The Orchard Secret

by Cleo F. Garis

  CHAPTER XIV The Dean Decides

  Breakfast was, if anything, duller and more gloomy than usual. So many"shining morning faces" only made the three freshmen involved in theescapade of the night before more nervous. When the meal was over andArden, Sim, and Terry were waiting in the dean's outer office, they werealmost sick with dread.

  "Come in, young ladies!" Tiddy opened the door to the inner sanctumherself and, with an almost imperious gesture of her lean brown hand,waved the three in ahead of her.

  The office was large and bright. Green carpet covered the floor to theuttermost corners. The windows were draped with neutral-toned curtains.The founder of the college, in the form of a highly-varnished oilpainting of a stern-faced, dark-featured and white-haired man, lookeddown at the three from a vantage point over the dean's desk.

  Miss Anklon asked and noted down the names of her visitors, though theywere quite sure she well knew them already. She began:

  "This prank of yours, my dear girls, is something we do not countenanceat this college. You were put upon your honor when you went into New Yorkand were expected to return as your classmates did."

  She looked sternly over the tops of her glasses. Then she resumed:

  "If I remember correctly, you two were in your night clothes and thisyoung lady was still dressed. Is that right?" She directed her gazespecifically at Sim.

  "Yes, Miss Anklon," Sim answered in a weak voice.

  "Perhaps you will explain yourself, then."

  "I never thought it would cause so much trouble," Sim began. "When Ilearned that the sophomores didn't make as much money at the dance asthey hoped to, I just decided to go to my father and ask him for it." Shepaused uncertainly. "I came to this college, instead of going to someother, because I hope to become--" she paused and then went on--"becausethe swimming pool looked so lovely in the catalog." Sim glanced shyly atthe dean, whose face betrayed none of her feelings. It was no time tospeak of expert diving ambitions.

  "That is hardly a reason for coming to college, Miss Westover. But go onwith your story. Why were you returning at such a late hour?"

  "My father wasn't where I thought he would be, and I forgot to leave thenotes I wrote, explaining my absence and--and----"

  Gradually Sim blurted out the whole story, Arden and Terry now and thenadding a little to the telling. When Sim finally ended her recital, MissAnklon was as stony as before. She sat behind her polished desk andlooked at the girls more sternly than ever.

  "I believe you have told me the truth, Miss Westover, although it seemsstrange you should be so heedless." Miss Anklon tapped her desk with apencil. "You other girls were almost as much to blame as Miss Westover.If anything had happened, you would have been responsible. While you arehere in this college we are entrusted with your welfare."

  She paused a moment, looked up at the dark-faced founder as if forinspiration, and continued:

  "Besides the seriousness of your act, I must tell you that you threegirls do not seem to be starting your college life in the right spirit.Although you have been here for only a short time, you have alreadyattracted some, shall I say, undesirable attention? Yes, that is it.Those stories about the orchard were your doing--am I not right?"

  This time the dean looked directly at Arden.

  "They were not stories, Miss Anklon," Arden began. "We really were chasedby something while we were in the garden gathering apples as a hazingstunt. And we did find the gardener's helper lying wounded on theground."

  The dean bowed her head in frosty acquiescence and said:

  "It would have been better if you had come to me and told me ofyour--your experiences, instead of telling them to so many impressionablegirls. Do you know I have received letters from several worried parentsas a result of your spreading of this tale?"

  "We tried not to talk of it, Miss Anklon, but it got around in some way.I think everyone in the college would like to know what really happenedin the orchard." This time it was Terry who spoke with all the dignity ather command.

  "As to that, Miss Landry, the gardener, Tom, fell over a tree root, so Iam told, and struck his head. Anything that chased you must have been aproduct of your too vivid imagination."

  "Oh, no--no, Miss Anklon!" Arden was emphatic in her denial, but the deanheld up a quieting, protesting hand. Arden looked at Sim as if to say:"I'd like to tell her how it hurt when I sat down hard upon thosestones!"

  The dean, seeming to gather herself together for a final statement of thecase, said:

  "All this has nothing to do with your latest escapade. I regret very muchthat I must take this action, but I am forced to tell you that all threeof you will be campused for three weeks and lose all your privileges."Miss Anklon was stern and unsmiling. "I do not wish you to tell yourclassmates of your foolish experience, Miss Westover. It is best keptquiet. You may all go now."

  For several seconds the three freshmen stood facing the dean but sayingnothing. The severity of their punishment was so great that they werestricken speechless. No going into town to shop or to the movies. Noweek-end guests. And not to leave the college grounds at all for threeweeks!

  "Miss Anklon," Sim was the first to speak, "you don't know how much myswimming means to me. I realize, now, how wrong I was to go away withoutpermission, but Arden and Terry----"

  "That will do, Miss Westover, I have made my decision!" Tiddy was at herfearful worst. "Good-morning!" The girls realized that the interview wasover and that the decision was final.

  Responding with almost whispered "good-mornings," the three left theoffice and walked slowly toward the tennis courts. With one accord theysat on a white-painted bench and gazed moodily at a spirited doublesgame.

  The ping of the balls seemed to find echoes in the dull throbbings oftheir hearts.

  "I suppose we were fortunate not to be expelled," Arden said timidly,after a long silence.

  "We might just as well have been. We can't go anywhere. We can't doanything. Added to that, we can't even swim!" Sim was quite unhappy asshe answered Arden's attempted philosophy.

  "Don't take it so to heart, Sim," Terry advised. "We're all in the sameboat. We can have lots of fun here, just the same. It will be a goodchance for me to get caught up on my French."

  "That's the spirit!" exclaimed Arden. "We can give more time to solvingthe mystery of the orchard. And I'll have that pool fixed yet: you'llsee!"

  "You mean with the reward money you're going to get for finding thatmissing Pangborn chap?" asked Sim.

  "Yes," Arden nodded.

  "We haven't done a thing toward that yet," spoke Terry. "We don't evenknow whether or not he has been found, restored to his worried friends,and the reward paid to someone else. Don't you think we had better checkup on it?"

  "Yes, we must," Arden agreed. "And though we can't leave the campus evento go to the post office and see if that reward poster is still there,still, perhaps we can do something. They can't keep us out of theorchard, anyhow."

  "Except that I'm not going there again at night, not for ten swimmingpools!" declared Terry.

  "Nor I," Sim added. "But I don't suppose," she went on, "that the mysteryor the terror, or whatever you want to call it, of the orchard hasanything to do with the missing man and the thousand dollars reward, doyou, Arden?"

  "I don't know."

  "What a delicious mystery it would be if it worked out that way, wouldn'tit?" exclaimed Terry.

  "If you're making fun of my well-meant efforts," spoke Arden a triflestiffly, "why, I----"

  "Oh, not at all!" Terry made haste to say, Sim chiming in with a murmureddenial also. "And we're going to help you all we can as soon as thishorrid campusing is over. Really, there must be some reason for thinkingthis missing young man might be in this neighborhood, or it wouldn't havesaid so on the poster."

  "Arden has the right of it there," Sim declared, "and it's sweet of bothof you not to mind this so much. But I feel very badly about it. I gotyou into trouble, and I got
Tiddy down on all of us." Sim was impatientlykicking a clump of grass. "Well, we can't do anything about it now. Solet's go back and write the real story home before our families have achance to hear it from Tiddy."