hate sewing, but I suppose that I shall have to be resigned to my fate.”
“See what I have!” Jack Doring exclaimed, as triumphantly he held aloft
a silver dime. “I just felt in my bones that I was going to be rich some
day.”
“Not if you have to work for it,” teased Adele, for Jack was rather
inclined to be indolent.
“I wasn’t planning to work,” Jack replied calmly. “I shall find a gold
mine or some little thing like that.”
“Poor little me!” moaned Rosamond Wright. “There doesn’t seem to be a
thing in my piece of cake.”
Rosamond, in her pink dress, with her flushed face and short golden
curls, looked as pretty as the flower after which she had been named.
“Don’t give up, Rosie,” Bob Angel called. “Seems to me I see a glint of
gold there in the frosting.”
Eagerly Rosamond broke the cake where the glint was, and out fell a
wedding ring.
“Congratulations!” cried Adele. “Rosie is to be our first bride.”
When each future had been prophesied and the boys and girls had eaten
their ice-cream and cake, the merry party returned to the library, and
soon after, as the hour was late, they took their departure.
When they were gone Adele nestled in her mother’s arms, as she said
softly, “Mumsie, this has been the happiest day of my life.”
“That is because you have given others so much happiness,” her mother
replied.
CHAPTER NINE
THE MOTHER GOOSE PLAY-HOUSE
There’s many a high-chair put away
For the baby that came, but could not stay.
There’s many a mother-heart yearning still,
And arms that a motherless babe might fill.
There’s many a home that’s sad and drear,
That a prattling child might bless and cheer.
It was Sunday, the day after the eventful Saturday which would be so
long remembered by the Sunny Seven, as well as by the twelve orphans who
had been made so happy.
Adele, dressed in pretty white muslin and wearing her daisy-wreathed
hat, tripped down the road toward the orphan asylum. She was so deep in
thought that she did not notice some one standing on the corner and
evidently waiting for her, until a pleasant voice called, “May I go with
you, my pretty maid?”
“Oh, Gertrude Willis!” Adele exclaimed. “I was thinking of you that very
moment and wishing that you were going with me, and here you are.”
These two friends were especially dear to each other. They walked on
together, and Gertrude said, “Adele, I think it so nice of you to go
every Sunday afternoon to tell stories to the little children at the
Orphans’ Home. I have often wanted to go with you, but usually father
has a young people’s meeting at the church and he likes me to be there,
but to-day he himself suggested that I go with you.”
“I’m so glad!” Adele replied, giving her friend’s arm a loving squeeze.
Then they talked of Eva Dearman, and decided that they would try to be
like sisters to the little girl who had no home-people of her own in all
the world.
“I just can’t imagine what that would be like,” Gertrude remarked, as
she thought of the parsonage in which there were five merry children,
watched over by a loving, if dignified, father, and the dearest mother
in all the world.
Mrs. Friend, the matron of the Home, greeted them pleasantly, and led
them to the large, barren room where, on little red chairs, twenty small
children were seated.
Their round, eager eyes were watching the door, and when they saw Adele,
their faces brightened, and it seemed as though sunshine had suddenly
entered the rather gloomy room.
The children, ranging from five years to eight, arose, and, standing
beside their chairs, made funny little bobbing curtsies, and they piped
out, like so many chirping birds, “Good afternoon, Miss Adele.”
“Good afternoon, little sunbeams,” Adele replied. “I have brought a
friend with me to-day. Miss Gertrude is her name.”
Then the tiny tots bobbed another curtsy, and with solemn faces they
piped, “Good afternoon, Miss Gertrude.”
“The little darlings!” Gertrude exclaimed softly, and tears rushed to
her eyes. It made her heart ache to think of all those babies and not a
mother to cuddle them, and then she thought of the childless homes to
which these very little ones might bring so much joy and happiness.
Meanwhile they were seated, and Adele was holding her little audience
spellbound with the simple tales that all children love. Tucked away in
each one of them was a thought that would help the little listener to be
a better boy or girl during the following week.
When the story-hour was over, Adele arose, and that was a signal for the
tiny tots to rise and chirp all together, “Thank you, Miss Adele.” Then,
to the surprise of Gertrude Willis, the twenty, without ceremony, rushed
at Adele, and that loving girl caught as many of the children as her
arms would hold.
[Illustration: Adele was holding her little audience spellbound.]
On their way out they stopped for a moment in the matron’s office.
