constellation in the heavens,” Adele cried. “That’s it! Madame Deriby
just told me that she had decided that we might have a party the night
before we depart for our homes. We may invite our brothers and that will
provide us with escorts to check our baggage and all that sort of thing
on the railroad journey.”
“Oh, how nice!” Carol Lorens exclaimed. “I have so wanted you girls to
meet my splendid brother Peter, and since Evelyn hasn’t a brother, I’ll
share him with her.”
“Of course they don’t have to be brothers,” Adele declared. “We may
invite any boy friend, Madame Deriby said, that our mothers would permit
us at home to have for escorts.”
“No need to ask whom Adele will invite,” Peggy Pierce sang out to tease,
but Adele was not like Rosamond. She did not resent Peggy’s nonsense.
“Of course you know,” she replied frankly, which spoiled the fun of
teasing her. “His initials are D. B.”
“Would you leave your poor brother Jack out of the party?” Betty Burd
inquired.
“No indeed!” Della replied as she glanced at the lassie next to her. “I
was planning to ask Doris to invite Jack if she didn’t mind, since she
hasn’t a brother of her own.”
“I wonder who’ll invite Bob!” Peggy began, but before she could say
more, Bertha interrupted, “Why, I shall, of course, since he is my
brother.” So Peggy didn’t have a chance to tease Rose that time.
One day soon after the party announcement, Adele stole into the library
where several of her friends were doing reference work. She kept looking
around as though she feared that she might be followed and her movements
were so stealthy that the girls, who were supposed to be studying, were
much mystified.
“Adele, you act like the villain in a moving-picture play creeping along
that way,” Betty Burd said. “It gives me the shudders. What are you
afraid of?”
“I’ve a secret,” Adele said, “and I don’t want Gertrude to hear it. She
doesn’t know that I know. In fact, she doesn’t know that anybody knows,
but I do know, and——”
“My dear Adele,” Carol Lorens exclaimed, rising and pretending to feel
her friend’s pulse and forehead, “you don’t think that you are ill or
crazy or any little thing like that, do you?”
Adele laughed merrily. “No, I honestly don’t believe that I am any
crazier than usual, but truly, I have a secret to tell you, and I wanted
to be sure that Gertrude wasn’t in the room, that’s why I stole in so
still like. I thought that you were so engrossed in your studies, as
Miss Sharpleigh says, that you would neither hear nor see.”
“Gertrude is not with us,” Evelyn declared, and then she added gaily,
“If you really want to know where she is at this very moment, you have
but to glance out of yonder window.”
Adele looked and saw a tall lassie standing deep in the daisies with her
flock of very little girls trooping about her, their arms filled with
the gold and white blossoms, but she also saw more than that.
“Look! Look, girls!” she cried excitedly. “What if it should be a
budding romance?”
“Where? Where?” Rosamond called as she rushed to the window, followed by
the others, who peered over toward the daisy meadow which bordered the
school grounds on the highway.
They saw that a roadster had suddenly stopped, a good-looking lad had
leaped out, and, with cap in hand, he was talking pleasantly to the
youngest teacher. The little ones gathered close to her and listened
with wide eyes. Then, with a merry laugh, the lad tossed the smallest
high in the air, shook hands with Gertrude and was gone.
“Adele, I do believe that you are right,” Doris Drexel declared. “I
think that maybe it is the tiniest pink bud of a romance.”
“Oh, girls,” Rosamond Wright said, as they returned to the reference
table and their books, “wouldn’t this be a fine title for a love story,
‘The poor minister’s daughter weds a millionaire’?”
“‘Rosie the Romancer’ would be an equally good one,” Starr teased, “but,
Adele, all of this time your secret has remained unrevealed. Of course
we are brilliant enough to realize that it must be about Gertrude. Now,
what about her?”
“Something ever so nice!” Adele replied. “The day of our C. E. P. is
also Gertrude’s sixteenth birthday. I just happened to remember it; now
can’t we have a surprise party for her inside of the big party for all
of us, just like those Chinese boxes where there is one inside of the
other.”
“Della, what fun that will be!” squealed Betty.
“Let’s do it!” Peggy declared.
“Well then, thumbs up, and all promise absolute secrecy,” Adele said.
“We promise,” came in merry chorus.
“Sh-h! Here comes Gertrude!” some one whispered, and a moment later,
when that young lady entered the library, her friends, including Adele,
seemed to be engrossed in their studies, and so she went away, little
dreaming of the fun that they were planning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
A STRING OF PEARLS
The next afternoon at the three-thirty recreation, the girls met in
Adele’s room to look over their party dresses and see if snaps and
buttons needed sewing on or if ribbons and ruffles needed pressing. A
pretty array of fluffy gowns, pink, blue and white, were spread out on
their laps, and tongues flew as fast as the needles.
