to her. She knew that the other girls did not like her, and she tried to
think that she didn’t care, and so, instead of thanking Eva, she rudely
retorted, “Seeing’s believing,” and away she went.
Eva sang a little song softly to herself as she swept the front porch
thoroughly and as quickly as she could. Then the garden-walks were raked
until not a stray leaf or twig could be found. When her task was
finished, Eva paused to listen to a bird-song as she thought: “Poor
Amanda! It is hard to be shut in that dreary study-hall this bright
morning. I’ve half an hour left to do as I like.”
Almost longingly, she looked over toward the little wood where she loved
to go when her task was done, but instead she skipped into the Home,
and, dancing down the hall, burst into the study-room, exclaiming gayly:
“Ho there, Amanda! Seeing _is_ believing!”
Amanda looked up in surprise. Indeed she could hardly believe her eyes
when she saw Eva pounce upon the teacher’s desk and dust it thoroughly
and vigorously. In fifteen minutes the work was finished, and Amanda
knew that she ought to say “Thank you,” but her stubborn spirit
rebelled. However, just at that moment one of the younger girls appeared
in the doorway and said: “Oh, Eva Dearman, here you are! I’ve been
hunting everywhere for you. Mrs. Friend wants you to come to her study
at once, and she wants you, too, Amanda Brown.”
Puzzled, and wondering if they had done anything wrong, the two girls
went down the corridor and Eva rapped on Mrs. Friend’s door.
A kindly voice bade them enter. In the study were ten other girls, who
looked flushed and excited. What could it mean?
“Eva,” said Mrs. Friend, putting her arm about the girl and kissing her
on the forehead, “we want to congratulate you on this your thirteenth
birthday.”
Eva blushed rosily as she replied happily, “Oh, thank you, Mrs. Friend.”
Then the matron continued, “Because it is Eva’s birthday, I am going to
give you other girls who are near her own age a half-holiday, and so you
may go now and take your baths and put on your best white dresses.”
“Oh, goodie! goodie!” cried several of the girls, as they clapped their
hands gleefully. Then out of the door they went, remembering to be quiet
in the halls. An hour later, fresh from the bath, they donned their best
white dresses and their butterfly hair-ribbon bows, which their matron
had given to them at Christmas.
Eva, like a princess among her maidens, beamed on them all as she
exclaimed: “You girls do look so pretty, every one of you! But,” she
added suddenly, “where is Amanda Brown?”
No one knew. She had not been in the bath-room, nor had she dressed, for
her white gown was still lying on her cot.
A bell was ringing, which called the girls below. Eva, alone, lingered
behind, looking everywhere for Amanda. At last, pausing to listen, she
heard a faint sobbing, which seemed to come from the linen-closet. Eva
opened the door, and there on the floor lay Amanda in a miserable heap
of brown calico. She looked up with eyes that were red and swollen.
“Go away!” she said sullenly, but Eva leaned over and took hold of her
hot hand.
“Amanda,” she said gently, “please come out. Do you want to spoil my
party?”
“I’d spoil your party if I went to it,” sobbed Amanda. “Jenny Dixon said
I would. She said that I am so cross and homely, she doesn’t see why I
was invited.”
“Did Jenny Dixon say that to _you_?” asked Eva with a white face.
“No-o, she didn’t say it _to_ me,” Amanda replied. “She whispered it to
Mabel Hicks, but she knew that I would hear, and I won’t go to your
party! I won’t! I won’t!”
“Very well,” said Eva firmly, “then neither will I! Amanda Brown, do you
suppose that I would enjoy my birthday-party for one minute if I knew
that some one was left out and unhappy?”
Amanda found it hard to understand Eva. “I don’t see why you should care
about _me_,” she replied; “nobody else does.”
“But I do care,” Eva said sincerely. “Now please hurry, Amanda, and I
will help you to dress.”
With a strange new happiness in her heart, Amanda crept from the dark
closet, and half an hour later the two girls went down-stairs to the
dining-room arm in arm. Amanda, in her white dress, with the crimson
bows on her black braids, looked very different from the Amanda who that
morning had been dusting in the study-hall.
After dinner Mrs. Friend told the twelve to put on their best hats and
go out in the front yard and watch for something to come down the road.
“Oh! Oh!” cried Sadie Bell. “I do believe that we are going somewhere. I
supposed that the party was to be right here at the Home.”
The twelve girls stood on the front lawn, Eva with her arm shelteringly
about Amanda’s waist. Eagerly they watched down the road for—they knew
not what.
“Look! Look!” cried Jenny Dixon excitedly. “Here comes something queer.
Whatever can it be?”