“Oh, Mrs. Friend,” Adele exclaimed impulsively, “how I do wish there was
a sunnier spot for the nursery! That north room seems so bleak and
chilly.”
“I have often wished that we had money enough to fit out a cheery
nursery for our little ones,” Mrs. Friend replied with her kindly smile,
as she walked outdoors with the girls. “As it is,” she continued, “we
have all that we can do to feed and clothe the children entrusted to our
care.”
As they sauntered toward the gardens Mrs. Friend said, “Yonder is a
little house that used to be occupied by a gardener. It is quite empty
now, and there is a sunny front room in it, and I have often wished that
I had some way of making it into a play-house for the very little
children.”
“Oh, Mrs. Friend!” Adele exclaimed eagerly. “If we can find the way, may
we do it?”
“Indeed you may!” Mrs. Friend replied, smiling at the girl’s enthusiasm,
and then she bade them good-bye.
On Monday morning Adele started to school hippety-skipping and singing a
merry little song to herself. There were berry-bushes abloom in the
field over which she was taking a short cut, and from one of these just
ahead of her there arose a clear, whistling note.
“A bobolink!” Adele thought, as she stole nearer to catch a glimpse, if
she could, of the feathered songster, but, to her surprise, the notes
changed to “Bob White!” Adele stood still, puzzled, when from the
blossoming bush, sweet and clear, arose a robin’s morning-song.
“How strange!” the girl thought. “It must be a birds’ convention!” She
tiptoed nearer, when up from behind the bushes sprang a bevy of laughing
girls, and joyously they cried, “The top of the morning to you, Adele.”
“But where are the birds?” asked the mystified girl.
“Here in my hand,” Peggy Pierce replied, as she displayed a silver
whistle. “It’s a musical instrument belonging to my small brother. I
borrowed it because I wanted you all to hear the sweet bird notes.”
“Truly, I thought there were birds in the bush,” Adele said. Then,
turning to Gertrude Willis, she asked, “Trudie, have you told the girls
about our plan?”
“Of course not, Della,” that maiden replied. “The president of the
Sunnyside Club should make all announcements.”
“Oh, what is it? Do tell us!” Peggy Pierce and Betty Burd exclaimed
eagerly.
“It isn’t a party this time,” Adele replied, smiling at little Betty’s
enthusiasm, “but it is another opportunity for our Sunnyside Club to do
a kind deed.” And then she told them about the gloomy room which was the
nursery for the very little children at the orphanage; about the toys,
many of them old and broken; and about the cheery cottage in the garden,
and how Mrs. Friend had said that they might fit it up as a play-house
if only they could find the way.
“Oh, girls!” Betty Burd cried with shining eyes. “We surely _can_ find
the way; that is, if mumsie is willing. I had the darlingest play-house
in the South. Papa was an architect and he planned it himself. There
were three rooms in it, and one of them was the home of Mother Goose. I
wasn’t very old then, but I shall never forget the joy in my heart when
I first beheld that room. It was like stepping into a Mother Goose
picture-book and being able to skip about in it. Then, when papa died
and we came North to keep house for Uncle George, I just couldn’t bear
to part with those Mother Goose things, so mumsie packed them in a big
box and brought them along, and ever since they have been up in the
attic.
“Of course I am too old to play with those things now, but wouldn’t I
just love to fit up a play-house with them for those poor little
orphans! We’ll do it, too, if mumsie is willing.”
Betty’s mother gladly gave her consent, and the following Saturday found
the Sunny Seven in the orphanage garden. The little cottage had been
thoroughly cleaned, much to the delight of Rosamond Wright, who did not
care to attend another scrubbing-party.
The two orphans, Eva Dearman and Amanda Brown, at Adele’s invitation,
came out to help, and how happy they were to be included!
“I do wish that the Mother Goose box would come, so that we might begin
to unpack it,” Betty Burd declared impatiently.
“Bob said that he would bring it over just as soon as his morning work
was done,” Bertha explained.
“Here he comes now, and Jack Doring is with him!” Doris Drexel called.
The girls crowded to the sunny window and looked out at the driveway;
then Adele threw open the door as Bob leaped to the ground. Pretending
to be a cartman, the boy exclaimed in a rather poor imitation of Irish
brogue, “Good day to yez. And where will yez be afther havin’ the
baggage put?”
“Oh, Bob!” Betty Burd cried. “Weren’t you an angel to bring it over for
us!”
“Of course he’s an angel, and so am I, too, for that matter!” Bertha
exclaimed.
