“Don’t worry. I’ll fix it,” said Fran with a twinkle.
When the time came for the refreshments, which were more elaborate on this occasion than usual at the parties Jean had attended, she saw that Fran was next to one of the boys who wore the Black Wizard pin. She herself had found her pretty place card between Billy and Danny. Bess was on the other side of Danny, and once she heard him exclaim, “Is that so? What do you call it?” and she knew that Fran had passed the word on to Bess.
It was a shame, though, to have started it the way she had. What was it about “tangled webs” when first we “practice to deceive”? But there were to be no fibs. When they were looking at the attic room, it had been decided that if they were asked how long since their club had been started they would answer “Not very long.” More searching questions need not be answered at all, and presently the club would be taken as a matter of course. Such thoughts as these ran through Jean’s mind and she ate her green salad, nibbled the green frosting on her cake or took a spoonful of green and white brick ice-cream.
As a rule Jean acted on impulse first in ordinary affairs; but most of her impulses had been so far based on common sense she had thought. Anyhow, a club would be fun.
There were more games after the late refreshments, for the seniors were running this party. Jean was both tired and sleepy, though happy, when Billy took her through the sloppy streets to her home. “Say, Jean, I noticed that you had lost your shamrock in the games,” said Billy, as they stepped upon the porch. “I want you to take mine.” With this he threw open his overcoat and unpinned the precious snake pin, for the Black Wizards had put their badges upon the shamrocks to make them more prominent, a little while after arrival.
“You may as well pin it on with this, too,” he added. “You can give it to me in the morning. Goodnight, Jean.”
“Goodnight, Billy,” returned Jean, astonished to find both shamrock and pin in her hand. “Thanks.” But Billy was half way out of the yard by that time.
A sleepy mother was waiting up for her, but Jean shut her hand upon shamrock and pin. That was a crazy thing for Billy to do! “Yes, Mother, we had a lovely time. Billy Baxter brought me home, and Danny Pierce took Nan. Most everybody was there. It was a St. Patrick’s Day party and they had the best refreshments and everything, a regular supper. Jimmy took Clare and the seniors ran things. I’ll tell you all about it to-morrow. There were some of the older boys and girls not in school, too. Oh, there must have been forty or fifty there, I think—maybe not so many. And Mother, that was an S. P. meeting here yesterday and I’m so delighted that we can have the attic. Please don’t say anything about it.”
“I usually know more about a matter before I talk about it, daughter,” said Mrs. Gordon. “Get to bed as soon as possible, child. It is such a pity to have a party in the middle of the week. You will be too sleepy to study to-morrow.”
Jean was almost too sleepy to get up the next morning, but she did not forget to pin on the shamrock which Billy had given her. She certainly owed him that little attention. The snake pin she had under her coat ready, and when she passed Billy’s house on the way to school she found that he was waiting for her, as she shrewdly judged, to receive the pin before its absence should be noted by other Black Wizards.
“I didn’t have sense enough to think that you couldn’t wear the shamrock that late last night,” Billy explained, rather sheepishly. “Some day we’re going to give a party and badge the girls we invite with our pins for the evening. Jimmy Standish said that last night and I was thinking of it as we went home.”
“Oh, that was all right, Billy. It was great fun to have it and I’m wearing the shamrock, you see, on my coat. I see Nan coming now and I’ll just stroll back to meet her, I think. There goes Danny. Do ask him if Bess told him anything startling last night. I thought I heard her say ‘S. P.’”
So Jean’s handling of the situation saved her from walking to school with Billy and probably, as she thought, saved him from some embarrassment. It would also give Billy a chance to say to Danny that he “knew it already,” if, as she thought, Bess had told. Jean had not exactly planned it, but instinctively she felt a situation when it occurred.
The seven S. P.’s felt a little undercurrent all day, but they avoided being together except as they would usually meet, in twos or threes. Once or twice conversation, not upon the S. P.’s at all, was suddenly stopped, as they had planned.
