“A whole holiday and every hour of it free. I feel like some caged bird let loose,” Margaret exclaimed as the five girls from Vine Haven Seminary started away from the school. All were clad in their warmest coats, with leggings, mittens and flying scarfs to match the bright tams that perched jauntily atop of their heads.

“And to think that we may hike wherever we wish, on only one condition, and that to report to Mrs. Martin half an hour before lunch,” Barbara chattered.

Virginia laughed. “One might think it the greatest kind of a lark just to go outside of the gate,” she said. “I can understand it now, but when I remember how I have galloped all over the desert for miles without thought of keeping within certain boundaries, I don’t wonder that we feel like caged birds.”

“Snow birds, then,” Betsy’s merry face beamed out from beneath her cherry colored tam. “Sally surely is. I just adore those white furs. You look like a princess, Sal, stepped out of a fairy book with your golden curls hanging like a mantle about your shoulders.”

The others laughed. “Betsy, you aren’t going to burst out into poetry again, are you?”

“Not guilty!” that merry maid replied. Then pausing to look about she inquired. “Which way shall we go in search of adventure? Behind us is the sea. The wind is too icily cold to go in that direction. Down below us is the village and beyond that—what?”

“Let’s go and find out. Have we time?” Margaret consulted her wrist watch.

“Time to burn,” she announced. “It’s only eight-thirty. I’ve walked to the village in half an hour often.”

“Yes, my dear, so you have, but that was in the good old summer time. You’ve never waded through drifts on an unbroken road and made that speed,” Betsy told her, and Megsy agreed.

“Well, count an hour to reach the village. Another hour to see what lies beyond, and a third to return, and lo—that brings us back just on schedule, thirty minutes before noon.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Virginia said brightly, “let’s go as far as we can in half of our time and return on the other half. But that wouldn’t do, either,” she hastened to make the correction, “for it’s down hill going and up hill coming back.”

“Well, the sooner we get started the sooner we’ll return,” Barbara said wisely, “and we can talk as we walk.”

Away they went, Betsy and Babs in the lead, Virginia, Megsy and Sally following single file. As they neared the top of the hill road, they heard merry shouts and Betsy, having first reached the crest where she could look over, turned and beckoned excitedly. “Quick! There are a lot of youngsters here sliding down the hill, They’ve got a whopper of a toboggan. It’s long enough to take us all on. Can’t we bribe them to coast us down the hill? Then we’ll be that much nearer the town.”

“That’s a spiffy idea,” Babs sang out. “I brought my purse. Suppose I offer them five cents for each passenger.”

“We’ll make it up to you, old dear,” Betsy told her, then she beckoned to a boy of about fourteen who had been whirling the long toboggan into place on the well trodden starting point.

“How much will you charge to take us down to the bottom of the hill?” she inquired. The lad touched his cap and replied most courteously, “I’ll be glad to take you. I’m a Boy Scout and I do not accept pay for doing a kind deed.”

“That’s mighty nice of you,” Betsy said. “How do you want us to sit?”

“Any way you like. I’ll be in front to steer,” the boy replied as he took his place.

The laughing girls thought this a fine adventure, especially Virg, who had never before been on a sled of any kind.

“All ready!” the lad glanced back inquiringly.

“Go!” Betsy shouted, and they went! There was a sudden sharp descent which gave the toboggan the start it needed. Skillfully the boy whirled it around the curve in the road that was ahead of them and to their joy the girls saw that the slide led right down to the edge of the village.

“Hurray for us!” Betsy exclaimed, when at last they had stopped.

“Thank you ever and ever so much,” Virginia exclaimed, “don’t believe we were ten minutes coming down.”

“I’ll take you again any time I’m up top,” the boy said gallantly. He was about to start dragging the toboggan up the long hill when Betsy hailed him. “Is there anything interesting to see beyond the village?” she asked.

The lad nodded. “I’ll say there is!” he replied in a voice that suggested mystery. “There’s an old haunted house on the Poor Farm Road, but I wouldn’t go near it if I were you. I sure wouldn’t.”

Then, as some other boys were impatiently calling him to hurry up, he left the girls to ponder on what they had heard. “I’m crazy to see it,” Betsy said. “We can stand far off and just look at it.”

The five girls walked rapidly through the small country village, stopping only a moment at the general store to purchase five striped bags of chocolate creams. They asked the direction they would have to take to reach the Poorhouse road. The man behind the counter looked his surprise.

