But the couch on which the players sat had been placed in front of
the windows for the occasion, and until the time to admit the guests
the door of the _sanctum sanctorum_ had been locked. Molly, who could
see each occupant of the little chair, through a cleverly arranged
peep-hole, scribbled the name on a bit of paper and passed it to Leigh,
who read it by a flashlight. But it was a long time before any of the
boys knew how it had been managed.

After all the fortunes had been told, except those of the seven sibyls,
the company was invited out into the real attic stretches for games.
While Jean was starting these, Molly came from the cave, locked the
door on the inside and then admitted Leigh, who had been afraid someone
would see her if she climbed through the lighted windows. In darkness
Molly received her, and when they left the room they locked the door
behind them lest any investigator should discover their secret.

There was plenty of room for the usual games played at their parties
and after two or three, Jean, who had not forgotten the request of the
S. P.’s to the Wizards, clapped her hands together for quiet and said
with a deep bow to Jimmy, “We have with us to-night the secret society
known as the Black Wizards and we have hoped that they would give us
something far better than anything the S. P.’s can think up. The Black
Wizards, ladies and gentlemen!”

Great clapping of hands came from the ladies of the company, but Jimmy,
Grand Wizard of Wizards, had always thought that what the younger boys
had prepared to do was “too dumb.” He wasn’t going to have them show
themselves less smart than those cute S. P.’s.

“Madame president, or leader of the _Sibyl Priestesses_,” and
Jimmy emphasized that, “we greatly regret that after all this fine
entertainment the Black Wizards cannot now respond. In other words,
kids, we haven’t our stuff with us and can’t handle it in a strange
attic! But we hope to have a celebration some day, in our own quarters,
where we may show you what Black Magic can do!”

“Wow!” said Billy, who knew that Jimmy had made up the expression Black
Magic on the spot. But the boys were much relieved at being let off
from the stunt which they had prepared without any inspiration except
that of dire warnings from the seniors.

And all this time that boys and girls in the little town were
manufacturing mystery, less than fifty miles away, a young girl was
living it.

CHAPTER IX

MORE IDEAS AND A WIZARD MYSTERY

The S. P. Attic Party was voted a success. The girls were tired but
happy over it, for their guests had so obviously enjoyed themselves.
There were so many echoes of it that it was hard to settle down to
lessons on Monday. Phoebe was sitting with Leigh on an iron bench in
the school grounds that afternoon, soon after they had been dismissed,
when Danny, or Dan, as he preferred to be called, came by with Raleigh
Warner and stopped to talk.

“I have an idea, Phoebe, if you will believe such a thing possible,”
said Dan. “Could you let me borrow some of the cartoons you and Molly
drew for your show Saturday?”

“Our show!”

“Well, your art gallery, then. I mean the ones about school, that good
one of the principal, and the funny one Molly called ‘What May Happen
Soon’.”

“Mercy, which one was that? I’ve forgotten.”

“The one where Miss James is driving the _ponies_ out of the Cicero
class and they’re kicking up their heels, and some of the boys, the
riders, I suppose, are flat on the floor.”

“Yes, Dan, and that is a good one where Billy is pulling his father’s
Ford out of the mud-hole where he got stuck, and the one where the
bob-sled is and Fran looking at her ruined hat.” Raleigh was adding
this.

“I see,” said Phoebe. “You just want to borrow them?”

“That is all,--now. How soon could we find out whether the girls will
let us have them or not?”

“Oh, pretty soon. I’ll call up Jean as soon as I get home. Suppose you
call me up about supper time. I’ll know by then. Of course, you will be
careful of our masterpieces?”

“I’ll treat them like glass, honest. I just want to show them to
somebody now.”

“All right. I’m willing, if Molly is and if Jean has no objection.”

As no one objected to lending pictures to the boys, the following day
saw Dan and “Rall” conferring with Jimmy Standish, and later with no
less a person than the editor himself, in the editorial sanctum, a very
ordinary but busy office.

“Why, yes,” said Mr. Standish, “we could print it for you at a very
moderate price, but who will pay for the job? We are not running on
exactly a missionary basis.”

“No, sir. We will pay for it out of our own pockets, unless it is more
than we can handle, and soon the subscribers will pay for it.”

“You are more sure of your subscribers than we are,” said the editor,
with a smile. “Let’s see the pictures.”

Dan unwrapped Molly’s and Phoebe’s drawings.

“Clever stuff,” said the editor, with another smile. “Yes, for a school
paper such outlines will do very well. Send the girls in to see me some
time. I can give them a hint or two. My advice is to make your paper
snappy and short. Begin with two rather small pages or even one sheet.
If you want to enlarge it you can. Get your stuff together and hand it
to Jimmy to make ready for you. I’m making an editor out of Jimmy as
soon as he learns a few more things----”

“About printing, and the composing room, and reporting, and everything
else,” added Jimmy, who came in at this moment. “But Dan has a good
idea about a school paper, Dad, and I think it will go with the
kids. We’ll try ’em out on the first numbers. I’m to write the first
editorials, Dad, so if there is anything you want to get across on
school matters, let me know.”

“All right, Jimmy. There are a whole lot of things I’d like to ‘get
across’ in this town, boys, but you don’t dare wake ’em up too soon
when they’re walking in their sleep.”

“Gee, isn’t Jimmy’s dad smart?” asked Dan, as the boys left the office.
“That was a hot one about this town’s walking in its sleep.”

“We’d better keep it under our hats, too, boy. He said more than he
meant to. Did you see Jimmy making eyes at him?”

The girls, meantime, were in the dark in regard to why the two boys
wanted the drawings. They were more concerned, however, about having
missed a day’s hiking, when they heard what Miss Haynes had seen, in
spite of the bad, windy morning. Wednesday morning they were to meet
at four o’clock, with their breakfasts in their pockets, and hike till
schooltime. May was going and with it the spring migration of birds;
Miss Haynes would be going away after school closed, the first week in
June, and there would be no one to make them sure about what they saw.

“Oh, but you must learn to make yourselves sure,” she told them, when
Jean said as much to her. “You will miss some things; everybody does;
but you’ll learn twice as much on your own initiative!”

This hike was to be “on their own,” then, for even Miss Haynes could
not manage a hike before school. And curiously enough, it was because
of their early rising that the S. P.’s surprised a venture of the Black
Wizards, which it was quite plainly to be seen that they had hoped to
keep a secret.

It was great fun to be starting off together in the early morning. They
would not even make a fire for wieners or bacon. This was strictly a
cold breakfast. As they went they munched sandwiches and tossed crumbs
and cold banana skins “to the birds,” they said. Judge Gordon had
bought Jean some glasses as good as those of Miss Haynes and these she
shared with the rest, for who could see the markings on a warbler or a
vireo up in the high treetops without a strong pair of lenses?

The bushes and trees along the river road seemed best for finding
warblers. Accordingly they were tramping along that road, still as
mice, behind this bush or that, moving quietly, singly or by twos or
threes, when they heard a shout and a big truck shot by. It was loaded
with lumber and the shouting came from several boys of the Black Wizard
combination who were either perched on the boards or sitting in the
driver’s seat in front.

Whether they had seen the girls or not was a doubtful matter. Jean came
out from behind a tree against which she had been braced in trying to
look almost over her head. “Say, every warbler will take to cover after
that noise! Who was it?”

“Oh, Jean! Didn’t you see them? They were the Black Wizards on a load
of lumber, and why should they get up so early if they didn’t want to
get out of town before we should see them?”

“You flatter the S. P.’s, Fran. But I shouldn’t wonder if they are
doing something.”

“It does look that way, Jean,” said Molly, laughing at Jean’s blank
look. “But maybe that wasn’t their lumber.”

“And again, maybe it was,” remarked Bess.

“Jimmy was in bed when I left,” thoughtfully Nan added. “And I hadn’t
happened to say anything about our trip. I forgot it at supper, just
told Mother when we were doing the dishes and I fixed something ready
to take for my breakfast. I’ll warn Mother not to say anything, unless
she has already. I don’t believe they saw us, and it is surely not for
us to make any comments on where they were going.” Nan’s face wore a
comically sober look.

“Far be it,” said Leigh. “But where could they be taking it?”

“All of us have a suspicion, of course. Girls, they could even reach
Lake Michigan, unload and be back for school!”

“Nonsense. Danny Pierce’s father has a farm on our little lake.
Probably Mr. Pierce wanted Danny to bring out some lumber this morning
while he could.” So concluded Jean.

“Yes, but what were all those Black Wizards doing with Danny? Danny
_was_ driving, but you couldn’t get Rall out of bed with anything short
of an earthquake for any helping Danny with a job like that!”

“Yes, Rall is always a late riser, I’ve heard the boys say, poking fun
at him. Maybe you’re right, Nan. Of course we want to go camping so
much ourselves that our first thought is--what it is. Oh, wouldn’t it
be great fun if our folks would let us go somewhere? A tent would be
good enough for me! But it’s hopeless unless we can get some one to
chaperon us. Mother won’t hear of anything else.”

“We might camp in our back yards.”

“Yes, we could,” said Molly, and meant it. “But when Grace gets home,
I’m going to begin talking S. P. to her. She will be dead tired, and
perhaps the woods will look good to her. We’ll do all the work.”

“Oh, Molly! They’d let us go with Grace!”

“I think so, Jean.”

“Father has a piece of woods on Lake Michigan, or very near it,”
offered Leigh. “I heard him say that he had sold a piece of it off not
long ago. I never saw it, but it’s quite wild, Mother said. He always
meant to build two or three cottages there, one for us, but he never
has.”

“I feel my brain expanding, girls,” soberly said Jean. “Find out, if it
is permissible, to whom your father sold that land. Also please ask
him if it has water and is free from wild animals!”

Leigh laughingly said that she would make every inquiry suggested
except the last. “There isn’t a bear left in the state except ‘way in
the north.”

“Who knows, girls?”

“Nevertheless, Jean and Leigh,” said Nan, “I don’t believe that the
boys would build on Michigan. More likely, if they are not close,
they’ve gone on to what we call Lake Baldy because of all the eagles
around there. The boys like that lake because there is such grand
fishing there and more room to row and get around. I’ve heard Jimmy say
so.”

“Time will tell who is right,” said Bess. “Come on; the scare is over.
Let’s go on to where all those trees are with such tiny foliage. They
are just likely to be full of warblers.”

CHAPTER X

A LONELY GIRL

The forlorn, tumble-down place of the Kleins was on what had once been
its own private road, the road that led into a large, well-kept farm of
thrifty German immigrants. But this was long ago. A worthless son and a
still more worthless grandson had scattered the holdings. The woodland
and nearly all of the farm besides had been sold off for debts and
living. All that was left numbered a few acres and those badly kept in
the intervals of Jacob Klein’s drinking.

Mrs. Klein, Jacob’s wife, was almost as far from German thrift and
ideas of cleanliness as her husband, though, if some one else did the
work, she was capable of having things done. And it was the girl known
as Greta Klein that did them, for Greta did not even go to school.
The district was thinly populated, or had been until people began to
build cottages on the farther end of the lake. No one took an interest
in these unattractive people and though it was quite probable that a
school census had been taken and a visitor had called, possibly more
than once, so far as Greta might have known, no one summoned her to
school, no one passed that way to go to school, and Greta had never
seen the quite distant spot where learning was the central idea.

As the speech of the family was German, Greta spoke their poor dialect
of that language, though she had recently found an old German Bible, of
her great-grandmother’s, she supposed, in an ancient trunk which was
in the queer little attic. But aside from this and a few papers, the
trunk was empty, for everything which could possibly be used in the way
of clothing had long since been put into use. But after the Bible was
found, Greta’s German improved.

The house consisted of a one-story cottage, the first building of the
original immigrant, and built solidly by the farmer himself. To this
two-roomed cottage an addition had once been made, with one room on the
first floor, a low room above and a tiny attic. The addition had never
been painted. The paint upon the first cottage had worn off with the
years and the storms until the shabby, dilapidated house looked all of
one piece with its dark, dingy exterior.

Birthdays were never celebrated in the Klein family, but when Greta
once asked her mother when she was born she was told that so far as
her mother remembered it was the fifteenth of June. This Greta did
not forget, though she never mentioned it again. For some reason her
parents did not like her, she was sure. There was a little boy of five
and a little girl of three, for whom her mother seemed to have some
affection, but Jacob Klein paid scant attention to any of them except
to threaten and be as abusive as a man who drinks can be. For Greta
there was only hard work with an effort to avoid her father as far as
possible. In this her mother helped her. More than once she had sent
Greta into the woods with the younger children and taken a severe
beating herself from the quarrelsome Jacob.

“I’m going to go off by myself on my birthday,” Greta promised herself.
She had never done it before, and she was not sure just what would
happen if she did; but she would. Probably the campers would have come
by this time at the cottages and Mrs. Klein would get some washing to
do, or, rather, for Greta to do. But that would not matter. She would
take one day. If she only dared walk into town! But that was a long
way off, and then her clothes were so queer that she was ashamed to be
seen. Once in a great while Jacob Klein would take his wife and the two
younger children in the old wagon, behind the bony horse, and drive to
the village. But since some one had asked why he did not send Greta to
school she had never been taken, and that was as much as three years
before.

Unloved and unloving except for a sort of affection for the two
ill-natured children, Greta was an unhappy child, often puzzled over
many things, odd things that had happened. For the woods and the river
and most of all the lake that shimmered its blue in these early summer
days, Greta had a great love. There clothes did not matter, nor whether
she had enough to eat, and with a feeling that she must be personally
clean, a feeling not shared by the other Kleins, she had gotten into
the habit of slipping out of the house in the summer days, before the
rest had wakened, and of taking a plunge into the often cold water of
the lake. Then, refreshed, she would return, ready for the hard work of
the day, or for the tiresome task of looking after the children.

