“Girls,” she said, as she drew on her gloves, “it is early, and since I
have an errand in another part of town, I thought that perhaps you would
like to accompany me.”
“We would, indeed,” Adele replied, and soon they were all in Everett’s
big car and that youth was slowly driving them through the crowded
down-town district. The streets became narrower and noisier. The people
were shabbily dressed, dirty children played in the gutters, loafers
lounged on the corners. The air seemed hot and heavy with unpleasant
odors. On both sides of the street were wretched tenement-houses.
“I have heard of this district,” Gertrude said, “but I never before
visited it. Oh, Miss Peterson, doesn’t it make one’s heart ache to think
that so very near are fields of daisies and buttercups, and yet these
babies have to play in the gutters?”
Madge nodded, and then, as the car was stopping at the curb, she opened
the door, and, taking a covered basket, led the way across the walk.
Ragged little children stopped their play and watched them curiously
with open eyes and mouths. Madge smiled down at them and then entered a
dark, narrow hallway and began climbing the rickety stairs.
“I thought it was hard to have to live in the Home,” Eva said softly to
Adele, “but how thankful we ought to be that we do not have to live in a
place like this.”
Soon Madge was rapping on an upper door.
“Come in, Fairy Godmother!” an eager boy’s voice called. Madge opened
the door and they entered a room which was very different from the dark,
shabby halls which they had just left. Here all was clean and home-like.
The windows were filled with blossoming plants, and a canary, hanging in
the sunshine, was warbling his cheeriest song. Goldfish splashed and
sparkled in their big shining bowl. A fluffy white kitten on the floor
frisked about with a red ball for a playmate. A bright-eyed little
hunchbacked boy sat on a softly-cushioned wheeled chair. He looked up
with eager eyes.
“Good morning, Roberty-Bob,” Madge said. “I have brought some of my
friends to call upon you. We cannot stay long, however, as we are on our
way to the Art Institute, but I found the book that you wanted in the
library this morning, and so I brought it right over.”
“Oh, good!” Roberty-Bob said with shining eyes. “The last one you
brought was such a beautiful story, Fairy Godmother. It was all about
the King’s Highway.” Then, turning to Gertrude, he asked in his eager,
friendly way, “Do you know where the King’s Highway is?”
“I suppose it is where a king lives, and where princes and princesses
play in beautiful gardens,” Gertrude replied, with her sweet smile.
“You are wrong!” the strange child exclaimed. “She is wrong, isn’t she,
Fairy Godmother? God is the King, and His Highway is just wherever you
are.”
Gertrude’s heart was touched by what she had seen and heard, and when
they were in the street again she looked at the forlorn little children
playing in the gutters and she said to Adele, “And so this is the King’s
Highway, and oh, Della, I was being so thankful before we went up-stairs
that we didn’t have to live here!”
Roberty-Bob was waving to them from his high window, and the girls waved
in return.
“I guess I won’t grumble any more,” Amanda Brown declared. “Here I have
a straight back and I can run if I want to, but it seems I’m always
feeling fretful about something, and there’s that little fellow, with
his crooked back, keeping so bright and cheerful.”
“Does Roberty-Bob have to sit alone all day long?” Adele asked, as the
car was slowly wending its way back to a pleasanter part of the city.
“Yes,” Madge replied. “His mother works in a factory, and she leaves
early in the morning and does not return until late, but Roberty-Bob is
never lonely. He can wheel his chair about the room and feed his
goldfish and pussy, and water his plants, and sometimes Muffin, the
kitten, rides around with him. Then he loves to read, and every Saturday
afternoon the children who live in the rooms near by go in and sit on
the floor, and he reads to them or tells them stories. I used to take
him riding in the car, and how he enjoyed it! but the jarring made the
pain in his back so much worse that we had to give that up.”
The Art Institute was soon reached and the girls went to their classes.
Adele and Gertrude found that they were to write a composition on
whatever had most impressed them that morning. They were glad to do
this, although neither had any expectation of winning the high marks,
and so, on the following Saturday, they were indeed surprised when the
teacher, Miss Fenton, said, “The best composition for last week was
written by our newest pupil, Miss Gertrude Willis.” And then, before
that astonished girl could fully grasp this surprising announcement, the
teacher was saying in her kindly way, “It is our custom to have the best
composition read aloud each week, and so, Miss Willis, will you please
come forward and read yours?”