“Oh, won’t we have the very best time?” Peggy Pierce was saying. “It
will be the first real dancing-party I have ever attended. Of course we
used to skip about to the tunes of the victrola at our home parties, but
think of it, girls, at this dance there is to be a stringed orchestra
from Buffalo and a caterer to serve the refreshments.”
“I wonder where Bertha and Betty are!” Adele had just said when the
former maiden appeared with a letter in her hand.
“Girls!” Burdie exclaimed tragically. “The young man whom I invited
can’t come.”
“Oh-h! Isn’t that too bad?” Doris Drexel declared.
And Betty Burd chimed in with “It won’t be a nice party at all if Bob
Angel isn’t here.”
Then Peggy Pierce added to tease, “And some one was going to look so
sweet in her fluffy pink dress. If Bob isn’t here, our flower will wilt,
I fear.”
“Meaning, I suppose, a maiden named Rose,” Doris Drexel chanted.
“Who said Bob wasn’t coming?” Bertha flashed. She always defended
Rosamond. “I’m sure I didn’t! I changed my mind about asking my brother
and I invited Dick Jensen instead. Bob wrote that he would be at the
party if he had to walk here on jagged stones.”
“A very devoted brother, I must say,” Peggy said meaningly, with a sly
side-glance at Rosamond, who was trying not to mind the teasing which
Peggy seemed so to delight in.
“Adele,” Starr said to change the subject and also because she had been
wondering about it, “wouldn’t it be nice if we all contributed toward a
fund with which to buy Gertrude a birthday present?”
“Oh, yes,” Carol exclaimed, “and let it be something that Trudie would
just love to have but cannot afford to get for herself.”
“I know what that something would be,” Adele said brightly. “Last year
Trudie told me that though she cared nothing for rings and gaudy
jewelry, she would so like to have a string of pearls. Her Uncle Pierson
was visiting there at the time. He was in the room, absorbed in his
reading, we supposed, but he must have overheard, for when he went away,
he left an envelope addressed to Gertrude in which there was a message
and a twenty-dollar bill crisp and new. In the little letter he told her
that the money was to be spent as she most desired. Of course he
supposed that Trudie would buy a string of pearls.
“She was so happy and she asked me if I would go to Dorchester with her
on a shopping expedition, and so, the very next day, we set out.
“When we reached a jeweler’s shop, I expected Gertrude to turn in, but
instead she went just beyond to a dry-goods store. I was indeed puzzled
until Trudie, looking at me with happy eyes, exclaimed, ‘Daddy and
Mother have been invited to a convention in Boston where so many
pleasant things are to happen, but Mummie said she couldn’t go, and I
know why she can’t. It’s because she hasn’t had a new best dress in ten
years. There are so many babies growing up, and each time Mother has a
little money saved, it has to be spent for them, but now, she is going
to have a new dress and go to that convention.’”
“Isn’t that just like our Gertrude?” Doris Drexel said. “What did she
buy?”
“She bought black broadcloth for a suit,” Della told them, “and then, as
there happened to be a sale, she also bought enough soft lilac silk for
a dress to wear in the evening. I saw it after they had it made, and it
was the sweetest thing with some old real lace in the neck and sleeves.”
“Adele,” Evelyn Dartmoor said, “I am glad that you told us about it. If
you will appoint me treasurer of the fund, I will promise you that on
her sixteenth birthday, Gertrude will receive the prettiest string of
pearls that can be found in Buffalo.”
“Good!” Della declared. “We will each give our contribution to Evelyn.”
Then she added, “I can’t understand where Bettykins is. I told her that
we were to meet here at this hour. I believe that I will go and hunt her
up.”
Adele did not have far to go, for she found the little one slowly
ascending the wide front stairs and her eyes were red, as though she had
been crying.
“What is it, Betty dear?” Adele inquired as she drew the little girl
into an alcove. “Have you had news from home?”
“No, it isn’t that, but I haven’t a party dress, and so I won’t be able
to go to the dance.” The tears started afresh, but Adele, with a merry
little laugh, exclaimed cheerily, “Oh, is that all? Why, Betsy, that
pink muslin dress of yours would make the sweetest party gown if you
would let me change it a bit.”
The little girl looked up eagerly. “Della, would you do it for me?” she
asked. “I don’t know how to do anything like that myself. I’ve never
worn the pink dress because I just hated that high collar and the long
tight sleeves.”
