Norton Carol
The Seven Sleuths' Club

CHAPTER XXII.
A NEW RESOLVE

On Monday morning Geraldine awoke with a new resolve. Never again would she be put in the embarrassing position of not being able to do anything really useful when the “S. S. C.” got up a dinner, and not for worlds would she have Jack Lee know that she had considered cooking menial: an accomplishment far beneath her. His ideas and ideals were very different from those she had acquired at the fashionable seminary in Dorchester.

When the girl went down to breakfast, she found that the Colonel and Alfred had gone early to town. Mrs. Gray was waiting for her, sitting in the sunny bow window reading the morning paper. “Oh, here you are, dearie.” She rose briskly as she added, “I’ll have to go down to the kitchen to get the things I’ve been keeping warm for us.”

Geraldine looked surprised. “But why doesn’t Sing send them up on the lift?” she asked.

Mrs. Gray, at once sober, shook her head as she said: “Poor Sing! It seems that he went to Dorchester to the Chinese quarters yesterday to see a sick friend, and while there the place was quarantined for smallpox and he will have to remain away at least two weeks.”

“Oh, Mrs. Gray, whatever shall we do? How can you do all the housekeeping and – the cooking as well.”

The old lady smiled at the girl lovingly. “Do you know, Geraldine,” she began, “I sort of thought that perhaps you would like to help me. Now that you can make a bed the way Merry Lee taught you, if you would make the Colonel’s and Alfred’s – ”

“Of course I can, and will!” was the almost unexpected rejoinder. “And better than that,” the girl flashed a bright smile at the old lady, “I’m glad Sing is going to be away for two weeks, because that will give us a chance to use the kitchen all we want to, won’t it Mrs. Gray?”

“Use the kitchen, Geraldine?” The old lady could hardly believe that she had heard aright. “I thought I once heard you say that you hoped you would never have to step inside of a kitchen.”

The girl flushed, but she answered frankly: “You are right, I did! But yesterday, when I saw those girls, all of them from nice families, cooking such a very good meal, I felt sorry. Oh, more than that. I was actually ashamed when Jack Lee asked me which of the dishes I had prepared, and if someone hadn’t changed the subject, I would have felt terribly humiliated to have had to confess that I couldn’t cook at all.”

A ray of light was penetrating the darkness for Mrs. Gray. Briskly she replied: “I shall enjoy teaching you to cook, dearie, as I would a granddaughter of my own.” Then Geraldine further surprised the old lady by leading her to her seat and declaring that she would go down to the kitchen and bring up the breakfast.

While they were eating it cosily in the sun-flooded room with snow sparkling on window sill and icicle, Geraldine confided that she had impulsively invited all of the girls and boys, who had been at Merry’s, to a dinner party which she had said that she would cook.

How Mrs. Gray laughed. “Good! Good!” she said. “I shall enjoy that. When is it to be?”

“I thought I would like to have it on Doris Drexel’s birthday. That will be in about two weeks.”

That very afternoon the lessons began. No one was in the secret except the Colonel, and every day he drove to the seminary to get Geraldine that she might reach home the sooner for the lesson in dinner preparing. The girls wondered, especially when they were so eager to search for more clues in their “Myra Mystery,” as Peg called it.

“What are you up to?” Doris asked her at last. “Why do you rush home every day after school?”

“I believe she has a mystery of her own,” Betty Byrd teased.

Geraldine flashed a merry glance in the speaker’s direction. “Righto! I have,” she confessed. “However, I am going to reveal it to you all at our next meeting of the ‘S. S. C.’ Where is it to be?”

“At Bertha’s again. That is the most central place,” Merry told her. “We’re all going to try to unearth something which will help solve the ‘Myra Mystery.’”

* * * * * * * *

When the girls met on the following Saturday afternoon, it was quite evident that at least two of them could hardly wait for the formalities to be over before they could reveal something of interest. The president, being aware of this, said as soon as Sleuth Bertha had read the minutes of the last meeting: “Geraldine and Doris look as though they would burst if they didn’t tell us something. Have you both unearthed clues in the Myra Mystery?”

But Gerry shook her head. “Nary a clue!” she confessed. “My news item is far less interesting than that.”

Doris, on the edge of her chair, was waiting to speak, and when the president nodded in her direction, she exclaimed: “Girls, Danny O’Neil’s mother’s first name began with M. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if she should have been that Myra Cornwall? Then Danny would own her share of the ranch. Of course he wouldn’t have to go out there to live, but he could have the money it brings in for his art education.”

