“Merry Lee, if you don’t tell us, I shall come over there and shake you until you do.” Betty Byrd was so tiny that this threat made the girls laugh gaily, but it had the desired effect, for their president ceased teasing and told them a story which interested them greatly.
CHAPTER V.
A MISCHIEVOUS PLAN
“Well, to begin at the beginning, Jack was pleased as punch to see Alfred Morrison, and for the first fifteen minutes they talked of nothing but college prep, athletics, fraternities and the like. Then Mother called me and I left them alone in the library. When I returned, half an hour later, Alfred was gone, but this is the tale Brother told me. It seems our new friend has a sister about our age, Geraldine by name.”
“Oho,” Bertha put in, “then that is who the newcomer to our town is to be.”
Peg laughed. “We’ll have to put you on the sleuth committee, Bursie, but do hurry and tell us the worst.”
“Perhaps it’s the best,” Gertrude suggested, but Merry shook her head. “Worst is more like it. But here goes: Mr. Morrison, their father, lived in this village when he was a boy. He was mischievous and wilful and he had trouble with his father, who was stern and unrelenting. When he was sixteen he ran away to sea and was gone three years on a voyage around the world. When he returned he went West, where he married and made a good deal of money in railroads and mines. During this time he had often written to his Mother begging to be forgiven, but his letters were always returned to him and so he supposed that his parents no longer cared for him. At last, however, when his wife died, leaving him with two small children, he came back to Dorchester only to find that his father and mother were gone and the old home falling into rack and ruin.
“Sad at heart, he settled in the city where Alfred and his sister were brought up by tutors and governesses.”
“Oh, the poor things!” Doris Drexel said pityingly. “My heart aches for any boy or girl brought up without knowing the tenderness of a mother’s love.”
“That brings the story up to the present,” Merry continued. “Last week Mr. Morrison left very suddenly for Europe in the interests of his business and he may be gone all winter. He did not want to leave his son and daughter alone in the city house with the servants, and so he sent Alfred down here to see Colonel Wainright, who was his pal when he was a boy, to ask him if they might remain with him for a few months. The Colonel was delighted, Alfred told Jack, and so they are both coming to our village to spend the winter.”
“But, Merry, why do you think that is not good news? I think it will be jolly fun to have another girl friend. There’s always room for one more.”
Gertrude said this in her kindly way, but Peg protested: “There certainly isn’t room for one more in the Seven Sleuths’ Club.”
“Indeed not!” Merry seconded. “But don’t worry, the haughty Miss Geraldine won’t want to associate with simpering country milkmaids.”
“With what?” Every girl in the room dropped her sewing on her lap and stared her amazement.
Merry laughed as she replied: “Just that, no less. I knew how indignant you’d all be. I would, too, if it weren’t so powerfully funny. I’d pity the cow I’d try to milk.”
“What reason have you for thinking this girl, Geraldine, will be such a snob?” Gertrude asked as she resumed her sewing.
“Reason enough!” Merry told them. “Alfred said that his sister was very angry when she heard that her father was going to send her to such a ‘back-woodsy’ place, meaning our village, and she declared that she simply would not go. She, Geraldine Morrison, who was used to having four servants wait upon her, to live in an old country house where she would probably have to demean herself by making her own bed? No, never! She raged and stormed, Alfred said, and declared that she would go to visit some cousins in New York, but to that her father would not listen. He told her that he wanted his little girl, who is none too robust, to spend a winter breathing the country air in the village where he was a boy. Of course, since Geraldine is only sixteen, she had to give in, and so next week she is to arrive, bag and baggage. She told Alfred that he needn’t think for one moment that she was going to hobnob with silly, simpering country milkmaids! Alfred said that he hated to tell Jack all this, but he liked us so much he wanted us to be prepared, so that we would not be hurt by his sister’s rudeness.”
There were twinkles appearing in the eyes of the mischievous Peggy. “Oh, girls,” she said gaily, “I’ve thought up the best joke to play on this haughty young lady who calls us simpering milkmaids. Let’s pretend that is what we really are, and let’s call on her and act the part. We’re all crazy about private theatricals. Here’s our chance.”
“Say, but that’s a keen idea!” Merry agreed chucklingly.
Then they chattered merrily as they laid their plans. They would give the new girl a few days to become used to the village, then, en masse, they would go up to Colonel Wainright’s and call upon her.
There was so much laughter and such squeels of delight in the next half hour that Mrs. Angel, appearing in the doorway with a platter heaped with doughnuts, was moved to inquire: “What mischief are you girls up to? I never before heard so much giggling.” Her beaming expression proved to them that she was not displeased.
“Oh, Mrs. Angel, you surely were well named.”
“Such doughnuts! Do leave the platter, please; this one has melted in my mouth already!”
“I do hope Bob won’t come before we have them eaten!” were among the remarks that were uttered as the doughnuts vanished. Bertha, her eyes brimming with laughter, had disappeared to return a second later with a tray of glasses and a huge blue crockery pitcher. “This drink is appropriate, if nothing else,” she announced gaily as she placed her burden on the long library table and began to pour out the creamy milk.
“It didn’t take you long to milk a cow,” Peg sang out “Yum, this puts the fresh into the refreshments.”
“Oh-oo, Peg, don’t try to be funny. Can’t be done, old dear,” Merry teased, then held up a warning finger. “Hark! I hear sleigh bells coming. It’s Bob, and Jack is with him. Alak for us and the six left doughnuts.”
“Oh, well, they deserve them if anyone does, coming after us in a storm like this,” Gertrude remarked as she folded her sewing. “I’m glad they have come, for Mother doesn’t feel very well and I wanted to be home in time to get supper.”
A second later there was a great stamping on the side porch and the boys, after having brushed each other free of snow, entered, caps in hand.
“Bully for us!” Bob said. “Believe me, I know when to time my arrival at these ‘Spread on the Sunshine’ Club meetings. However, wishing to be polite, I’ll wait until they’re passed.” Courteous as his words were, he did not fit his action to them, for, having reached the table, he poured out a tumbler of milk for Jack and tossed him a doughnut, which Jack caught skillfully in his teeth.
The girls, always an appreciative audience, laughed and clapped their hands. “Bertha, it was nice of you to provide a juggler to amuse your guests,” Rose remarked.
“Jack must have been a doggie in a former existence,” Peg teased.
“Sure thing I was!” the boy replied good-naturedly. “I’d heaps rather have been a dog than a cat.”
“Sir!” Peg stepped up threateningly near. “Are there any concealed inferences in that?”
“Nary a one. I think in a former existence you girls must have all been sunbeams.”
“Ha! ha!” Bob’s hearty laughter expressed his enjoyment of the joke. “That’s