ORCHIDIA
"Oh, how perfectly gorgeous!" This a solo from Grace.
"Heavenly, I think!" Cleo chimed in.
"Wherever did you get them all?" asked Grace.
Like a little floral queen, Mary ushered her visitors into this
mysterious room, the orchid sanctum of Professor Benson. It was all
that the girls had proclaimed it, gorgeous, heavenly and wonderful!
The variegated tones of lavendar, known only as orchid, were as elusive
as the subtle scent of this tropical bloom. The whole diffusing into
something so indescribable that even the spontaneous girls failed for
once to rally immediately to a sense of reality. It seemed like a
dream, like a picture book, or even a wonderful pastel!
Never before had Mary's quaint personality seemed so well set as she
flitted about, bringing her face down to the affectionate shade of
flower upon flower, yet never touching with so much as a finger tip the
perishable bloom.
The room was, or always had been, a conservatory--the original owner,
the famous artist Imlay, delighting in bringing to perfection there the
many rare plants and flowers. So the place lent itself exactly to the
work of Professor Benson. Many of the orchids hung in leafy baskets,
seemingly not requiring soil, but subsisting, as they so peculiarly do,
almost in air.
"What are they all for?" stammered Grace.
"Girls, I wish I could tell you all about our orchids, but you see----"
Mary hesitated, put her finger to her lips and her eyes went blank.
"I am sure you will soon, Mary-love," Cleo assisted the perplexed
child, "and we wouldn't want to know anything of your affairs that you
are not at liberty to tell. Whenever we ask a question that is out of
order, as we say at our scout meetings, just you answer 'secret' and we
will at once change the subject. There, isn't that fair?"
"You are all so fair and thoughtful," Mary replied. "I just feel I can
hardly wait to see Grandie, and get his permission to tell you at least
a part of our story. But now let me show you some of our rarest
orchids. Come over here and see these growing on the side of this
rubber tree."
Time passed quickly in such delightful surroundings, and when Cleo
glanced at her wrist watch she discovered two hours had been consumed
in the time since leaving home, and Jennie should not be made anxious,
they had subsequently decided. Consequently the orchid room could not
longer be enjoyed on this first visit.
"You see, the wires Grandie uses to give a very light heat," Mary
explained. "He is working on a new electric system, and had just
turned the current on to try it last night. It is off now. I know how
to throw on and off the switch," she assured the girls, as Madaline
edged gingerly from the room.
"Don't be afraid, Madie," said Grace. "The wires are now all as dead
as fish hooks, and much less dangerous."
"What do you suppose the strange men intended to do?" ventured Cleo.
"Just say 'secret' if I am on the wrong track."
"Oh, I know they meant to harm Grandie," replied Mary, soberly. "They
pretended, I suppose, that they came to buy orchids, but more likely
they came to steal them. Then Janos is always wanting Grandie to take
his old queer medicines, and I know they do not make him better. But
do come along, girls, they really might be daring enough to come back."
At this Grace and Madaline made a bee-line for the front door, which
stood safely wide open. Cleo remained back with Mary, who was most
particular about spraying a few precious plants with water from an
atomizer before she left.
"No danger of those men coming back to Bellaire by train," said Cleo,
as Mary finally sprang the lock on the big door, "but, of course, they
might come by auto," she added.
"I heard Janos say he could not get a license to drive a car," Mary
said, "and I was glad of that. You see, these foreigners know very
little about machinery."
"But they could hire a driver," suggested Grace.
"They would not," Mary insisted, shaking her head. "They are too
secretive, and would be afraid others would find them out. Oh dear,"
and she sighed deeply. "I do not see why we have to suffer so. I have
been so happy with you girls I can almost forget, but when I come up
here it all rushes back!"
"Now--now, now," warned Grace in her boyish way. "No fair getting
glumpy. You are just exactly like a perfectly different girl,
Mary-love. We do not intend to let you do any back-sliding. You can
learn that much scouting right off, and I think, Cleo, as soon as we
get back home we will make her--yes, make her," and she raised her
voice in mock severity, "take our scout pledge of good cheer."
Mary smiled through misty eyes. All three scouts had attempted to take
one of her arms, and as she really had not enough members to go around
that way, Madaline grabbed the ends of her big long braids, and
declared she just had to hold on to something.