The girls, gazing at the flushed, eager face, wondered why Doris was so greatly interested in the boy, but Bertha, the practical, asked: “Why should you think that the initial M. would mean Myra? There are ever so many Christian names beginning with that letter.”

“Oh, of course, I’m just grasping at a straw. I only learned about it this morning. Mother had me go over a box of old receipts and throw out many of them, and I found one from Danny’s mother signed merely ‘M. O’Neil.’”

“That would be splendid!” Merry commented. “I do wish we could find that Myra, especially if she is someone in need, and then we would be spreading sunshine as well as having a mystery club.”

“I’m going to see Danny tonight,” Doris told them. “Mother was so interested in – in some carving that he did that she wants to meet him, and so she had me invite him to supper.”

“You call us up as soon as you find out. We’ll be wild to know,” Merry said; then turned toward Geraldine: “Now, may we hear your news item?”

The city girl beamed on them. “I invited you all to a dinner party, you remember, and told you that later I would let you know the date.”

“Oh, goodie!” Betty Byrd clapped her hands. “I adore parties. When is it to be?”

Geraldine told them, and Doris said: “My birthday! I certainly appreciate that.” What Gerry did not tell them was that she was to cook every bit of it. She had the menu all planned, except the dessert, and she wanted that very afternoon to find out what Jack Lee liked best. To achieve this she asked: “What do most boys like for dessert?” She looked at Bertha and then at Rose, but just as she had hoped, Merry was one of the first to reply: “Jack likes whipped-cream cake with banana filling best.” This information was rapidly followed with other suggestions which Geraldine scarcely heard.

The only dessert that she cared to remember was the one that Jack liked, and she could hardly wait for the Colonel to call for her that she might go home and practice making one for the family’s Sunday dinner.

That night every member of the “S. S. C.” received a telephone call, and the voice of Sleuth Doris regretfully told them that Danny’s mother’s name was Martha O’Neil, and so the mystery was no nearer a solution than it had been.

CHAPTER XXIII.
A PROUD COOK

On the day of the party Geraldine was up early and at once donned a pretty blue bungalow apron. Then followed merry hours, each one filled with preparations for the dinner. Alfred offered to help stone dates and crack walnuts, while Danny O’Neil was sent on frequent trips to the village.

At five o’clock, with the help of both boys, the dining-room was prettily decorated; then Geraldine went to put on the dress she had made. Later, with Alfred, she stood near the fireplace waiting the coming of the guests.

They arrived in a procession of sleighs with ringing of bells and tooting of horns.

When Geraldine threw open the door, planning to say “Happy Birthday, Doris!” she was met by a laughing throng of young people, but Doris was not among them.

“Why, where is our guest of honor?” the amazed hostess exclaimed as the others trooped into the brightly-illuminated hall.

Merry it was who replied: “Doris told me to tell you that she had company arrive unexpectedly. It was so late that there wasn’t time to telephone and ask permission to bring her friend. She knew you would say yes, but she feared it would inconvenience you.”

The gladness left Geraldine’s face. “But, Merry,” she protested, “we can’t have Doris’ birthday party without Doris here. It would be like giving the play ‘Hamlet’ and leaving Hamlet out.” Then turning to Alfred she said, “Brother, please drive down and bring back both Doris and her guest.”

Just then Danny O’Neil appeared, and, after having greeted the newcomers, she said: “Miss Geraldine, there’s a beggar at the back door and she insists that she must see you at once.”

A month previous Geraldine would have tossed her head and replied haughtily that a beggar woman most certainly could have nothing to say to her that she would care to hear. Perhaps even then she might have replied impatiently had she not chanced to see Jack Lee intently watching her.

Turning to Merry, she asked her to escort the girls upstairs to remove their wraps (Alfred was leading the boys to his den), then she hurried into the kitchen wondering why a beggar should ask to see her.

In the dimly-lighted back entry stood a frail woman, shabbily dressed, who was leaning on a cane. A black bonnet shaded her face, and Geraldine believed that she had never before seen this beggar person. The stranger began to speak in a weak, wavering voice. “Miss Geraldine,” she said, “I am a poor widow with one child and seven husbands. Oh, no, I mean one husband and seven children. My husband is sick, my young ones are starving. I heard as how you were going to have a fine party tonight and I came to beg you to save a few crumbs for my poor babies.”

Geraldine was puzzled. The woman before her was shabby enough to be a beggar, but her plea did not ring true.

“If you will come into the kitchen,” the girl replied, “I will pack a basket for you to take to your seven husbands and one child.”