The girls ran to the gate and beheld a very strange vehicle coming.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A BIRTHDAY FEAST
Twelve little orphan girls in white,
Hearts a-brimming with delight,
Watched with eager, dancing eyes
For what? They knew not!
A _surprise_!
The twelve girls, flushed and excited, were peering down the country
road at the strangest vehicle which they had ever seen. It was, in
truth, a hay-rack covered with garlands of daisies and buttercups and
drawn by two white horses with daisy wreaths about their necks. On the
front seat was the driver, Bob Angel, with Adele at his side, while in
the wagon part the Sunny Six sat on the soft new-mown hay. They were all
dressed in white, and, to the surprise of the twelve orphans, the
wonderful equipage stopped at their own gate. In a twinkling Adele was
on the ground, and, taking both of Eva’s hands, she kissed her on the
cheek, exclaiming, “Lovely Queen o’ May! Your carriage has come to take
you away on this your thirteenth natal day.”
Tears rushed to Eva’s eyes as she exclaimed, “Oh, Adele, you were so
good to plan all this for me.” Then, brushing them away, she said
brightly, “I’d reply in rhyme if I could, for I do suppose that one
should.”
“Oho!” laughed Betty Burd. “Eva, you’re a poet and don’t know it.”
“Come now,” said Adele, who was Mistress of Ceremonies, “we must start
on our journey. Eva, you are to sit in state with the driver, and all
the rest of us are to scramble up on the hay, because we are not so
important to-day.”
“More rhymes,” laughed Peggy Pierce.
Into the daisy-covered hay-rack the girls climbed, looking as pretty as
the flowers themselves. Then Bob started the horses, Jerry and Jingo,
and somehow they seemed to know that the spirit of fun was abroad, for
they galloped down the road at a merry pace and the girls laughed and
sang. Soon they turned into the meadow-lane. “What a darling log cabin!”
Eva exclaimed, as they neared the Secret Sanctum.
“Just wait until you see the inside of it,” said Adele. Then the horses
stopped and out of the hay-rack the girls leaped, not waiting for Bob’s
proffered assistance. Adele threw open the cabin-door and the guests
entered with exclamations of pleasure.
Bertha hung back for a few last words with her brother Bob, after which
he drove the equipage over near the wood, unhitched, and turned the
horses out to graze. Then he took a short cut to the town.
Soon the merry fun began. There were whirling and singing and dancing
games, and after an hour of rollicking, Adele invited the guests to take
a walk with her in the maple wood, so away they went, little dreaming of
the delightful surprise that would await them when they returned to the
cabin.
When the last gleam of white had disappeared among the trees, all was
hustle and bustle in Buttercup Meadows.
“Quick now!” exclaimed Bertha Angel, who was Mistress of Ceremonies in
Adele’s absence. “We must hurry if we are to have everything ready in
fifteen minutes, and Adele never can keep the orphans in the woods
longer than that.”
“The boys ought to be here this very second, if they are going to help
us,” said Betty Burd.
“Bob and Jack promised to be here promptly at four,” Rosamond remarked,
“and it’s powerful close to that now.”
“Well, you can depend on Bob,” Bertha exclaimed. “He is never even a
fraction of a moment late. Being my brother, I know his virtues and
otherwise.”
“What is the otherwise?” asked Peggy Pierce, as the girls donned their
big aprons and darted about at various tasks.
“Oh,” laughed Bertha, as she heaped lettuce sandwiches on a big blue
plate which had a crack in it, “Bob’s besetting sin is teasing me, and
such pranks as he can invent!”
“Well,” exclaimed Rosamond Wright, as she glanced at her wrist-watch,
“your model brother is late to-day, for it is four to the second and
there is no one in sight.”
“Oh, yes, there is,” said Betty Burd, as she came in from the brook with
a bucket of sparkling water. “There are two colored men coming across
lots just below here.”
Doris Drexel looked out of the door, and then she sprang back with a
startled cry. “They _are_ negroes, and, oh, girls, what if they should
be tramps? I do wish that Bob had been here on time.”
“They are coming right this way,” whispered Betty Burd. “Hadn’t we
better close the door and lock it?”
“Let me look,” said Bertha Angel, as she stepped fearlessly into the
meadow. Then, to the surprise of the others, she called gayly, “Well,
Rastus, do hurry up! We’ve wasted time enough as it is.”
“Why, Bertha!” exclaimed Peggy Pierce in surprise. “Do you know those
colored men?”
“Know them? I should say that I do,” Bertha laughingly replied. And then
she ran right up to one of them, and, shaking her finger at him, she
exclaimed: “Aha, Bob Angel, now I know why you wanted to borrow my red
silk handkerchief.”
