Читать книгу Adele Doring of the Sunnyside Club - Grace May North - Страница 7

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The sky is always bluer,

And the songs of birds more gay,

And the meadow blossoms sweeter,

Upon a Saturday.

A week of lessons over,

And long golden hours for play.

Saturday dawned sunny and blue, and Adele was up at an early hour and down in the kitchen before Kate had set the water to boil.

“The top of the morning to you!” Adele called to the kindly Irish woman who had been cook in the Doring family since before Jack was born.

“And it’s you, Colleen,” said Kate, “and some merriness you’re planning, to be up this early.”

“Right you are!” the girl gayly replied. “I’m going to a picnic, and I want to borrow a mop and a scrubbing-brush and a pail and some rags.”

Kate held up her hands in pretended horror as she exclaimed, “And a picnic do you call it?”

“It truly is,” laughed Adele, “and I want some sandwiches and pickles and some of those darling little cakes which you made yesterday morning, and—”

“Take anything that you can find, Colleen,” said Kate, as she busied herself with breakfast preparations.

So Adele put up a bountiful lunch in a covered basket which she kept for the purpose. Jack, who was a year older than Adele, sauntered out into the kitchen and helped himself to one of the chocolate cupcakes as he exclaimed: “Say, Della, why don’t you ever ask us fellows to these picnics of yours? It isn’t fair for you girls to eat all the good things by yourselves.”

“Maybe we will some day,” Adele replied. And then she added merrily, “But you wouldn’t want to be asked to-day.”

“I should say not,” Kate began, “with brooms and mops and pails—” But she said no more, for Adele, springing up, whispered, “Hush, Kate! It’s a secret!”

After breakfast Adele ran down to the barn, and Terrence, Mr. Doring’s handyman, hitched her black pony, Firefly, to the little red cart. Into this were stowed the lunch and cleaning utensils, and then Adele drove out of the yard, waving to her mother and Kate.

The homes of the other six were soon visited, as they were all in the same neighborhood, and each girl appeared with scrubbing-brush and apron and pail.

“We’ll take turns riding,” said Adele, as she leaped lightly to the ground. “Betty, you may drive, and Gertrude Willis, you climb in and ride and keep an eye on the scrubbing-brushes, lest they attempt to hop out over the sides. The rest of us will trudge along behind.”

Gertrude had not been strong during the winter, and that was why thoughtful Adele had suggested that she should ride; and as for little Betty Burd, the youngest of the seven, to own a pony like Firefly was the dearest desire of her heart, but her widowed mother felt that other luxuries were more necessary. Adele, knowing this, took every opportunity which offered to give Betty the pleasure of riding or driving Firefly.

Across the meadow they went, a gay cavalcade. Like all young things in spring, their hearts were filled with joy and they wanted to dance and sing. During the week the maple wood had changed from brown to silvery green, and there were patches of fresh grass along the banks of the laughing brook.

“Hark!” cried Adele with glowing eyes, as she stopped and held up one hand. “Did I hear it or did I not?”

They all listened, and from a clump of bushes near there arose, sweet and clear, the morning song of a robin. Then, with a rushing of wings, the redbreast was up and away.

“Cheerily! Cheerily! The robins sing.

We’ve come to tell you. It’s spring! It’s spring!”

Adele sang happily.

“I hope you all wished on the first robin,” Rosamond exclaimed, “for that wish is sure to come true.”

“Well,” said Adele thoughtfully, “I don’t believe that there’s a thing in the whole world that I have to wish for. I’ve mother and father and Jack and a happy home and such nice friends. What is there left for one to desire?”

“Lucky Adele!” Betty Burd said almost wistfully; and then Adele remembered how lonely Betty and her mother were for the loved one who so recently had been taken away; but brave little Betty, sensing this, called cheerily, “Trot along, Firefly! Let’s run them a race!” and Firefly did trot along at such a gay pace that the brushes and pails rattled about and Gertrude had quite a time to keep them from bobbing out, while the girls on foot had to run and skip to keep up, and so, gayly, they soon reached the Secret Sanctum.

Adele unhitched Firefly, with Betty helping, and then the pony was allowed to roam, for he never wandered far away from his mistress.

The door and window of the cabin were soon open, and Bertha, who had been appointed director-in-chief of the scrubbers’ brigade, began to issue orders. “Somebody fill the pails at the brook,” she said, “and somebody else be gathering sticks for a fire. Hot water gets things much cleaner than cold.”