Jean had really forgotten about having promised to tell Billy about who belonged to the club, till after school that afternoon Billy caught up with her before she had left the school grounds and took her books as Jimmy had just taken Clare’s in front of them. He copied Jimmy’s nonchalant air and said, “Excuse me, Nan—I’ve got to see Jean about something.”
Bess was just coming up behind them and caught Nan’s arm, drawing her aside as Billy and Jean walked on. Well, thought Jean, maybe Billy hadn’t liked it that she hadn’t walked to school with him that morning.
But Billy made no reference to that. “Jean, it’s all over school about your club. The other girls must have let it out.” So Billy began in a low voice. “Before I said a word to Danny he said, ‘So the girls have got a secret society, too; I heard last night.’
“‘What did you hear?’ I asked. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘they’ve started something and all Bess would tell me was the initials of their name, the S. P.’s, and I suppose it stands for Sweet Pickles or Sour Grapes or something like that.’
“I told him, of course, that I had heard about it before, and that he’d better go slow on ‘Sour Grapes,’ because they were mighty nice girls all right. But do tell me who they are, so I’ll not be so ignorant the next time.”
Jean laughed heartily. “I don’t mind a bit. That was cute of Danny. Why it’s Fran and Bess and Molly, Phoebe and Leigh, and of course Nan and I are in it. There are exactly seven of us now, though it might be possible that we’d take in some more girls later on. I sort of think we ought to, when we carry out one of the things I’ve been thinking of. I’m president, Billy, and that’s everything I can tell you.”
“I thought you would be, Jean,” said admiring Billy. “You are great at getting up things.”
“Not half so good at it as Molly, or Nan either, for that matter.”
“That will do for you to say, Jean. Come on, Jimmy’s taking Clare into the delicatessen. Let’s go, too.”
Jean wondered what was getting into Billy, Billy the shy with girls. He was “certainly putting coals of fire on her head,” though he did not know it. But she had known Billy Baxter all her life and it seemed very natural to sit at the little table and sip a chocolate soda. They left the subject of secret societies and talked about the school teams, the prospect for baseball, the plans for the new gym, how the old town might wake up after a while, and who had a new car. Jimmy Standish slapped Billy on the shoulder as he passed him, going out with Clare, and said, “Hello, Jean, how are the Seven Peaches to-day?”
“I can’t imagine what you mean,” grinned Jean, “but that’s a nice name.”
CHAPTER IV
STEALTHY PROWLERS
It happens sometimes that a sudden decision has far-reaching consequences for good or evil. On the other hand, an organization started upon an impulse and with no particular purpose might easily die an early death, with no special consequences. It was probably due to the character of these girls that their little club, so impulsively formed, should bring them some happy adventures, as well as some odd ones, with a mystery of which they could have no idea now.
There were two points about which the girls were thinking: what they should do, and what the S. P. should mean. Naturally it should have some connection with the purpose of the club, provided it was to have any. It was queer, Jean said, how many things S. P. could mean. Who would have thought of it? The boys missed no opportunity to tease them by concocting different combinations. Other girls
asked Jean or Nan what was going on and they explained, “It is just a simple little club that we are beginning to work on a little, and we are not telling much, about it yet. No, it isn’t a sorority and won’t be like one.”
“I’ve made more explanations, Jean,” said Molly, when they all met on Saturday at the Dudley place, “and when there isn’t anything much to explain, what can a body do? I do hope nobody feels left out!”
“You couldn’t help that, Molly, if any one wanted to feel that way, about any club. It seems all right to me to have one and we’re not going to act any different from before. You’re an old dear, Molly, and you are used to the church societies, where it’s come one come all.”
“They are the best, then.”
“Of course they’re the best. As Dad says sometimes, ‘You can’t start an argument with me on that, Jean.’ The thing is—let’s see—‘self-evident’.”
But Molly enjoyed the fun as much as any of the rest and it began at once. Saturday’s meeting at the Dudley home was like another party, Fran said. Jean, who had felt so shy with Mrs. Dudley, was made to feel at home by her cordial way of meeting the girls.