Gertrude, self-possessed by nature, soon quieted the tumult in her
heart, and, stepping to the platform, she took the composition which
Miss Fenton handed to her, and then, in her clear, sweet voice, she
read:
“The King’s Highway
“Once upon a time there was a great city, and in the lower part of it
there were narrow streets, with ragged children playing in the gutters,
and loafers standing on the corners. If there ever had been hope in
their hearts it had long since fled. And many of the mothers were shut
in shops where they toiled all day and earned very little, that they
might feed their children.
“The sun never seemed to shine in the lower part of that great city. The
fog hung gray and dismal, and there was constantly the sharp clanging
noise of traffic. The children in the gutter did not seem to mind, for
they knew no different, but one day an artist was forced, through
poverty, to move to this lower end of the city, and with him was his
little daughter, Alicia. Her startled blue eyes looked about, and she
clung to her father’s hand as they wended their way down one of the
narrow streets.
“‘Must we live here, father?’ she asked, and the artist sadly bowed his
head.
“Alicia tried to make the barren room in the tenement look as home-like
as possible, but she dreaded going to the corner store to buy even the
few provisions that were needed.
“She shrank from touching the raggedly dressed children, who, attracted
by her golden hair, would leave their play when she passed and whisper,
‘Pretty! Pretty!’
“But Alicia paid no heed. Her one thought was how sorry she was for
herself. If only she could live again in that lovely home which they had
lost.
“All of her life she had lived in a beautiful garden, where high
ivy-covered walls had sheltered her from the winds, where a fountain had
sparkled for her, and where the birds had sung to her. But now,—The
sensitive child looked about her and shuddered.
“One day her father brought her a book, and while she was alone she read
the stories it contained, and one of them was called ‘The King’s
Highway.’ Alicia fell to daydreaming, as was her wont, and she thought
how wonderful it would be, this King’s Highway. There would be castles
on either side, and the pavement would be of gold. Gorgeous carriages,
drawn by milk-white horses, would be passing up and down, and in them
would be princesses and noble ladies, richly dressed, and they would
have pages with plumed hats to attend them. As she thought of all this,
and wished that she might be on the King’s Highway, she fell asleep and
dreamed, and in her dream an angel came to her and said, ‘Alicia, the
King is your Heavenly Father, and to-day you are living on the King’s
Highway.’
“Alicia, awakening, sprang up, and, seeing that it was late, she went
out to do her marketing. The fog had not lifted all day. The children on
the curb seemed weary and tired of their play. Many of their faces
looked pinched, as though they did not have enough to eat. ‘And so this
is the King’s Highway,’ Alicia thought, ‘and these are the King’s
children.’ And then the angel that was always with Alicia whispered,
‘And what are _you_ doing on the King’s Highway?’
“‘Nothing,’ Alicia replied, ‘only to be sorry for myself because I am
there.’
“And then, to the surprise of the ragged children, the pretty Alicia
went over and sat on the curb in their midst, and, putting her arms
about those nearest, she said, ‘Little ones, do you like stories?’ ‘What
are stories?’ one small boy asked, nestling close to her. ‘I will tell
you,’ Alicia replied, and soon she was repeating a fairytale that they
could all understand.
“From that day Alicia was very happy. She was never lonely because she
was kept so busy making others happy on the King’s Highway.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SCHOOL-DAYS AGAIN
The long vacation was over, and on Monday morning the Sunny Seven met
once more under the elm-tree in the school-yard.
“Oh, I’m so glad that school is going to begin again,” exclaimed the
impulsive Betty Burd.
“Why, Betty?” Gertrude Willis laughingly inquired. “I didn’t know that
you had such a thirst for knowledge.”
“Well, neither have I,” Betty confessed. “But somehow, during the
vacation we all have so many things to do, we seven girls don’t see each
other as often as we do in school-days. Why, just think! We haven’t been
to our Secret Sanctum in ages, and we were so wild about it in the
beginning.”
“I’ll tell you what!” exclaimed Adele. “Let’s go over there this
afternoon and take our supper and have a good old-fashioned visit. This
being the first day of school, we may not be kept in long.”
“Oh, let’s!” cried Doris Drexel, who, with her mother, had spent July
and August at a seaside resort. “I’m just pining to see the meadows
again. I’ve been away so long.”
“I suppose the cabin will be full of spiders,” said Rosie with a
shudder.
“I’ll go ahead,” laughed Adele, “and ask them to please roll up their
webs and move out into the meadows.”
Then, as the last bell was ringing, the girls trooped into the school.
