The Seven Sleuths' Club

“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.”

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.

“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.

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.

“Jack must have been a doggie in a former existence,” Peg teased.

“Sure thing I was!” the boy replied good-naturedly. “I’d heaps rather have been a dog than a cat.”

“Sir!” Peg stepped up threateningly near. “Are there any concealed inferences in that?”

“Nary a one. I think in a former existence you girls must have all been sunbeams.”

“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.”

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.”

CHAPTER VI.

MILK MAIDS AND BUTTER CHURNERS

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.

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.

“Hurray for the ‘S. S. C.’!” she sang out, and Merry replied with the inevitable, “Hail! Hail! The gang’s all here!”

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.

“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.”

“Well, Grandmother Dorcas, I’ll say you’ll not go anywhere else,” Peggy declared at once. “For one thing, there isn’t another real warm room in this house except the kitchen, and secondly, we all want you to help us plan this prank.”

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.

“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.“

“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.”

The sweet, wrinkled old face beamed with pleasure. “Good! Good!” she said. “I’ll want to see you.”

All of the girls except Betty had bundles or satchels and merrily they followed their young hostess upstairs to the attic.

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.

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.

In front of the long, cracked mirror Rose stood laughing merrily. “Oh, girls,” she exclaimed, “don’t I look comical?”

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.

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.

“Peggy, you are funniest of all,” Merry declared.

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I did giggle just a little,” their youngest confessed.

“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.”

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.”

“Hurray for us!” Doris sang out. “It does seem like wasted effort to get all togged up this way just for a rehearsal.”

“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.”

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.

CHAPTER VII.

AN UNWILLING HOSTESS

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.

“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 was born here? That surely was his misfortune, and no sensible reason why I should be condemned to be buried here for a whole winter.”

“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 mean to do.”

“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 best people.”

“What makes them the best, Sister?”

The girl tapped one daintily slippered foot impatiently as she said scathingly: “Alfred, you are so provoking sometimes. You know the Ellingsworths and the Drexels and all those people are considered the best in Dorchester.”

Alfred was about to reply that there was a family of Drexels living in Sunnyside, but, luckily, before he had 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?”

“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!”

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.”

Merry, in telling Jack about it afterwards, said that Alfred played his part as though he had been practicing it for weeks.