“Oh, I quite forgot that ‘Angel’ is his name,” Betty gayly replied. “But
do please bring the box right in and set it in the middle of the floor.”
When this was done, she laughingly inquired, “And now, Mr. Cartman, what
might your charges be?”
“Hum-m!” said the mischievous Bob. “Since it’s fer ladies, we’ll make
the charges light. I think one box of fudge would do nicely. What do you
say, Jack?”
These boys well knew that wherever the girls were gathered together,
there also was a batch of fudge.
“But we want some for ourselves,” Doris protested. “I think two squares
for each of you would be good pay for delivering the box.” Then she
added brightly, “Girls! I have a brilliant idea! We might give the boys
four squares each if they will open the box and help us unpack; but if
they refuse, they shall have nothing at all.”
“Of course we will open it for you,” Jack Doring replied amiably, as he
took a hammer out of his coat-pocket. “Here, Bob,” he added, “proceed to
show the ladies what an excellent box-opener you are.”
“Not a bit of it,” Bob replied. “Wouldn’t deprive you, old chap, of all
that honor for worlds.” So indolent Jack, having the hammer, had to pry
off the boards, and then merrily the unpacking began. There were four
large squares of cotton cloth on which were colored prints of Mother
Goose pictures.
“Boys,” Betty implored, “please find a stepladder and tack these up for
us, and then we shall be through in short order.”
“I should call it a large order,” Bob Angel declared, but nevertheless
he went out and soon returned with the needed stepladder. Then from a
high seat on the top of it he announced, “Ladies, be it known that my
charges for tacking are ten fudge squares with chopped walnuts in them.”
“I’ll tell you what!” Adele exclaimed. “If you boys will help us to-day,
we girls will soon give a fudge party and you shall have just all the
candy that you can eat.”
“Three cheers for Adele!” Bob exclaimed. And then so ably did the boys
lend their assistance that the work of unpacking and decorating was soon
completed, and with laughter and joking they remounted the wagon and
rode away.
An hour later the twenty kiddies were admitted to their new play-house.
Mrs. Friend was with them, and she was as pleased as they were with the
Mother Goose room. There were cloth dolls dressed to represent the
different characters, and woolly Mother Goose animals, and there were
bright picture-books which babies could look at to their heart’s content
and the pages wouldn’t tear.
Betty Burd, with her arm about Adele’s waist, stood looking on, and she
was hoping that somehow her dear daddy might know of the wonderful
happiness that his gift to her was giving to these baby orphans.
When the children were willing to sit down and be quiet, Adele told them
the stories that went with the pictures on the walls. Then, when it was
all over and the Sunny Seven were about to depart, the little ones
scrambled to their feet and, making their funny little bobbing curtsies,
piped out, “Thank you, Miss Betty.” This was so unexpected that tears
rushed to Betty’s eyes and her voice trembled as she said, “You’re
welcome, little darlings.”
On their way home Rosamond exclaimed, “And now, girls, let us plan that
fudge party which we promised to give for the boys!”
“Not yet, Rosie,” Adele replied. “Final examinations are drawing near,
and I think we would better plan to just study and study, but as soon as
vacation arrives, we’ll have the nicest fudge party that ever was or
could be.”
And with that promise Rosamond had to be content.
CHAPTER TEN
PREPARING FOR EXAMINATIONS
On the first Saturday in June the Sunny Seven were to meet at the Secret
Sanctum, to begin a review of the term’s lessons, for the final
examinations were only three weeks away.
Six of the girls were already there at the appointed hour, but, strange
to relate, the one who was usually first, this day was last.
“Perhaps Betty isn’t coming,” Adele said. “It is possible that she is
not going to take the examinations. You know she is a year younger than
we are, and though she had been in Seven B in the South, the lessons are
different, and when she came North last term, they put her in our grade
on trial, and I think that she has found it very hard to keep up.”
“You are right, Adele,” Gertrude replied. “Mrs. Burd told me that she
would far rather have Betty remain in this grade another year, but her
Uncle George is eager for her to advance.”
“Here comes Betty on a skip and a run!” Rosamond exclaimed as she looked
out of the cabin-door, and in another moment the little girl about whom
they had been talking, danced in, and, sinking down on the couch, fanned
her flushed face with her broad-brimmed hat.
“Girls!” she exclaimed as soon as she could get her breath. “I had
decided to give up taking the examinations,—mother wanted me to,—when
something very remarkable happened, and I am so excited about it, I just
don’t know what to do.”
