come at once as new classes
will be formed on Monday, March the fifth.”</p>
<p class="tb">The expression on the face of the Irish lad was
first puzzled and then radiant. “Doris,” he said,
“you entered that carving in the contest and I didn’t
know a thing about it.”</p>
<p>“Oh, Danny,” Merry exclaimed as she held out
her hand, “I congratulate you for all of us.”</p>
<p>A little later Doris found the lad standing alone
by a window gazing out at the trees that were showing
a haze of silvery green.</p>
<p>He looked up with a welcoming smile. “Doris,”
he said, “I’m thinking how pleased my mother would
be.” Then he added: “I’m going to try hard to
succeed, Good Angel. I want you to be proud of
me.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_236">[236]</div>
<p>When the others were gone, Jack remained to
spend the evening with Alfred, so he said, but during
the long twilight he and Geraldine sat before the
fireplace and the girl listened to the lad’s dreams of
his future on a cattle ranch, and her heart was made
happy when Jack said earnestly, “You’d love it,
Geraldine. From now on I am going to hope that
you will be there with me.”</p>
<p class="tbcenter"><span class="small">THE END.</span></p>
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