There was a shout of laughter from the door leading into the dining-room, and Geraldine, turning, beheld the boys and girls peering over each other’s shoulders watching the fun.

“I just knew it was a prank,” Geraldine laughingly exclaimed. Then to the beggar woman she said, “You’re Doris, of course.”

“No, she isn’t,” a merry voice called from the doorway, and there, among the others, stood the missing Doris.

The supposed beggar suddenly removed her bonnet and the laughing face of Geraldine’s dearest friend from the city was revealed.

With a cry of joy, the delighted hostess embraced the beggar, rags and all.

“Adelaine Drexel,” she exclaimed, “this is the most wonderful surprise. Why didn’t you write me that you were coming? Or, Doris, why didn’t you tell me?”

Then turning to the smiling housekeeper, the girl exclaimed: “Mrs. Gray, this is my dear little playmate. We have lived next door to each other ever since our doll days. You’ve heard me speak of Adelaine Drexel just steens of times.”

Then slipping her arm about the laughing beggar girl, she led the way up to her room. Ten minutes later they reappeared. Adelaine had shed her shabby costume and looked like a rose fairy in a pretty pink gown.

When the young people were seated around the blazing log in the library, the stately Colonel Wainright appeared and was gladly greeted by all. Then Mrs. Gray called: “Come, children; supper is ready.”

Geraldine laughed. “I just can’t impress Mrs. Gray with my age and dignity. She always will call me ‘little girl.’”

“I think she is the dearest old lady,” Adelaine Drexel declared. “She’s just my ideal of a grandmother. I am so glad that she is here with you.”

Geraldine’s own ideas about how one should feel toward an “upper servant” had undergone such a complete change that she now replied with enthusiasm: “I do love Mrs. Gray. She is very superior to her position. She is the Colonel’s housekeeper, you know.”

In the brightly lighted dining-room the young people were standing while the little old lady designated their places. Geraldine noticed that she was giving up her own seat at one end of the table for the unexpected guest.

“Oh, Mrs. Gray,” she intervened. “You have forgotten our plan. You are to sit there. I won’t need a chair just at first, for I am going to serve.”

“And I am going to help,” Jack Lee declared. Then, taking the self-appointed waitress by the hand, he led her kitchenward.

“That was great of you, Geraldine,” he said when they were alone. “Lots of girls would have let the old lady wait on them. Now give me a towel to throw over my arm, and a white apron so that I will look like a regular garcon.”

This added to the fun, and for the first time in her sixteen years Geraldine found herself actually serving others in what she would have scornfully called, two months before, a manner degrading and menial.

Now and then Bob Angel sprang up to lend a hand, and when Jack and Bob tried to be comedians there was always much laughter and playful bantering.

The whipped-cream cake was praised until the cheeks of the maker thereof glowed with pleasure. Then, when the others had been served, they moved closer and made room for Geraldine and Jack. When they were leaving the table, Doris said softly to the Irish lad:

“Danny, I want to see you alone as soon as possible.”

When the young people were in the library playing old-fashioned games, with dear Mrs. Gray and the Colonel joining in now and then, Doris and Danny slipped away unobserved.

They sat on a window seat in the hall and the girl turned such glowing eyes toward the boy that a load of dread was lifted from his heart.

“Good angel,” he said, “after all it isn’t anything about the highway robbery that you have to tell. I can see that by your face. I was so afraid that – ”

The girl placed a finger on his lips. “Danny O’Neil,” she said seriously, “I want you to promise me that you will never again refer to that mistake in your life. I myself would completely forget it if you did not speak of it so often. I want you to forget it, too. We must not let the mistakes of our past hold us down. It is what we are, and what we are going to be that count, not what we have been. Now, remember, sir,” Doris shook a finger at him, “your ‘good angel’ will be good to you no longer if you ever mention that subject again.”

The lad looked at the pretty girl at his side and said earnestly: “Doris, I can’t understand why you are so kind to me, a no-account Irish boy who isn’t anybody and never will be anybody.”

Doris laughed. “Danny, would you mind if we changed the subject? I wish to do the talking, so you be as quiet as a little brown mouse while I tell you my glorious plan, but first of all I want to thank you for the beautiful bookrack that you carved for me. It’s hanging on the wall of my room this very minute and my prettiest books are in it.” Then, laying her hand on the boy’s arm, she added: “Danny, please don’t call yourself good-for-nothing. It is not right for us to speak that way of the gifts that God has given us. Mother thinks that the carving of the bookrack shows that you have unusual talent and that the wild rose design is very pretty.”