Then the other girls, their fear changed to laughter, trooped out of the
cabin.
“Jack Doring and Bob Angel!” Betty Burd exclaimed. “I never would have
known you boys in a hundred years.”
“We-all heard you wanted some waiters,” Bob drawled, trying to talk in
negro dialect, “and we-all came to apply.”
“Well, you-all are engaged,” laughed Bertha, “and now please do hustle.”
Then every one bustled about. The boys made a long table with boards and
sawhorses, and benches on each side were fashioned with boxes and more
boards. Soon the tables were covered with flower-bordered paper
table-cloths, and there were napkins to match. Two bowls of daisies and
buttercups and ferns adorned the ends of the table, and in the very
center was placed a huge birthday cake, which Mrs. Doring had made for
Adele. It was frosted with white, and on it were thirteen pink candy
roses, for Eva and Adele that day were both thirteen.
Mrs. Drexel had sent chicken salad, and the girls themselves had made
lettuce sandwiches, which were piled in tempting array. Rastus, as they
called Bob Angel, was just filling the last tumbler with pink lemonade
when Rosamond Wright exclaimed, “Here comes Adele!”
There was a chorus of delighted exclamations from the orphans as they
approached.
“I didn’t know a table could look so beautiful,” Amanda whispered to
Eva, as Adele motioned them to their places. Soon the festive board was
surrounded with laughing, happy faces, and then Bob and Jack, as black
as burnt cork could make them, greatly added to the merriment with their
antics. They wore small white aprons, and each had a folded towel flung
over one arm. They passed things with a flourish and talked a string of
nonsense, trying, with more or less success, to imitate the negro
dialect.
The heaps of delicious sandwiches disappeared rapidly, the pink lemonade
was often replenished, and never before had a chicken salad been more
appreciated.
At last Adele called gayly, “Girls, we must leave a corner for the
ice-cream and cake.”
“That’s right,” laughed Gertrude Willis, while at the mention of
ice-cream the orphans looked as though their fondest dreams were being
fulfilled.
“Garçon!” called Adele, who was just learning a bit of French. “You may
clear the table.”
The waiters put their black heads out of the cabin-door and cried, “Law,
chile, wait a minute!” Later, when they did appear, each carried a
partly eaten sandwich, for the boys did not intend to miss any of the
good things themselves.
Adele, to save Eva from embarrassment, agreed to cut the birthday cake,
but first she counted noses.
“Say, Miss Doring,” Jack drawled, “I’ll be ’bleeged to tell you, ma’am,
I’se got two noses.”
How the girls laughed, for it is easy to laugh when the heart is light.
So Adele allowed two pieces for each boy. When the cake had been cut and
the generous slices passed, the waiters appeared with pyramids of frosty
ice-cream. Then, when this had disappeared, Rastus came out with a
basket lined with flowers, but piled in the center of it were little
white boxes tied with pink and blue baby-ribbon. It was first passed to
Eva, who chose the wee box which was nearest, and then waited until each
orphan had drawn forth one of the dainty packages.
“Now,” said Adele, with shining eyes, “open them all together.”
How eagerly the ribbons were untied and the little boxes opened, and
then what a chorus of rejoicing there was! Eva had chosen just the one
that Adele had hoped she would, a slender golden chain and a locket
wreathed with pearls. When it was fastened about her neck Eva exclaimed,
“Oh, Adele, how can I thank you!”
But Amanda called their attention to her locket, which was set with
pretty red stones. “I never owned a trinket before in all my life,” she
said softly to Eva, who sat at her side. Then, almost wistfully, she
asked, “Is it to be mine for keeps?” Eva fastened the chain about
Amanda’s neck and softly assured her that it was to be her very own. The
other ten orphans were equally pleased, and pretty the lockets looked as
they hung around the necks of their new owners.
Soon Adele rose and the girls sauntered about until the flower-bedecked
equipage reappeared and they donned their hats.
Eva held out both hands to Adele as she exclaimed gratefully, “If I live
to be a hundred years old, I never can have a happier day.”
“You and I are going to have many happy days together,” Adele replied
warmly. And then the Sunny Seven, who were staying behind to clear up,
waved to the guests as long as the hay-rack and its black drivers were
in sight.
During the day Adele had often wondered why none of the girls had
congratulated her on its being _her_ birthday as well as Eva’s, but she
was of too generous a nature to feel hurt, and so she soon forgot all
about it, but her friends had not forgotten, as you shall hear.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MORE SURPRISES
When Adele reached home after the orphans’ surprise-party, she found a
note telling her that her father and mother had gone for a ride into the
country. Jack Doring, having taken a bath, was changed from black to
white again. Then, donning his very best suit, he announced that he
might not be in until late; and, since this was Kate’s evening out,
Adele was soon left all alone in the big rambling house.