“You wasn’t figgerin’ on goin’ to the poorhouse, was you? If so, you’d better hire the station rig to tote you there. It’s nigh five miles and the goin’s pretty bad.”

“Oh, no, indeed! We weren’t going that far.” Barbara turned in the door to reply.

“But thar’s nothin’ else on that road but Captain Burgess’ old place whar thar’s nobody livin’. Leastwise, no one you’d care to meet up with you a mere parcel of girls from the seminary, like as not.”

But the garrulous old man’s curiosity was not to be satisfied, for with a polite little nod, Barbara joined the others who were waiting on the well-shoveled path in front of the store.

The village was a small one. In ten minutes their brisk walking had taken them to the last house. Beyond that the road lay a smooth unbroken blanket of snow. Evidently the poorhouse was not often visited.

The girls stopped and looked ahead. “Is it worth the effort?” Margaret glanced up at her adopted sister. “We’ll have to wade up to our knees in snow, and we don’t know how far away that old house may be. I can’t see anything from here but a woods, and that’s at least a quarter of a mile, shouldn’t you think?”

Virginia nodded. “Fully.”

“Oh, I say, Megsy, be a sport. You came all this distance for an adventure and now want to back out. I think it will be scads of fun to walk over to that woods. I’ll agree to turn back there (if you’ll go that far), even if we don’t find the old house.” Betsy seemed so truly disappointed that the others decided to go to the edge of the woods.

The cold wind which had been blowing over the bluff by the sea could not reach them in the lowland and the mid-morning sun was warm, dazzling the snow.

Betsy, in high spirits, plunged ahead, making a trail through the drifts, that it might be easier traveling for the others, since she had been the one who most wanted to come. As they neared the woods the sharp eyes of the young detective made an interesting discovery. “It isn’t just an ordinary woods,” she turned her glowing eyes to remark. “There’s a high impenetrable hedge all around it.”

Barbara laughed. “How do you know it is impenetrable? We’re too far away to be sure of that, I should think.”

Betsy had started to run, having reached a place that had been swept clean of snow. “There’s one thing I’m sure of,” she called over her shoulders, “which is that in the middle of the woods stands the deserted house we’ve come to see.”

When they reached the hedge and had followed around it for a time, they decided that Betsy was right. It did indeed seem to be impenetrable.

“There must be a gate somewhere! That Captain Burgess, who used to live here, had to go in and out, and I don’t suppose that he jumped over the hedge every time.”

“Surely not, if it were as tall then as it is now,” Babs replied, amused at the picture suggested by Betsy’s remark.

“Here it is! And such big iron gates as they are!” It was Sally who, having gone on ahead, turned to shout to them. They hurried to her side.

“This must have been a carriage entrance once upon a time,” Virginia remarked, “but the gates are fast shut with vines now. It is plain to see that they haven’t been opened for years.”

The underbrush within the grounds grew higher than the gate, and if there was a house it could not be seen.

“Hark!” the timid Sally whispered. “Didn’t you hear a noise just beyond the hedge?”

“Some little wild creature, probably,” Virginia remarked.

Betsy had again darted ahead of the others. There was little snow on the ground in the shelter of hedge and overhanging trees. She had been gone several minutes when they heard her shouting. “Here’s a hole that’s big enough for Sally to crawl through!” she said, when they reached her.

“Me? Well, I guess not! I’m not going to crawl all alone through a hole in that hedge and not know what’s on the other side.”

“Then I’ll go myself. Luckily, I’m not much bigger than you are! If I get stuck, you all can pull me out by the legs.” Betsy was about to try the experiment when Virginia detained her. “I’m not sure that we ought to go,” she said. “If the owner of the estate wanted visitors, he would have left a gate open. Moreover, I think we ought to go back to school now. We’ll have to climb up the hill road, you know, and we don’t want to worry Mrs. Martin, who has been so kind to us.”

“Oh, Virg, have a heart!” Betsy pleaded. “Maybe there’s a mystery here that I could solve. I’d always be sure there was, if I went away, without even one little peek on the other side of this high hedge.”

“I’ll tell you what!” Babs said generously. “If we’re late reaching the village, I’ll hire the station sleigh to take us up to the seminary.”

“And it’s only quarter to ten,” Margaret added, holding up her wrist watch for the oldest girl to see.

Virginia laughed. “All right, we’ll stay until ten.”

Although Betsy did find the hole rather small, she succeeded in wedging her way through and the other girls listened to hear what she would say, but to their surprise they heard nothing.