It was about four o’clock one morning when Greta flew through the woods
on the opposite side of the road past the Klein house. Mrs. Klein had
told her that she must catch some fish before there would be anything
to eat for breakfast. They were out of flour and there would be no more
killing of the few hens they had, whatever Jacob had to say about it.
He could work a little.

Through the trees Greta darted while the birds sang and the life of the
woods stirred about her. She carried a little bundle beside her fishing
pole and when she came to a large willow that hung over the water, she
stopped, stepped among some screening bushes and threw off the dingy
clothes she was wearing, to put on a queer patchwork of a bathing suit
which she had sewed together from pieces. She did not dare to wear any
of the clothes her mother knew about, and as there was an occasional
early fisherman on the lake she must have something in the way of a
water garment.

But it was fun to dive from the long, heavy limb that extended into
the water. It was deep enough for a good dive at this point, and Greta
enjoyed a short swim before she landed a little further down, ran to
the bushes and dressed again. Then she hung her shapeless bathing suit
on a high limb, to dry, and hurried to where an old boat was moored.
In a few minutes she was far from the shore, sending her boat to the
fishing ground where she thought she would have the best and quickest
success.

This took her near a point that ran out into the lake, a low point,
wooded and beautiful with its tall trees and thick bushes. A clatter of
some sort drew her attention from her line after a while. Looking along
the shore, she saw, in a comparatively open space a team of horses,
apparently attached to a wagon, and a large truck backing around. The
clatter, she now saw, had been made by a pile of lumber, thrown from
the truck. More was being put in a different spot.

Greta’s clear eyes needed no field glass to determine that a number of
boys were running about, directing, calling, looking up and down the
shore, and while she looked two of them hugged each other and performed
an impromptu dance of exultation in an open spot. Greta laughed in
spite of her small acquaintance with laughter. Boys, building a shack,
of course for a summer camp! Well, she would have to keep out of sight
more carefully than ever. Greta sighed as she drew in her line and
took from it a fat lake trout. She rowed farther away and cast again,
waiting patiently and thinking of many things. At present her ambition
was to help, either with housework or with children at some of the
summer cottages. But when she had asked her mother if she might, she
had met with a sharp refusal, though the money from such work would
have helped at home.

If she only could earn a little money with all the hard work she had
learned to do! She could have some decent shoes, perhaps and one whole,
respectable dress!

One other fish, and there was enough for a good breakfast. It was six
o’clock when she reached home, to be scolded for being so late. Jacob
Klein was still in a drunken sleep. Mrs. Klein was just getting up and
the children were clamoring for attention. Roughly their mother spoke
to them, telling Greta to do the milking and the feeding outside first,
then to clean the fish and get breakfast.

Greta had friends in the lean cow, whose chief feed was the grass by
the roadside, the hens, a straggling lot, a few baby chicks, and a
couple of gaunt pigs in an ill-smelling sty at the rear of the yard.
Two dogs, shut in the old barn for the night, came leaping out upon
Greta as she opened the door. She was the only one who never kicked or
abused them.

So Greta Klein’s day began, much better than the winter days when there
was a hunt for fuel, chiefly taken from the woods which did not now
belong to them and where good trees would be missed. Fishing could be
done by cutting the ice in the lake, but flour was often low and they
lived on the cheapest of food.

The children had milk for their breakfast. Not until the ill-tempered
man who actually ruled this family stirred and demanded something to
eat did Greta cook the fish, dodging a slap from the great hand, so
ready with a blow, and not daring to take a taste of the fish which
she had caught. A glass of warm milk, taken from the pail before she
brought it in, since objection might be made later, was a satisfying
breakfast to Greta. She welcomed the order to go down the lake to the
cottages, get the clothes from the one family who had the courage to
give their washing to Mrs. Klein, and see what other cottages were
occupied. Greta was to ask for more work.

As the patched clothes Greta wore were neither whole nor clean, Mrs.
Klein brought out Greta’s best dress, a hideous plaid gingham with a
tight waist and a full skirt, poorly gathered on. The only reason for
this was that people would be more likely to send the washing if the
girl asking the work looked fairly clean herself. “This ought to be
washed, Mother,” said Greta, though in German.

“And wear it out!” replied her mother. “Talk your best English to
them and get me two washings if you can. It is a lucky thing that you
learned the English before you were sick.”

That was always a funny thing to Greta, that in some way she had
learned English before she was sick, that sickness that was brain
fever, she was told and made her forget all about when her little
brother had been born and made her speak German so poorly, and yet she
could speak English! She must have gone to school some time, though her
mother would give her no satisfaction about when or where. “You have
had enough schooling,” was all that she would say.

Nothing in the way of English papers or books were ever brought into
the house, yet Greta saw both sometimes at the cottages where she took
back or gathered the clothes. Her eyes devoured them while she waited,
and if she edged near some table she could read a few lines. Once a
woman asked her if she liked to read, and on the girl’s reply that
she did, she handed her one of the newspapers. “We’ve read that. It’s
several days old, for we have to get our papers by mail, but the news
is fairly late.”

Greta was glad to get anything to read, whether the news was late or
old. In the shelter of the willow, before she took out the clothes for
which her mother was waiting, she read almost every word and put the
paper in her hiding place, a hollow tree near by. But a storm came up
that very night. Her hollow tree was felled, the paper blown out and
destroyed! That was a calamity of the preceding summer.

But Greta was beginning to feel that she must rouse herself a little
from the conditions at home. Her father’s drunkenness was growing
unbearable. Always of a cruel disposition, with a feeling that he had a
right to beat his wife or children as freely as he beat his horse, he
was often dangerous, Greta thought. How long her mother would stand it
was a question, yet she seemed to take it as a matter of course, though
doing her share of the quarreling. The German Bible was a help in the
worst of Greta’s troubles. Her great-grandmother must have been a good
woman. But some time she would go away and then try to earn money to
help her mother and the children.

Now Greta Klein was a pretty girl. Had she been dressed as well as
Jean Gordon she might have looked not unlike the impulsive Jean. But
her large, dark brown eyes had a sad look in them and her face was
worn; for while the hard work she had been forced to do had given her a
certain strength, there had been enough of it to amount to over-work,
which is not good for growing girls. Her mother said that she would be
sixteen on her next birthday and that would be on the fifteenth, for
which Greta was having plans.

Again the rowboat made its way out into the lake. Again Greta took a
look at the pile of lumber on the peninsula. Perhaps the boys would
want their clothes washed, but she would not tell her mother about it.
It would be terrible to go there for them.

Greta made her way to the cottage, where an energetic, keen-eyed woman
answered her knocking. “After this please come to the back door, Greta.
I always have the clothes there for you. And I see that I shall have
to have them done every week for the children get so dirty. Please be
careful with the colored clothes. Last week that red handkerchief ran
into Buddy’s blouse and that will never do.”

“I will try to be careful, Mrs. Smith.”

Greta took the large bundle which Mrs. Smith gave her. It was too large
to carry around. Why hadn’t she thought to go to the other houses
first? “Are there any other families where you think Mother could get
washing to do, Mrs. Smith?” she asked.

“Yes. Mrs. Bliss next door wants some one. They came day before
yesterday. If you like you may leave the clothes on the back porch
while you go to see her. I’ll keep an eye on them, of course.”

“Oh, thank you, I’ll hurry.”

“Poor child,” thought Mrs. Smith, “she looks half tired to death all
the time. But I couldn’t have her coming to the front door, and I must
have my clothes done properly!”

Fortunately, the cottages were closely set and along the shore. Two big
bundles Greta lugged along, knowing that her mother would be satisfied
to add another washing, and thinking to herself that it was all she
could do herself, especially if she spent her birthday as she intended.
From her window Mrs. Smith was watching her, again wishing that she had
not spoken so sharply. Then she had a thought.

“Greta! Greta Klein!” she called, just as Greta was arranging the
bundles in the boat. Greta looked up and saw Mrs. Smith waving at her.
“Wait a minute, Greta.”

It was several minutes, while Greta stood at the home-made, funny
little dock that ran out narrowly into the lake. Then Mrs. Smith came
running down to her with a bundle in her hand. “I thought that you
might like some sugar cookies to eat on the way home. I want you to eat
them yourself, remember, and I’m going to ask you if you did!”

Greta smiled and looked surprised.

“And here is a book that I found in the cottage. A young cousin of
mine left it here last summer. If you can’t read it,--though you speak
such good English that I suppose you can,--you will find some pretty
pictures through it. It’s a story of girls about your age.”

“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Smith, very, very much. I can read it and I
haven’t any books of my own! You are so kind!” Greta’s eyes were full
of tears at the unexpected warmth in Mrs. Smith’s tones. She had not
minded much being told to go to the back door. She ought to have
thought of it herself.

A happier girl rowed the boat back. She had a book of her own. She
would read it on her birthday. The only thing that troubled her was how
to keep it from being found and destroyed. She would hide it in the
barn this time, or perhaps she could get it into the attic, where the
Bible was. They let that alone.

The sugar cookies were good and with them was an apple. The fruit on
the Klein place was very limited now. Greta thought of saving it for
her brother, but questions would be asked. She would do what Mrs. Smith
told her to do. The book she could scarcely wait to open. Suppose
something should happen to it before she read it! She was almost
tempted to stop before taking home the clothes; but concealing the
volume as well as she could, she lugged home the bundles from a rude
dock nearer than the one by the willow.

Fortune favored her. Her mother and the children were out in the
pasture. Something was the matter with the horse. It lay on the ground,
she saw, but she flew to the attic with her treasure and tucked it
under the ragged quilt and old comforter that covered the cot where she
slept now. Even in the cold winter she often came here, for she was
afraid of her father when he came home so intoxicated; and sometimes
her mother would bring the smaller children to her there.

She supposed that her father had gone to see if a veterinary surgeon,
the “horse-doctor,” would come, and with such opportunity she
hesitated about leaving the book. But no, her mother would be angry if
she did not start the washing, late as it was. She ran down the stairs
and out into the shed for the tubs, unfortunately colliding slightly
with Jacob Klein when she opened the shed door quickly and stepped out.

Out of sorts about the horse and irritated by the sight of Greta and
her little bump against him, he roared out loudly in German, asking
her what she was doing and why she wasn’t doing her work, enforcing
his words with a blow that sent her stumbling to the other side of
the shed, where she hit her head against the metal tub hanging there
and fell unconscious. The man hesitated, with all his brutality, this
was the first time that Greta had not been able to dodge a blow. He
recalled his wife’s threat, a potent one, but the girl would be up in a
minute. What was he going to do about that horse?

When Greta regained consciousness, she was lying on the old cot in the
front room and some one was leaning over her. It was the horse-doctor!
“There; she’s coming around all right, Mrs. Klein. Tell her to keep
her head tied up if she doesn’t want a scar, and give her some more of
that medicine. I’m glad Jake told me about her before I started with
nothing but medicine for his horse. To tell the truth, Mrs. Klein, I
thought he was more anxious about the nag than about the girl. He said
that his oldest girl ran into a tub and cut her head and fell down in a
faint. How did it happen?”

“I didn’t see it. She slipped and fell, Jake said. He was in the house.
I was watching the horse.” This was all that Mrs. Klein would tell, in
her broken English, and Greta had no desire to tell more, though she
asked, “Will I have to wash to-day?”

“I should say not,” said the old doctor. “Get her to bed.” With this,
the doctor picked up a German paper that had come, as one did every
week to Jacob Klein, and prepared to remain until that child was put to
bed. Such unfeeling parents he never saw.

Greta, meanwhile, thought of the book. She did not want her mother in
the attic. She sat on the edge of the cot, dizzy and sick. But she had
often worked when she felt as much so. “I can get upstairs alone,” she
said, “I feel better now.” And upstairs she went, though slowly, taking
the bottle of medicine and a spoon, with a glass of water which her
mother handed her. To think of it! It was almost worth the blow to be
alone in her attic. She would feel better after a while, and read!

That night there was an unusually loud quarrel in the room below
Greta’s attic. “What did I tell you? You leave Greta alone unless you
want to go to jail. I will tell what I know!” This was the substance of
the German words that Greta Klein heard. What had her father done? Her
mother must care a little for her or she would not want her husband to
leave her alone. No, it was just that Greta could work! So the woman
went on to say. While he was drinking himself to death whenever he
could get anything to drink, Greta could do the work and earn the money
by washing and ironing. Jacob was to let Greta alone. She would manage
her. “She isn’t your child,--you are not her father!” Greta heard, and
sat up in bed to listen.

But after that the voices were lowered, and Greta heard the door of
their bedroom closed tightly. Her own door was ajar. That she rose to
close and latch as the old-fashioned fastening would permit.

If what Mrs. Klein said was true, it explained a good deal. Probably
her mother had been married before. And possibly, possibly, she was
only a step-daughter to Mrs. Klein herself. Greta felt ashamed that she
would be glad if that were true. And oh, how good it was,--not Jacob
Klein’s daughter! Then her name would not be Klein, even. Would she
dare ask her mother about it? Mrs. Klein was quite capable of telling
her that she had misunderstood what was said. Where had Greta gotten
these different ideas of what was square and right to do? All at once
she knew that she was different. But her head ached so. She had not
been able to read the story. She could think better to-morrow.