“Betty! Betty!” laughed Adele. “We can’t make head or tail out of what
you are saying. Won’t you begin at the beginning of your story?”
“All right,” Betty replied, as she settled down among the sofa-pillows.
“You know my Uncle George is a very smart young man.”
“He isn’t very young, is he?” Rosamond inquired.
“Why, mother says that he is,” Betty replied vaguely. “Of course he
isn’t a boy, but every one says that he is very young to be an editor
and hold such a responsible position on a big city newspaper.”
“I’ve heard my Giant Daddy say that your Uncle George writes very
cleverly,” Adele said kindly.
Betty gave her a grateful glance as she continued, “Well, I guess he
must write pretty well, for he’s just sold his first story for one
hundred dollars. The check came on this morning’s mail, and Uncle George
opened the letter while we were at breakfast. When he saw the check, he
gave a whoop just like a boy, and he exclaimed, ‘Betsy Bobbets,’—that’s
his pet name for me,—‘if there’s anything in this shining universe that
you want, if a hundred dollars will buy it, you shall have it.’ Of
course I said that I wanted a jet-black pony, just like Firefly, and
Uncle George jokingly replied: ‘Betsy, we’ll make a bargain. If you will
pass perfect in spelling and grammar, the pony shall be yours!’ Mother
said, ‘Oh, George, I do not wish Betty even to try the examinations.’
But he exclaimed, ‘Puppy-dogs and fiddle-sticks! My dear madam, this
daughter of yours is possessed of as fine a quality of gray matter as
one could wish, but she is sadly lacking in concentration and
perseverance.’”
“How could you remember all that?” Rosamond exclaimed.
“I guess because I was so interested and was listening hard, and,
besides, I knew that Uncle George was right. I had not expected to be
promoted this year, and so I had not really tried to learn the term’s
work.”
“I believe that you could do it,” Adele remarked. “We should be sorry to
be promoted and leave our little one behind. Now our plan is to review
the entire term’s work, and if we go over and over it with Betty, we
shall also be impressing the lessons more firmly on our own minds.”
“Then you think that I could do it?” Betty asked eagerly.
“Of course you can,” Adele replied confidently, as she opened a speller.
“You all sit in a row and we will play school, the way we used to do,
and we’ll take turns being the teacher. Now, Betty, don’t you mind if
you make mistakes, but just listen and listen, and you will be surprised
how much you will learn.”
Then followed a busy hour, and a robin, alighting for a moment on the
door-sill, wondered why girls could stay within on such a perfect June
day. But what could a robin know of examinations only three weeks away?
When at last the girls were sauntering across the meadows on their
homeward way, Betty exclaimed joyously, “Girls, I’ve learned more to-day
than in a whole month at school.”
“That’s because you put your mind on it, little one,” Gertrude replied.
“I have always felt that you could do much better if you really wanted
to.”
Suddenly Betty laughed gleefully. “Won’t Miss Donovan be surprised,” she
chuckled, “if to-morrow in class I should happen to spell a word
correctly? She says that I can think up more wrong ways to spell a word
than any one she ever met.”
As Betty had prophesied, Miss Donovan was indeed surprised to hear a
constantly improved recitation from that young lady, but little did she
dream of the hours and hours that were spent by that once heedless girl
in poring over spellers and grammars.
One morning when the girls met under the elm tree, Doris Drexel
announced, “Only ten more days before the final examinations.”
“Oh-h!” moaned Betty Burd dolefully. “If you were saying only ten days
more before Betty Burd’s funeral, I wouldn’t feel a bit more dismal
about it!”
“Cheer up, little one,” Adele said brightly. “You are getting on
famously. Can you spell ‘believe’ to-day?”
“B-e-l-i-e-v-e,” Betty replied with a faint attempt at a smile. “I do
believe,” she added with conviction, “that whoever made up the English
language tried to tangle the letters in it just as much as possible.”
“Those old sages didn’t know about your pony, Betsy, or they never would
have done it,” Bertha Angel gayly remarked, and then the last bell
called them to their classes.
This unusual application to her studies at last began to tell on Betty,
and as the fatal day drew near she visibly drooped.
“George!” Mrs. Burd exclaimed one morning, when Betty, after having sat
listlessly at the table, finally departed for school without having
touched her breakfast. “If you do not forbid Betty’s studying so hard, I
shall do so myself. She’s all I have left in the world, now that her
daddy is gone, and I don’t care if she never, never learns to spell. If
you wanted to give her a pony, why didn’t you do so without making her
work so hard for it?”
