  “Isn’t it keen that we have this whole Friday afternoon off?” Peg pirouetted about on the snowy road in front of the girls. “Now we can carry out all of our plans before dark, if——” She hesitated and Doris continued with: “‘If’—the biggest word in the language. If we can beg, borrow or hire a cutter large enough to take us all out the East Lake Road. Bertha, you’ll have to drive, being our expert horsewoman.” The girls had lunched at the school and were trooping townwards, having been excused for the afternoon, as none of them happened to be in a play which was to be rehearsed from two to four. “Here’s another if,” Rose put in. “If the snow wasn’t so deep on the Lake Road, we might all pile in my runabout. I can drive it as skillfully as Bertha can drive her father’s horses.” “But there is snow on the roads as soon as you leave town,” Geraldine contributed. “The snow plough hasn’t even reached as far as the Wainright home.” “Well, let’s go to the Angel grocery first and see if a delivery sleigh can be borrowed, and if not, why then maybe I can inveigle my papa-dear to loan me one of his,” Peg suggested. This plan was followed, and fifteen minutes later the girls were seated on the bottom of a box sleigh with Bertha and Merry up on the driver’s seat. “Dad needs this fashionable turnout by five o’clock,” Bertha said as she urged the big dapple-grey horse to its briskest trot. “Now, first we are to stop at the Drexels and get the bundle of laundry, I believe.” The driver glanced over her shoulder and Doris nodded in the affirmative. “It’s all done up and waiting.” Another fifteen minutes and Dapple, having crossed the tracks, turned into a narrow side street where the houses were small, with many evidences of poverty. Merry had found the address in the telephone book, and when the right number was reached, Dapple was brought to a standstill. “This house looks real neat,” Betty Byrd commented. “Clean white curtains at the windows and a big backyard, and a lot of washing hung out.” Doris patted their youngest as she approved: “Observation is surely an excellent trait for a sleuth to develop.” “Won’t our victim think it queer that it takes seven girls to deliver one bundle of wash?” Geraldine paused to inquire as they trooped through the gate. “What care we?” Merry was already up on the step and turned to knock on the door, when it was opened by a girl of about their own age. “How do you do, Miss Angel,” she addressed Bertha, whom she knew by sight. “Won’t you all come in?” They entered a small but spotlessly clean sitting-room and Doris asked, “Is Mrs. Myra Comely here?” “No, Mother isn’t here just now. Won’t you be seated?” Doris hesitated. “I—er—wanted to ask her a few questions about—well, about her methods of laundering.” The girl had a pleasant face and she seemed not at all abashed to have so many of the town’s “aristocracy” calling upon her at once. “Mother is careful to use nothing that could harm the clothes, if that is what you mean,” she informed them. “I expect her home directly, if you care to wait.” Then, seeing that there were not chairs enough, she excused herself and brought two from the kitchen and placed them for Doris and Bertha. When they were all seated, Merry, with a meaning glance at her fellow-sleuths which seemed to say, “We may be able to get the information we need from the daughter,” glanced out of the window as she said idly, “We’re having a pleasant winter, aren’t we?” “Yes, there’s lots more snow in your town, though, than where we came from.” Blue eyes and brown flashed exulting glances at one another. “Then Sunnyside has not been your home for long?” Merry inquired. The girl shook her head. “No, we lived in Florida for years, but I was born in Ireland. That was father’s home, but Mother came from—” She hesitated and glanced about apologetically. Every eye was upon her, every ear listening, but of their eager interest the girl could not guess. “I chatter on about my folks as though you’d care to hear where we all came from,” she said. “O, we do care an awful lot,” Betty Byrd assured her, then, catching a reproving glance from Doris, their youngest wilted and the older girl said: “I think it’s always interesting to hear where people came from, don’t you, Miss——” “My name is Myra Comely, just as my mother’s is.” Then she added brightly: “Here she is now.” The door opened and a pleasant-faced woman of about forty entered and removed a shawl which she had worn over her head. “Howdy do,” she said with a smile which included them all. Doris stepped forward and explained that her mother wished to have her laundry done by hand, and so they had brought it to her. Mrs. Comely thanked her and told about her methods and prices. After that there was nothing for the girls to do but rise, preparing to go. Merry, in a last desperate effort to obtain the information they desired, turned at the door to say, “Your daughter tells us that you are from Ireland. I have always been so interested in that country and hope to visit there some day.” The woman smiled. “I liked Ireland,” she said. “I was about your age or a little older when I left the States as a bride for that far-away island.” It was cold out and the door was open. What could the girls do to obtain the needed information? Peg plunged in with, “Which state did you come from, Mrs. Comely?” The girls gasped, but, if the woman thought it a strange question, she made no sign of it. “I was born in a little village on the other side of Dorchester. Your laundry will be delivered on Tuesday, Miss Drexel.” As the girls were driving away. Peg said: “I suppose it was awful of me to come right out with that question, but we just had to know.” “O, probably sleuths have to ask questions sometimes, although it’s more clever to get information in a round-about way,” Doris said; then asked: “Bertha, how did Myra Comely happen to know your name?” “She trades at our store,” was the reply. “Everyone in town, sooner or later, sees