They tramped along, down the broad path and again out into the roadway
from the once famous artist's estate.
"You have neighbors within call, should yon have needed them, Mary,"
Cleo said. "I am glad you were not too lonely before we met you."
"Yes, but I have never known the folks who live in that house," she
replied, drawing in her lips to a very thin red line. "I heard one of
the maids make a remark about us one day, and I never wanted to know
any of them after that."
"I don't blame you," agreed Madaline. "Mean maids are so mean, and
lovely ones are as nice as Jennie, and she's perfect. I hope she won't
mind us coming up here?" a little anxiously.
"As long as we are getting back in such good time I am sure she won't,"
Cleo assured them.
"You know, girls," said Mary, stopping suddenly to better gain their
entire attention, "I did not forget to bring some flowers back. I am
sure Mrs. Dunbar would have loved them, and I should have so enjoyed
giving her some, but I promised Grandie never to bring any through the
streets. He is so queer about them, you see," and once more the secret
topic was inadvertently touched upon. "I may have all I like always,"
she hurried to explain, "in fact I have many named, and they are my
very own, but just yet I would not risk letting people know we have
them."
"Oh," said Grace so simply, and so softly that the expression might
have been an echo from the sigh of a passing summer breeze.
"But the queer wild bushes and things all growing around the windows?"
asked Madaline. "Why do you have them near the glorious orchids?"
"Grandie thinks they are a protector. You can only see them when you
look in through the glass, and so no one would ever guess they really
hide orchids," Mary explained.
"And that is why you get all the wild roots from the fields?" Grace
exclaimed, delighted to have solved that much of the mystery.
"Yes, that is partly the reason, but Grandie makes a fine fertilizer
out of the roots, also. You see our beauties are very tender, and must
have special heat and special nourishment."
"And how will you know your house is safe while you are away?" pressed
Cleo.
"Of course we don't know," Mary replied, "but there wasn't anything
else to do. I feel you girls have done it all. I have been such a
baby and, as Reda always insisted, I have seemed half asleep. But
honestly, girls," and again Mary pulled them up to a standstill in
their walk, so that her remarks would not possibly go astray. "I am
like someone who really was asleep, and was just waking up. At least
that is the way I feel."
"And you are getting such a lovely color," Grace complimented. "Even
if things did get stolen from your house for want of caretakers it
seems to me worth while for you and the professor to grow strong,"
declared the practical little scout.
"It is, indeed," agreed Mary. "You really can't know how much it means
just yet. Secret!" she called out, inaugurating Cleo's idea of
avoiding the forbidden topic by giving the cry of warning.
They all joined in the laugh that followed, and when they took to the
road that slanted down over Second Mountain like an inclined pole, they
trotted along, almost running down the steep grade.
"We ought to have brakes to go down here safely," said Cleo. "But I do
love to run down a big, high hill. Let's!"
"I'll race you," challenged Madaline, and the words were no more than
uttered when the four girls dashed off, throwing back shoulders and
bracing heads high to avoid rolling "head over heels" down the steep
mountain road.
Past the vineyard, past the quarry pole, and still on past the mountain
house, they kept up the uncertain pace, and finally, reaching a smooth,
almost level lawn, that stole out to play on the roadside, they all
flopped down so suddenly and so unceremoniously that they all but
rolled in sheer disregard of possible grown-up dignity.
Recovering their equilibrium, the quartette at once set to their
popular lawn-loved task of searching for four-leaf clovers. So intent
were they in the hunt they did not observe the approach of two maids,
coming towards them from the house they sat directly in front of. But
they heard them presently!
"I know it's that queer old gypsy that comes over the mountain every
day," said one. "I told Officer Brennen if he wanted to get her--he
might stop in here."
At that remark the girls paused in their hunt, and listened intently.
"Hush!" said the other maid. "There's the little girl now with those
visitors at Cragsnook."
Mary dropped all her clovers as if they suddenly burned her fingers.
Her face flushed deeply.
"Come on, girls!" said Cleo, aloud. "We are all rested enough now, I
guess," and it was a much sobered group that again picked up the trail
down the mountain into Bellaire Center.