They were all eager to know who their new teacher would be, and all sad
because they were losing Miss Donovan. They had heard that some changes
had been made, and that the teacher who formerly had Seven B had been
sent to another town.
“I just can’t wait to get to the room, to see who our teacher is to be,”
Betty whispered, as the seven girls hurried up the stairs. The door of
the seventh grade was standing open, and Betty was the first to enter.
She gave a joyous cry as she danced in. The other girls, closely
following, saw Betty throw her arms about the teacher, whose back was
toward them.
“Why, it’s Miss Donovan!” Adele cried in delight. “Oh, are you to be our
teacher again this year? That would be too good to be true.”
“Yes, I’ve been promoted with my girls,” laughed the young teacher, “and
I’m glad that you’re glad.”
It touched her heart to find how much the seven girls really loved her,
and she planned to make this new year as happy and as profitable for
them as she could.
“Now, girls,” she said, “since I know that you can be trusted to keep
the rules, you may choose seats wherever you wish.”
“May we all sit in this window-corner together?” Doris asked. And when
the permission was given, they chose seats and stowed away their books.
“It will not be necessary for you girls to remain to-day,” Miss Donovan
said. “I’ll give you your home-work and then you may go, but be back
to-morrow morning at nine, ready for a term of hard study.”
“We will, indeed,” Adele assured her. “We are going to try to be perfect
all through the year.”
“_We_, Adele?” Betty Burd inquired.
“Yes, we,” Adele replied. And Miss Donovan laughingly exclaimed, “That’s
right, hitch your wagon to a star.”
That afternoon the girls met early at the cross-roads and wended their
way over the meadows, which, in the bright September weather, were
purple and yellow with golden-rod and wild aster. In the woods beyond
were maple trees, flaunting in the sunlight their brightly colored
leaves.
“I love the autumn days,” Adele said, as she danced along. “It doesn’t
make me feel the least bit sad to see the leaves fall and the flowers
fade, because I know that they are all coming back in the spring. The
plants and trees have to sleep, as we do, I suppose.”
Soon they reached the long-neglected Secret Sanctum. Peggy Pierce found
the key and the door swung open.
“Oh, isn’t it pretty and homey!” Doris Drexel exclaimed. “It’s so long
since I’ve been here, I had almost forgotten how very nice it is.”
Bertha threw open the little high-up window and a merry breeze danced
in.
Rosamond, still on the threshold, called, “Will somebody please look for
spiders?”
Betty Burd seized the broom, and, dancing around the room, poked it up
in the ceiling-corners, for the cabin had a low and almost flat roof.
Peggy Pierce, just for mischief, looked under the bed-couch and Doris
Drexel peered in the china-closet.
“Nary a spider here, fair Rosamond,” she called. “You may safely enter.”
“I know that you girls think I’m a dreadful scare-cat,” Rosamond
declared. “But I just can’t help being afraid of things.”
“You’ll get over it,” Adele said kindly, “when you find that nothing
hurts you. Now every one be seated and we will have the secretary read
the minutes of the last meeting.”
Hats were tossed on the rustic couch, lunch-boxes stacked in a corner,
and the seven girls sat tailor-wise on the floor.
“I deeply regret to have to inform you, Madam President,” Gertrude began
with solemn dignity, “that your secretary forgot to bring the book, but
she remembers that at the last meeting it was unanimously resolved that
the Sunnyside Club should, singly and all together, do at least one kind
deed a week. Has this resolve been carried out?”
“Dear me, no, I’m afraid not,” Adele said. “Fixing up the play-house for
the orphan babies was the last kind deed on the records, and the credit
for that belongs to Betty Burd.”
“Not at all!” Betty protested. “That was the whole club’s kind deed.”
“And how the kiddies are enjoying their play-house!” Gertrude declared.
“I went over there last Sunday to read to them, and twenty happier
babies it would be hard to find.”
“Good!” Adele exclaimed. “Now the question before the house is, What
kind deed shall the Sunnyside Club do next?”
“You tell us,” Gertrude Willis said. “Adele, I just know that you have a
suggestion to make.”
“Well, then, I have,” Adele confessed. “Last week, when I was over
visiting with dear old Granny Dorset, I was telling her about one of our
parties, and she said, rather wistfully, ‘Parties are just for the young
folks, aren’t they, Della? And yet, I do believe that I would enjoy a
party more now than I ever did, but I guess I’ve been to my last.’ And
then she sighed, which was so unlike cheerful Granny Dorset, that I
decided right then and there to give a party for her, and I want you all
to help. Will you?”
