A MERRY ADVENTURE
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.
“I wish we’d brought along some snowshoes,” Merry remarked. “I hate to
let a storm stump me. Brother will certainly tease us well if we go back
without having reached our destination.”
“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.”
“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.”
“What if it’s somebody we don’t know?” little Betty Byrd ventured to
inquire, to which Merry “How _could_ it be? Wasn’t I born here, and don’t
I know everybody within a million miles?”
“That sounds rather like hyperbole,” Bertha exclaimed.
“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——”
“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.
Stopping his horses, he snatched off his fur cap and revealed a frank,
boyish face that had not been seen in that neighborhood before.
“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.”
“Oh, yes, we can tell you,” Merry replied. “This lane is a short-cut to
the Colonel’s place.”
The lad thanked her and was about to drive on; then he hesitated and
turned back.
“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.”
“Oh,” Merry exclaimed brightly, “my brother, Jack Lee, is acquainted with
you, I am sure. He goes to school in the city.”
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.”
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.”
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.
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.
“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.”
“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?”
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.”
“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?”
“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.”
“Sure thing we did, I’ll acknowledge that, but——”
“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 _what_ the boys _do_ at
their secret meetings.”
“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.”
“Well,” their president said, “we _do_ 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, _how_ 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!’”
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, _you_
surely know what the boys mean by their ‘C. D. C.’”
“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.”
But, it was quite plain to the group that Merry had still more to
divulge.
“Who is Conan Doyle, anyway?” their youngest asked. “What kind of books
did he write?”
“My child,” Bertha said condescendingly, “hast never heard of Sherlock
Holmes, the great detective?”
“O, of course, I have,” Betty Byrd replied. “Then the boys have a
detective club. Is that it, Merry?”
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 _wants_ 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.”
“Say, _what_ 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 _our_
intelligences. One of them, I couldn’t tell which, had written to a
lawyer uncle in New York, telling about _their_ 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, _she_ must be an exception
all right. I can’t imagine _my_ sister Merry or any of _her_ 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 _any one_ getting a chance to solve a mystery in
_this_ 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.’”
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 _real_ mystery to solve and show those boys a thing or two. Won’t
they be humiliated, good and proper, when they learn that _we_, seven
mere girls, without intelligence, have solved the greatest mystery that
ever occurred in the village of Sunnyside.”
“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,
_how_, pray, can we solve it?” Bertha was always logical and practical.
Their “balance wheel,” she was sometimes called.
“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 _just_ how to go
about solving one, when it’s found.”
“Sit down, friend sleuth, and tell us your plan. There _are_
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——”
“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_ made if they care anything about a stylish fit.”
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 _now_ I feel about the way Peg does, that if we keep on
being _so saintly_, 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——”
“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.
“Sure thing! Shoot!”
“How would ‘Seven Sleuths’ Club’ do for the new meaning?”
“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——”
“Fail? Dory and I don’t know the meaning of the word.” that slender maid
retorted.
Bertha, who was nearest the window, then exclaimed: “Someone is driving
in. Why, if it isn’t that nice Alfred Morrison.”
“Great!” Merry declared. “Now we can get a ride out of the lane. I do
believe that is why he is coming.”
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.
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 _most secret_ and that no matter how the boys of the ‘C. D. C.’ may
_pry_, 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?”
“No ifs!” Peg interjected with determination. “_We will!_”