Up to her room she went, just a bit weary from the long, busy day.
Leaning back in her comfortable lounging-chair, Adele thought to
herself, “It seems strange that even mumsie and dad have forgotten that
this is my birthday, and Jack hasn’t said a word about it. But then, I
could not have had a nicer time if I had had a party all for myself.”
Then, closing her eyes, she drowsily listened to the evening song of the
robins who lived in the apple-tree just outside her open window. The
crooning melody seemed to grow fainter and fainter to Adele; a warm,
fragrant breeze from the garden brushed against her cheek, and soon she
fell asleep. It was dark when she awakened, and she sat up with a start.
What could it have been that had aroused her? Probably her father and
mother were returning. The girl listened intently. Suddenly something
fell with a crash in the room below. Springing to her feet, she turned
on the light, and, running to the top of the stairs, she called:
“Mother! Father! Is that you?”
There was no reply, and for one brief moment Adele’s heart stopped
beating. There surely was some one down-stairs, but who could it be?
Then Adele remembered that her big white Persian cat had been asleep on
its cushion when she left the library. Of course it must be Fluff
prowling about, and perhaps he had tipped over a bowl of roses. She ran
lightly down the stairs and switched on the library lights. The white
cat rose from his cushion and yawned sleepily, so Fluff had not made the
noise. Adele had a strange feeling that some one was in the room, hidden
and watching her.
“I hope that I am not growing timid,” she thought to herself; and then,
deciding that she would read for a while, she went out into the
dining-room, where she had left her book. She was only gone one moment,
but when she returned, the library was in total darkness and she knew
that she had left it lighted. Before she could be very much frightened,
however, there was a rushing, rustling noise, and snap! the lights were
on again. Great was Adele’s surprise at finding the room filled with
laughing friends. “_Happy Birthday!_” they shouted.
Adele sank down on a chair and looked so white and strange that Jack ran
to her side and exclaimed, “Oh, Della, did we frighten you too much? I
didn’t realize that it would be so scary.”
“I was afraid that we should frighten Adele,” Gertrude said
remorsefully, as she knelt beside her friend. “That’s why I suggested
that we go to the front door and ring.”
But Adele, quickly regaining her composure, sprang up with a laugh, and
the color returned to her cheeks as she said: “No, you did not frighten
me too much. I guess I am just surprised, and that is what one should be
at a surprise-party, isn’t it?”
Then, quite herself again, she chattered on gayly: “Do look at you all,
in your pretty best! And Peggy has her heart’s desire—a chance to wear
her new muslin with the rosebuds on it. It’s as pretty as can be, Peggy,
and your pink sash is adorable. Well, now I must run up-stairs and
dress.”
“I’ll go with you and be your maid,” said Gertrude Willis, who was
Adele’s dearest friend. “You other girls may stay and entertain the
boys.”
With Jack as Master of Ceremonies, the fun soon began. Meanwhile Adele
bathed and dressed in her prettiest. From below came the merry strains
of the victrola, playing waltzes and hops. When the two girls descended
the stairway, they found that the library had been cleared of furniture.
Mrs. Doring, having returned from her drive, had made this good
suggestion.
Then what a merry hour they had. Suddenly the front-door bell rang and
Adele skipped to open it. An expressman stood outside and he inquired,
“Does Adele Doring live here?”
“Yes, she does,” that wondering young lady replied, and then into the
hall the expressman brought a wooden box, which he deposited on the
floor. When he was gone Adele exclaimed eagerly, “Oh! _Oh!_ What do you
suppose is in it?”
“I’ll get the hammer and then we will find out,” Jack said. A moment
later he was prying off the cover. There, among soft tissue papers, lay
ever so many books, all bound in pale blue, and the set was called
“Stories That Girls Like Best.” Indeed, there was every title among them
that a girl of thirteen could wish to possess. Adele clasped her hands
and exclaimed rapturously, “Who could have sent me such a beautiful
gift?”
“Here’s a card,” Jack said, as he handed it to her, and eagerly she
read:
To Our Darling Adele Doring
from
Her Sunny Six.
“I just knew it!” cried their happy hostess, “and I do wish that I had
arms long enough to hug you all at once.”
“Adele!” exclaimed Betty Burd. “Don’t make such a terrible wish. An old
witch might be lurking around and it might come true.”
“Well, I hope not,” laughed Adele, “for my beauty would surely be
spoiled if my arms dragged on the floor.”
