Читать книгу Adele Doring of the Sunnyside Club - Grace May North - Страница 11

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Twelve little orphan girls in white,

Hearts a-brimming with delight,

Watched with eager, dancing eyes

For what? They knew not!

A surprise!

The twelve girls, flushed and excited, were peering down the country road at the strangest vehicle which they had ever seen. It was, in truth, a hay-rack covered with garlands of daisies and buttercups and drawn by two white horses with daisy wreaths about their necks. On the front seat was the driver, Bob Angel, with Adele at his side, while in the wagon part the Sunny Six sat on the soft new-mown hay. They were all dressed in white, and, to the surprise of the twelve orphans, the wonderful equipage stopped at their own gate. In a twinkling Adele was on the ground, and, taking both of Eva’s hands, she kissed her on the cheek, exclaiming, “Lovely Queen o’ May! Your carriage has come to take you away on this your thirteenth natal day.”

Tears rushed to Eva’s eyes as she exclaimed, “Oh, Adele, you were so good to plan all this for me.” Then, brushing them away, she said brightly, “I’d reply in rhyme if I could, for I do suppose that one should.”

“Oho!” laughed Betty Burd. “Eva, you’re a poet and don’t know it.”

“Come now,” said Adele, who was Mistress of Ceremonies, “we must start on our journey. Eva, you are to sit in state with the driver, and all the rest of us are to scramble up on the hay, because we are not so important to-day.”

“More rhymes,” laughed Peggy Pierce.

Into the daisy-covered hay-rack the girls climbed, looking as pretty as the flowers themselves. Then Bob started the horses, Jerry and Jingo, and somehow they seemed to know that the spirit of fun was abroad, for they galloped down the road at a merry pace and the girls laughed and sang. Soon they turned into the meadow-lane. “What a darling log cabin!” Eva exclaimed, as they neared the Secret Sanctum.

“Just wait until you see the inside of it,” said Adele. Then the horses stopped and out of the hay-rack the girls leaped, not waiting for Bob’s proffered assistance. Adele threw open the cabin-door and the guests entered with exclamations of pleasure.

Bertha hung back for a few last words with her brother Bob, after which he drove the equipage over near the wood, unhitched, and turned the horses out to graze. Then he took a short cut to the town.

Soon the merry fun began. There were whirling and singing and dancing games, and after an hour of rollicking, Adele invited the guests to take a walk with her in the maple wood, so away they went, little dreaming of the delightful surprise that would await them when they returned to the cabin.

When the last gleam of white had disappeared among the trees, all was hustle and bustle in Buttercup Meadows.

“Quick now!” exclaimed Bertha Angel, who was Mistress of Ceremonies in Adele’s absence. “We must hurry if we are to have everything ready in fifteen minutes, and Adele never can keep the orphans in the woods longer than that.”

“The boys ought to be here this very second, if they are going to help us,” said Betty Burd.

“Bob and Jack promised to be here promptly at four,” Rosamond remarked, “and it’s powerful close to that now.”

“Well, you can depend on Bob,” Bertha exclaimed. “He is never even a fraction of a moment late. Being my brother, I know his virtues and otherwise.”

“What is the otherwise?” asked Peggy Pierce, as the girls donned their big aprons and darted about at various tasks.

“Oh,” laughed Bertha, as she heaped lettuce sandwiches on a big blue plate which had a crack in it, “Bob’s besetting sin is teasing me, and such pranks as he can invent!”

“Well,” exclaimed Rosamond Wright, as she glanced at her wrist-watch, “your model brother is late to-day, for it is four to the second and there is no one in sight.”

“Oh, yes, there is,” said Betty Burd, as she came in from the brook with a bucket of sparkling water. “There are two colored men coming across lots just below here.”

Doris Drexel looked out of the door, and then she sprang back with a startled cry. “They are negroes, and, oh, girls, what if they should be tramps? I do wish that Bob had been here on time.”

“They are coming right this way,” whispered Betty Burd. “Hadn’t we better close the door and lock it?”

“Let me look,” said Bertha Angel, as she stepped fearlessly into the meadow. Then, to the surprise of the others, she called gayly, “Well, Rastus, do hurry up! We’ve wasted time enough as it is.”

“Why, Bertha!” exclaimed Peggy Pierce in surprise. “Do you know those colored men?”

