Читать книгу Outdoor Girls at New Moon Ranch - Stratemeyer Edward - Страница 5

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As Amy and Betty sauntered happily up the road, leaving Mollie to follow with the two boys when she would, they were impressed anew with the beauty of Stella Sibley’s new home.

The house stood on a small eminence with a velvet stretch of lawn sloping down to the road on one side and bounded on the other by a fringe of dense woodland. Spruce and fir trees stood out in handsome relief against the white of stucco and marble and here and there the smooth green of the lawn was broken by vivid splashes of color, flowers in well-tended flower beds.

“A month from now the whole place will be a riot of color,” said Betty dreamily. “Isn’t it nice that Stella can have such a lovely home?”

Amy nodded, and pointed toward the house.

“And if I’m not very much mistaken, there is Stella herself on the porch beckoning us to hurry,” she said, with a smile. “Evidently she wants to get the party started.”

In the house they found every one assembled. As they entered they were greeted by a burst of merry music. Meg and Lota were perched high upon one of the window seats made by a boxed-in radiator. Meg strummed on a banjo while Lota plucked merrily at the strings of a ukulele.

Stella slid across the polished floor to the grand piano, sought and found the right key and plunged into the melody of the popular ballad they were playing. Not to be outdone, Carolyn and Irene immediately raised their voices in more or less melodious song.

They ended on a prolonged high note that sent Betty’s hands to her ears in laughing protest and broke finally into a peal of laughter.

Stella whirled about on the piano bench. She saw Mollie standing in the doorway with Clem and Roy and, on a mischievous impulse, whirled around again and began to play the wedding march!

Irene put an end to that by sitting rather heavily on the keyboard. She swept Stella’s hands from the piano with a reproachful look.

“I won’t have Mollie teased!” she cried. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Stella Sibley! And in your own house too!”

However, Mollie betrayed no embarrassment at Stella’s mischievous trick. To be sure, she frowned a little and those who had been watching closely—Betty and Grace and Amy, for instance—noticed that she flushed a little under the tan of her skin. But to the others she appeared merely brisk and businesslike, ready and eager to plunge at once into the serious part of the meeting.

“Here, Lota and Meg, put up those ukes——”

“Mine isn’t a uke—it’s a banjo,” corrected Meg indignantly.

“Well, it makes just as much noise,” returned Mollie, to a chorus of giggles. “Put it up, anyway, until after we have our business meeting.”

“No one can become an Outdoor Girl who doesn’t mind Mollie,” added Stella sternly.

This dire threat had the desired effect. The ukulele and banjo disappeared as though by magic and the girls assumed as demure an appearance as was possible with them.

“We want to become Outdoor Girls,” they chorused plaintively and Mollie signified that they might, provided they behaved themselves.

Then the serious part of the meeting began. At least, it was supposed to be serious. But by this time the girls were in such a state of high spirits that they giggled at nothing and the slightest sally from any one sent them all into roars of mirth.

First there was the business of the initiation. The three prospective new members were blindfolded—to which Meg protested most vigorously.

“We wouldn’t do that to a horse or a dog where I come from,” she said. “And, anyhow, what good is a blind Outdoor Girl?”

“If you don’t watch out, you won’t be any kind of an Outdoor Girl!” Mollie threatened, and once more Meg subsided.

After the blindfolding, they were made to do a series of “stunts.” One of them—the one probably over which there was most screaming and fun—was the old trick of “walking the plank.”

An ironing board placed on two chairs was the plank. Then the victim, usually protesting volubly, was helped up to the plank and assisted in her perilous pilgrimage by Outdoor Girls stationed on either side of the ironing board.

Having arrived at the extreme limit of the piratical plank, the blind-folded girl plunged with a scream into space—and landed in the midst of a heaped-up pile of cushions!

“You are much too kind,” said Lota when this part of the ceremonies had been completed. “I fully expected you would have a wash tub waiting to receive us at the end of the plank. It would have been far more realistic.”

“We thought of that,” Mollie admitted. “But you looked so nice in your pretty new dresses we hadn’t the heart to ruin them.”

“Never mind about ruining us!” said pretty Carolyn ruefully. She rubbed an elbow that had come in rather forcible contact with the back of a chair. “Next time, girls, we’d better wear our bathing suits!”

There were other ceremonies, of course, such as eating long strings of underdone macaroni which they had been told ahead of time were garter snakes and being forced to sit in chairs already containing very much inflated balloons that went off with a loud plop when sat upon.

“Good gracious, I’m shot!” cried Meg, and the audience of girls and boys went off into paroxysms of mirth at the look upon that young person’s face.

At last came the final ceremony, at the end of which they were to be pronounced full-fledged Outdoor Girls.

Mollie seated the three victims in a row where they sat perched on the extreme edge of their chairs, not knowing what terrible thing to expect next.

“Honorable initiates,” began Mollie in deep stentorian tones, “we are about to subject you to the last test——”

“Thank goodness!” said Carolyn, with heartfelt earnestness. Meg and Lota giggled nervously.

“Moreover,” said Mollie sternly, “if any one dares to so much as utter a word between now and the time the test begins, that one will be forcibly expelled not only from this room and house, but from the club of the Outdoor Girls as well.”

At the conclusion of this awful threat Mollie paused significantly. Not a sound broke the stillness. Meg opened her mouth as though to say something, evidently changed her mind, and closed it again. Mollie proceeded.

“We have here, a bone!”

Carolyn was heard to scream faintly. But as Mollie turned in her direction, stillness once more prevailed.

“It is a thigh bone,” said Mollie. This time there was a distinct stir among the victims and the sound of muffled laughter from the audience. “It is the thigh bone of a remote ancestor of one of you three girls. He was a very vicious character——”

“Must have been great, great-uncle Tobias,” murmured Lota. “He was a pirate and I think he had only one leg.”

“This is the thigh bone of the other,” agreed Mollie. Then as the victims began to giggle, she resumed more sternly. “This bone I am about to give to you. You will pass it, one to the other, and if any one drops, or so much as fumbles this bone, that one shall be considered unfit for the service of the Outdoor Girls and shall be forcibly expelled therewith.” She paused while the girls fidgeted and looked uneasy.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

A faint “yes” answered her.

Carolyn was nearest, so that she was the first to receive the bone. She squeaked at the cold, damp feel of it—it had been previously moistened in ice water—but with an effort of will managed to hold on to it and pass it to her neighbor.

Lota took the bone and screamed.

“It—wiggled!” she cried and hastily thrust it into the hand of her twin.

“Oh, my goodness, what an awful thing!” cried Meg. “Take it, some one! Or must I go on holding it forever?”

Mollie signaled to Betty, who was half doubled up with laughter.

The former Little Captain of the Outdoor Girls took pity on Meg and accepted the reputed thigh bone of great-uncle Tobias, the pirate. It was then placed on a tray by Grace and hastily relegated to the kitchen.

“Whew!” cried Meg. “That was the worst of all.”

“Can’t we take off our bandages now?” begged Carolyn. “They’re hot.”

“Take ’em off!” cried Mollie.

When the girls could see again three pairs of bright eyes turned eagerly toward Mollie. That young person had risen to her feet. Now she held out her hand toward them impressively.

“New members, the Outdoor Girls, married and single, salute you,” she said, a certain gravity in her voice belying the sparkle of her eyes. “We ask you only to carry on as we have tried to carry on, to be square and meet all situations bravely, to make the name of the Outdoor Girls a respected one in the community, as we have tried to do. Greetings, comrades. Come forward and accept the hand of friendship!”