George Wainwright had been unusually busy in his city office of late,
and was seldom at the table when Betty was there, and as for the
examinations, he had quite forgotten about them. But that night he was
home for dinner, and he noticed how pale was the little girl whom he so
dearly loved, and when she refused to eat chocolate pudding and whipped
cream, her very favorite dessert, then, indeed, did his conscience smite
him, and he decided to take the child out of school at once and get the
pony, that she might ride and bring the roses back to her cheeks. And so
it was that he asked her to walk with him in the garden while he had his
after-dinner smoke.
This was always a treat to Betty, and she went with him gladly. After
they had walked up and down the gravelly paths a few times, Uncle George
asked suddenly, “And how’s the spelling getting on, Betsy Bobbets?”
“Well,” said Betty with a sigh, “I’ve got the ‘i-e’ right at last, and
if they will examine me on that I am sure to be perfect; that is, I
shall be if it’s a written examination. But, oh, Uncle George, if the
principal, Mr. Dickerson, comes in and gives us an oral one, I won’t be
able to spell one single word. I get so scared when he asks me a
question; something clutches at my throat, and everything turns black
before me, and even the words that I _know_ I know, I just don’t know at
all.”
Uncle George laughed at the twisted sentence, and then he drew the
little girl down on a bench beside him.
“What is it that clutches at your throat, little one?” he asked.
Betty looked surprised as she replied, “Why, nothing, really, I
suppose!”
“That’s just it,” Uncle George said earnestly. “People call it fear, but
it is nothing. What is there to be afraid of? Since you know how to
spell the word, all that you have to do is to spell it. And even if you
misspell it, no harm is done. The word will always remain, and you can
learn it at another time. Courage is the quality that I want my Betsy
Bobbets to cultivate,—courage and fearlessness.”
“Oh, Uncle George!” Betty exclaimed, more like her bright self. “I am so
glad that you have talked to me this way. I feel ever so much braver. I
guess that all I am really afraid of is that I shall lose the pony.”
How Uncle George wanted to tell her that she should have the pony, come
what might, but he decided that perhaps it would be better for her
character-development if he left things as they were.
A few moments later Betty danced into the dining-room. Her mother, who
was putting away the silver, glanced up anxiously. She hoped that her
brother George had told Betty that she need not take the examinations,
and she was convinced that this was so when Betty exclaimed gayly, “Oh,
Mumsie, where’s my chocolate pudding and whipped cream? I’m so hungry
for it!”
“It’s in the china-closet, dear. I thought that you might want it
later,” the mother replied. And then, while Betty was eating the pudding
with her old appreciation, Mrs. Burd asked, “Are you glad that you
aren’t going to take the examinations, Betty?”
“But I am going to take them, mumsie dear, and you will be so proud of
me when I bring home a card marked ‘perfect’ in grammar and spelling.”
Mrs. Burd was indeed puzzled, but she said no more just then. The girls,
too, noticed the change in Betty, and then one morning, under the
elm-tree, Peggy Pierce chanted dolefully, “And this is the day of the
final examinations. They mean to find out how little I know.”
“Oh-h!” moaned Rosamond. “I’m scared stiff.”
Then Betty surprised them all by asking: “What’s scaring you, Rosie? You
know your lessons, don’t you?”
“Indeed I do! I know every word in every book from cover to cover,”
Rosie responded. “And so do we all, for that matter, for we’ve been over
them together at least twenty times.”
“Well,” Betty remarked, “my Uncle George told me that fear is really
nothing at all but just our imaginations. I know that there is nothing
to be afraid of, and I’m not going to be afraid of it.” And before the
girls could recover from their astonishment, the last bell rang and they
went to their class-room.
Miss Donovan smiled encouragingly at them as they entered, and then the
books were taken up and the examination-papers passed.
Some of the grammar questions were rather hard, and took a clear brain
to think out. Adele glanced anxiously at Betty, but when that little
girl smiled back so reassuringly, she gave her no further thought.
For an hour and a half the girls wrote and wrote, and then the papers
were taken up and they were allowed fifteen minutes for recreation.
“Now,” said Rosamond, “what I would like to know is, are we to have a
written examination or is Mr. Dickerson coming in to give us an oral
test?”
“Mr. Dickerson is the father of five children,” said Gertrude, “so we
need not be in the least afraid of him. He must know that children are
not perfect.”