“Hark to the carol of the old school bell,
Hark to the message that it has to tell;
Ring it, sing it far and near,
Vacation is over and school days are here.”

Adele Doring sang merrily as she stood in front of the library mirror placing her rose-colored tam-o’-shanter jauntily on the nut-brown locks that curled about her pretty face in soft ringlets.

“Are you glad that vacation is over, little daughter?” Mrs. Doring asked as she came in from the garden with a big bowl of yellow chrysanthemums, which she placed on the magazine-strewn table.

“Oh, Mumsie!” Adele exclaimed as she whirled about with shining eyes. “I seem to be always delighted over each new thing that happens. Last summer I was so glad to go with brother Jack to the desert and I had such a beautiful time with Eva and Amanda on their Uncle Dick’s interesting cattle ranch, and then how glad I was to come home again to my Adorable Mother and my Giant Daddy. I have had a wonderful vacation, and now, I am just ever so eager to go back to school, and, think of it, Mumsie, I am in the eighth grade this term, and next year I shall be going to Dorchester High with my big brother Jack.”

While Adele was chattering, she slipped on her rose-colored sweater coat, and then, gathering up her books, she gave her mother a light kiss on the forehead and danced away.

It was hard for her to keep from hippety-hopping down the village street, but she reminded herself that she was fourteen now and almost a young lady, but, when she reached the short cut across the meadows, she skipped in little-girl fashion, waving her free hand in greeting to a bird which darted out of the grass and skyward with a joyous song.

Hearing her name called, she turned and waited for Rosamond Wright, who came up quite breathless from running.

“Good-morning, Rosie. Are you glad vacation is over?” Adele inquired.

The maiden addressed shook her head, which set her short yellow curls to bobbing. “No, not really glad,” she replied. “You know that I would much rather play than study. Look, Della, there are the girls waiting for us at the crossing. Carol Lorens, a new pupil, is with them. Have you met her yet?”

“No, I haven’t,” Adele replied, “but Gertrude Willis tells me that she is ever so nice and that we shall be glad to have her join the Sunnyside Club.” Then, waving a hand to the waiting group, Della called, “Top o’ the morning to you!”

There was a merry chorus of greetings in response, and the irrepressible Betty Burd darted forward and taking Adele’s hand, she sang out, “Miss Carol Lorens, permit me to introduce you to everybody’s favorite, Adele Doring.”

“Oh, Bettykins!” Della exclaimed reprovingly. Then, turning to the slender, pleasant-faced girl, who had recently come to Sunnyside, she held out her hand saying sincerely, “Miss Lorens, we are ever so glad to welcome you to our town and to our school.”

“Thank you,” Carol replied. “I know that I shall just love it here. However, I am not sure that I am to be in your school. We have but recently moved from the Middle West. I had finished the eighth grade there and was ready for high, but since there is no high school in Sunnyside, Father thought I would better report here this morning and ask the advice of the principal. You see, I am a year older than you girls, for I am fifteen.”

“I wish that you might attend our school,” Adele said as they entered the yard. “We do have such merry times, but,” she added brightly, “even if you have to attend the Dorchester High, you can be with us on Saturdays.”

The last bell was ringing and so they trooped into the building, promising to meet under the elm-tree as soon as they had been assigned to their classes. The real work of the school was not to begin until the following day.

An hour later they were again together. “Well, Carol, what did Mr. Dickerson decide?” Adele inquired. “You look almost sad about something.”

“I am indeed sorry that I cannot be in the class with the rest of you,” the older girl replied, “but Mr. Dickerson says that my report shows that I have been over the work of the eighth grade thoroughly and that I ought to attend the Dorchester High.”

“We are sorry, too,” Adele said, “but we shall see you often, Carol, as we want you to join our Sunnyside Club.”

“I shall be glad to,” the newcomer replied, happily, “and thank you for inviting me.”

Then they parted, going in different directions. Carol’s thoughts were happy ones as she tripped along through the village and out on the Lake Road.

She smiled to herself as she thought of the merry group of girls she had just left. Carol had dreaded coming to this strange place, fearing that she would be very lonely, but now she was to be made a member of the Sunnyside Club, and she knew that she would love every one of the girls.

Then her thoughts went back over all that had happened in the past month. There had been the beautiful home in a suburb of Chicago, for her father had been a prosperous lawyer, then, for reasons which she never understood, there had been a heavy financial loss, everything they possessed had been sold, and they had moved to the farmhouse which had been her father’s boyhood home, on the Lake Road just out of the town of Sunnyside.

She liked to think of her father as a barefoot boy swinging on the gate which she was then approaching. From the very first day she had felt at home in the comfortable brown house which stood in the midst of a rambling apple orchard. The gnarled old trees were a source of endless delight to her seven-year-old brother and sister, David and Dorothy.

As Carol opened the gate, she heard merry, chattering noises which she knew were made by the twins, who, hidden in the branches, were pretending that they were birds.

As she walked up the gravelly path, the youngsters slid down a near-by apple-tree and pounced upon her.

“You promised to play with us when you came home from school,” David cried, “and I want to choose the game,” he hurried to add.

“Why, David Lorens!” his twin sister cried indignantly. “You know it isn’t your turn to choose a game. You chose yesterday and so it is my turn.”

“Tut! Tut! Children!” Carol laughingly admonished. “Climb up in the tree again and be happy little birds until I come out, and then we three will do something ever so interesting.”

Carol little dreamed that the something that they were to do would make a wonderful change in her life.