“You’ll be surprised when you see what a fine dressmaker I am,” Adele
replied gaily.
“Don’t say a word about it, and I’ll fix it to-night when we are alone.
I’ll cut a square neck and short sleeves and put little lace ruffles
around them, and oh, Bettykins, I’ve the dearest pink sash with long
fringe that has never been out of its box, and you shall wear that.”
This was almost too much for the little girl and the tears appeared
again, but this time they were happy ones.
“Della!” Betty cried impulsively. “That’s why everybody loves you,
because you’re always doing things to make other people happy.”
Just then the gong sounded through the corridors calling the girls to
the Gym.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ROMANCING
The week that followed was devoted to studying, for the terrible exams
must be passed before the party could be enjoyed.
“Bring your books up to my room this evening at seven,” Adele sang out
as the girls from Sunnyside were trooping in after a merry game on the
tennis courts. “I’ll play teacher and give you a review.”
“We’ll be there!” Carol replied, then turning to the tall, quiet girl at
her side, she added, “Evelyn, suppose we practise for the next half-hour
since we are to perform at the closing exercises.”
Gertrude and Adele, arm linked in arm, entered the school and ascended
the stairs to their room.
“Trudie,” Adele exclaimed as she sank down on a low stool to remove her
tennis shoes, “what nice new friends we have made this year, Carol,
Evelyn Dartmoor, and the lassie from the Dakota prairie. What a
wonderful girl she is, that Starr! I am so glad that she came to our
school. She makes me think of Eva Dearman a little. Not that they look
alike. Maybe just because they both live in that glorious West. It seems
as if I haven’t heard from Eva in ages.” Then folding her hands over her
knees, she added thoughtfully, “Trudie, please don’t think me
sentimental or anything like that, but, when I grow up, if I should
happen to get married, I do wish that it might be to an Arizona
cattleman.”
Gertrude laughed merrily as she began to brush her dark, wavy hair, then
she exclaimed, “Donald Burnley is planning to live on his ranch, isn’t
he? Of course I mean when he finishes college and is ready to settle
down.”
“I believe that he is,” Adele said, springing up, then she added with a
smile, “Trudie, are you trying to tease me about Donald the way Peggy
delights in teasing Rose about Bob?”
“I feel sorry for Rosamond!” Gertrude replied. “Her mother is such a
social butterfly and she seems to have no time for her pretty daughter,
in fact she almost never writes to her. I sincerely hope that Rose and
Bob will care for each other when they are grown.”
“I wonder who Trudie’s prince is going to be?” Adele said mischievously
as she slipped on the simple muslin that she wore in the evening. “I’m
going to guess that his initials will be A. E.”
“Della, what a romancer you are to-day,” Gertrude exclaimed.
Adele laughed gaily. “Hark!” she said. “I hear footsteps approaching
down Apple-Blossom Alley.” A second later there was a merry rapping on
the door, and when it was opened, half a dozen maidens appeared and each
one was waving a letter.
“We’re the postman-brigade!” Peggy Pierce called. “Miss Sharpleigh has
just finished looking over the mail, and think of it, Della, there are
six letters for you, and not one for any of the rest of us.”
Adele’s eyes were shining, for her quick glance had noted one of the
postmarks. “Come in!” she called. “I am sure that there is interesting
news in these letters that you will want to hear.”
“Whom are they all from?” Betty Burd asked as the six girls sat
tailor-wise on the floor.
Adele’s eyes were glowing. She had peeped into the letter that was on
top, and then springing up, she pirouetted around the room waving it in
the air.
“Oh, something so very, very wonderful is going to happen!” she cried as
she seized Gertrude and gave her a bear hug. “Trudie, here’s a letter
from the person we were just talking about, and it contains the best
news. Who do you think is coming from Arizona to attend our C. E. P. and
then is to stay with me in Sunnyside all this summer?”
“Oh, Della, is it Eva Dearman?” Peggy eagerly inquired.
Adele nodded happily. “Mother wrote to Mr. Dearman and asked if Eva
might visit me during the vacation and I wrote begging her to try to get
here in time for the party. She is coming next week with some friends of
her Uncle Dick’s who are traveling to Buffalo.”
“Who is Eva Dearman?” Starr asked. “I know she must be nice, for you all
seem to love her.”
“Oh, indeed we do!” Doris Drexel replied. “She is a dear, beautiful,
unselfish, sunshiny girl. She lives on an Arizona cattle ranch with her
uncle Dick Dearman and an orphan friend, Amanda Brown, who married a
cowboy named ‘Rusty Pete.’”