The boy’s face glowed with pleasure. “Oh, Doris,” he said eagerly, “do you really think that maybe, sometime, I could make good with my designing? You don’t know what it would mean to me if I could.”

“It would mean a whole lot to me, too, Danny,” the girl said, rising. “Now we must go back to join the others, but there, I have forgotten the very thing that I wanted to ask you, which is this: Are you willing that I send the bookrack to a friend of Mother’s who is an artist? He would be able to tell just which course of training you ought to have.”

“Good angel, would you do it for me?” the boy asked eagerly. “Then I wouldn’t have to be just groping in the dark. I’d know better how to plan my life.”

These two joined the others, who had not missed them. Merry was talking to Geraldine and Doris joined them.

“Why didn’t Myra Comely come to your dinner party?” the president of the “S. S. C.” was asking their hostess. “You invited her that night at our house.”

Geraldine nodded. “And, more than that, I dropped her a card telling her the date and that I would send my brother after her, but she ’phoned early this morning that her mother had caught a severe cold that might develop into pneumonia and she could not possibly leave her.”

“Poor girl!” Doris said. “I’m glad tomorrow will be Saturday again. I shall drive around and see if there is anything I can do for them. Mother would want me to. She likes Myra ever so much. She wanted to meet her when she returned the laundry last Thursday, and she said she thought her an unusually fine girl. Myra told Mother that she had hoped to be able to go through Teachers’ College that she might care for her mother, who is not strong. But now I suppose she will have to give up, just as she is about to graduate from High.”

“O, I hope not!” Merry said. Then three of the boys approached to claim them as partners for a dance.

CHAPTER XXIV.
KINDNESS REWARDED

Merry, Geraldine and Doris went alone the next day to the home of Myra Comely. Danny O’Neil drove them there, then waited in the cutter until they came out.

Myra opened the door slightly, saying that perhaps they would better not come in, but Geraldine declared that she never caught anything, and as Merry and Doris had no fears, they entered the neat little living-room and sat down, while Doris gave the message from her mother.

Tears sprang to the girl’s eyes. “How very kind of your mother to offer to send us her own private nurse,” she said with sincere appreciation. “Dr. Carson was with us all night, and he says that the crisis is now over and that Mother will not have pneumonia, but that she is worn out and will need absolute rest for a long time. The doctor said that she ought to go where the winters are milder.” Myra was wiping her eyes, trying, as the girls could see, to keep from breaking down. Doris went to her and put an arm across her shoulders. With tender sympathy she said: “Myra, you’re just worn out with these three days and nights of watching and anxiety. I wish you would let me telephone Mother to send our dear old nurse; then I would like to take you home with me for a rest.” But the girl was shaking her head. “O, no, no! I couldn’t leave Mother. She still has spells of wandering in her mind. She thinks she is a girl again on her father’s ranch in Arizona – ”

She got no farther, for three girls exclaimed in excited chorus: “Was your mother Myra Cornwall? Has she a brother Caleb in Arizona?”

The girl dropped her handkerchief and stared in unbelieving amazement. “How in the world did you know my mother’s maiden name?” she gasped. “Mother has told no one. Not that she was ashamed of it, but – but – you see, she married against her parents’ wishes and she knew they would never want to see or hear from her again. Her brother Caleb disliked my – my father, more even than her parents did, and so she never wrote, not even after my father died and we were so poor.” Then with mouth trembling and eyes tear-brimmed, the girl asked: “Won’t you tell me what you know about it?”

And so Doris told about the clipping they had found in the Dorchester paper, and how they had called on all the Myras they could find. “But your mother was born in New York state,” Merry recalled. “That is why we decided that she could not be the one.”

Myra nodded. “Yes, that is where Mother was born, but her parents went West when she was five, and she lived on a ranch in that beautiful desert country until she was sent East to school.”

Suddenly she sprang up, a glad light in her face. “Mother is awake! I hear her calling me. I must go and tell her the wonderful news.” Then impulsively she held out a hand to Doris as she said: “How can we thank you. Now, as soon as Mother is well, I can take her to the home she has so yearned to see, knowing that her brother Caleb wants her, really wants her.”

* * * * * * * *

When the girls were again in the sleigh, they told Danny to race for town. They were to attend the weekly meeting at Peg’s house and they had wonderful news to tell.