CHAPTER XI

THOSE “UNINTERESTED” PARENTS

“Girls,” said the president of the seven sibyls impressively, “do
you realize that it is too late for us to make any money to amount
to anything this year? I mean the school year, of course. The Black
Wizards have to make some; Billy told me, and you and I know what for,
or we haven’t had much trouble in making a pretty good guess. One of
the church societies is selling that candy we thought we could get hold
of. Our fudge goes off like hot cakes when we make any, but school is
nearly out and I’m proud to think that every one of the S. P.’s gets
out of finals, and that in spite of our new club and all our doings!”

“We had our scholarship up all the year before,” remarked Phoebe.

“Phoebe is nothing, if not frank,” laughed Bess.

“Traitoress!” hissed Fran, in such good imitation of a reading
which they had recently heard at school that they all applauded but
Phoebe, who declared that she thought the truth might just as well be
acknowledged. “I couldn’t have brought up any low grades while we were
doing all the extra things and taking the early hikes and all.”

“No, neither could I, Phoebe, you’re right,” said Jean. “All of which
goes to prove----”

“‘That music is both elevating and refining’.”

“Stop your nonsense, Phoebe! I’m trying to get something across.”

“Oh. Sorry, Madame President. The subject was making money, I remember.”

“Exactly. The time has come to call on our worthy parents with the
request that they will advance the money for a tent and let us go
camping as soon as school is out. We have enough money in the treasury
for the books we positively have to have or think we have to have, as
my father says, so that’s all right, and we can have a real campaign in
the fall. Nan’s father says that we ought to start one for a real good
school library, since we are interested in books. He thinks that we
could get some good gifts from the people around town and that perhaps
we could stir the school board up to do something, maybe get the people
to vote them more money for it, though taxes are bad enough as it is,
he says.”

“My father says that he will take it up in the paper, too, girls,” Nan
added, “and the few copies of the school paper that we’ve been getting
out with the boys have gone all over town. I’ve heard all sorts of
things about the S. P.’s and Molly’s and Phoebe’s drawings. They think
we’re ‘real cute’ so far! But let’s show everybody we can be more than
funny.”

“Hear, hear!”

The girls were not in their club room for this called meeting. In spite
of windows and cross draughts, the fact remained that the attic was
directly under the roof. June suns often made it quite warm. It was
time to think of camping. Just now they were all in Jean’s big swing,
three on a seat, Jean standing between them.

“Molly, tell the girls what Grace wrote.”

Molly drew a folded paper from her notebook. “This is a sheet from
Grace’s letter,” said she. “She wrote to all of us, and this is what
she said to me: ‘Molly, I just can’t write you a separate letter, have
scarcely a minute free with all the last doings. I shall be a wreck,
but if you promise that you really will keep things going at first
yourselves, I’ll only be too glad to spend a few weeks in the woods or
on the water. I told Mother that last week and I’m surprised that you
wrote me about it. Perhaps she forgot to tell you.’ That’s all about
that.”

“Why, how funny!” cried Phoebe. “It’s wonderful that Grace will do it,
but why did your mother ask her? Did you tell her how much we wanted to
go camping?”

“Only what we agreed, that we would talk about girls’ camps and how
much fun it must be, and send for catalogues about tents, and talk
about raising money.” Molly laughed herself at the array of hints which
almost any discerning parent might take.

“Bless you, Molly, you’re the most transparent little dear in the
world. You probably talked in your sleep, too.”

“I do sometimes,” Molly acknowledged. But for once the S. P.’s were
not right. Parents sometimes make plans for their children and wiser
ones than those same children often make. Seven fathers were having
a glorious time in planning a little surprise, to say nothing of as
many mothers, who were using the telephone or calling on each other
occasionally while the girls were in school. It was a generous little
plot against the S. P.’s, and for their benefit.

“I asked Mother about it and she said that she _had_ written to Grace
about it, since we all were talking about what fun it would be to camp.
She thought it could be managed, if not right away, probably soon after
Grace’s Commencement is over. She and Father are going on to it, you
know.”

“Then all we’ll have to do is to get everybody else’s permission, and
I’m pretty sure if Grace is with us, and we don’t go too far away,
they’ll let us.” Jean’s voice had a happy lilt.

“Wait, Jean,” said Molly. “Mother told me that Grace had already
written to her about it, but that she thought it too soon to make it
definite and there were other reasons why she had not said anything.
Grace said that one of the senior girls had been a junior councilor at
an eastern camp for girls, that another had a troop of girl scouts in
her home town and still another knew all about the camp fire girls. So
Grace will know a lot of things for us to do. I wish Grace was going to
be at home next year!”

“Is she going to teach or something?”

“Worse. She’s going to be married.”

The Black Wizards were behaving in a most mysterious fashion in these
days. The girls were quite sure that they had not seen them that day
upon the river road, or they would have suspected that their secret was
known or surmised.

After school they would disappear with great suddenness. On street
corners or in the school grounds they held secret confabs when they
met. Sometimes a machine would be waiting for them after school. As
boys do, they would pile into it and drive off with more than the usual
air of a good time. Indeed, they made an effort to repress their usual
high spirits and noise, a thing which in itself would have called
attention to them. The girls saw no more lumber going out of town, but
that was because the early and late hikes had stopped, or possibly
because the lumber had all been delivered. It would have been fun to
find out where they were building, but the girls were too busy with
other things. It was not directly on any of the main roads, at least,
where they drove with their parents at odd times. Miss Haynes had
announced her plans early enough for them not to count upon her, but
they were quite content to rest their hopes on Grace French, who was so
attractive, and engaged!

With much glee the girls made fudge that evening of the called meeting,
one batch after another, more than one kettle on at a time, each in
charge of a separate S. P., since too many cooks do often “spoil the
broth.”

“After saying that we’ll have to give up making money, here Jean puts
us at making candy to sell to-morrow!” whimsically Phoebe complained.

“We need just a little more for that set of nature books,” said Jean.
“Besides, what cruelty not to supply those Black Wizard carpenters with
something to eat while they work! Do you realize that to-morrow is the
last day for us, except when we go to get our grades? Now, Molly, you
can start the hard molasses taffy. We’ve got enough fudge, after we
get that last beaten. Leigh, did you bring that oiled paper? And oh,
Nan, did you put down how much we paid for the sugar? Mother gave us
the cream. While the last cools, we’ve got to make the little S. P.
cornucopias, if we stay up half the night to do it! Don’t you think
that we could charge ten cents for them instead of five?”

“Poor Wizards!” cried Molly.

“It’s not just the Wizards we sell to. Well, all right, but don’t fill
them as full as you did last time. Our candy is just as good as what
you buy in a box, and we give more for the money now than they do at
the church sales. Billy said so.”

“Jean’s getting stingy,” giggled Bess. “But if ‘Billy said so,’ it must
be all right.”

Jean, already flushed with the cooking and the warm evening grew a
little rosier. Billy had managed to see a good deal of her lately,
whenever Wizard affairs permitted it. But there wasn’t anything “silly”
about it. Probably she’d better not quote Billy any more.

After the noon meal the next day, the girls took their candy to school.
Half of it they sold at once. The rest they had for sale after school,
outside of the school grounds. Six of the Wizards were climbing into a
Ford sedan when Molly and Jean ran with a school bag full of the little
packages. “Don’t you want something to eat on your ride?” asked Molly
of Jimmy Standish.

“I believe I do,” grinned Jimmy, feeling in his pocket. “I just bought
some at noon, but I need nourishment already.”

“I need all my nickels,” said Billy Baxter, “but as you said at noon,
Jean, that this is the last chance, I’ll indulge, too. Give me two,
if you please, one fudge, the other that good hard stuff that lasts
longer.”

“Molly’s going to find out how to make the kind you eat off of sticks,
Billy,” said Jean, as she picked out two of the fattest looking
cornucopias she could find and handed them to him.

“That cornucopia shape is the most deceiving thing, Jean,” said Jimmy.
“It’s on the same style of having the best on top. You think you still
have a lot, and there’s only one measley piece left.”

“Measley, Jimmy?” asked Jean, as Jimmy put a piece of fudge in his
mouth.

“I’ll take that back, Jean. It’s good, and you’re the little girls
that can get money out of a customer! So long.”

It was great to have the freedom instead of taking the examinations.
Their parents congratulated them and expressed pride that they had made
high grades, but the girls were surprised at the lack of interest they
showed when the subject of camping was definitely put before them.

“Why, I can’t get Father and Mother interested at all,” Jean
complained. “I don’t know what’s gotten into them! They haven’t any
great objections, as I thought they might have, but I can’t get them to
do anything.”

“Same thing at our house,” said Leigh Dudley. “I thought that Mother,
at least, would be interested, but she asked if I thought Grace were
old enough to take care of us, and where we thought we’d like to camp,
and said that she would think about it; but when I asked her if we
could pick out the sort of tent we wanted, she said, ‘Well, it wouldn’t
do any harm,’ even if we didn’t go!”

“We ought to have begun to talk it up earlier,” Fran declared. “But all
is not lost. We’ll just have to keep it before them, in a very nice
way, of course. Teasing is N. G. at our house.”

“Also at ours,” said Nan.

“Especially tell them how safe it will be near home and how much better
off we are than girls who have to go a long way off from home, pay a
big railroad fare and aren’t familiar with the country as we are here,
to know about snakes and things.”

“Better not mention snakes!”

“This sounds awful, girls, as if we were in the habit of ‘working’ our
folks!” Thus Jean.

“It isn’t ‘working’ them, Jean,” said Fran, “but you do have to use
some _tact_ to get the grown-ups interested. And we do want to go, and
we think it will be all right. Now if we can only get them to thinking
so, too!”

“All right, Fran.”

It may be imagined, however, how embarrassing all this was to parents
who were planning not only to let the girls go, but to have supplies
ready by a certain time and break the news in the way of a surprise.

A few ideas of the girls, however, were able to fit in nicely toward
the common goal, as when no objection was made to “hiking suits.”
Middies and bloomers became popular for the summer outfit. The mothers
had wondered how the matter of clothes was to be handled, if the girls
were to be ready. Fathers soberly commented on how sensible girls
were getting in their choice of clothes, and the girls, accustomed to
teasing remarks, thought nothing of it.

Meanwhile preparations went merrily on. “It is scarcely more expensive
than sending our girls on some trip,” said Mr. Standish one early June
evening, as he drove with Mr. French, coming into town along the river
road. “I think that they will be enthusiastic over it, though you can
not always tell about young folks.”

“I can not imagine their not being happy over it, Standish.”

CHAPTER XII

THE “GRAND” SURPRISE

No one felt like working while waiting for the final day of receiving
grade cards. Senior affairs and Jimmy’s graduation concerned Nan and
the Standish household, though Jimmy seemed to have little concern
about it. But then, Jimmy wasn’t a girl, with gowns and slippers and
other things to think about.

S. P. affairs had a lull the first of the last week of school, till
Judge Gordon asked Jean at breakfast Wednesday morning if the club
really had a name, and Jean told him that it had too many already, but
the Stealthy Prowlers was the only one that was appropriate to their
outdoor purposes. “The trouble is that we decided on the initials
first.”

The judge gave Jean a comical look. “No doubt you had a good reason,”
he said. “Perhaps if you had a respectable motto it would help. I can’t
say that I admire your name.”

“I don’t either, Daddy. What could we have for a motto?”

The judge went into the other room and got out his Latin lexicon from
the book-cases there. Jean did not disturb him while he turned the
pages and scribbled a little on the back of an envelope.

“Here is one that you might have,” he said at last, turning over the
envelope and writing the words in a large hand.

“If you must ‘prowl,’ you might say, ‘_Pro bono, non malo,
circumcursamus_.’ It means ‘we prowl, or run around for good and not
for evil.’

“Or here is another Latin sentence that might do. Of course, I’m making
them up. It isn’t from the classics. ‘_Bonum non malum insequimur_’
sounds still better, but only means ‘we follow good, not evil.’ How do
you like these?”

“Fine. We need some mottos for our club room anyhow.”

“Why not ‘_Sans peur_’?” suggested Mrs. Gordon, who had followed her
husband and daughter into the living room.

“Oh, Mother!” cried Jean. “Why didn’t I think of that before? Here
we’ve been studying French and everything! It begins with S. P., you
know.”

“Sure enough,” smiled Judge Gordon, who did not mind in the least that
Jean showed more enthusiasm over her mother’s suggestion than his own.
“Why don’t you make that the name of your club as well?”

“The girls will like it,” said Jean, sitting down in a chair with a
beatific expression. “And the boys will be surprised. Since the party
they’ve been calling us the Sibyl Prophetesses or Priestesses, and
Billy said, ‘Come now Jean, isn’t “sibyl” a part of it’?”

“_Sans peur_ will be a fine motto for you wild hikers,” concluded Judge
Gordon, rising and patting the young shoulder as he passed Jean to
leave the room for the hall. “I must go to the office. Better call a
meeting, Jean, and change Stealthy Prowlers to something better.”

“The boys said that the ‘Seven Sibyls’ would be better, with S. S. for
our initials, but I told them that we expected to be more than seven
members after a while.”

“I’d suggest ‘_sans souci_,’ ‘without a care,’ then, for those
initials,” said Mrs. Gordon. The judge was out of the house by this
time.

“We have to stay S. P., Mother, for a very good reason,” said Jean,
thinking of Billy and her first committing of the girls to a club,
“but the sibyl part is only for initiations and things like that. Each
sibyl has charge of a department, and it is a very good scheme. But you
mustn’t tell anything I tell you.”

“Never,” promised Mrs. Gordon.

