Читать книгу Adele Doring of the Sunnyside Club - Grace May North - Страница 5

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There was spring in the air,

Though the woods were still bare.

There was fragrance all about,

Though not a flower was out.

There were seven girls so gay

Off for a holiday.

Across the April meadows they danced, a long row, hand in hand. Another month and the brown fields would be gold-and-white with daisies and buttercups.

“Look! Look! The pussy-willows are out!” Adele Doring called, as, with a shout of glee, she darted ahead of the rest, toward a bush which grew close to a low stone wall and not far from a sparkling brook.

When the others came up, they caught hold of hands and danced about the bush while Adele sang:

“‘Little Pussy-willow, harbinger of spring,

We are glad to welcome you, such good news you bring.’”

“Adele,” drawled Rosamond Wright when they had paused for breath, “I’m powerful worried about you, for fear you are going to grow up to be a poet or something queer like that.”

Adele laughed as she perched on the low stone wall and fanned herself with her broad-brimmed hat.

“No fear of my being a poet!” exclaimed Doris Drexel, as she and the other girls sat down on the warm brown grass. “Why I couldn’t even make ‘curl’ rhyme with ‘girl’ without being prompted.”

Then Adele, having put her hand in the pocket of her rose-colored sweater-coat, gave a sudden exclamation as she drew out a piece of folded paper.

“Girls!” she cried. “Lend me your ears! I have a secret plan to reveal.”

“Aha!” quoth Bertha Angel. “So you had a sinister motive, as Bob says, for bringing us to this lonely, forsaken spot.”

“You were wise to do so, if it’s a secret,” Rosie declared, “for even the walls have ears.”

“Well, if this old stone wall wants to hear what I have to say,” laughed Adele, “it may listen and welcome.”

“Do hurry and tell us!” cried the impatient Betty Burd. “Your plans are always such jolly fun.”

“Well, then,” said Adele, mysteriously, “I’ve been reading a book.”

“But there is nothing remarkable about that,” Doris Drexel exclaimed. “You are almost always reading a book.”

Adele, not heeding the interruption, continued: “And in this book dwell several maidens of about our own age. They belong to a secret society and they have the best times ever. Now my plan is this. Since we seven girls are continually together, suppose we have a club.”

“Wouldn’t that be fun, though!” exclaimed Peggy Pierce. “I’ve always wanted to belong to one.”

“I choose to be treasurer!” declared Betty Burd mischievously.

“Oh, Betty, you treasurer!” cried Doris Drexel in mock horror. “Then we never would know how our funds stood.”

“Don’t you have enough of mathematics in school, little one?” Adele asked with twinkling eyes.

“Don’t I, though! Oh, girls!” Betty exclaimed dismally. “I just know that you are all thinking of yesterday. Wasn’t it terrible when I was at the board doing that problem and those visiting ladies came in and said that they were interested in watching the progress made by the young. I was so scared that every figure looked like a Chinese character to me, and how I did wish that a trap-door would open under my feet and let me gently down into the cellar. Luckily, Miss Donovan had no desire to be disgraced, and so she bade me take my seat and let Bertha do the problem.”

“I hate math., too,” Doris Drexel declared. “I’m like the little boy who said he could add the naughts all right but the figures bothered him.”

“In truth,” said Gertrude Willis, “there is just one of us who was born to be the treasurer of this club, and that one is Bertha Angel,—‘the only pupil in Seven B who can add and subtract with unvarying accuracy,’ as Miss Donovan so recently remarked.”

“Good!” cried Adele. “Bertha Angel, you are elected treasurer, but your duties will not be heavy, for at present there is no money to count.”

“I accept the responsibility,” said Bertha brightly, as she sprang up and made a bow.

“Now,” Adele inquired, “who would like to be secretary?”

“Secretary!” repeated Betty Burd blankly. “I thought that was a piece of furniture. My Uncle George has one in his study and it looks like a writing-desk.”

“So it is, fair maid,” drawled Rosamond Wright, “but didst thou never hear of one word having two meanings? The secretary which we want is a person to write down the clever things that we say and do.”

“I vote for Gertrude Willis,” called Doris Drexel. “Any one who could write such a composition as she read yesterday in assembly on the ‘Rights of the Indian’ surely ought to be recognized as a genius in our midst.”

“Thanks kindly,” laughed Gertrude; “I’ll do my little best.”

“Girls,” exclaimed Adele, “our club is now the happy possessor of a secretary and a treasurer, but it has neither a name nor a president!”

Peggy Pierce was on her feet in an instant, exclaiming, “There is only one among us who could be our president, and she is”—“Adele Doring!” the five others shouted in enthusiastic chorus.

“You see,” laughed Peggy, as she resumed her seat, “the vote is unanimous.”

Adele, rising, made a deep bow as she recited with mock gravity, “Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for the honor which this day you have conferred upon me, and I hope that my future acts and deeds will in no way betray the confidence which you have placed in me.”

“Oho!” Bertha Angel declared. “That speech was in last week’s history lesson.”

“I was hoping you’d all forgotten it,” Adele laughingly replied, as she sat again on the low stone wall.

“Well, I had, you may be sure!” Betty Burd exclaimed. “But what is the club to be named?”

“I had an inspiration last night,” said Adele, “so I wrote it down. I thought we might name the club after our beautiful suburban town of Sunnyside, and then I wrote this rhyme as a sort of pledge for us all to sign:

“We promise to look on the Sunnyside

And be kind and cheerful each day;

To help the needy or lonely or sad,

Whom we happen to meet on our way.”

“Oh, Adele!” moaned Betty Burd in pretended dismay. “Why didn’t you tell us in the beginning that we had to be saints to belong to your club? If I should turn into a cherub too suddenly, my mamma dear wouldn’t know me.”

“Don’t worry about that,” laughed Adele. “We aren’t any of us in danger of sprouting wings just at present.” And then she added seriously, “But I do think that a club ought to stand for something more worth while than just fun and frolic. Of course we’ll have that, too; we always do.”

“You are right, Adele,” exclaimed Gertrude Willis warmly. “I think it is a beautiful pledge, and I wish to be the first one to sign it.”

Adele produced a stub of a pencil, and the paper went the rounds, each girl writing her name thereon.

“Now,” said Adele, “only one thing remains to be decided upon, and that is, where we shall have our Secret Sanctum.”

“Our which?” asked the irrepressible Betty Burd.

“A place where we may hold our secret meetings,” Adele explained.

“You may use our attic if you wish,” drawled Rosamond, “but, I warn you, it’s powerful warm up there in the summer, and cobwebby.”

“An attic is all right on rainy days,” Adele replied, “but the blue sky is the roof for me, now that spring is here.”

While she was talking, Adele’s eyes were roving the meadow. Suddenly she saw something, and, leaping to the ground, she skipped about with delight, to the amazement of the others.

“Adele,” protested Peggy Pierce, “tell us, so we may dance, too.”

“Ohee!” sang out Adele, catching hold of Peggy and whirling her around. “I’ve just thought of the dan-di-est place for a Secret Sanctum, but I’m not going to tell until I find out if we may have it. Meet me Monday morning under the elm-tree and then I will tell you.”

So ended the first meeting of the Sunnyside Club, which was destined, in the months to come, to bring cheer and happiness into many lives.