“Know them? I should say that I do,” Bertha laughingly replied. And then she ran right up to one of them, and, shaking her finger at him, she exclaimed: “Aha, Bob Angel, now I know why you wanted to borrow my red silk handkerchief.”

Then the other girls, their fear changed to laughter, trooped out of the cabin.

“Jack Doring and Bob Angel!” Betty Burd exclaimed. “I never would have known you boys in a hundred years.”

“We-all heard you wanted some waiters,” Bob drawled, trying to talk in negro dialect, “and we-all came to apply.”

“Well, you-all are engaged,” laughed Bertha, “and now please do hustle.”

Then every one bustled about. The boys made a long table with boards and sawhorses, and benches on each side were fashioned with boxes and more boards. Soon the tables were covered with flower-bordered paper table-cloths, and there were napkins to match. Two bowls of daisies and buttercups and ferns adorned the ends of the table, and in the very center was placed a huge birthday cake, which Mrs. Doring had made for Adele. It was frosted with white, and on it were thirteen pink candy roses, for Eva and Adele that day were both thirteen.

Mrs. Drexel had sent chicken salad, and the girls themselves had made lettuce sandwiches, which were piled in tempting array. Rastus, as they called Bob Angel, was just filling the last tumbler with pink lemonade when Rosamond Wright exclaimed, “Here comes Adele!”

There was a chorus of delighted exclamations from the orphans as they approached.

“I didn’t know a table could look so beautiful,” Amanda whispered to Eva, as Adele motioned them to their places. Soon the festive board was surrounded with laughing, happy faces, and then Bob and Jack, as black as burnt cork could make them, greatly added to the merriment with their antics. They wore small white aprons, and each had a folded towel flung over one arm. They passed things with a flourish and talked a string of nonsense, trying, with more or less success, to imitate the negro dialect.

The heaps of delicious sandwiches disappeared rapidly, the pink lemonade was often replenished, and never before had a chicken salad been more appreciated.

At last Adele called gayly, “Girls, we must leave a corner for the ice-cream and cake.”

“That’s right,” laughed Gertrude Willis, while at the mention of ice-cream the orphans looked as though their fondest dreams were being fulfilled.

“Garçon!” called Adele, who was just learning a bit of French. “You may clear the table.”

The waiters put their black heads out of the cabin-door and cried, “Law, chile, wait a minute!” Later, when they did appear, each carried a partly eaten sandwich, for the boys did not intend to miss any of the good things themselves.

Adele, to save Eva from embarrassment, agreed to cut the birthday cake, but first she counted noses.

“Say, Miss Doring,” Jack drawled, “I’ll be ’bleeged to tell you, ma’am, I’se got two noses.”

How the girls laughed, for it is easy to laugh when the heart is light. So Adele allowed two pieces for each boy. When the cake had been cut and the generous slices passed, the waiters appeared with pyramids of frosty ice-cream. Then, when this had disappeared, Rastus came out with a basket lined with flowers, but piled in the center of it were little white boxes tied with pink and blue baby-ribbon. It was first passed to Eva, who chose the wee box which was nearest, and then waited until each orphan had drawn forth one of the dainty packages.

“Now,” said Adele, with shining eyes, “open them all together.”

How eagerly the ribbons were untied and the little boxes opened, and then what a chorus of rejoicing there was! Eva had chosen just the one that Adele had hoped she would, a slender golden chain and a locket wreathed with pearls. When it was fastened about her neck Eva exclaimed, “Oh, Adele, how can I thank you!”

But Amanda called their attention to her locket, which was set with pretty red stones. “I never owned a trinket before in all my life,” she said softly to Eva, who sat at her side. Then, almost wistfully, she asked, “Is it to be mine for keeps?” Eva fastened the chain about Amanda’s neck and softly assured her that it was to be her very own. The other ten orphans were equally pleased, and pretty the lockets looked as they hung around the necks of their new owners.

Soon Adele rose and the girls sauntered about until the flower-bedecked equipage reappeared and they donned their hats.

Eva held out both hands to Adele as she exclaimed gratefully, “If I live to be a hundred years old, I never can have a happier day.”

“You and I are going to have many happy days together,” Adele replied warmly. And then the Sunny Seven, who were staying behind to clear up, waved to the guests as long as the hay-rack and its black drivers were in sight.

During the day Adele had often wondered why none of the girls had congratulated her on its being her birthday as well as Eva’s, but she was of too generous a nature to feel hurt, and so she soon forgot all about it, but her friends had not forgotten, as you shall hear.