“I wonder how Amanda is!” Betty Burd had just said, when Adele, who was
reading the letter to herself, gave another wild whoop. “Oh! Oh!” she
cried, “how I do wish that I was there to see it and hold it and hug
it.”
“Della, hold what?” Peggy Pierce inquired. “You are so provokingly
mysterious.”
“Girls,” Adele said, “the most beautiful something has happened. Amanda
Brown has a baby! A darling, little brown-eyed daughter, and Eva writes
that poor Mandy, who so yearned for own folks two years ago, now has a
heart brimming over with joy. Pete built an adobe house for her down
near Silver Creek, only a stone’s throw from the big ranch house, and
since they have plenty of water, the porch is just covered with
blossoming vines.
“Oh, how I would love to see that happy little mother sitting there
crooning to her baby and watching for her cowboy husband as he rides
home in the evening.”
“Girls,” Rosamond exclaimed joyfully, “this summer when we are all at
home, let’s each make something for Mandy’s baby. Now, Della, whom is
your next letter from?”
Adele glanced over the other letters that the postman-brigade had
brought to her. Then she gaily announced, “Here is one from Donald
Burnley telling me that he will be glad to come to our party. Two of the
others are from Daddy and Mummie with just love and home news in them.
Oho! Here is one from Jack. It’s such an unusual thing for my devoted
brother to write me a letter all by himself that I am inclined to
believe that something interesting must have happened. Perhaps he has
passed his college preparatory exams, but that would be almost too much
to expect from my indolent brother.”
“Adele, it isn’t a bit nice of you to talk that way about Jack,” Doris
Drexel protested. “It doesn’t matter, of course, as far as we Sunnyside
girls are concerned, since we grew up with him, but Starr and Carol and
the others who don’t know him might think that you meant it.”
Adele laughingly hugged the girl next to her, and then turning to Starr
she exclaimed, “Yonder on my dresser is Jack’s photograph and if you
care to glance in that direction, you will behold a youth both handsome
and indolent, who, nevertheless, is the nicest brother in all the world.
There, Doris, is that better?”
“Not much,” the other laughingly replied, “but since Jack is coming to
the party, Carol and Starr will soon learn for themselves just how nice
he is. Now, do read his letter to us.”
Adele, who had glanced ahead, exclaimed gleefully, “Just as I thought,
Jack did have something very unusual to write about or he would merely
have added a postscript to Mummie’s letter. It concerns every one of us,
so harken and you shall hear:
“‘Dear Sis and all:
“‘A most remarkable thing has happened. I haven’t been real
sure whether I am afoot or horseback since I heard about it!
Mother and Dad both say we can go, and the _we_ means all
the girls in the Sunnyside Club and all the Jolly Pirates.
Now, if you are properly curious, I’ll tell you where we are
going. Uncle Jack and Aunt Dahlia are sailing for Europe
this week and they have loaned us that wonderful island of
theirs in the St. Lawrence River for the summer. We will
have a great old camping-party all through the month of
August, that is, if you can find some older person to stay
in the cabin with you girls. See you soon, and then you’ll
hear all about it.
“‘Your Buddie.’”
“Oh, Della, what fun that will be,” Doris Drexel exclaimed. “I simply
adore camping.”
The other girls were equally overjoyed at the prospect, but a gong was
calling them to various tasks and so they had to leave the choosing of a
chaperone until another day.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
OLD FRIENDS ARRIVE
“I’ve thought of the best person in all the world to have for chaperone
for our camping-party, if she will accept,” Adele exclaimed the next day
as she skipped into the recreation hall where the girls were assembled,
a shower having kept them indoors.
“Who is it?” Carol asked.
“It is Madge Petersen, a lovely young lady in Dorchester whom we once
met at Little Bear Lake,” Adele replied.
“Oh, how I do hope that Miss Petersen will go with us,” Betty Burd
exclaimed. “I heard Uncle George tell Mother once that Madge is his
ideal of a gentlewoman.”
Adele was chuckling at some pleasant memory. “What is it, Della?” Rose
asked. “Tell as so that we may all laugh.”
“Why, I was just thinking that Everett Petersen ought to be appointed
Sailor-in-chief. The very first time that I ever saw him, he had just
tipped over in a sailboat on Little Bear Lake, and he came up looking
like a drowned white rat.”
“Suppose we invite Miss Petersen and her brother to our party!” Doris
suggested, “and then we can tell her all about our summer plans, and ask
her to accompany us.”