Some of the girls were not so much in favor of making the motto the
name of the club, but they were agreed that even if _sans peur_
remained only the motto, it gave the excuse for calling themselves the
S. P. Club. “I move,” said Phoebe, “that we decide on our pin and have
it an American eagle, because we have so many around our lakes, and
then have a little pennant or banner or some little place in the pin
with ‘_Sans Peur_’ on it.”

“The eagle will stand for our bird hunting, too,” said Bess.

“It is a good motto, too,” said Molly, “if we are off camping. We can
add it all if we want to, ‘_Sans peur et sans reproche_.’ Not to be
afraid and not to do anything to bring reproach isn’t so bad for us to
remember. Girls, Mother said to-day that she thought it pretty sure,
maybe she said sure, that everybody will let us go!”

Thursday came, with its graduation exercises. Friday saw the girls
going after their reports. There seemed to be some repressed excitement
among the Black Wizards, though everything was so irregular anyway that
it was not particularly noticeable.

“I hope you girls have a good time to-morrow,” said Billy with a grin
at Jean, as he left the schoolgrounds with Danny Pierce.

“We’re not going on a hike or anything, Billy,” replied Jean, but Billy
just nodded and went on.

“Billy looked so funny when he said that,” said Jean to Molly. “Do you
suppose he meant anything was going to happen? What could the boys do?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. The boys are going to entertain us when they
get their camp finished, I’m sure. But they would send us invitations,
I should think.”

“Of course they would,” said Nan, “though, knowing Jimmy, I will say
that they can do some very unexpected things.”

“And Jimmy would say the same thing about girls, Nan.”

“Yes, he would. Oh, Jean, I wish we could afford to get our pins now,
don’t you? But the books come first, and we’ll need all we can raise
for the camping equipment, though we can count on help for that.”

“Never mind, Nan; we might lose our pins camping, and we may change our
minds again, and there wouldn’t be any chance to show them to anybody
till school begins!”

The girls laughed over Jean’s conclusions and agreed that they had
some point. The groups of boys and girls separated for the most part.
The next move was taking home the reports, some to praise, some to
disappointment, as it always happens. But the Black Wizards and the S.
P.’s had some pride of scholarship.

Saturday morning dawned as a beautiful June day can, clear, bright,
fragrant with flowers, musical with bird songs and fairly cool with a
fresh breeze from the lakes. “I wish we had planned to do something
to-day,” said Jean to her father. “We were so lazy yesterday, after
Commencement.”

“Drive out into the country with me,” said the judge. “I’m leaving
about nine o’clock. Your mother’s going with me. Like to take any of
the girls along?”

“Oh, yes, of course. But we can only get five in the back part, three
on the back seat.”

The judge laughed. “You are a great girl. You want the whole seven, I
suppose. Why don’t you call up Leigh and ask her if her folks can’t
come along? We might make a picnic of it. I’m going to look at a piece
of land and I wouldn’t mind having Dudley along.”

“But doesn’t he have to be at the bank?”

“Don’t I have to be at my office? Presidents of banks, my dear, aren’t
really as necessary to the daily job as cashiers and a few others.”

“How lucky for them. Why, do I dare suggest anything like a picnic to
the Dudleys? And is Mother willing?”

“Ask her.”

“I will put up a lunch if Mrs. Dudley will,” said Mrs. Gordon with an
expression of amusement that Jean did not understand at the time. In a
moment Jean was at the telephone.

“Why, isn’t that luck for you, Leigh!” Jean was heard exclaiming. “Has
just asked you if you wouldn’t like a ride into the country? Well,
anybody would on a day like this. Whom do you want to take? Phoebe, I
suppose? All right. I’ll get Nan and Molly, then, if you want to take
the rest.” Jean flew out of the open front door without stopping to
explain, for she knew that her parents could overhear what she said to
Leigh.

Mrs. Gordon was at the telephone herself as soon as Jean had gone. She
sent several messages rapidly, but was in the kitchen packing a large
basket when Jean returned. “My, you’re taking a lot of things!” Jean
exclaimed.

“With the Dudleys, my dear, I want to have something to offer, you see.
It is a good thing I did my baking yesterday.”

“Why, so you did. When did you ever do that before? I’m glad now that
you wouldn’t cut that cake for supper. And I don’t suppose the girls
will have a chance to bring much. I told Nan and Molly that I’d take
enough for them. Was that all right?”

“Perfectly. Make a few more cheese sandwiches, Jean, and we’ll soon be
ready. I think I’ll put in those cookies, too. We can buy something
for Sunday if we’re all eaten out of baked things.” Mrs. Gordon said
nothing about the fat meat loaf in the bottom of the basket or the
chicken which she had fried while Jean was at Nan’s Friday afternoon.
She looked like a little older edition of Jean as she hurried around
with flushed cheeks.

Presently they were all out upon the pretty river road, the Dudley
car overtaking them. The girls leaned out to call to each other, as
the machines drew abreast for a short distance. “I think we’ll go on
to what the youngsters call Baldy for our lunch, Dudley. What do you
think?” asked Judge Gordon.

“You could not find a better place,” Mr. Dudley replied. “Take the
lead. I’ll follow.”

So the two gentlemen were not looking up the “piece of land” at once.
The girls were quite satisfied, but wished that they had thought to
bring their bathing suits. They crossed the river by the big bridge,
took a roundabout route by fairly good roads through the beautiful,
undulating country with its frequent pools and tiny lakes. Stretches of
woodland or pastures and fields were equally attractive, but at length
they came to the thick woods where a road ran in for a little way, then
changed from lane to footpath.

“Isn’t this the grandest woods?” asked Jean, whose favorite adjective
was “grand.” The other girls agreed that it was and that it was a shame
they could not come more often to this lake. Yet it was too far for
an ordinary hike and the machines of the parents were not available,
as a rule. These facts were mentioned, and the girls did not notice a
lad who viewed the party from a woodsy distance and then noiselessly
slipped away to give the word.

The two fathers carried the two large baskets, while the two mothers
and girls brought the light blankets used in the cars in cool weather.
These would do to spread upon the ground. Various small articles which
had not found room in the basket were distributed. “My, but we’re going
to have a big lunch!” cried Nan. “It’s a regular S. P. picnic. I wish
my mother and father could ever get away for one. Poor Dad! Always at
the office!”

The girls ran on ahead, as girls do. The mothers and fathers exchanged
glances. “It worked out better than I was afraid it would,” said Mrs.
Gordon. “Jean doesn’t suspect a thing.”

“I’m relieved that the secrecy is over, though,” said Mrs. Dudley with
a smile. “Now we’ll see how they like it. I hope everybody is here. You
took us for a fine ride around, Judge Gordon.”

“I tried to give everybody time enough, Mrs. Dudley.” The judge looked
at his watch. “Just eleven. They’ll be here. I suppose that the boys
have been having their scouts out to watch us and report. Jimmy
Standish was the only one who had to wait, on Nan’s account, and drive
his father and mother.”

It took probably ten minutes of walking through the woods by the pretty
trail before they came to the sloping shores of the lake that stretched
its shining ripples so invitingly before them. “Why, Mother!” exclaimed
Jean, looking to the left toward a cleared space, “Someone has been
building a summer cottage! Oh, it must be the Black Wizards!” For Judge
Gordon gave a little whistle and from behind the house the boys came
running, Jimmy and Billy in the lead.

“How do you like the house, Jean?” asked Billy, all grins.

“Grand! What a beautiful surprise! It will beat our Attic Party to
smithereens! Why, this is wonderful of you, to get up a surprise
picnic like this. Oh, it’s a cute little cottage. I hope you will take
us inside of it.”

“We certainly will.”

The other boys were in similar conversation with the other S.
P.’s--but here came other folks around the house. The various fathers
and mothers! The S. P.’s gasped. The boys had not left them out in
celebrating the finishing of their summer camp! All the S. P. parents,
all the Black Wizard parents, so far as they could tell in a hasty
glance at the group, were there.

But Judge Gordon was coming to the front and raising his hand. “I think
that some explanation is due these surprised girls of ours. They ought
to know that their energy and that of our boys has made some of us
parents realize what should be done to help them. Among other things
we have seen that the outdoor movements are a good thing, properly
managed, and we decided to help a little there.

“Then it happens that both boys and girls have been talking about
books, and it made us see that there was not even a proper school
library of reference books to say nothing of a library in the town
where they could gather for reading. Your little nature library, girls,
and the boys’ few books on adventure and history have started more than
you knew. Some of us fathers got together the other day. We are all of
us, boys and girls and older boys and girls, going to start raising
money together next fall, or even before, for a public library; and
probably we shall not stop there, with our progressive town paper to
back us.” The judge waved his hand at Mr. Standish as he said this.

“And whether S. P. refers to sugar plums, sweet peas, seraphic peris
or a sane purpose and secure partnership, we give them the credit for
calling our attention to the needs of our little city. They have shown
us _Stirring Possibilities_ and have already assured us some _Social
Progress_! I understand that they are intending to enlarge their club
with that purpose. Jean, can you tell us what your club stands for?”

Jean, absolutely surprised, thought for a moment that she could not say
a word. It was dreadful of her father to ask her to make a speech. But
while she hesitated, led out from the midst of the girls by Nan, her
father said, “No speech, Jean; but you are the president, I believe.”

“Yes, sir. Why,--some of us a good while ago had been wishing that we
knew more about what other girls were doing and something suddenly
decided us to have a club. That was all. Then, of course, having
started it, we kept on and Miss Haynes helped us find out about a great
many things, and we decided to raise money for a library. First it was
just our own and then we wondered if we couldn’t do something about a
school library. But it is wonderful that all of you are thinking about
a town library and all I can say for us girls is that we will help all
we can, and make fudge by the--quart, and everything! And thank you for
the surprise of this picnic.” Jean’s usually quick mind could think of
nothing more to say and she stepped back in some confusion.

“Just a moment, girls, now that you are getting used to surprises,”
said the judge. “I believe that I will ask the editor to tell you whose
summer cottage this is,--Mr. Standish.”

Jean gasped again. Now she knew. This was not the Black Wizard shack.
The tall judge stepped back and the wiry, slight, editor, Nan’s
father, stepped forward from a group. “This should all be very
informal,” said he, “as it is a picnic occasion. It seems to fall to me
to announce to our girls that the S. P. Club owns this little cottage
and that it is a gift from the S. P. fathers and mothers, who have
fitted it up very simply. The boys helped build it and I assure you
that we all had a time of it to keep it a secret, but I believe that
it was done. We hope that it will be a happy surprise to you and that
you may have a very good time of it this summer. The boys want me to
announce to you that they, too, have a camp about a mile around the
lake from here and that after you have looked at your new house, the
picnic will be held there.”

As Mr. Standish closed, Jean looked at her father, who nodded
encouragingly. She felt stunned as well as happy to know that this
summer camp was theirs, but her mind had been working this time. “Oh,”
she began impulsively, “you know how we must feel, Mr. Standish, more
like crying for joy! I couldn’t say anything if I weren’t the president
and have to. We’ll all be thanking our fathers and mothers separately,
and every one of the boys for helping do this. So all I’m saying now
is just thank you, everybody!”

Jean turned to her mother and put her head on that comfortable shoulder
for a minute, but a sudden thought made her swallow the lump in her
throat and she turned to Nan and the rest of the astonished, ecstatic
girls. “Oh, say, girls, let me whisper something to you,” and she
whispered to Nan, who nodded and passed the word on to the nearest
girl, while Jean told someone else. That message no one but the S. P.’s
were ever to know. “Let’s never tell the boys that we knew they were
building,” said Jean. It was not much, to be sure, but no unpleasant
note of rivalry could ever be struck between the S. P.’s and the Black
Wizards!

The commotion now began. The girls were beckoned into the little house
that was theirs by the parents, who wanted to see how they liked it.
The boys scattered, some of them taking the baskets and wraps brought
by the Dudleys and Gordons. These were carried to the other camp by
boat, for a little fleet of row-boats, canoes and one small motor boat
was waiting to take the picnickers to where the other “opening” was to
be celebrated.

“Daddy, I forgot to tell them about our motto. And you thought up the
best name yet for us, a Social Progress Club.”

“That daughter, was on the spur of the moment. Was it too much to give
you such a big surprise with no warning?”

“Oh, it is just too wonderful. I can’t tell you how happy I am, and I
know the other girls feel the same way. Just look at them!”

The summer cottage stood facing the path and lane in a measure, but
with its back to the lake. It was explained that the road was to be
widened, to permit of driving to the house with supplies and that it
seemed better to have the front face in that direction. “But your
screened sleeping porch is toward the lake,” one of the fathers showed
them, “and your main room out upon the water.”

Neat, trim, painted white, with golden brown storm shutters, and
made of boards closely set, the little house justified the girls’
exclamations. It was not plastered inside, but it was tight and snug
against ordinary winds. One immense room with a pantry and a large
closet opening at one side, and the long sleeping porch across the
back, constituted the interior. “That big closet, girls, could be
made into a bathroom,” said Mrs. Dudley, “if a water system could be
arranged some time. But you will be glad of all the hooks in there,
now, and a place for your luggage. Be careful of that coal-oil stove,
and the big range will keep you warm in a cold spell. There is money
for a little set of dishes and some kitchenware, and we thought that it
would be more fun for you to buy it yourselves and fix up the place. Do
you like the color the boys painted the floor?”

The girls liked everything; what fun it was going to be, to buy things
for their summer cottage.

“Notice,” said one mother, “that there are keys and also bolts on all
the doors. We feel much safer to have you in a house like this. With
Grace here and the boys only a mile away, you ought to be safe. Jimmy
said something about rigging up a telephone, and I hope they do it.”

“To think that our fathers, as well as the boys, drove some of the
nails in this!” rather sentimentally said Leigh. “I’d like to stay
right out here to-night!”