“So you are the young lady who started this mysterious club, are you?” she asked. “Leigh will not confide the name, only the initials. If there is anything that I can do to help the fun along, let me know, Madam President!”
The bit of formality about Mrs. Dudley made her only the more “fascinating,” Jean confided to Nan later on; but the girls were taken at once to Leigh’s own room, where they exclaimed in little oh’s and ah’s over her pretty arrangements. “Papa let me plan it,” said Leigh, pleased that the girls liked her room. “When he built the house he told Mamma and me that we might as well have just exactly what we had always wanted. So as I had wanted certain things, I planned it out. Do you like my long window-seat?”
“It’s like a real living room, Leigh,” said Nan, “with your fireplace and mantel, and your built-in bookcases. I love the chaise longue! Here is the beautiful movie heroine, reclining in her boudoir!”—and Nan gracefully sank into the damask-covered arms of the article of furniture mentioned, arranging imaginary draperies over her feet.
“Don’t, Nan,” laughed Bess. “I’m growing hilarious now and Leigh’s mother will be shocked at our laughing so much, especially when the secretary reads the names the S. P.’s have been called.”
“Don’t worry about Mamma,” said Leigh. “She thinks that I have not had enough fun with the girls since I have been here; but you all were such old friends that I felt—well, you know how a stranger would feel.”
“Especially a nice stranger like you,” warmly said Jean. “But you are one of us now.”
No more time was lost. The president with quite an air called the meeting to order, asking at once for the report of the secretary. Nan, still occupying the admired piece of furniture, languidly read her report, which was so funny that her hearers were convulsed. Nan had quite a gift as scribe. No funny detail of how the S. P.’s started was omitted. Shaking with repressed laughter, they felt that they could not miss a word and Jean’s voice shook as she said, “You have heard the report of the secretary,”—then she could not go on, and Molly moved that it be accepted.
“We have had some valuable suggestions from our friends, the Black Wizards,” ran the report. “Some were complimentary, some quite otherwise. In planning the charades for the school party, Billy Baxter told Jean that he would get all those Sweet Patooties, Smart Prodigies, or Serpentine Pythons on his side, and Jean told him that she did not mind being called a sweet potato, but she drew the line on being either a prodigy or a python. Mr. French asked about the Serious Pedagogues and Judge Gordon wanted to know more about the Seraphic Peris. He had to explain to Jean that a peri is a kind of fairy! But we feel that the judge appreciates us.
“We have seen the boys double up over some of their brilliant—interrogation point—thoughts on S. P. and heard ourselves called Some Pumpkins, Sweet Peas, Syrupy Pancakes, Serious Problems, Sleepy Possums, Sour Persimmons, Sappy Poets, Saucy Palmists, and by our principal, who deigned to listen one time, Soulful Psyches—which wasn’t so bad.
“So if the S. P.’s wanted what the secretary’s editor father calls ‘publicity,’ they have had it. Father threatens, as it is, to write it up in the paper.”
After the secretary’s report had been duly accepted and Jean had remarked that she would not call for a treasurer’s report, as there could not possibly be any money in the treasury, Phoebe, who sat on the floor near the fire, gave a bit of advice.
“The funny part of Nan’s report, Jean, is her write-up of you and Billy and your ‘reaction,’ as she calls it, to the news of the Black Wizards. I’d advise you not to let Mr. Standish, or Jimmy, get hold of it.”
“Jean needn’t worry, Phoebe,” said Nan. “Father thinks all the stuff I write is silly, and anyhow I destroyed all my notes. This new S. P. notebook is to be kept locked up in my desk.”
Bess, Fran and Phoebe, the committee on what the S. P.’s should do, asked for a “general discussion” first. Molly, by this time having laid aside conscientious scruples about a secret club, said that as far as she was concerned she’d rather just have a good time. That was a popular suggestion and was applauded.