This was done and two days later came the answer.
“They’re coming!” Adele happily shouted as she skipped out to the
tennis-court waving a letter. “Miss Petersen and Everett will arrive on
the same train with Eva. So many pleasant things are happening, I can
hardly keep my mind on my lessons.”
“And those dreadful exams are to begin to-morrow,” Rose moaned.
During the week of examinations, the girls tried to forget the party and
all the joyful things that were about to happen. Luckily they had
studied faithfully each day in the year and so the testing time was
successfully passed and at last there dawned the wonderful day on which
their three dear friends were to arrive.
Arthur Ellsworth, who had met the Petersens in Dorchester, was to take
Everett home with him while Madge and Eva were to remain over night at
the school.
At last dawned the wonderful day when the girls had nothing to do but
prepare for the closing-exercises party.
Gertrude, Adele, and Betty were a committee of three to go in the bus to
the early morning train and meet their guests, Eva Dearman, Madge
Petersen, and her brother Everett.
The day seemed to know that it was to be one of joyous festivities.
Never had there been a bluer sky! The summer-house was covered with pink
cluster roses, the garden was fragrant with bloom, and birds,
everywhere, sang their most jubilant songs. In the distance, white sails
gleamed on the shining waters of the lake.
The local train, which was usually an hour late between Buffalo and
Linden, puffed noisily into the station, seemingly proud of the
astonishing fact that it was on time to the minute, and when it stopped,
the three girls gave a glad cry and leaped upon Eva Dearman, somewhat
rumpling her tailory appearance, but little did the girl from the desert
care; she was so glad to be with her beloved Adele once more.
Madge Petersen was greeted with equal warmth, though with more dignity,
and Everett smilingly waited his turn, cap in hand.
“How our sailor boy has grown!” Adele exclaimed as they started toward
the bus. “I do believe that he is taller now than Jack, and last year my
brother was quite boastful of the fact that he was an inch nearer the
sky than any of his comrades.”
“Weeds grow rapidly,” Everett told her as he assisted the girls into the
bus and then leaped up as it started, riding for a moment on the steps.
“Yonder looks like a nice place to sail,” he exclaimed. “I’m just wild
to go somewhere this summer and sail from sun-up until dark.”
“Oh, Everett, I’ll be a good fairy and grant your wish!” Adele cried
happily. “I have a wonderful plan to unfold.” Then as they were slowly
climbing the hill, Della told about her uncle’s island on the St.
Lawrence and ended by saying that the girls all wanted Madge Petersen to
go with them and be their Lady of the Cabin.
“What bully fun that will be!” Everett declared, when Madge had
smilingly told them that she would think it over.
“Adele, I invite you to go sailing with me the very first morning after
our arrival,” the lad added mischievously.
“You want to give me an early ducking, I see!” that maiden replied.
“Here we are!” Gertrude said as the bus arrived at the school and a
flock of laughing girls trooped down the broad front steps to greet the
newcomers.
Madame Deriby was pleased to meet these friends of the girls from
Sunnyside and she told Adele that they might occupy the pretty room in
the cupola for the night, and so thither they all flocked. When
satchels, hats, and cloaks had been deposited therein, and Madge had
paused a moment at the high window to admire the beautiful view, Adele
and the other girls led their guests out into the garden, and there a
joyous morning was passed gathering flowers and greenery which later
they put into bowls and vases to be placed in every nook and corner.
When they all trooped down to the dining-room, the other pupils looked
almost enviously at the laughing, merry group. They were unfolding their
napkins when Adele suddenly exclaimed, “Girls! I never until this moment
thought! What ever became of Everett?”
Betty Burd chuckled. “You all left him standing in the hall when you
went up to the cupola room,” she said, “and honestly, girls, I thought
he looked scared, being the only boy in the place, and so I went back to
keep him company, but just then Arthur Ellsworth came bounding up the
front steps. He explained that he had been delayed so he couldn’t get to
the station, and then away the two boys went, so you see, he is being
well cared for.”
“Jack and Bob are coming in on the next train,” Doris Drexel said.
“Donald Burnley, Dick Jensen, and all the Jolly Pirates will also be
arriving then,” Adele remarked. “Arthur Ellsworth is to go over to the
station in his tally-ho to meet them.”
“What fun they will have,” Betty Burd exclaimed, “blowing horns, like as
not, all along the way.”
“They couldn’t have more fun than we’re having,” Adele said, when,
dinner over, they were again in Apple-Blossom Alley planning to just
rest during the afternoon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE CLOSING PARTY