“You would find it rather inconvenient, Leigh,” laughed her mother.
“We did not like to buy blankets and things and leave them here. There
is time enough.”

So there was. After lingering looks all around, the girls were willing
to leave in the boats for the other camp, where they were shown all
over the little peninsula which the boys had chosen as a site. The
boys’ “Shack,” as they called it was not as smooth as the girls’ and as
yet unpainted, but it was well built, for they had had the assistance
of carpenters on this as on the other. The main room was more open and
the boys would sleep in bunks. “Got lots of windows, you see, and if it
rains in, it can’t hurt our floor.”

“Lookout for what you call your port holes, Billy,” said Nan, to Billy,
who had made this remark. “You want to keep the rain from your bunks at
least.”

The picnic was held outdoors, on a slope which overlooked the lake.
There were not so many Black Wizard parents as the girls had at first
supposed, but most of the sisters had come, and the S. P.’s decided
to invite some of them to visit their camp during the weeks there, if
Grace were willing. It would be such a shame to keep all that fun to
themselves. “We could have them all, in relays, couldn’t we, Jean?”
asked Nan.

“We certainly could, and several are the right age to join the S. P.’s.
Daddy just told me that he and Mr. Standish and Mr. Dudley and Mr.
Baxter have bought up a lot of the land around this end of the lake, to
make it safe and keep it wild for us, and to put up a few more little
shacks if we want any more campers. I’m so stunned over it that I don’t
know who I am!”

The girls, in spite of their dazed condition which they claimed, threw
themselves into the boys’ celebration heartily and raved as girls are
supposed to do over the location and plans. Nor did they forget to be
sincere in their thanks for the Wizards’ part in the great surprise.
“It was perfectly grand!” cried Jean, with a sandwich in one hand and a
chicken wing in the other.

CHAPTER XIII

THE S. P.’S DISCOVER GRETA

Greta wakened to the sound of rain, beating upon the old roof and
leaking into her attic. The first drops beat a tattoo within the old
tin pan that she kept under the worst leak. What had happened? Oh,
yes. She remembered, though her head had stopped aching. It was sore,
though, under the bandage. She heard the children downstairs only
faintly. Why, they must be up and about, all of the family,--and no one
had called her. What Greta did not know was that the “horse-doctor” had
warned Mrs. Klein in no uncertain words that Greta had had a dangerous
fall and must be allowed to rest for fear of serious consequences. “And
you know that it might be looked into, how she got it,” he had said,
for he thought that he noted suspicious anxiety on her part. Jacob
Klein’s character was not unknown in these parts.

With her foot Greta felt that her precious book was safely there. She
wondered if she could think of a better place. How soon would she be
called? It was so cloudy that she had no way of knowing what time it
was. The old clock downstairs did not strike and half the time it did
not even go.

After a little she heard her mother telling the children to go back and
coming, lumbering, up the attic stairs. Greta’s big eyes were fixed on
her as she came into the low room, complaining in voluble German that
it had to be a rainy day and that the doctor had said Greta could not
work. She would have the washings to start herself. A cup of coffee and
a piece of bread, broken from a loaf, were put down on a chair by the
bed.

Greta expected to be ordered up then, but no, her mother turned to go,
telling her to do what the doctor said about the medicine. “He hit
you?” she asked, and Greta answered that “he” had.

Greta could scarcely believe her good fortune. She was not even to
take care of the children, poor little things, kept in by the rain.
As soon as her mother had gone downstairs, Greta sat up and unpinned
the bandage on her head. She was a little dizzy, but she poured some
water from her old pitcher into the tin basin which was her lavatory
and bathed the cut. She anointed it and tied up her head again, as the
doctor had directed, taking a tablet, too, to swallow down with the
black coffee. A whole day to herself! A book to read.

Something was queer. Oh, yes, what they had said. She was not Jacob
Klein’s daughter. How had she learned to speak English as well as the
summer cottagers did, and better than some of them? Why had her German
been “forgotten,” as they had said, when she was so sick with brain
fever? She tried to remember those first days, four years before, when
she found herself getting strong enough to sit up and then to walk.
Mrs. Klein had been kinder then. “Why, I can, too, remember,” she said
to herself, as a scene rose before her of herself in a dark woods,
frightened and running. Then someone picked her up. Oh, it was coming
back! But she grew dizzy again as she sat up in her desire to remember
and the excitement of it. She would not think till she was better.

Of course it had always seemed funny that she knew English; but Mrs.
Klein had always told her that she went to school with English
children. “Maybe you would ferget one t’ing, maybe another,” Jacob
Klein had said to a frightened little girl. “Dis time it vas German dot
you fergot, und don’t ferget vat ve tells you some more!” Greta could
remember the threatening look and the ugly tone with which he had bent
over her bed and said this.

For another half hour Greta rested and tried not to think at all.
Then she drank the rest of the cold coffee and ate the bread, at last
reaching down under the old quilt for her precious book, in which she
was absorbed immediately.

The book wore a bright cover with pictures of girls about her own age,
but how different they appeared! There were pretty, stylish dresses,
happy faces, and yet some of the pictures found them in a woods like
hers. At first they were in a boarding school and what good times they
had in between lessons. There was one that she liked especially, but
she loved them all. And she had seen things like that. Why, of _course_
she had been to school.

Greta read the book through and began to read it again, though she had
hastily thrust it under the covers when she heard her mother coming
upstairs again. A glass of milk and a hard-boiled egg with a spoonful
of mush made a marvelous meal, for Greta was hungry by the middle of
the afternoon; and her mother explained that as the doctor had said she
was not to eat much, two meals were enough and this was the last. Karl
had almost scalded himself from a kettle on the stove and Minna had
bluing all over her. Greta was to get up early the next morning to do
another washing and to iron. With this cross ultimatum, Mrs. Klein left
the room.

Before night Greta rose, bathed a little to refresh her tired body and
lit a short candle which she kept on her small stand. She read by this
light until she heard the family coming up to bed. Then she blew out
her candle and crept into her bed with her book, happier than she had
been for many a long day. And a little prayer in English came to her
that night.

“Was it being frightened by a storm in the woods that made me sick that
time?” she asked her mother the next day, interested to see Mrs. Klein
look up quickly, as if a little startled.

“Nein, Nein!” she exclaimed, but she told Greta to stop thinking about
that time. She might get sick again. Greta said nothing more, but she
noticed that her mother looked at her from time to time with a frown.
There was _something_ about that time and about those earlier years
of Greta’s that she must know, Greta thought, and she _would_ know!
Another thing. She would not stay in the same room with the man that
she had always thought her father when he was in those ugly moods. No
more waiting on him and dodging his ready hand. Still, if she stayed
in his house,--and it had belonged to his father and grandfather,--how
could she manage it? It did look like a hopeless future until she could
in some way free herself of the family life, and work away from home.
Her mind was busy as she worked.

Life went on as usual, except that Jacob Klein was drinking less
and was working on his little farm, all that was left of his larger
inheritance. They sold eggs and some vegetables from the garden and
even the milk from the one cow to the few families in the cottages. But
when Greta was out in the boat, fishing occasionally, she noticed that
there was more building in different places around the lake. That any
of those cottages would mean anything to her, she had no idea other
than that they might make more work for her to do. There were two more
along the lake where she docked her rowboat to collect and deliver the
clothes. The Wizard shack she could see from the lake; but that of the
girls she had not noticed at all, for her fishing ground was not in
that direction as a rule and a turn in the shore concealed with the
foliage of many trees the little bay on which the new cottage stood.

The fifteenth of June came. Greta had kept her promise firm in regard
to that date. She was doing the larger part of the work as she had
since she was at all able to do it. It would do no harm to run away
from it all for one day. She was sorry for her mother, but it was
becoming a question in her mind whether a real mother could put such
heavy work on a young girl that was her own child. If her leaving for a
day made trouble, she would walk to the village and ask for work. That
was settled.

As she was supposed to get up earlier than the rest, it made little
difference whether the attic boards creaked under her light footsteps
or not. She went quietly down the stairs and heated coffee for her
breakfast. The feeding she did first, though she did not let the dogs
out to follow her. They would go with Jacob Klein, who had said that
he was going to the village. She hesitated about milking the cow, but
finally did so, for fear that the family would sleep too late or it
would not be done at all.

Then away she sped, fleet-footed, feeling that if anyone called her
back it would be a calamity that she could not bear. Her book was under
her arm. The sagging pockets of her old black sweater carried bread and
cheese. But she did not take her usual dive and swim. It was too near
home. Someone might waken and come to find her. On and on she went,
into a part of the woods that she scarcely ever had visited. Sometimes
she went down to the shore, but not till she was far enough away to
prevent her being seen from the shore near home. Squirrels scolded a
little. Nesting birds fluttered past, or sang. She found the nest of a
wood thrush, with its usual bit of cloth interwoven. It was in plain
sight, in the crotch of a tree, with the mother bird upon it. Her mate
sat on the branch of a neighboring tree and sang his “Come to me,”
with variations. Over the lake a great bald eagle flew with a fish.
Swallows skimmed the water. Greta felt as free as the birds, and since
that blow of Jacob Klein’s she had no sense of neglected duty.

Rounding the curve of the east shore, she caught her first glimpse of
the cottage built for the S. P.’s. At first she stepped back behind the
trees and bushes for fear of being seen. Then she saw that there was no
one about. Gradually she drew nearer. She climbed the gentle ascent,
cautiously approached, looked into the windows and went all around the
house. What a pretty, new cottage it was, with its brown and yellowish
trimmings, its golden-brown floor inside and neat, light cots. No one
was living there yet, that was certain, for there was nothing on the
table and the cots were bare. How clean it all was!

Greta sat down on the front step to rest and look about, but she had
been there only a few minutes when she heard voices. Some one was
coming! She flew across the cleared space, where a few evidences of
sawdust and chips remained. To conceal herself from view was easy
enough in the clump of trees and young growths near at hand. Girls,
laughing and talking! And a few boys with them!

“Go easy on that suitcase, Billy. That’s got our ducky breakfast set in
it. Dishes, Billy, the sweetest set, yellow and white, with daisies.
That’s our company set. Our common dishes are in those other baskets.
Here, Jimmy, let me help you with that one.”

She was pretty, that first one with the sparkling brown eyes. Then here
came an older girl, tall, fair and rather pale. “Don’t worry about me,
Fran,” she was saying to a girl as tall behind her, “I’m only tired
with too much going on. I’m perfectly able to carry these blankets.”

Greta counted. There were eight girls, and three boys, all with
blankets across their shoulders and their hands full of packages
or baskets or pails or something in the housekeeping line. It was
interesting. She would stay and watch them a little while. Somewhere
she had learned that it was not nice to be curious. That might be
one of those vivid dreams or memories that came to her now, by night
or day. Nevertheless, she could do no harm, and oh, how full of fun
those girls were. They were like the girls in the book. They were
like,--girls that she had either dreamed of or known.

All of them made several trips back and forth. They had wagons or a
truck in the woods, she supposed. She had noticed the lane, but had
never been to its other end. The younger two boys marched gaily with a
broom and a new mop over their shoulders, a dish pan inverted over each
head, and more blankets under each arm. The one called Billy tried a
dance step, but a blanket became unrolled and all but tripped him.

“Don’t spoil the new mop, Billy!”

“That’s all the sympathy I get, is it Nan?”

“I was just trying to be clever, Billy. I’ll trust you with my camp
trousseau in my suitcase the next trip.”

More boxes and bundles were carried inside. Then came the supplies.
Greta had never seen so much to eat together as this except in stores,
and, to be sure, growing in fields and orchards. But these baskets bore
selected foods for home use, or camp use. There were two large sacks of
flour and large boxes containing cans of all sorts. But Greta tired of
looking at what they were bringing. It was far more interesting to see
the girls themselves and to listen to the gay chatter.

“Please put those cans of coal-oil out on the kitchenette stoop,
Billy. Mother was so afraid that we’d set them near the flour or some
of the other food. Everything else goes in the pantry, everything else
to eat, I mean. We girls will arrange them. Why, yes, if you have to
take the baskets and boxes back, put the stuff anywhere. Leave us the
box with the potatoes, though. Oh, yes, just dump those things into the
dishpan or the washbasin or anything. And thanks so much. You three
get our first invitation to a meal from our new dishes. I don’t know
whether this is camping or going to housekeeping, but we’ll have a
mixture of both, it is likely. Are you all set at your camp?”

“Yes. We can use a few more things, but we can bring back what we
want after we take the truck back to town and come back in our Ford.
Now shan’t we bring up your machine? It’s going to be hard to get it
through till we get the lane widened a little more. You can make it, of
course, but we’ll be over as soon as possible to cut away some of the
stuff. The carpenters zigzagged through and nearly spoiled some of the
young trees.”

“All right, boys. Bring our limousine into its shed, if you please. Did
you say that we could get our supplies nearer the camp than at home?
Oh, yes. I remember that village. We’ve driven through it.”

From her fancied security behind some spruces, Greta looked and wished
that she were a part of the pleasure she saw. Then Jean, whisking back
from the truck and machines by a shorter cut, almost ran into Greta,
who rose, wide-eyed and startled.

“Oh!” exclaimed Jean. “Excuse me! I didn’t know any one was here. Did
you want to see us?”

“I--I happened to come around the lake and I saw your cottage. I didn’t
know any one was building here. Then,--then you all came--and you were
having such a good time--and I just waited to go.”

“Do you live near here?”

“Not very near. It must be two miles around the shore.”