And so the girls skipped about, finding wood, and filling pails, and starting a fire, for, of course, Bertha had some matches.

“Did any one think of scouring-powder?” asked Peggy Pierce, as she rolled up her sleeves and donned her big apron.

Silently Bertha produced the required article.

“Burdie, what an orderly brain you must have,” Rosamond exclaimed in wonder and admiration. “I never would have thought of soap-powder in a thousand years.”

“You’d have brought the latest song or a bit of tatting, wouldn’t you, Rosie?” Doris Drexel asked, to tease. But Adele, fearing that Rosamond might be hurt, hastily added, “We need all sorts of people in this world to keep it balanced. Now a story-book is much more to my liking than soap-powder, but Rose and I are going to show you young ladies that we are as good scrubbers as any of you.”

Rosamond smiled lovingly at her champion, and then, as Bertha was giving further orders, they all gathered about to listen.

“I think,” the director-in-chief was saying, “that it would be better to carry the rustic furniture all out by the brook, and then it can be washed there and dried in the sun, and that will clear the cabin floor and make it easier to scrub. Now, Gertrude, you take charge of the outdoor work, but don’t you lift a thing, and Rosamond and Peggy will help you while the rest of us do the inside.”

Then the girls took hold of the rustic table, and, by turning it sidewise, it soon stood near the brook; the rustic bed-couch followed, and, with six to lift, it was not heavy for any. Gertrude protested that she was really much stronger than she had been, but they would not allow her to help.

By this time the water in the pails was hot, and Betty Burd impulsively stooped to lift one of them from the fire, when Bertha warned: “Don’t you touch that handle, Betty. It will burn you. Wait! I’ll show you how.” Then, taking the broom, Bertha slipped it under the hot handle. Betty took hold of the other end, and together they lifted the pail from the fire and placed it on the grass. The soap-powder was added, and, when the water was cool enough, the brushes were dipped in and the rustic furniture was drenched and scrubbed.

“If there are any little bugs living in this bark,” Peggy said, “we bid them come forth.”

“They’ll be drowned little bugs before many minutes,” Rosamond added, as she threw a pail of fresh water from the brook over the table, to rinse off the soap-suds. This they also did to the couch-bed and the stools, and then the rustic furniture was left in the warm noon sunshine to dry and sweeten.

Meanwhile, the inside of the cabin was being thoroughly scoured, and many a startled spider darted out into the meadow, never to return.

At last the four maidens appeared in the doorway, and Adele threw herself down on the warm ground as she exclaimed, “Well, if scrub-ladies get as weary as this in their bones, I’m glad that I’m planning to take up a different profession.”

“Oh, you girls had the hardest part of it,” Gertrude declared. “Scrubbing the furniture was really like play.”

“Well,” said Adele, “we seven have banded together with the firm resolve of looking on the sunny side of things, and the sunny side of this scrubbing is—”

“That it’s done,” Rosamond interrupted.

“I’ll agree that is one sunny side to it,” laughed Adele, “and the other is, that we’ll enjoy our Secret Sanctum so much more, now that it is sweet and clean—”

“And bugless,” put in Betty Burd.

Adele, heeding not the interruption, continued, “And you know a thing that’s worth having is worth working for.”

“Oh, Della,” cried Peggy Pierce, “would you mind postponing the lecture until after we have our lunch? I’m positively famished.”

“So am I,” Rosamond declared.

“Well, since we’re hungry, suppose we eat,” said the practical Bertha.

“Hurrah for our treasurer!” cried Betty Burd, springing up and dancing toward the little red cart with a sprightliness which did not suggest weariness of bones. Then, climbing up, she handed out the seven baskets, and soon a tempting repast was spread on the paper table-cloth which Rosamond had brought.

“Did ever sandwiches taste so good before?” muttered Peggy Pierce, with a mouth full of bread and cold chicken.

“Who said olives?” asked Adele, as she sighted a little pile in front of Rosamond.

“Pardon me for not passing them sooner,” Rosamond exclaimed, with elaborate politeness as she lifted the paper napkin on which they were heaped, but, this being moist, the olives fell through and rolled about on the table-cloth.

“Grabbing isn’t manners!” Doris Drexel called, as Betty Burd pounced upon one.

“There are two olives apiece,” said Rosamond, “so you might as well grab that many if you wish.”

“I did have a chocolate cup-cake apiece for us,” moaned Adele, “but that brother Jack of mine came out into the kitchen, and, without as much as saying ‘by your leave,’ he ate the biggest, and when I went back to the jar for more, nary a one was left.”

