“Hail! Hail! The gang’s all here!” Merry sang out, but quickly added: “Oh, don’t mind about the snow. Come on in. Katie put matting over the carpet.” Then as she looked from one ruddy, laughing face to another, the hostess exclaimed: “But you aren’t all here. What’s the matter with Rose? Why didn’t she come?” Then before anyone could reply, Merry guessed: “O, I suppose her lady mother was afraid her precious darling would melt or be blown away! I don’t see how Rose ever gets to school in the winter. Her mother coddles her so!”
“Drives, my dear, as you know perfectly well, but it seems that today the snow-plough hasn’t been along Willowbend Lane, and her mother won’t hear to having the horses taken out. Rose tried to call you up, but your ’phone is on the blink, so she called me.” Peg paused for breath, then went on: “She’s simply heart-broken; she said she’d give us all the chocolates we could eat and a nice hot drink if we’d beg, borrow or steal a sleigh somewhere and hold our meeting out there at her house.”
Merry’s face brightened. “Say, that’s a keen idea! I was wondering how I could divulge my secret with Jack hanging around in the library, and I couldn’t turn him out very well, being as it’s about the only warm spot in the house except the kitchen. What’s more, I’m crazy to go for a tramp in this snow storm. Wait till I get on my leggins and overshoes.”
They had not long to wait, for in less than five minutes Merry reappeared from the cloakroom, under the wide, winding stairway, a fur cap hiding her short curls, a fur cloak reaching to her knees and her legs warmly ensconced in leggins of the same soft grey. She opened the door to the library and called to her brother, who was again deeply engrossed in his book: “The ‘cats’ are about to leave. We’ve decided to hold today’s most important meeting of our secret society in the palatial home of the Widow Wright. I am enlightening you as to our destination, Brother dear, so that if we happen to be lost in a snow drift, you will know where to come to dig us out.”
Jack had leaped to his feet when he saw the merry faces of the five girls in the hall, but before he could join them, they had darted out through the storm porch, and the wind slammed the door after them.
The boy laughed to himself, then shrugged his shoulders as though he was thinking that the modern girl was beyond his comprehension. Then he returned to the fireplace, dropped down into the comfortable depths of a big easy chair and continued to read and scribble alternately. He was preparing a paper to be read that night before the secret society to which he belonged: The C. D. C. The boys had long ago guessed the meaning of the letters that named the girls’ club “The S. S. C.”
“Dead easy!” Bob Angel had told them. “Sunny Side Club, of course.” But the girls had never been able to guess the meaning of the boys’ “C. D. C.,” nor did they know where the secret meetings were held. These meetings were always at night, and, although Sunnyside girls were modern as far as their conversation went; due to their parents’ antiquaited ideas, perhaps, they were not considered old enough to roam about the dark streets of the town at night unless accompanied by their brothers or someone older. And, of course, they couldn’t find out the secret meeting-place of the boys when the members were along, and so up to that particular date, January 11, 1928, the seven “S. S. C.” girls had not even a suspicion of where the boys’ clubrooms were located.
They had vowed that they would ferrit it out if it took a lifetime.
CHAPTER III.
A MERRY ADVENTURE
The snow-plough had been along on the wide street and sidewalks of the main thoroughfares of the town and the girls had no trouble at all in making headway through the residential and business parts of Sunnyside, but when they turned toward the hills, on the west side of the village, they found that the snow-ploughs had not been so accommodating. Willowbend Lane was covered with deep, soft snow and when Bertha Angel, who chanced to be in the lead, tried to stand on it, she sank down to her knees. Wading was out of the question. Willowbend Lane was on the outskirts of town and it was fully a mile back to the main road. They looked ahead of them across the unbroken snow to where, on a low hill, stood the big brownstone, turreted house in which lived the wealthy Mrs. Irving Earle Wright and her daughter, Rosamond.
“I wish we’d brought along some snowshoes,” Merry remarked. “I hate to let a storm stump me. Brother will certainly tease us well if we go back without having reached our destination.”
“I don’t think snowshoes would have helped us much,” Bertha Angel commented. “It’s quite a feat to walk on them until one gets on to the trick of it.”
“Hark ye!” Merry exclaimed, lifting a finger of her fur-lined glove. “I hear sleigh bells! Somebody is coming, and if that somebody’s destination happens to be up Willowbend Lane, we’ll beg a ride.”
“What if it’s somebody we don’t know?” little Betty Byrd ventured to inquire, to which Merry “How could it be? Wasn’t I born here, and don’t I know everybody within a million miles?”
“That sounds rather like hyperbole,” Bertha exclaimed.
“Like which?” Doris Drexel teased; then added: “Wouldn’t Miss Preen be pleased to hear her prize pupil rattle off that fine sounding word in – ”
“Ssh! Ssh!” Merry’s hand was on Dory’s arm. “Our victim is now in sight. My, what a swell turnout! Some cutter that, isn’t it?” The six girls had stepped to one side of the road and were watching with interest the approach of a large sleigh which was being drawn at a rapid pace by two big white horses perfectly matched. The driver, as they could discern as it drew nearer, was a young man who was almost hidden in a big brown fur coat and cap, but his eyes were peering out and he was amazed to see a bevy of girls standing by the unbroken lane, so evidently in distress.
Stopping his horses, he snatched off his fur cap and revealed a frank, boyish face that had not been seen in that neighborhood before.
“Young ladies,” he said courteously, “can you direct me to the home of Colonel Wainwright? In the village they told me to follow this road for a mile and then ask someone which turn to take.”
“Oh, yes, we can tell you,” Merry replied. “This lane is a short-cut to the Colonel’s place.”
The lad thanked her and was about to drive on; then he hesitated and turned back.
“Young ladies,” he said, “I have always told my sister never to ride with strangers, but if your destination is in this direction I would be glad to convey you to it. I am Alfred Morrison of Dorchester.”
“Oh,” Merry exclaimed brightly, “my brother, Jack Lee, is acquainted with you, I am sure. He goes to school in the city.”
The boy’s good-looking face plainly showed his pleasure. “Indeed I know old Jack well,” he exclaimed. “We’re doing college prep work together. I planned looking him up as soon as I had finished my business call on the Colonel.”
Feeling sure that their mothers could not object, since the strange boy was so well acquainted with Merry’s brother, they swarmed into the luxurious sleigh, sitting three deep, which but added to their gaiety. The horses were obliged to travel slowly through the drifts, but they soon came to a part of the lane where the wind had blown the snow from the road to be caught at the fences, and then they made better time. In a very few moments the sleigh was turning in between two high stone gate posts, as Merry had directed, and shortly thereafter the six girls were tumbling out under a wide sheltering portico. “We’re terribly grateful to you, Mr. Morrison.” Merry exclaimed. “Maybe we’ll be able to pick you up some time when you’re stranded somewhere.”
The boy laughed good-naturedly. “I hope I won’t have that long to wait before I can see you all again.” He included the group in his smiling glance, then, because the spirited horses were restive, he lifted his fur cap and turned his attention toward the prancing span.
Laughingly the girls climbed up the stone steps and were about to ring the bell when the door was thrown open and their “prettiest