“This bay runs in so that it isn’t any wonder you’ve not seen the
house. Come to see us some time. We’re just getting settled now and
we’re going to be here most of the summer.”

Just then Grace French from the house called, “Jean, Jean!”

“I have to run,” said Jean, smiling at Greta. “Goodbye.”

Greta at once went farther back among the trees, making a wide circle
to avoid the truck and machines; but she found a quiet, grassy spot in
the woods at no great distance from the lane and there she sat down to
read her book, eat her bread and cheese and listen sometimes to distant
laughter.

CHAPTER XIV

LITTLE ADVENTURES OF CAMP LIFE

“Yes, dear Mother, you were right when you supposed that we are having
a good time. It is not only good, but gorgeous.” So Jean Gordon’s
letter began.

“The committee on supplies and communications, as we call Billy and
Jimmy, whom Billy so adores, brought me your note and will take this,
to mail it Saturday. I’m glad that you and Dad are to have that fine
trip. No, I’m not disappointed not to go along and thanks for the
invitation, if I would really prefer to go. I couldn’t leave the girls
and I’ll probably get East some day.

“Billy told me a lot of things about the boys’ camp, and said that
Jimmy put in a lot of money that he has made along, at the office,
reporting, doing some press work, whatever that is, and everything. His
father pays him. But the boys are only borrowing of him and I think
that they are having as great a time as we are. They are in the lake
about half the time. At least we always see them when we go out. Billy
offered to take me in his canoe, but Grace won’t let me go until I
learn to swim better, for canoes are ‘not so safe,’ she says. I can
float, though, and swim a little. I’m so mad at myself to think that I
never wanted to swim,--and all my life near the lakes! Disgusting! Fran
and Bess are like fish in the water, and even Molly can do better than
I can. Just wait, though, till this summer is over. Tell my father,
by the way, that we all appreciate this little bay that the fathers
chose for us. We can wade out and swim in the shallower water without
worrying Grace, and the boys have rigged up a diving place, whatever
you call it, just like what they have.

“Grace is catching up in sleep and feels fine. She makes us all take an
early dip and have setting up exercises, for every camp that amounts to
anything does that, she says. Then we can plan our day ourselves, and
you ought to see the fish we catch _and cook_, if you please. It was so
cold that we made a big fire in the range yesterday and used a little
of that coal, too, though mostly we burn wood, and we baked biscuit
that turned out all right and had maple molasses with them. Yes, the
coal-oil stove works all right and we are careful. Grace usually
oversees our efforts to cook. We have had fires outdoors, too, right
on what beach we have, and we do everything that careful woodsmen--and
woodswomen--do. So don’t have a worry while you are gone. We lock up
every night and everything.

“You ought to see our pantry! The cans look fine, all in a row on one
shelf. The sack of flour stands in a box with white paper in it to
catch what we spill. We tacked up a little curtain of what was left of
our peacock stuff over the shelf that has our precious dishes. But we
have been tearing around outdoors so much that we haven’t used them
but once. Then we’re still painting our chairs off and on. The yellow
paint we got turned out all right. Molly and Phoebe are chief artists,
but I always knew that I was artistic even if I couldn’t draw, you
know! House-painting and furniture will be my specialty, and we think
it safer to put on the bright pictures by--let’s see, decalcomania,
they call it, I think. Some kind of mania, anyhow, I think. But Phoebe
has drawn a line that we make that golden-brown, which gives a nice
contrast with the yellow, after we get that on. The only trouble is
that we need the chairs to use, so progress is slow, doing about two at
a time.

“Mr. Lockhart sent the most wonderful binoculars out for Fran. She was
so surprised and pleased! Some of us get out pretty early to see what
is singing over our heads and we have enough glasses now to get our
identifications of even the little birds pretty sure. We are glad that
we brought all our nature books along. And we have found a girl who
lives near the lake and knows where different birds nest. She took me
to see a wood thrush’s nest, such a pretty, or odd one, only yesterday.
I’ll have to tell you about her. She’s a sort of mystery.

“I nearly ran into her the day we brought everything out and went to
housekeeping. Oh, it was the greatest fun, Mother, to move into our own
playhouse, so to speak! But you have listened to me rave about that
before.

“I was scampering through the trees with something from the truck when
lo and behold, here, in the midst of some spruces, was this girl. Just
imagine a thin face with big brown eyes and a scared look when she
saw me, an old fuzzy black sweater that was whole but looked awful, a
patched old purple skirt, faded, and dipping up here and down there, no
stockings at all and some old shoes that were tied on. I suppose she
wore them to save her feet going through the woods. Her hair was short
and just the curly kind that I’ve always wished mine was, but it was
brushed straight back from her face, as if she’d tried to get the curl
out.

“I asked her if she wanted to see us and she seemed to be more scared
than ever and sort of apologized. She said that she just happened on
the house and when we came we seemed to be having so much fun that
she just waited a minute,--something like that. Grace called me and I
didn’t see her any more, though I told Grace and she said that we would
lock up well. Nobody knew who might be around.

“Next thing, Fran made a remark that she has hated herself for ever
since. We were exploring real early one morning, led on by a bird we
couldn’t locate, and we came to the prettiest spot where there is a big
willow tree, the kind that you want right away to climb into. Well,
we climbed, and there, high up, the funniest bathing suit you ever saw
was hanging. It looked like a sack and was made of pieces of different
colored cloth.

“‘Well, look at this!’ Fran exclaimed. ‘Here’s the last word in bathing
suits. It reminds me of Joseph’s coat of many colors; and notice the
combination, will you? Whoever put such a thing as that together? It’s
all wet, so somebody has actually worn it!’

“Fran had no idea that anybody would hear her, for we had been all over
the place, we thought, but she had hardly gotten the words out of her
mouth when we saw a girl hurrying away from a clump of bushes. It was
the same girl that I’d seen near our camp. She turned and looked back,
and I saw that she was crying a little, but she whisked her head around
and got some trees between us in a jiffy. ‘Oh!’ said Fran, ‘wasn’t that
awful? Was that the girl you saw, Jean? And I’ve broken her heart by
laughing at her bathing suit. I never thought!’

“None of us said a word to make Fran feel any worse about it, but I got
to thinking. Of course she had to have something to wear in the lake,
and that was all she could put together. They must be awfully poor or
something. But she couldn’t have been really mad about it, for she came
to camp with a basket of vegetables from their garden, she said, and
asked if we wanted to buy any. Fran was there and saw her. She rushed
out and said at once that we’d take all she would let us have. Fran
was real cordial; and sober as she is, I saw a funny twinkle come into
the girl’s eyes when she looked at Fran, who was digging into her big
purse. She thanked us very politely and went away at once. She had on a
real respectable gingham dress this time, though it was a funny plaid
and made in a terribly old-fashioned way.

“I asked her if her folks had any eggs to sell and she said they did
sometimes. So she brought us eggs and the next time we had an early
bird hunt we saw her in the woods and I went with her to see the wood
thrush’s nest. Her name is Greta Klein. Nan is going to ask Jimmy if he
ever heard of the Kleins. The name is German, you see, but her English
is as good as ours,--oh, I hear you laugh at that. It isn’t saying very
much for it, I know. Still, there is a difference when you really can
talk correctly, even if you do not always do it.

“We are taking turns at the cooking, as we said we should. So far we
have not let Grace do one thing except superintend. The cooks submit
the menus to her to see if they have a ‘balanced meal.’ But sometimes
if we have a long hike and everybody is tired, we just all pitch in and
get up what there is double quick. It is so beautiful here, Mother, and
we all love it!”

With a little more Jean ended the long letter to her mother. Greta
could have verified what was said about her. She had, indeed, been hurt
at Fran’s remark, though the tears had been from a rare breakdown and
discouragement, when she had found a place in the bushes to cry it out
after her morning swim. A great scolding she had had after the day in
the woods. Her mother had asked her if she had gone crazy and Greta had
replied that she would have to have a rest once in a while if she had
so much to do. “Either that, Mother, or I shall go away to work,” she
had said firmly.

Mrs. Klein grew very angry and kept after her constantly with more to
do than ever, telling her that she would teach her if she could go
off for a whole day with washings to do and cooking and feeding and
children under foot. She threatened to beat Greta, but Greta said, “Why
can’t you work more with me and not put most of the hard work on me?
I’ll work gladly to help earn some money for us; but if Jacob Klein
amounted to anything as a farmer we wouldn’t be so poor.”

This enraged Mrs. Klein more than ever. She advanced threateningly
toward the girl, till Greta ran out of the house and her mother
called to her to come back and iron the clothes for Mrs. Smith. Greta
returned, warily, but Mrs. Klein told her to sprinkle the clothes and
then mix the bread while she went to see where the children were.

Such was the state of things, with Greta thinking more and more that
there was something strange about her relations with the man and woman
who had called themselves her parents. Flashes of memory returned, or
what she hoped was memory, though dim. She had always recalled some
clothing that she had thought was hers as she came back to life after
the fever, but she saw the dress being made over for the little boy,
then in dresses. How could she ever find out about anything?

The presence of the girls at their camp was one source of pleasure, if
somewhat tantalizing. She told her mother about a camp at that end of
the lake and asked if she might not sell their eggs and vegetables to
them. To this Mrs. Klein agreed, more readily than ever after the sale
to Fran and the good price that she paid. Long evenings in the garden
Greta spent, plying a busy hoe against the weeds. That the campers were
girls she did not mention, but their bright faces were often before
her. They led a different life, a life that had something ahead of it,
for she saw them with their books and field glasses, or taking their
early dip and rowing about the lake. Sometimes she swam nearly to the
little bay when she thought that she had time.

Then she met them on the unfortunate occasion of Fran’s remark and
again when she fell in with Jean on a very early stroll toward their
camp. By that time Jean had heard from Jimmy that the Klein house was
across the lake from the Wizards’ shack and that Jacob Klein was a
lazy ne’er-do-well, who drank and abused his family. “Poor Greta!”
thought Jean.

It happened next that Jean, Molly and Nan took a longer hike than they
had intended and found themselves coming out of the woods upon a narrow
road that led to the lake, as they could see. At a little distance they
saw a house and decided to stop and ask for a drink of water.

CHAPTER XV

MOLLY’S ADVENTURE

It was late in the afternoon. As it happened, Greta had taken the
children with her to deliver clothes. They could at least sit in the
boat to watch one basket while she delivered the other. In consequence,
no dingy children were at the Klein gate when Jean and the other two
girls entered. Even the dogs were away with their master, who was as a
rule more kind to them than to his children.

The gate of a rickety fence stood open. A few hens ran about the yard
with some long-legged young chickens. The girls entered the yard,
hesitating a little as they walked up to the door, which stood open
revealing anything but a well-kept room inside. They rapped, intending
to ask if they might find the well, for Jean had her collapsible cup
with her. There was no response.

“Out in the field, I suppose,” said Molly. “Let’s see if we can find
the well. It can’t do any harm, and I’m perishing for a drink. That
woods was fearfully hot, I thought.”

Turning from the door, the girls started around the house. There were
two old pumps, and while the girls were guessing which was the well and
which was the cistern, they heard the sound of crying, a faint moaning,
further back in the yard, it seemed. Toward the left there stood an old
barn and sheds, with the sty, odorous and muddy. But toward the right
there was a tangle of bushes and fruit trees, to all appearances from
where they stood.

They listened, Molly with her fingers to her lips. “Perhaps we’d better
go on,” whispered Nan.

“No,” returned Molly, “some one might be hurt. Wait. I’ll see.”

Molly tiptoed in the direction of the sound, but as she went loud
sobbing broke out. Jean and Nan were for getting away. That did not
sound like any one who was injured. Perhaps they would intrude. But
Molly was obviously seeing something or some one. She was looking
soberly ahead, then put her head on one side to listen. Molly was as
careful as they would be not to be intrusive. They would leave it to
her.

“Sakes, Jean, listen!” whispered Nan. “It’s German.”

“_Meine Greta, meine Greta, meine Greta!_” they heard repeated.

“Why, this must be where Greta lives,” said Jean. “What’s _happened_
to her?” Jean started toward Molly, but Molly, her face alert, was
listening and waved Jean back. They heard a sobbing outburst of German
words that were unintelligible to them.

“Molly knows German,” Nan reminded Jean, and Jean nodded assent. Both
girls were puzzled and uneasy. There must be some reason why Molly was
listening where anybody would think she had no right to be. There was a
pause and then another outburst of speech, as if the person, a woman,
were talking to some one, even explaining. It was very curious. Then
the first expression, “_Meine Greta, meine kleine Greta_,” was moaned,
with “_liebchen_” and a few other words that the girls knew.

“From the looks of Greta, I wouldn’t say that she looked like anybody’s
‘_liebchen_,’” whispered Jean. “She looks more like some poor
step-child to me.”

But Molly was picking a silent way back to them. Her face was very
sober now. She waved them toward the gate, her finger on her lips; and
when she reached them she hurried them out.

“I’ve heard something dreadful, girls, and we must get out of sight as
soon as possible, before that poor woman has any idea that there was
any one there to hear her. Let’s get right down to shore. Maybe some of
the girls are out in the boat and will see us and come for us. I want
to get away as quickly as I can. I’ll tell you all about it as soon as
I get over being shocked. Isn’t Greta the name of that girl who brings
us things once in a while?”

“Why, of course, Molly. You know that.”

“Do I? I don’t know what I do know. There she is now! And her boat is
coming to this landing! So I suppose that is where the Kleins live.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that, Molly. Yes, it’s just about the
location, I suppose, that Jimmy said. You can see the peninsula from
here, of course.”

The girls had reached the tree-sheltered shore just as Greta sent her
boat flying toward them. “Wait,” said Molly, “I want to speak to her.”