“Will we?” Bertha Angel exclaimed. “Indeed we will! I think it is so sad
when the grandmothers are kept away by themselves and are not invited to
share in the good times. My dear old grandma told me that at eighty her
heart felt as young as it ever had, and that she enjoyed having a pretty
new dress as much as she did when she was sixteen.”
“Oh, yes, and that’s another thing,” Adele said. “Granny Dorset told me
that she would have a seventieth birthday one week from Saturday, and I
asked, ‘Granny, if you could have just what you wish for a birthday
present, what would it be?’ And, girls, you never could guess what she
replied, not in a thousand years.”
“Well, then, we might as well give up first as last,” Peggy Pierce
declared.
“Indeed you might,” Adele laughed. “I’m sure I never would have guessed
it. Granny Dorset said that the dearest desire of her heart for the past
ten years had been to possess a purple silk dress with lace in the neck
and sleeves.”
“And she hasn’t been able to have it, of course,” Gertrude declared.
“They belong to our church, and father calls there, and he said that the
son-in-law is rather shiftless and the daughter has to scrimp in every
way to provide for her own three children and Granny Dorset, but she is
so proud that she won’t accept a bit of help.”
“Well,” Adele continued, “I thought that we would find out what other
old people are still living in Sunnyside, who were young when Granny
Dorset was, and then we’d invite them to a surprise birthday-party for
her, and if we have money enough in the bank, we might buy her the
purple silk dress.”
“Alas and alack!” Bertha exclaimed. “The bank is quite empty. Nothing
has been put into it since we bought the presents for the orphans.”
“I’ll tell you what!” Peggy Pierce exclaimed. “Let’s start an account at
the Bee Hive. Dad will be glad to do it for us, and we can buy the
purple silk at cost. Miss Meadly, who does our sewing, will make the
dress for us and wait for her pay until we have the money.”
“And as for the lace,” Rosamond Wright exclaimed, “my mother has ever
and ever so much of it, and I know she will gladly donate enough for the
neck and sleeves.”
“I hate to go in debt,” Adele said thoughtfully, “but we surely will
find a way to earn money soon, and I do so want Granny Dorset to have
the purple silk dress on her birthday.”
“We might do it just this once,” said the practical Bertha, “and then as
soon as the party is over we must scurry around and find some way to
earn money. We simply must not stay in debt.”
“We might give a play or something,” Betty Burd suggested.
“Now,” said President Adele, “who would like to be on a committee to
find out from Granny Dorset which of the old people who are to-day
living in Sunnyside were young when she was?”
“I suggest that Adele Doring and Gertrude Willis be appointed on that
committee,” Rosamond drawled.
“Very well, we will accept, won’t we, Gertrude?” Adele asked brightly.
And when Gertrude had agreed, the president added, “And I would like to
nominate Peggy Pierce and Rosamond Wright as a committee of two to see
that the purple silk dress is made, and that there is lace in the neck
and sleeves.”
“But you will all have to help pick out the color and the pattern,”
Peggy protested, and to this the others agreed.
“I am glad that we have two weeks to prepare,” Adele said, “because, now
that school has begun, we will not want to neglect our studies, and it
will take two weeks to have the dress made and—”
“But Adele,” Bertha exclaimed, “we haven’t decided where to hold the
party.”
“We might have it here,” Adele said thoughtfully. “But don’t let’s
decide that yet. And now let’s go for a tramp to the orphanage and
invite Eva and Amanda to come over here and share our picnic supper.”
This was done, and the orphans were so happy and so grateful that the
seven could not but feel that their Sunnyside Club was fulfilling its
mission by bringing so much joy into the lonely lives of these two
girls.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE HOUSE BY THE WOOD
The following afternoon Adele Doring and Gertrude Willis, hand in hand,
skipped along Cherry Lane on their way to Granny Dorset’s. The leaves on
the trees were yellow, and fluttered down on them as they passed. Dear
Granny Dorset, who had not walked for many a year, was sitting on the
sunny front porch in her pillowed chair. She looked up brightly as the
girls opened the gate, calling gayly, “Here come my little Sunshine
Maidens. What good news have you to-day?”
Granny Dorset’s own middle-aged daughter was so busy with housekeeping
and making ends meet that she seldom knew what happened in the village
of Sunnyside, and so these girls often hunted up bits of happy gossip to
take to the little old lady.
