The Seven Sleuths' Club

“I won’t stay here!” Geraldine declared, her dark eyes flashing rebelliously. “I won’t! I won’t! Father has no right to send me to this back-woods country village. What if he was born here? That surely was his misfortune, and no sensible reason why I should be condemned to be buried here for a whole winter.”

“But, Sister mine,” the boy said in a conciliatory tone. “I’ve been trying to tell you that there are some nice girls living in Sunnyside, but you won’t let me. If you would join their school life, you would soon be having a jolly time. That’s what I mean to do.”

“Alfred Morrison, I don’t see how you came by such plebian ideas. I should think that you would be ashamed to have your sister attending a district school when you know that I have always been a pupil at a most fashionable seminary and have associated only with the best people.”

“What makes them the best, Sister?”

The girl tapped one daintily slippered foot impatiently as she said scathingly: “Alfred, you are so provoking sometimes. You know the Ellingsworths and the Drexels and all those people are considered the best in Dorchester.”

Alfred was about to reply that there was a family of Drexels living in Sunnyside, but, luckily, before he had said it, his attention was attracted by the ringing of a cow-bell which seemed to be out in the driveway. Geraldine also heard, but did not look up. Some delivery wagon, she thought, but Alfred, who stood so that he could look out of the window, understood what was happening when he saw the village girls descending from a delivery sleigh. They slipped out of their fur coats, leaving them in Johnnie’s care, and appeared in shawls and old-fashioned capes. For a puzzled moment Alfred gazed; then, as something of the meaning of the joke flashed over him, he almost laughed aloud. Luckily Geraldine continued to stare moodily into the fire, nor did she look up when Alfred left the room. Before the girls on the porch had time to ring the bell, the boy opened the door and, stepping out, he asked quietly but with twinkling eyes: “Why the masquerade?”

“Don’t you dare to spoil the joke?” Merry warned when she had told him that since his sister had expected them to be milkmaids, they had not wanted to disappoint her. Then she informed him: “My name is Miss Turnip. You introduce me and I’ll introduce the others.” Alfred’s eyes were laughing, but in a low voice he said, “I’m game!”

Then aloud he exclaimed: “How do you do, Miss Turnip. I am so glad that you came to call. Bring your friends right in. My sister will be pleased to meet you.”

Merry, in telling Jack about it afterwards, said that Alfred played his part as though he had been practicing it for weeks.

“Sister Geraldine,” he called pleasantly to the girl who had risen and was standing haughtily by the fireplace, “permit me to present the young ladies who live in Sunnyside. They have very kindly called to welcome you to their village.”

The newcomers all made bobbing curtsies, and, to her credit be it said, that even little Betty did not giggle, but oh, how hard it was not to.

Of course there had been classes in good breeding in the Dorchester seminary. One of the rules often emphasized was that it did not matter how a hostess might feel toward a guest, she must not be rude in her own home. So Geraldine bowed coldly and asked the young ladies to be seated.

Alfred, daring to remain no longer, bolted to his room and laughed so hard that he said afterwards that he couldn’t get his face straight for a week.

Peggy Pierce, being the best actress among “The Sunny Seven,” had been asked to take the lead, and so, when they were all seated as awkwardly as possible, she began: “My name is Mirandy Perkins. We all heard as haow yew had come to taown, and so we all thought as haow we’d drop in and ask if yew’d like to jine our Litery Saciety. We do have the best times. Next week we’re a goin’ to have a Pumpkin Social. Each gal is to bring a pumpkin pie and each fellow is to bring as many pennies as he is old to help buy a new town pump for the Square. That’s why it’s called Pump-kin Social.”

This remark was unexpected, not having been planned at the dress rehearsal, and it struck Rosamond as being so funny that she sputtered suspiciously, then taking out a big red cotton handkerchief, she changed the laugh into a sneeze.

Geraldine sat stiffly gazing at her callers with an expression that would have frozen them to silence had they been as truly rural as they were pretending, but, if she had only known it, these country girls had been attending a school every bit as fashionable as the seminary of which she so often boasted.

“I thank you,” that young lady replied, “but it is not my intention to remain in this backwoodsy place. I plan leaving here next week at the latest.”

“Wall, naow, ain’t that too bad? We thought as how yew’d be seech an addition to our saciety,” Peggy continued her part. “Of course we all feel real citified ourselves. We get the latest styles right from Dorchester for our toggins.”

“Toggins?” Geraldine repeated icily. “Just what are they?”

There surely was a titter somewhere; but Peggy, pretending to be surprised, remarked: “Why, toggins are hats and things like Jerushy’s here.” She nodded at the caricature of a red hat with green and pink trimmings which was perched on Rosamond’s head.

Merry returned to the rehearsal lines from which they had sidetracked.

“Yew’d enjoy our Litery Saciety, I’m sure,” she said, “bein’ as yew have a litery sort of a look. We meet onct a week around at differunt houses. We sew on things for the missionary barrel, and then one of us reads aloud out of The Farmers’ Weekly.”

Just then the clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour of four, and Peggy sprang up. “Crickets!” she exclaimed, “Here ’tis comin’ on dark most, and me not home to milk the caows.”

“An’ I’ve got to churn yet before supper,” Doris Drexel ventured her first remark. Luckily Geraldine did not glance at the soft, white hands of the speaker. They were all smiling in the friendliest fashion, but as soon as they were outside and riding away in their queer equipage, they shouted and laughed as they had never laughed before.

“Her highness will probably leave town tomorrow,” Doris remarked, “but if she does, the town will be well rid of her.”

“I wonder if we put it on too thick,” Bertha questioned as they were slipping on their fur coats, which they had left in the sleigh. “I was afraid she would see through our joke.”

“I don’t believe she did,” Merry said. “Alfred told Jack that his sister got her ideas of girls who live in country villages from the moving pictures, and they are always as outlandishly dressed as we are.”

“Well it will be interesting to see what comes of our nonsense,” Gertrude remarked. “On the whole I feel rather sorry for that poor, unhappy girl.”

When Alfred saw the queer equipage disappearing, he descended to the library. “Oh, hello, Sis,” he said, “Have your callers gone?”

Geraldine’s eyes flashed and she stamped her small foot as she said:

“Alfred Morrison, I just know that you asked those dreadful creatures to call on me. I suppose you would like to have me attend their Pumpkin Social, which is to be given to raise money to buy a town pump.”

This was too much for Alfred and he laughed heartily.

“Well,” he said at last, when he could speak, “I take off my hat to the young ladies of Sunnyside. They are the cleverest damsels that I ever met.” So saying, he disappeared, fearing that he would break his promise to Merry and reveal that it was all a joke if he remained any longer with his indignant sister.

Geraldine would probably have packed her trunk that very night and departed the next day if she had had sufficient money with which to buy a ticket, but for some reason her monthly allowance from her father had been delayed.