“You want to tell her what happened?”

“Yes, some of it.”

The girls approached the rude dock. Greta smiled a real welcome, for
to see the girls was worth a day’s hard work. She lifted the children
out and told them to go on home; then Molly laid a hand on her arm. “We
stopped to get a drink at a house up there. Is that where you live?”

“Yes. That is what is left of the Klein farm.”

“Well, we have just been there. We walked all the way back to the door,
which was open, but no one answered our knock. I was terribly thirsty,
so we went around the house and were just going to get a drink when
we heard some one crying. I thought that somebody might be hurt, so I
stepped back to see. It was a large, stoutly built woman, but she was
not hurt, and I think you ought to know what she said. Could you meet
us very early to-morrow morning? Jean said that you were out early
sometimes.”

Greta was impressed with Molly’s manner. “Yes,” she answered. “Where
shall I meet you? Shall I come all the way?”

“If you can, and I will have breakfast for you, too.”

“Oh, how kind you are! But I can’t be dressed well enough. This is the
best I have.”

“Some wouldn’t think that our middies and bloomers were much in the way
of clothes,” laughed Jean. “Please come.”

Molly did not laugh, but she said, “I must talk to you, Greta, and if
you can come to us it will be a favor, much easier than for us to come
out here, or near by. How soon can you come?”

“The earlier the better for me. I have to get back to work before my
mother gets around. I take an early swim and bath in the lake. Then I
go back to do the feeding and milking, to get breakfast and start the
washing when we have any.”

Molly seemed to know instinctively that Greta could not get permission
to come. “While we talk, you can drink a cup of hot cocoa with us and
eat a plate of bacon and eggs with toast. Then if you have to hurry
back it is all right. Come about five o’clock. We are planning an early
hike anyway. And it will be much better if your mother does not know
that we were there. Need you notice her tears?”

“I’ve seen her that way before, though not very often, and I never
speak of it. I did once,--and I--was sorry.”

“All right. We’ll be looking for you. Nobody but Jean and Nan will know
why we want to see you specially.”

Greta promised to come at five o’clock and stay long enough for
breakfast. The girls hurried away, though Greta offered to take them
across in the boat. “Perhaps I will come by boat to-morrow morning,”
she said.

What could Molly have to tell her? Did she mean that her mother talked
to her? No, for she said that it would be best for her mother not
to know that they had been there. It was a mystery. But that it was
important she was sure. Her imagination was busy, but she could not
guess what it might be.

CHAPTER XVI

SANS PEUR

Almost before the birds Greta was up the next morning. She had not
slept well, for the attic was hot. Not a breeze was stirring when she
loosed the boat from its moorings and pushed out upon a lake that wore
scarcely a ripple. “We are due for a big storm if this keeps up,”
thought Greta. The air was oppressive and clouds were gathering. Even
the effort of rowing brought the perspiration to Greta’s brow, still
tender from its hurt. She lost no time, for there was a low rumble of
distant thunder and she did not want to be caught out upon the water.

On the peninsula across from her the boys’ flag flew. Their cabin was
partly concealed by the trees between it and the lake. No one there
seemed to be stirring. Presently a breeze developed and Greta bent,
indeed, to her oars. She must reach the little bay and the girls’ camp
as soon as possible. But the clouds did not seem to be heavier.

“There she comes, Molly!”

Three sober girls watched Greta make her way around the curve in the
lake shore and steadily row toward them, stopping for one little wave
when she saw them.

“She is awfully strong, isn’t she--for all she looks so pale and worn
when she comes?”

“All that hard work would give anybody muscles. Have you noticed her
poor hands?”

“Yes, Jean; but they are not out of shape at least.”

“No, just rough and her finger-nails are all broken. I suppose the
washing does it and I don’t know what else she does, but she happened
to speak of doing that. She had a big bundle of clothes in the boat
last evening. How are we going to manage this, Molly?”

“What do you mean, Jean?”

“Why, if you tell her before us, won’t she feel worse? Suppose Nan and
I make some excuse and leave you with her?”

“Oh, no, Jean--please! I need support; and besides, she admires you
most of all. I can tell. You just slip an arm around her if she needs
one!”

“We’d better give her her breakfast first, for fear she’ll be too
stirred up to eat,” Nan suggested.

“Good idea, Nan. Your head is always level.”

“Then if that’s so, I’d better see about the breakfast. You go down to
meet her, Jean.”

Nan and Molly hurried in, while Jean went down to the little dock to
welcome their guest.

“I was a little afraid you might not come, Greta, for it looks so much
like a storm,” said Jean, while Greta was fastening her boat securely.

“I think that I would have come _in_ a storm, if there had been no
other way. But it is a good thing that I was to come early, I suppose.”

“Molly and Nan went in to hurry up the breakfast. We had the milk
heated and the bacon cooked. There will be just us four to have
breakfast together. Grace took the rest on a breakfast hike, but I’m
afraid that they’re going to get caught in a storm if they don’t hurry
back. We have two girls from our town visiting us and that is the
reason for the trip. They are crazy to do everything and we are crazy
to show them everything we do. Nobody slept much last night.”

“I’m afraid that you wanted to go with the other girls,” thoughtfully
said Greta.

“Oh, no. Especially after Molly told us what she wants to tell
you,--and we did not mention it to the rest. But we’ll forget that now
and have a jolly good breakfast if we can. I’m not sure but ice-cold
lemonade would be better than hot cocoa in this kind of weather,--funny
to have a hot night on our lake.”

If the cocoa was hot, it was bracing to Greta. She sat at the yellow
and brown and white table, on a yellow, brown and white chair and had
her bacon and eggs served on the yellow dishes decorated with daisies.
“We are sibyls in our club,” Molly explained, “and our colors are
yellow and white, but we aren’t what the boys call ‘yellow,’ for our
motto is ‘_sans peur_,’ that means ‘without fear,’ and we’ve already
discovered that to have courage is one of the most necessary things
anywhere. Mine was at a low ebb last night, I can tell you, but this
morning I’m all braced up.”

Jean looked at Molly with amused affection. She understood how Molly
dreaded to tell Greta what she must.

Greta was bright enough to have an inkling of what Molly meant. Her own
courage was sinking, and had been all night. What had Molly heard? What
new and dreadful thing might she have to meet at home? Jacob Klein had
not come home the night before. Perhaps it was something about him.

But the breakfast was good and the girls were kind and interesting.
She did not seem to feel awkward with managing to eat before them.
Her mother had always made fun of her “fussy ways,” as her German
expressions meant. A good breeze was blowing through the big room and
making them all more comfortable. After the meal the girls left the
table as it was and took Greta outdoors to a nook among the trees where
they had fixed a rope swing and some seats out of logs. On one of
these they sat down, though Nan presently jumped up, saying that she’d
better clear the table, for the whole lot of girls would be back soon,
she thought. They all looked at the gathering clouds. The storm seemed
to be a long time coming. Perhaps it would pass around them. In any
event, Molly was thinking how she would tell Greta and Greta was more
interested in what she was to hear than in the storm.

“Greta,” began Molly, “does _Mrs. Klein_ treat you kindly?”

Greta’s dark eyes looked soberly into Molly’s. “I’d rather not say,”
she replied. “Yes, I will, too. It is a chance to tell some one. My
mother was good to me for a long time after I had a bad sickness, and
forgot things, they said. Then she changed and although she would never
let Jacob Klein abuse me, she can’t care much for me or she would never
put the heaviest work on me, even when she is well enough to help more.
I want to go away from home to work, and I thought that perhaps you
girls could help me find a way, to help some one with any kind of work;
and then I could send the money home to my mother and the children. I
heard her say when they were quarreling, after Jacob Klein threw me
against the tubs and hurt my head, that he must leave me alone and that
I was not his child.”

All this came tumbling out rapidly, as if Greta had planned it, which
was not the case. It was only that she was so full of her unhappiness
and puzzles.

“Did you ever think that perhaps you were not her child either?”

Greta looked startled. Then she said, slowly, “I thought that she might
have been married before and that my father might have had dark eyes
like mine. All the rest have blue eyes and light hair, if you noticed,
and the horse-doctor that came to look after me as well as the horse
asked my mother where she found a little girl with brown eyes. He was
joking, but my mother didn’t like it and said that families were not
always of one complexion, or something like that. She talks mostly
German.”

“I know,” answered Molly, who had heard her. “I understand German, for
we had a good woman that helped us for a long time when one of the
children was little and Mother was not strong. She started me because
she loved to talk her own language with some one, and I’ve kept it up.
But you haven’t a bit of a German accent and talk English as well as we
do. How does it happen?”

“That is what I have been wondering about for a long time. After this
sickness I had to be taught German, but could talk English. My mother
said that I had been bewitched,--that is what it would mean in English.
She taught me to read the German newspapers that Jacob Klein has,--I
haven’t called him Father since I found he wasn’t my father. Then I
found an old German Bible that I supposed was my great-grandmother’s,
from the date in it; but it was Jacob’s grandmother’s, of course. There
is better German in that, and it has been a help,--to stand things,
I mean.” Greta’s eyes filled with tears, but she dashed them away,
saying, “I’m sorry to complain this way to you. Please do _not_ tell
any one.”

“I can’t promise that,” smiled Molly, “but if you feel the same way
after I tell you a few things,--all right. But don’t you remember
anything that happened before this time that you were sick?”

“I know that I have been at school somewhere, and that I have seen
people like you somewhere and of course I am feeling pretty sure that
there is something queer about all this. Why should I know these things
if I had always been with these people? Yet it has been pretty well
told me all about my mother’s people and how my aunt Gretchen always
thought so much of me before she died and how my grandmother said
I would make a good little worker and would help my mother.” Greta
stopped with a whimsical smile. “I have, all right,” she added, “but
I have had a chance to talk English every summer with the people that
come to the cottages at the other end of the lake, and this summer a
lady gave me a lovely book, all about girls like you.”

“Thank you for telling us about yourself, Greta. Now let me tell you
what I heard this woman that you have been living with say.”

“‘This woman that you have been living with’?” thought Greta. “What
does this girl mean?”

“She did not say much, and in the simplest German, but she said enough
to make me listen to the rest,” continued Molly, going on to describe
the scene, telling how the girls happened to stop at the place.

“Yes, that was Mother,” said Greta in reply to Molly’s question, after
a detailed description of the woman whom she had seen.

“Well,” said Molly, “I saw a large stone by some bushes. There was a
sort of tangle in that corner of the yard, near a pasture fence.”
Greta nodded. She knew. “There was an old lilac bush and a syringa
bush in my way, but I peeped around them to see who was crying and if
anybody needed help. But here this woman was lying, almost on her face,
her hands clutching the grass between some little bushes that were
planted in a row, Greta. Then it was that I noticed the big stone in
the corner and a row of small stones that started from it as if someone
had been going to make a flower bed, you know. These all must be to
mark the place, Greta.

“She was sort of moaning, in German, ‘my Greta, my Greta, my little
Greta,’ and then she began to talk to her, just as I was going to slip
away, not to intrude; and she wasn’t hurt, I could see. But she went
on, ‘Your father never meant to kill you when he hit you that time,
and I couldn’t see him hung, could I? So here you are without a stone
with your name on it and not a prayer said over you when we hid you
here!’ She burst out sobbing loudly then, but by that time I thought I
ought to hear if she said anything more, and presently she was asking,
‘Wasn’t it better for no one to know, when the little girl came and
could take your place, and her people were all dead in the storm?’”

Here Jean slipped an arm around Greta, who was leaning toward Molly,
listening tensely. “Oh,--then the real Greta is buried there, and I am
the little girl!”

“Yes,--the ‘_kleines Mädchen_.’ When I got home last night, Greta, I
wrote down every German expression that I could remember, so I could
swear to it if necessary. And I lay awake thinking it out nearly half
the night. There wasn’t anything else, except that she kept sobbing and
repeating the little expressions she had used, Greta’s name, and asking
if she blamed her mother. Did you ever think that you might have been
kidnapped?”

“Yes. I made a wonderful story about myself and then I saw how silly
it was. I even belonged to the German or English nobility, though as
I couldn’t speak good German the first wasn’t likely. But it must be
true that my people are dead in a storm, for anything that my mother
said in that way would have to be true. Oh, to think of it! I knew I
was different and didn’t belong! I’d rather be all alone than to be the
daughter of that man--and poor Mother! She isn’t very bright, girls,
just stupid about some things, and loves that dreadful man! What can I
do? Oh, thank you, Miss Molly, for caring to tell me about it. It is a
wonderful thing for me that you girls came here this summer!”

But Greta put her head in her hands, and Jean patted her shoulder.
“We’ll have to think it out,” said Jean. “I told Molly that if it
happened in an accident, maybe the poor woman wasn’t so bad to want to
save her husband. But what was worst was about you, especially since
you looked unhappy and tired out. Oh, yes, Molly, you forgot to tell
Greta one thing, how she said she wasn’t making the girl that took
the real Greta’s place have a happy time and was making her work for
Greta’s little brother and sister. She has some crazy idea like that!”

“As long as that grave is there, it could be proved that I am not
Greta, I suppose. At least, they’d have to explain it.”

“But perhaps they could take,--take it all away, if they had any hint
that you knew,” said Molly.

“That is so. I will have to go back and wait. I always wondered why
Mother had started a flower-bed and those rose-bushes there, but I
never dared ask. I have a memory of a storm in the woods, or it seemed
like that.”

As Greta spoke, a blinding flash of lightning was followed by a
terrific crash of thunder. “My sakes!” exclaimed Jean. “Let’s get
inside. Oh, I hope that the girls are almost back!”