Jean, however, said that you had to have some program even for good times. “I can’t think, for the life of me, any S. P. name that will mean anything much, and if the rest of you can’t let’s let it go right now. How would it do for the present to fix up our attic for all sorts of funny things, maybe witches’ quarters if the boys have wizards. We could even give a party there to all the boys and girls. Then Mother suggested that when it gets too hot for meetings in the attic we could be an outdoor club and take hikes and do things that girls and boys do now. We’ve been doing them anyhow, a little, like our beach parties over on Michigan, and our breakfast hikes to our own little lake. But it would be lots more fun to do things as a club.”
“I have a lot of nature books, girls,” said Leigh, brightening. “How would you like to start a little library in our club room and read up on what girls study in some of the camps?”
“Fine, Leigh!” exclaimed several girls. “We ought to be up to date!” said Fran.
“I have a tree book,” said Molly. “I never read it, though.”
“Molly’s turning frivolous,” said Phoebe. “All she wants to do is to make fudge and be a witch.”
Molly, surprised, looked at Phoebe to see if she were being critical, but Phoebe’s grin reassured her. “You have to be on too many programs as it is, Molly, to want to improve yourself outside of school—isn’t that so?” Phoebe continued, and Molly nodded.
“But I like hikes, Phoebe, and I really ought to know what there is to see around town and the lakes.”
“Let me tell you something,” said Bess. “As I went down street on errands this morning I met Miss Haynes. You ought to have seen her. She had on old high shoes, an old hat and a heavy sweater. Some sort of a case was swung around her shoulders and her pockets were stuffed full of something. When she saw me she just grinned, nodded and went on, and she was headed out of town, toward the lake. Imagine, on a day as damp and chilly as this! Of course, we do it, whenever we feel like it, and we skate and all in the winter; but she was going all alone, and I just thought to myself, there must be something to see, or she’d never go just for her health or a walk. It’s muddy as anything out that road.”
“More ideas!” cried Nan. “How would it do for the committee to talk to Miss Haynes? She’s the science teacher since Mr. Peters left and maybe she’ll take us out on a hike. He did once in our freshman year, only I think that he didn’t know much about anything.”
“That was the reason they let him go, I think,” wisely remarked Molly. “I imagine Miss Haynes is getting ready for some field work with the class.”
“I never heard of field work,�
� said Bess, “but I’m for it! Hurrah for hikes and fires and food and we can at least prowl around and pretend to have an ‘object’.”
“Oh, Bess. That makes me think! You say ‘prowl around’—why not Prowlers? S. Prowlers—what are prowlers, that begin with S? Still—silent—searching—slinking—slippery.”
Jean paused for breath and Phoebe suggested “sprightly,” or “stalking.”
“Get the dictionary, somebody,” laughed Bess. “We’re going to ‘acquire a vocabulary,’ as our English teacher recommends, if we keep on.”
“Steady,” continued Jean, still thinking, and now clutching her hair in a pretense of great concentration. “Aha! How about Stealthy? The ‘Stealthy Prowlers’? That isn’t so bad, is it? If we want to see any of the wild things in the woods around the lake, or even on the beach of Lake Michigan, we’ll have to do some prowling.”
“I can’t say that I think it very pretty,” said Molly.
“It isn’t. I’m sorry that I got you girls into those initials.”
“It’s all the funnier, Jean,” said Frances.
“Why, I rather like it,” Leigh added. “‘Stealthy Prowlers’ has a touch of mystery, as my mother would say. Let’s be it, for a while anyhow, but we’ll never tell a soul, shall we?”
“After all the names that we’ve said yes or no to, just for the fun of it, nobody would believe that this was our real name anyhow. And aren’t witches a sort of prowlers? Why not prowlers with a good purpose as well as prowlers with bad ones?”
“Put down Stealthy Prowlers, Nan,” said Bess, “as our best suggestion yet, and let’s get to talking about our attic club room. But Jean, you and Nan have more opportunity to see Miss Haynes than the committee does. Please see her about the hikes. She might even know about Scout work and be willing to camp with us somewhere.”
“That’s a great suggestion, Bess!” Leigh exclaimed. “Mother never would let me go to a summer camp, but she might, near home, as it would be here.”
The Third Girl Detective Page 102