In a remarkably short time they reached there and found the others assembled. “Girls,” Doris burst out before she had removed her outdoor wraps. “The mystery is solved! Myra Comely, I mean the mother, is the one we wanted. And now that she may go back to her Arizona home and won’t have to take in washing any more, she will get well, I am sure, just ever so soon. Myra is going to send a telegram at once to her uncle, and I know that he will send money to them for the journey.”

“Now all of the mysteries are solved except where the boys have their clubroom,” Peg began, when Bertha laughingly told them that that even wasn’t a mystery any longer.

“How come?” Peg asked.

“Well, last night Mother wanted a yeast cake from the store just before bedtime that she might put some dough to rise. Dad had gone to lodge and Bob had left early with the boys, so I took a lantern and went to the store. I had a key to the side door and I went in. At first I was very much startled to see a light coming through cracks in the floor of a storeroom over the back part. One has to go up a ladder on the side wall and then crawl through a trapdoor to get to it. I was just wondering why thieves would want to go up there where Dad keeps hardware supplies and things like that, when I heard a laugh, and I knew it was Bob. Then I realized that I had stumbled on the secret meeting place of the ‘C. D. C.’”

“Well, that’s a much more sensible place than the old Welsley ruin would be,” Merry commented.

Having removed their wraps, they all sat about the cosy fire and Peg passed around the garments they were making for the orphans.

“There’s one thing sure, the solving of our mystery spread sunshine all right, and so we lived up to our first motto without really meaning to,” Merry commented.

Peg inquired: “Did you hear anything that the boys were talking about?”

“I tried not to,” Bertha said. “I went at once to the front of the store and got my yeast cake, but, just as I was stealing back out again, so that they wouldn’t hear me, I heard Bob say: ‘Four o’clock Saturday. That’s tomorrow! Surprise the girls.’”

The seven sleuths looked at each other in puzzled amazement. “Hum! Another mystery, I should say,” Peg commented.

Merry glanced at her wrist watch. “Well, if the boys are planning a surprise for us, since it is three-thirty now, we won’t be kept long in suspense.”

Nor were they, for in a half hour, punctually at four, the boys arrived and stated that they had received permission from the parents of the girls to take them somewhere on a sleigh ride.

“Oh, what fun!” Merry sprang up, as did the others. Little blue garments were folded and outdoor wraps were donned upstairs in Peg’s room.

“I know! I know!” Peg sang out. “You remember that time at the Drexel Lodge when we wanted to stay and ride home by moonlight, we couldn’t, and the boys said they would take us for a moonlight ride at some other time.”

Merry nodded. “I believe you’re right. Where do you suppose we are going?”

It was half an hour later, and the village had been left far behind before the answer was revealed to them. “Up the East Lake Road!” Bertha exclaimed.

It was half past five and dark when they drew up in front of the Inn. Mr. Wiggin, the genial host, popped out to welcome them. “Come right in! Come right in!” he called good-naturedly. “Everything is piping hot and ready to serve.” The girls were delighted.

“Oh, boys, you’re giving us a surprise supper, aren’t you?”

“That’s jolly fun!”

“Aren’t we glad we know them!” were a few of the many expressions of appreciation from the girls as they were helped from the long sleigh.

That “something” that was piping hot and ready to be served proved to be the wonderful combination clam chowder for which the Lakeside Inn was famous. The dining-room was warm and cheerful, with red-shaded lamps around the walls, and the jolliest hour was passed while the boys joked and told stories, which they had evidently learned for the occasion.

When the dessert, Mrs. Wiggin’s equally famous plum pudding, had been removed, Bob tapped on the table for attention. “Young ladies,” he said, “we boys of the ‘C. D. C.’ having heard how cleverly you solved a mystery – ”

“What? How did you hear?” two of the girls exclaimed in surprise.

“Well, that is an important point to clear up,” Bob acknowledged. “Jack, here, was in the telegraph station about three this afternoon, and Myra Comely was there sending a message to some uncle of hers in Arizona. She was so excited, she spilled the beans, and told Jack all about your mystery club and how you found her mother’s brother.” He paused to look about at the astonished group. Then, seeming to be satisfied, he continued: “We boys are working on a mystery, and since you girls are so clever (no bouquets, please; he pretended to dodge) we thought we would invite you to – er – be associate members of our club. We hope that you will consider it an honor.”

Merry sprang up and, lifting her glass of water, she said: “Here’s to the combined Conan Doyle and Seven Sleuths’ Clubs. Long may they wave.”

“Ditto!” Bob lifted his glass, as did the others. Then they all rose, for Jack had dropped a nickel in the automatic organ and it was playing dance music which could not be resisted.