The three of them had been too much interested in the story which
Molly was relating to notice how black the sky had become. Nan rushed
to the door to call them, but saw that it was unnecessary. The bolt
of lightning so near had been sufficient warning. Greta went to work
with them to close all the windows and door and drag the cots in from
the sleeping porch. The room presented a disheveled appearance by the
time they were through, but they were concerned only with the storm.
Jean jumped with the next crash, but Greta, used to taking care of
frightened little children in storms, smiled at her and took her hand,
“What did you say your motto is?” she asked.

“Thanks, Greta. I’ll remember, but I’m terribly uneasy about the girls.
If they had taken the boat, they could get away from the trees.”

“But look at the lake, Miss Jean.”

“Just Jean and Molly and Nan, Greta,” said Jean, as she looked out at
an angry lake, whipped by a wind. The trees were bending now before a
great wind. Whirls of leaves and broken branches began to fly. Then
Nan cried, “Here they come,” and ran to open the door for the fleeing
girls, who ran through a blinding downpour and against a strong wind.

“It’s a regular whirlwind, and I hear a terrible roaring, girls,” said
Grace, out of breath. “Is everything closed tight?”

Nan, Jean and Molly were using their combined strength to shut the door
after the dripping girls had come in, but Greta answered. “We shut up
everything, Miss French.”

There was nothing to do but to wait results. By this time they all
knew that a storm of more than usual intensity was upon them. “‘_Sans
peur_,’ girls,” Grace reminded them, her chin raised and her eyes
looking out upon the whirling scene outside. “I’m glad that we reached
shelter and are together.”

“I’m scared,” said Phoebe, “and I don’t care who knows it!” She was
standing by Leigh Dudley, who had drawn a chair into the middle of
the room and had sunk into it as quite exhausted after their mad rush
through the woods. Leigh reached up with a smile and drew Phoebe down
into her lap. “Sit down Phoebe-bird. It doesn’t do any good to be
scared, but I’m not feeling any too safe myself.”

The two girls cuddled together and shut their eyes, but Jean and Greta
stood together, looking out, and Greta whispered, “The good God can
save us if it is best.” Not in vain had Greta read that German Bible.

Crash went a tree, just hitting the sleeping porch, and the little
house shook. But the worst of the storm had passed them by in a few
minutes from the time they heard the roaring sound, so rapidly was the
work of destruction done. It was wind rather than lightning which had
been the greatest menace. Pouring rain continued for some time,--and
then the sun came out!

“Now is the time to be thankful, girls,” said Grace, “but I hope that
the boys are all right. If I’m not mistaken, some cyclone went by us
and we’ll hear of damage done by it.”

Uneasily, the girls went about opening windows, looking out to see
what damage had been done to the sleeping porch, or going out into
their cleared dooryard to see if their prettiest trees had suffered.
Branches lay on the ground, whipped from the trees. It was a small
elm that had hit the porch. “Girls, if that tree hadn’t been actually
_lifted_ by the wind, I don’t believe it could have reached us,” said
Jean. “My father said that they particularly tried to see that no tree
could hit us if a storm felled it, no big one, I mean. We have shade
enough as it is.”

The girls stood looking about. “I’m glad that the boys built their
shack in a pretty well cleared place, too,” said Nan, who could
scarcely help worrying about Jimmy. Greta was thinking of home and the
children. They were often rude to her, in the atmosphere of scolding
and criticism which made Greta’s life wretched. But they also depended
upon her for a great deal and occasionally, when away from their
mother’s disapproval, showed her a little affection, especially the
youngest child.

Still excited by the character of the storm, the girls ran around in
the wet woods near by. They found the tree which had been struck by
lightning before Nan, Jean and Greta had gone into the house and they
were startled to find how near it had been. But when they looked across
the lake, beyond the camp’s small bay and where the woods stretched
toward Greta’s home, they saw the most damage. Trees lay prostrate near
the shore. Branches and drift tossed upon the still active waves. “I
must hurry home at once,” said Greta. “The storm has gone that way.”

“I’ll go with you,” declared Jean, thinking of the motto, for the
thought of going frightened her and she would have preferred to know
what had happened to Jimmy Standish, her friend, Billy Baxter and the
rest of the boys. But she and Molly and Nan had gotten Greta into
coming for breakfast. If the family were unharmed by the storm and
Greta had a scolding or worse, she would stand by her.

“I’ll go, too,” said Molly; but Grace heard them.

“Wait, girls,” said Grace. “I think that I hear the boys calling.”

The girls listened.

“Wah-hoo-oo-oo-oo-oo!” came the long-drawn call.

“Oo-ey, oo-ey, oo-ey,” answered Grace, all smiles, for that was Jimmy.

In a few minutes several boys came crashing through the bushes and
brush, not caring how the wet drops sprinkled them right and left.
“Everybody all right?” asked Jimmy, who was in the lead, Billy Baxter
right behind him. His quick eyes took in Grace and Nan first and
traveled over the rest with some relief.

“Yes,” answered Grace. “No one was out in the storm and the little
cabin stood; but some of us got inside just in time. I should have had
more sense than to go off for a hike and breakfast when it felt like a
storm, even if we did not notice any signs when we left so early. I’ve
been wondering about you.”

“All of us have,” Jean added, “and Greta is worrying about her folks
across the lake. This is Greta Klein. Greta, this is Nan’s brother,
Jimmy. He’s in charge at the boys’ camp, just as Grace French is here.”

“I was certainly thankful to hear you call, Jimmy,” said Grace, while
Greta and Jimmy acknowledged the introduction after a fashion, for
matters were on an informal footing. Jean had merely announced facts.

“We would have been around when it first began to look like a bad
storm, but we were off, too, out of sight, on the other shore of the
peninsula to begin with, then ’way around in the woods. Like you, we
started early and there is a little fisherman’s shack there. We made
it to our camp, though, but we had to stay till she blew over then. As
soon as we could, we ran out where we could see your roof and it was
still on. So we hoped that you were all right. Gee-whilikins, didn’t it
get dark?”

“Jimmy brought ‘first aid’ and everything,” said Dan Pierce. “Would
Greta like to have us go around with her?”

“That is a fine idea, Dan,” said Grace, and Billy wished that he had
thought of it. “I thought of going around with Greta, as soon as we
knew about your camp. I was sure that you would get some sort of a
message through pretty soon, unless you were all blown away. Suppose
you three boys come with Greta and me, and maybe Molly, and Jean.
They spoke of going. Do you think that you could stand it, girls, if
anything has happened there?” This question was spoken in a lower tone,
for the benefit of Jean and Molly only.

“‘_Sans peur_,’ Grace,” said Jean stoutly. “Get Molly to tell you all
about everything while we go.”

“Couldn’t we go in the boats now?” asked Molly, but caught herself
short. “Oh, girls, we never thought to look and see if the boats are
there yet!”

They were not, as the assembled company soon found out when they ran
around to the lake side of the cottage. There was no sign either
of Greta’s boat or theirs. “Our canoes were high and dry and under
shelter,” said Jimmy, “but the row-boats and the little motor are
goners as far as we know.”

“Some of them may turn up,” hopefully inserted Billy. “Let’s go, Jimmy.”

“All right, kid, when the girls are ready. By the way, Grace, tell
them all to look out for trees or branches that might be ready to
fall. We’ll have to go on the edge of the woods and through it in some
places, isn’t that so, Greta?”

“Yes, sir.”

Senior Jimmy smiled at the “sir,” then happened to think. Yes, he was
out of school, and he’d be in the office with his father till he
earned enough money, in a year or so, to start to college. Say, he was
grown up, after all.

“Greta,” asked Molly, soon after they started through the woods, “how
old were you when you were ‘sick’?”

“It was four years ago, and Mother says that I am sixteen.”

“You don’t look any older than I do, and I’m fifteen. Well, yes, you do
look older in one way, but then you’ve done so much hard work, I guess.”

The going was difficult. They scarcely stopped to examine the curious
freaks of the storm in the woods. Afterward they learned that there was
a comparatively small area damaged by the “twister,” though the storm
was general. Jimmy said that he thought the twister must have stooped
and risen again, in an erratic fashion, to fell some trees, take off
the tops of others and cut almost a path before it in places.

It was some time before they came into sight of the Klein house. There
it stood, as ramshackle as ever and with the additional loss of the
roof over Greta’s attic. As they reached the road which ran between the
woods and the place, Greta ran, the rest following as rapidly as they
could.

The yard was strewn with rubbish and a few excited chickens ran about
as Greta appeared; but she dashed into the house, calling to see where
her mother and the children were. There was no response. Greta looked
anxious, as she came from the rear of the house to say that no one was
downstairs.

Jimmy insisted on accompanying Greta upstairs to see if they could be
there, hurt, perhaps, when the roof went off. They found the attic
pretty well demolished and the ceiling had fallen in the bedroom below;
but there were no signs of any one having been there when it happened.
“We’ll look to see if the horse and the old wagon are here,” said
Greta, running down the stairs and outdoors. “Maybe they started away
before the storm began. Mother was very anxious last night and seemed
to think that--her husband--was in trouble.”

There lay the explanation of the absence. Neither horse nor wagon
were to be found. The dogs were gone. The lone cow in the pasture was
unhurt. “She probably wakened up early,” said Greta, “and just went to
the village to see what had become of him. Thank you all for coming
with me. I’ll just wait here and straighten up the best I can till they
come. It was a good thing they went, unless they might have gotten
caught in the storm.”

“I don’t think we should leave you here alone, Greta, to find out later
what did happen. Billy and I can walk across to the village and find
out if they are in any trouble. Where would she be likely to go?”

“There is one woman there that Mother stops to see when she goes to
town. If there were any trouble about--him--she would ask Mrs.--well,
let me write the name for you. It’s a long German name. I hate to have
you take all that trouble, and the long walk after all your hiking,
too. I just don’t know what _to_ do this time.”

“We’re going, Greta. It is the only thing to do.”

“I’ll make some coffee for you first.”

“No, we had breakfast and we’ll get something in town. Honest, we’ll do
it.”

The discussion came to an end suddenly, for the attention of everyone
was diverted by the appearance of a light buggy and a toiling horse
that was splashing through mud and water on the dirt road. The man who
was driving was leaning out to look at the damage of the storm and
viewing with surprise the number of people in the front yard. “Hello,”
he called, “is Greta Klein there?”

Greta came running forward to meet the man who drove up, turned his
wheel and clambered heavily out of the buggy. Jean happened to stand
nearest and heard the most of the low conversation that took place,
though she stepped back a little.

“I’m sorry to tell you, Greta, that your pa was took sudden last night
and your ma was sent fur. She got up an’ took the little ones an’ why
she didn’t wake you up I don’t know. Mebbe she isn’t quite right, fur
she says that you ain’t her child an’ she’s terrible upset becuz he wuz
gone when she got there. The children wuzn’t half dressed an’ she wants
their clothes.”

“Does she want me to come?”

“No, but I would. That woman she stays with says to bring you.”

Greta turned to Jean. Her face was white, but her lips were set firmly.
“I’ll have to go. Did you hear what happened to Jacob Klein, Jean?”

“Yes. Go and get ready and I’ll tell the rest.”

Grace, however, stepped up to the messenger and asked what his news was
about Mrs. Klein. “We are friends of Greta’s from a couple of camps on
the lake. She took breakfast with us this morning and was kept by the
storm.”

“Oh, she did. Well, all I have to say is that it’s a good thing she
has friends. If you know anything about Klein you’ll know that what
happened was likely to happen to a man with his habits. There was a
terrible quarrel where he was drinking and Klein was hurt. That’s all I
know except his wife’s ravings. She’s got the hysterics, I think.”

“Is she likely to hurt Greta?”

“Oh, no. But she seems to have took a dislike to Greta, they say.”

“I see.” Grace went into the house to see if she could help Greta in
any way. Greta was trying to find the children’s clothes in the midst
of the destruction wrought by the fallen ceiling, and hearing Grace’s
footsteps, she looked out of the door.

“Don’t try to come up, Miss French. I’m finding their clothes and we
can clean them up when I get into town.”

“Well, I just want to tell you, Greta, to come right to us at the camp
if you need a place to go. I don’t quite understand what the man told
me but it is clear that things are strange.”

“Yes, they are. Ask Molly and Jean and Nan to tell you what they know.
And after I help Mother through this, I’ll be glad to come. I want to
find a place to work and the girls thought they could help me.”

“We all can, Greta. Don’t worry.”

It was not long before Greta had been driven away. She had locked the
door and taken a bundle of clothing with her. Cheerful waves from the
girls saw her off and Jean told her not to forget to come to the camp
as soon as she could.

There was another long tramp back to camp, for there was no boat to
take them over, but Grace invited the boys to stay for as big a meal as
they could get up on short notice. “Open some cans of beans, Grace,”
suggested Jimmy, “and heat ’em up.”

“Beans it shall be,” laughed Grace, “but we’ll have some other things,
too. Think it up, girls, on the way.”

Camp, however, afforded a pleasant surprise. There stood Mr. Standish
and Mr. Lockhart in front of the house, drawn there by the sounds of
arrival, and while Nan and Fran rushed “madly on,” as Jean said, Mr.
Standish came from the house. “Oh, there you are!” she exclaimed in
relief. “We just got here and while we saw that the cottage is all
right, we were worried to death for fear something had happened to you.
Your father and Mr. Lockhart were just starting to the boys’ camp to
see if they were all right.”

“Here are Jimmy and Billy and Dan to tell you all about the time
they had,” said Nan, hugging her mother. “We weren’t very scared,