Jack and Bob carried the pretty blue books into the library and placed
them on the center-table, and then the merry fun was renewed, when
suddenly the side-door bell clanged and Adele skipped to open it, but
there was no one outside.
“Some one is playing a prank, I guess,” she laughingly said. But Jack
suggested that they turn on the porch light, and when this was done
Adele saw a low bird’s-eye-maple table on which stood a beautiful
drooping fern. When the boys had carried it into the library Adele
gleefully clapped her hands as she exclaimed, “It’s just what I need for
the bay-window in my room.”
The little card which hung on the fern informed her that this was a gift
from her brother Jack and his six boy friends, who called themselves the
Jolly Pirates. Adele thanked them with shining eyes.
“Now,” she said, “surely the surprises are over,” but just that very
moment Mrs. Doring called from the top of the stairs, “Adele, come up
here a moment and bring the girls with you.” And so up the stairs they
flocked, looking for all the world like a bevy of butterflies in their
pretty muslin dresses and their many-colored sashes.
“Maybe it’s another surprise,” exclaimed Betty Burd, who was enjoying
Adele’s happiness as much as did that girl herself.
Adele’s room was brilliantly lighted, and her adorable mother and her
Giant Daddy were standing in the door, waiting. Into the room the girls
trooped, and Adele gave a cry of joy when she saw a bird’s-eye-maple
writing-desk, on which were rose-colored blotters and a silver ink-stand
and scratcher, and holders for both pen and pencil.
The card fastened to the desk read:
To “Heart’s Desire”
from
“Giant Father.”
These were the pet names which they had for each other. How Adele hugged
him! And then he laughingly exclaimed, “Now put on your spectacles, for
there is something else in this room for you to find.”
Adele looked about, high and low. Suddenly she spied a water-color
painting in a rustic frame. It was a picture of their very own log
cabin, painted when the meadow was yellow-and-white with daisies and
buttercups. There were fleecy clouds over a sunny blue sky, and the
woods in the background were fresh and green, and, as for the laughing
brook, you could fairly see it sparkle and hear it gurgle as it danced
along.
“From Mother,” a little card told her.
“Mumsie!” Adele cried. “An artist from the city painted it, didn’t he? I
watched him one day when he was just beginning on the brook, and how I
loved it, but I never even dreamed that I was to own it.”
Now, just at that very moment bells began ringing all over the house:
the front-door bell, the side-door bell, the Chinese gongs, the little
silver tea-bell clanged and jingled. What could it mean?
“More surprises!” laughed Adele. “Come along, girls; let’s fathom the
mystery.”
So down the stairs the Sunny Seven trooped. Bob Angel stood in the lower
hall, ringing a dinner-bell, as he chanted:
“Ding, dong, dell!
Hark to the bell—ll—ll!
Come, follow me,
And see what you will see!”
“Bob’s happy now,” his sister Bertha jokingly exclaimed. “Like all
little boys, he loves to make a big noise.”
The girls trooped after the bell-ringer, and as they entered the
library, the folding-doors slid silently open, and such a festive scene
as they beheld in the room beyond!
A mahogany table was decked with shining silver and sparkling glass, and
in the center was a frosted cake with thirteen candles ablaze. Pretty
name-cards told each guest where to sit, and of course Adele was at the
head of the table and Bob at the foot. Kate, with her kindly Irish face
aglow, appeared in the kitchen doorway and then Mrs. Doring came in to
help pass the good things.
“Two feasts in one day!” exclaimed Bob Angel. “I wish I had the capacity
of Giant Blunderbuss of fairy lore.”
The first course soon disappeared, and then the cake, with its twinkling
candles, was placed in front of Adele to be cut.
“Thirteen is going to be my lucky number hereafter,” Adele laughed, and
then she puckered up her mouth and blew the lights out. “Oho, here’s a
card on the cake,” she called gayly, and then she read aloud, “For my
little Colleen, from Kate.”
“Another present!” cried the delighted girl, “Thank you, Kate, and when
your birthday comes, I’ll make you a cake.”
“Poor Kate!” Jack Doring said in mock sympathy. “I wouldn’t have a
birthday soon if I were you, Kate, but if you do have one, be sure to
hide the salt-box. You know why.”
Adele laughed good-naturedly as she exclaimed, “Just because I put salt
in one cake instead of sugar is no sign that I am going to do it forever
after.”
When the generous slices were passed, Betty Burd gave a squeal of
delight. “Oh, do look!” she cried. “There are things in the cake to tell
our fortunes.”
“Mine is a piece of straw,” Dick Jensen chuckled. “So I am to be a
farmer, I suppose. Well, I’d like nothing better.”