Sitting on the edge of the porch, Gertrude replied, “Oh, Granny Dorset,
did you know that Jane Dally has the darlingest new baby? It was
christened last Sunday, and when father held it in his arms, it smiled
up at him, and it has the sweetest dimple. Old Grandfather Dally stood
up with it, and how his face did shine with pride and happiness!”
“’Lijah Dally a grandad again!” the old lady said brightly. “Well, to
think of that now. He and I were children together. Della, his dad was
one of your grandpa’s sheep-herders, and when he was a little fellow he
lived in that cabin over in the meadows.”
“Oh, Granny, did he really?” Adele asked eagerly.
This indeed was the object of the girls’ visit, to find out what other
old people, now living in the village, had been young when Granny Dorset
was a girl, so that they might invite them to Granny’s surprise-party.
Then Gertrude asked a direct question: “Is there any one else living
around here who was young when you were?”
“Not so many now,” the old lady replied thoughtfully. “Some have moved
away and some have gone to the better country, but there’s old Mr. and
Mrs. Quigley,—they as had to go to the poorhouse when their cabin burned
down. They had lived in it for nigh forty year, and they always did for
others when they had it, but when they needed help themselves, folks let
them go on the county.”
“Oh, how sad!” Adele exclaimed. “Why couldn’t some one have given them a
cabin to live in for the few years that are left?”
“Well, nobody did,” Granny replied. “And then there’s Sally Grackle. She
lives all by herself, out on the edge of the woods. It’s strange how
people change! Sally was such a jolly girl and everybody liked her, but
she had a sorrow, which, like as not, made her queer-actin’, the way she
is now. She’s shut herself up, and I’ve heard tell that she won’t see
anybody. That’s all the folks living around here now who were young when
I was.”
Half an hour later, when the two girls were slowly wending their way
homeward, Gertrude said, “Not a very promising party, Della, judging by
the guests. Poor Miss Grackle, not quite in her right mind, and Mr. and
Mrs. Quigley out at the poorhouse. Luckily Grandpa Dally is a host in
himself. He’s jolly and brimful of stories, so perhaps our party will be
a success if we can get the guests to agree to come to it.”
The next morning the Sunny Seven met under the elm-tree in the
school-yard to report progress. When the other five had heard of the
visit to Granny Dorset, Betty Burd exclaimed, “That terrible Miss
Grackle! You needn’t appoint me on a committee to go and invite her. I
know some church ladies who went there once and she chased them away
with a broom.”
“Poor thing!” Adele said. “She must be very unhappy, living there all
alone by that desolate wood. Gertrude and I will gladly go and invite
Miss Grackle to the party.”
That very afternoon they started out toward the woods at the north edge
of the village. The houses were scattered, and at last the girls turned
into a path which led through a swampy meadow. They had to pick their
way carefully, to keep from getting their feet wet. Their destination
was a weather-beaten, gray house, which looked as though it was about to
tumble down, standing in the deep shade of two large pines. It was a
cloudy day and the wind moaned dismally through the trees. There was no
sign of life about the place. The seldom-used gate creaked as it swung
open on rusty hinges.
“I suppose that at any minute Miss Grackle may rush out at us with a
broom,” Gertrude whispered. “Do you feel at all afraid, Adele?”
“No,” the other girl replied, as they steadily advanced toward the
house. The porch, which was broken in places, was littered with leaves.
“Miss Grackle doesn’t use her broom to sweep with, I judge,” Gertrude
said softly.
Adele rapped bravely, but no one answered. Then she turned the knob and
the door opened. The room which they entered was dark, cheerless, and
damp. At first, they could scarcely see, and so they stood still. When
they had become accustomed to the dim light, the girls saw a large,
old-fashioned bed, and in it lay an elderly woman with a pinched, gray
face.
“Oh, Miss Grackle!” Adele said, hurrying to the bedside. “You are ill
and all alone here!”
“Well, what if I am?” the old woman replied tartly. “It’s nobody’s
business and nobody cares.”
“If we made a fire in the stove, it would take the chill from the room,”
Gertrude suggested kindly.
“Maybe so, like as not,” the old woman agreed. “But where’s the wood?”
“I’ll bring some in,” Gertrude replied. “I saw some fallen branches near
by.”
So saying, Gertrude went out and quickly returned with an armful of dry
wood, and soon a fire snapped and crackled cheerfully in the stove.
“And now I’ll make you some broth,” said Adele.
“You’ll be smart if you do,” Miss Grackle replied. “What are you
planning to make it out of?”
“Why, Miss Grackle!” Adele exclaimed when she found the cupboards bare.
“Haven’t you had anything to eat?”