me in there helping Dad. I post his books for him.” Geraldine felt somewhat shocked. To think that she was associating with a girl who sometimes worked in a grocery. The snob in her was not entirely dead, she feared. But she must kill it! How Jack would scorn her if he knew her thoughts. They were all in the sleigh and the big horse, Dapple, glad to be again on the move, for the air was snappily cold even though the sun was shining, started toward the Lake Road at his merriest pace. Snowballs flew back at the laughing girls from his heels. “It’s three now!” Bertha glanced at her wrist watch. “Shall we stop at the old ruin before or after we visit the Ingersol farm?” The opinions being divided, as was their usual custom they permitted the president to decide, and she said wisely that she thought it more important to visit the farm than it was the ruin, and so they would better go there first. They were glad when they passed the Inn that Mr. Wiggin or his wife were not in evidence. Mr. Wiggin was so garrulous that, if he saw any of the boys in town, he would ask what the girls had been doing out that way alone. Betty Byrd held fast to Doris as they turned into the side wood road which was a shortcut to the old Dorchester highway. “Skeered, little one?” the older girl smiled down at her. “Well, sort of,” the younger girl confessed. “This is where that old man was robbed, and——” “O, fudge,” Peg sang out. “Forget it! That was the first holdup that ever occurred around here, and probably will be the last.” “Where is the Welsley farm?” Geraldine inquired after a time. “Beyond that tall pine-tree hedge,” Merry indicated with a wave of her fur-lined glove. “You’ll see the crumbling cupulo in a second.” The girls gazed intently at the little they could see of the house as they passed the long high hedge. “I don’t believe the boys come way out here for their meetings,” Bertha, the sensible, remarked when they had turned into the old Dorchester road. “In fact, I don’t believe they could, much of the time, because of the snow drifts. I think if we want to find where their clubrooms are, we’ll have to look somewhere nearer home.” A moment later Peg called: “There it is! See the name on that signboard, ‘The Ingersol Chicken Farm,’ and under it, ‘Jams and jellies a specialty.’” They turned in at a wide gate in the picket fence and found themselves in a large dooryard in front of a substantially built white farmhouse. In the back was an orchard and long rows of berry bushes and at the side were many chicken runs wired in. A tall, angular woman, wearing a man’s coat and hat, appeared from a barn carrying a basket of eggs. The girls climbed from the sleigh and walked toward her. “Peg, suppose you do the talking this time,” Merry suggested, “but use diplomacy. Don’t plunge right in.” “No, thanks!” That maid shook her head vehemently. “It’s up to you, Merry.” And so their president advanced with her friendliest smile. “Mrs. Ingersol?” The woman, without a visible change of features, acknowledged that to be her name, and so Merry said: “We would like to buy a couple of chickens of about two or three pounds each.” This surely sounded innocent enough. The woman was most business-like. To the surprise of the girls, she took from her coat pocket a whistle and blew upon it a shrill blast. Instantly, or almost so, a long, lank youth appeared out of a nearby chicken yard and called, “What yo’ want, Ma?” “Two threes fixed,” was the terse reply. Then to the girls: “Come along in and get yerselves warm. Beastly cold winter we’ve been havin’, tho’ it’s let up a spell.” The girls followed the woman into a large, clean kitchen. A fire snapped and crackled in the big wood stove. There was a long wood box near it which served as a window seat, and four of the girls ranged along on it, the others sat on white pine chairs, stiff and just alike. The woman eyed them with an expression which revealed neither interest nor curiosity as to who they were. The girls found it harder to ask questions of this adamant sort of a creature than they had of Myra Comely. But she it was who broke the ice by asking, “Do you all live in Sunnyside?” Merry nodded, smiling her brightest. “Yes, we’re all from town.” Then she hurried to take advantage of the opening. “Have you been here long, Mrs. Ingersol?” “Yep, born clost to here. Never been out’n the state in my life. Hep, my son, he-uns was born here and ain’t so much as been out o’ the county. Don’t reckon he’s like to, as he’s set on marryin’ a gal down the road a piece.” The woman turned abruptly and went through a door. The girls looked at each other tragically. “That didn’t take long, but, alas and alak for us, no clues!” Doris put a finger on her lips and nodded toward the door, which was again opening. The woman reappeared, divested of her masculine outer garments. She had on a dull red flannel dress, severely plain, and a white apron, the sort farmer’s wives reserve for company wear. She was carrying a dish of cookies and an open jar of jam. She actually smiled as she placed them on the spotless white wood table. “Help yerselves,” she said hospitably. “Here’s a knife to spread on the jam with. An’ there’s a tin dipper over by the sink if yo’ need water to help wash ’em down.” When they were again in the sleigh, and a safe distance from the house, the girls laughed merrily. “Mrs. Ingersol’s kernel is sweeter than her husk,” Bertha remarked. Then added: “Girls, we’ll have to go home on this road and leave our visit to the old ruin until some other time. It’s four-thirty now.” “Well, we’ve got our chickens anyway,” Merry said as she held the brown paper bundle aloft. “Kate said we may have her kitchen tomorrow from two o’clock on for the rest of the day. Now let’s plan what else we must get. I’ll tell Jack to invite the boys to our Valentine dinner. Won’t they be surprised when they think we were planning it for the orphans?” |
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