Читать книгу Adele Doring of the Sunnyside Club - Grace May North - Страница 6

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The town of Sunnyside lay in a wide valley, beyond which were sloping hills, and among them, clear and blue, nestled Little Bear Lake.

To the south of the village there was a field which was so yellow in summer that it had been called Buttercup Meadows. Near it was a maple wood, and through the wood and across the field rippled a merry little brook.

Now, in the meadow and near the wood, and close to the laughing brook, stood a picturesque old log cabin. Years before, when the nearest town had been ten miles away, Adele Doring’s grandfather had owned all of the land that one could see from the top of Lookout Hill, and in this log cabin his sheep-herders had lived.

The sheep and the herders had long since passed away, but the old log cabin was still standing, and Adele’s father now owned it, and, too, he owned the Buttercup Meadows and the maple wood and the laughing brook and Lookout Hill.

It was that log cabin which Adele had seen on the day when the Sunnyside Club had been formed by the seven girls who were always together. They had been wondering where they could hold their meetings, when Adele had spied the log cabin, and she had thought at once that it would make an ideal Secret Sanctum, but she did not want to tell the others until she had asked her Giant Father’s advice and consent.

The next morning, after breakfast, Adele revealed her plan. “May you have the log cabin, Heart’s Desire?” her Giant Father asked with twinkling eyes. “Why, of course you may! Uncover yonder ink bottle and I will deed it to you this very moment.”

“Oh, Daddy!” Adele laughingly exclaimed. “I don’t want to own it that way. I just want your permission and mother’s to do with it as I like.”

Mrs. Doring beamed on them both as she replied, “If your father is willing, daughter, then so am I.”

“Oh, you darlings!” Adele exclaimed, joyously hugging them. “Thank you so much.” Then catching up her hat and books, away she skipped to school.

The trysting-place was a big spreading elm-tree which stood in the middle of the girls’ side of the school-yard. Under it was a circular bench, and here the seven maidens waited each morning until all had gathered.

When Adele rounded the high hedge which bordered the school-grounds, she was greeted with a joyous chorus from the six who were already there.

“Three cheers for the president of the Sunnyside Club!” cried Betty Burd, the irrepressible.

“Hush! Hush!” laughed Adele, looking quickly about. “Don’t you remember that it is a secret society?”

“Luckily there is no one here but ourselves and the elm-tree,” Rosamond said.

“Adele!” Gertrude Willis exclaimed. “Why are your eyes so shining and bright? Have you good news to tell?”

“Indeed I have,” Adele replied gayly. “Just think, girls, we may have it!”

“Have what?” asked the puzzled six.

“O dear, how stupid of me!” laughed Adele. “Of course I hadn’t told you about it, had I? Well, you know that we wanted a place in which to hold our club-meetings, and I said I had thought of one if we might have it.” The six nodded eagerly.

“Well, then, we may, and it’s the loveliest, idealest place for a Secret Sanctum that ever could be thought of.”

“Oh, Adele, do tell us where it is,” begged Peggy Pierce. “I am ’most consumed with curiosity.”

“Well, then, I will end your suspense by telling you that it is the log cabin over in Buttercup Meadows. It belongs to my dad, and he is glad to let us have it, and so is mumsie.”

“Ohee!” squealed Betty Burd. “How I do wish that there was no school to-day, so that we might go right over to look at our newest possession.”

“Let’s go at three!” exclaimed Adele; “that is, if our nice mothers do not need us after school.”

The mothers not only did not need them, but one and all were glad to have their daughters out of doors as much as possible in the pleasant spring weather, and so, as soon as the afternoon session was over, the seven maidens went hippety-skipping across the brown meadows.

Adele was armed with a good-sized key, which was rusty with age, but which proved that its days of usefulness were not over, for, when it was slipped in the padlock, it turned with a creak and the door swung open.

As first it was so dark within that they could see nothing, but soon their eyes, becoming accustomed to the dimness, noted several objects about.

“Oh, do look!” cried Doris Drexel in delight. “Here is rustic furniture which must have been made by the sheep-herders many years ago.”

“Can’t we get some light on the subject and a little air as well?” exclaimed Bertha Angel. “It’s stifling in here. Good! Here’s a window,” she added as she pulled a leather thong from a nail and threw back a rude wooden blind, thus uncovering a square opening, and through it came, not only a fresh breeze, but also the slanting rays of the afternoon sun.

“There! Now we can breathe,” said Adele, “and examine our possessions more closely.”

There was a rude bed-couch, a rustic table, and several three-legged stools. These were fashioned out of the trunks of small trees, with the bark still on them.

“Oh, but this will make an adorable Secret Sanctum,” exclaimed Betty Burd.

“Girls,” drawled the romantic Rosamond Wright, “if only this furniture could talk, what tales of sheep-herder’s life it could reveal!”

“The place is so musty and cobwebby,” said the practical Bertha, “we shall have to scrub every inch with warm soap-suds.”

“Oh, Burdie, how could you throw soapy water on my poetical dreams!” moaned Rosamond, who did not even like to hear a scrubbing-brush mentioned, much less entertain the idea of wielding one.

“Tut! Tut! My children!” Adele intervened. “Now all listen to me. You know the spring examinations are due in a few weeks, and we must study, study, study, and cram, cram, cram, so let’s forget that the cabin exists until next Saturday, and then let’s come out here with all the needed utensils, and, with Bertha to superintend the task, we will soon have the place as clean as a whistle.”

“Oh-h!” moaned Rosamond, and then she added mischievously, “I do believe that I’m going to be confined to my bed all day next Saturday with overstudyitis.”

“Don’t worry about that,” laughed Doris Drexel. “You may have overtattingitis, Rosie, but never overstudyitis.”

Rosamond had made yards and yards of tatting, which she said would some day adorn her wedding finery, and the other six often teased her about it, for, as yet, to them boys were playmates and brothers and nothing else.

Then Rosamond dramatically exclaimed: “Girls, I will not fail you in the hour of need. Armed with my mother’s best feather-duster, to be used on pianos only, I will be here Saturday next at the appointed hour.”

“Well, I’ll bring an extra scrubbing-brush, Rosie,” said Bertha teasingly.

“And let’s bring our lunches and stay all day if our nice mothers are willing,” Peggy Pierce remarked.

“That we will!” exclaimed the six. The door was again closed and the key hidden under a log which served as a step. Then, hand in hand, the Sunny Seven, as Adele called them, hippety-skipped homeward, chattering like magpies and laying wonderful plans for the adornment of their Secret Sanctum, which, in the summer to come, was to be the scene of many a jolly lark.