“Betsy, can you see a house?” Babs called wishing that she was just a little smaller that she might follow her friend.

There was no reply. What could it mean? “Where can she be?” Margaret looked troubled. “She couldn’t have fallen into a hole or anything, could she?”

“It isn’t likely,” Virginia replied. “Sally, dear, would you mind just putting your head through and—”

But before the smallest girl had her courage put to the test, they heard someone running on hard ground; then the would-be detective pushed her way through the hole as though she were being pursued.

“What is it, Betsy? What kept you so long. Did you see anything?” were the questions hurled at her.

“I’ll say I did,” the flushed girl replied inelegantly. “I saw an old circling drive and I ran over to it, knowing that it must lead to the house, and it did! There in the middle of this wood, which I suppose was only a grove when the Burgess’ family lived here, there’s the most fascinating old house. It looks ever so interesting and haunted. I do wish that we had time to go closer and examine it. I always adore reading stories about haunted houses, but I never before saw one, really.”

“But there isn’t time,” Margaret announced once more referring to her popular timepiece. “It’s ten minutes past ten. We’ll have to fairly run to make it on time.” But Fate was again kind to them for a boy who delivered groceries at the school was just starting up the long grade of the hill road and seeing the girls trudging along, he asked them if they would like to ride.

“Would we? I’ll say we will and thank you kindly.” Of course as usual it was Betsy who replied. Up into the sleigh they climbed. The boy made room for Virginia and Margaret on the wide seat but the three younger girls sat in the back dangling long legs on which were bright-colored leggins encrusted with snow.

“I’m going to sing,” Betsy smilingly informed her companions. “Please don’t!” the others pleaded.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to do the solo stunt. Everybody, all together!” Betsy really had a sweet soprano voice and when she started a rollicking school song the others joined in repeating the chorus until they reached the kitchen door of the seminary. A crowd of girls were having a snowball game, Dora and Cora being captains of the opposing sides.

“You girls missed the fun, going off that way on a stupid old hike,” Dicky Taylor, rosy of cheek and looking much like a snow girl, called to them. “Out of the way, there, or you’ll be pelted,” someone warned as the five adventurers leaped from the wagon. After hurriedly thanking the delivery boy they ducked into the back entry, and none too soon, for a dozen well aimed balls whizzed through the crisp sunlit air and plunked against the closed door.

Every pupil in the school was ravenously hungry when the gong called them to lunch. Betsy could talk of nothing but the possible mystery of the old deserted house.

“Just because people are not living in a house, doesn’t make it mysterious,” Margaret told her.

“What did the place look like?” Babs, more interested, inquired.

“Well,” Betsy began, “I could tell that it had been very fine in its day but now it is dilapidated and the windows are boarded up. That proves that nobody is living in it, and, of course, if there was anyone there, the storekeeper would know it, for there would be no other place to buy supplies.”

“Your evidence is conclusive,” Margaret said in a tone often used by their algebra teacher.

“Virg, you don’t act very much interested. Why are you gazing out of the window in that preoccupied way as Miss Torrence so often asks Megsy?”

The older girl turned and smiled at her questioner. “Because Betsy, if I must confess it, I am heaps more eager to find someone who can contribute a good story for our first edition of The Manuscript Magazine then I am to solve the supposed mystery of your haunted house. I’ve looked at every girl in the dining room hoping to recall some composition that I have heard read in the assembly that might suggest a story-writing talent, but I don’t believe I can and since the really good story writers have gone over to the enemy’s side, I may have to confess that as an editor, I am a failure.”

“Cheer up, belovedest! You may find a genius in a most unexpected place.” Betsy was eager to steer the conversation back to channels of greater interest. “What I would like to know,” she continued, “is how, and when can we again visit the old Burgess place?”

“Hush!” Margaret whispered. “Mrs. Martin is coming in.” Instantly the chairs were pushed back, the forty-four girls rose, courtesied and then listened expectantly, for, as this was a whole holiday, they believed, and rightly, that the kindly principal had a treat in store for them.

“Young ladies,” she said, “I have planned a sleigh ride party for you. Pat O’Brien and his son Micky will each drive a team and by a little crowding you can all go in the two sleighs. Every January we send a barrel of apples to the poorhouse and I thought perhaps, you would all enjoy the ride.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Martin,” was the enthusiastic response. Then, when they were again seated, Betsy said, “Oh, girls, how I hope I’ll have a chance to slip off at the Burgess place. I’d like to prowl around there until the sleighs return.”

“I’m with you,” Babs told her pal.