“Never mind, Della,” Bertha condoned, “I have an extra sugar cookie,—they’re made out of real cream—and you shall have it.”

“Yum-m!” murmured Rosamond as she took a bite of her sugar cookie. “Aren’t they delicious! I suppose you made them, Burdie.”

“I did that,” Bertha replied, expecting again to hear how practical she was.

“You’ll make a good wife for a poor man, a missionary or somebody like that,” said Doris Drexel, as she nibbled daintily on her cookie, to make it last as long as she could.

“Marry!” said Bertha scornfully. “I’m not going to marry anybody.”

“Well, you needn’t be so snappy about it,” laughed Doris. “I didn’t mean right away, to-morrow. I know you’re only thirteen, though tall for your age.”

“Girls!” the sentimental Rosamond exclaimed. “Which one of us do you suppose will have the first romance?”

“Not I,” laughed Adele, as she sprang up and shook the crumbs from her lap; and then she added reproachfully, “There’s somebody at this picnic who hasn’t had a bite to eat and it’s a shame, so it is. He’s coming now to tell us what he thinks about it.”

The girls looked around and there stood Firefly, gazing reproachfully at them.

“I choose to feed him,” cried Betty Burd, springing up; and dancing again to the cart, she called gayly, “Come on, you darling Firefly. Here’s the nicest hay for you, and some oats and a lump of sugar for your dessert.”

The other girls repacked the baskets and tossed the papers on the dying embers of their fire. It had been made close to the brook, so that they could put it out quickly if the dry grass began to burn.

Then, to their delight, they found that the floor of the cabin was dry, and so the warm, clean furniture was carried back in, and then Adele exclaimed, as she brought forth a pad and pencil, “Sit down everybody, and, since your brains are rested, I shall expect them to produce brilliant ideas. Now gaze about our Secret Sanctum and tell what it needs.”

“There’s a green fly coming in at the window,” Doris Drexel announced. “We ought to tack up mosquito-netting.”

“Good,” exclaimed Adele, as she wrote down the suggestion. “We’ll call that item one.”

“I think we ought to make a sort of mattress for this hard couch,” Peggy remarked, “if it’s intended for comfort.”

“And sofa-pillows we need in plenty,” said the rather indolent Rosamond, who liked things luxurious.

“I’ll contribute a pine pillow,” Doris volunteered. “I have such a fragrant one, and it’s just the thing for a rustic place like this.”

“We need a bowl for flowers,” said Rosamond. “Mother has a big blue one with a chip in it, and it would look adorable on the center-table filled with buttercups and ferns.”

“Fine!” cried Adele brightly; “item five. And in every one of our pantries, on top shelves or in out-of-the-way places, there is apt to be chipped or cracked china. With our mothers’ consent, let’s bring it over here and have a china-closet. Then, when we wish to give a party, we shall have plenty of dishes.”

“But where’s the closet?” asked Betty Burd, looking about as though she expected one to appear like magic before her.

“We’ll make one,” Adele announced.

“Make a china closet?” repeated Betty Burd in amazement. “Out of what?”

“Orange boxes, no less, little one,” Adele replied. “I made a book-case once and covered it with flowered chintz, and it was just ever so pretty.”

“Dad will let us have the boxes,” said Bertha Angel, whose father was the leading grocer in town.

“And my dear papa will contribute the cloth, I am sure,” Peggy declared. Mr. Pierce owned the Bee Hive department store.

“Some magazines would look homey scattered around on the top of the table,” Gertrude remarked. “And then, we must have a bank in which to keep our funds.”

“And you must have a little blank-book, Trudie, and write down in it all that we say and do,” Betty Burd declared.

“Gertrude will certainly be kept busy if she does that,” laughed Doris Drexel, “for some of us could out-chatter a poll-parrot.”

“Naming no names,” said Betty Burd, making a merry face at Doris. There was one delightful thing about their youngest member, she always took teasing good-naturedly and joined in a laugh, even though it were about herself, as gayly as did the rest.

“And then, when our Secret Sanctum is all finished and furnished we must have a house-warming party,” Rosamond declared.

“Oh, won’t that be fun, though!” exclaimed Betty Burd, whirling around like a top.

“And we’ll invite Bob and Jack and all of the Jolly Pirates’ Club,” Doris Drexel added.

These happy girls were soon to give a party at their Secret Sanctum, though it was to be very different from the one which they were so gayly planning.