The S. P. Mystery

Jean, whisking back from the truck, almost ran into Greta. (Page [190])

The
S. P. Mystery
By HARRIET PYNE GROVE
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING
COMPANY
Akron, Ohio New York

Copyright MCMXXX
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
The S. P. Mystery

Made in the United States of America

Contents

THE S. P. MYSTERY

CHAPTER I
HOW IT ALL STARTED

Jean Gordon rushed into the house, her face all aglow. There was some fire within which made her eyes bright and the sharp wind, which came from lakes not too far away, gave her rosy cheeks and nipped her nose as well.

Without stopping in the hall to take off her pretty red coat or the close little hat that left little but eyes, nose and mouth to be seen, she opened the door into the dining-room, from which the sound of her mother’s machine could be heard.

“O Mother! May I have the room in the attic for a club room?”

Jean had opened this door a little more decorously and now she closed it more softly than she had opened and closed the front door, whose bang her mother must have heard. With an amused smile Mrs. Gordon turned from her work. “Is this my dear hurricane, home from school?”

“It is,” laughed Jean. “Please excuse the front door, Mother. It slipped out of my hand. And I suppose I should not have shouted right out. Good afternoon, fair lady!” A deep courtesy was made in grave exaggeration before Jean ran to her mother and deposited a quick kiss upon her cheek.

“Your apology is accepted, Miss Gordon,” said Jean’s mother, with a pat upon the cold hand which Jean laid upon her chair. “Now, what is it that you want?”

“The attic room for a club,—please, Mother!”

“It is cold up there,” returned Mrs. Gordon, starting to baste the hem of a blouse which she was making for Jean.

“Oh, that is going to be precious!” exclaimed Jean, stopping to look at the garment. “I’ll be all fixed for school now. I don’t see what makes me get so shabby.”

“Nor do I,” said Mrs. Gordon with a comical look. “But clothes will wear out.”

Jean sat on the arm of her mother’s chair to continue the original subject. “There’s a radiator there, isn’t there, Mother? Couldn’t the heat be turned on?”

“I suppose so; but that one always turned hard, and it has not been used for a long time. But why the pressing need of a club room and who will clean it?”

Jean laughed. “Ay, there’s the rub! I hope you appreciate my smart remark, Mother. But March is almost time for house-cleaning, isn’t it? Besides, the club members will fix up the room. I promise not to bother you about it. There isn’t much in it. Why couldn’t we have the old chairs that are in the rest of the attic?”

“You could. You may. Tell me about the club. This is something new, isn’t it?”

“Rather; but if you don’t mind, Mother, I’ll tell you more about it tonight. There is a reason why I have to call up the girls right away!”

“Run along, then.” Mrs. Gordon looked after her daughter with a twinkle in the brown eyes that were so much like Jean’s. What new scheme did those children have now?

Jean pulled off her hat and hung it upon the hall rack, but without removing her coat she sat down at the little table near to telephone.

“No, Central, it’s one—O—two—O, please,—yes, X.”

A long pause made Jean tap her feet impatiently while she waited. Why didn’t Central ring again? But here came the “hello” Jean wanted. “Hello, Molly. I’m glad that’s you. Can you call up Phoebe and Bess and Fran for me and all of you come right over? There’s something I have to see you about right away. It’s terribly important and I want to get everybody here the first minute possible, or I wouldn’t ask you to telephone. I’ve just got to see you before the party tonight! Oh, good! Thank you so much. Tell them there’s a mystery and that’ll bring ’em. I’m going to get Nan over and start making fudge. Wasn’t it grand that we got out of school so early?”

Molly evidently agreed that it was “grand,” and in a moment the receiver was hung up, Jean hanging up her coat in the interval between calls.

Again Jean was sitting at the small table. “That you, Nan? Since I saw you something has happened and if you want your old Jean vindicated, as ’twere, come on over and help me out. Just walk right in, because I’ll probably be telephoning, or may be, anyhow. We’ll make some fudge before the girls get here. What? Oh, I’ll ‘splain’ when you get here. I’ve a great scheme,—only maybe you won’t like it, of course.”

Nan must have asserted her interest in Jean’s schemes, for Jean turned from the telephone with a dimple in one cheek fully evident and a funny quirk in her smile. Nan was her chum in chief, and a girl of some originality. What Jean could not think of, Nan proposed. Between them had some interesting experiences, though usually within the bounds imposed by their very sensible parents.

Next, a number had to be looked up. “I do hate to call the Dudley’s,” Jean was thinking. She stood a moment, thinking, then went on a run through the hall and into the kitchen, neat and clean and orderly. Jean made a dash for the aluminum sauce-pan in which she always made her fudge. Another dash, and she had measured out the sugar, put a cup under the faucet for water, set out another pan, to receive the fudge when done, a bottle of flavoring extract and a big spoon. Then she looked for milk and butter, changing her mind a time or two about the ingredients.

While Jean was in the midst of these hurried proceedings, the kitchen door opened after a short rap and a girl with a blue coat over her head and shoulders came in, though stopping in the door to take off her rubbers. “My, it’s muddy in your back yard, Jean,” said she. “I just took a notion to come over this way, since you said fudge. Why aren’t you telephoning?”

The enveloping coat came off as Nan Standish talked, revealing a girl of about Jean’s height, the usual height of girls about fifteen. Nan’s clear eyes were blue and her hair fluffy and yellow. She was as light on her feet as Jean and came dancing over to where Jean stood. “Here, just skeedoodle, Jean Gordon. I’ll start this, while you do whatever else you want to do. I’m dying to know what it’s all about.”

“I’ve only got one more place to telephone, Nan. I’ve decided to use milk instead of water, since there seems to be plenty. So put in one cup to the three cups of sugar, already measured. See? I’ll be back in a minute and tell you all about it, the plan, I mean, not the fudge.”

“Yes, I’ve made fudge with you before. Trot along.”

Jean trotted. “Is this Mrs. Dudley?” she asked, when she had the proper number. “This is Jean Gordon. Would it be too much trouble to ask Leigh to come to the telephone?”

Jean’s tone was very formal now. She did not know Mrs. Dudley very well, and she stood just a little in awe of the Dudley formality as expressed in Leigh. But Phoebe would not enjoy a club without Leigh, and Leigh was a girl that any club would be glad to have. To do without Phoebe, too, was not to be thought of!

It was plainly not too much trouble to notify Leigh, for presently she came to talk with Jean. “A little meeting of a few girls, Jean,—to do something about something? That’s very clear!” Leigh’s low laugh came over the wire. “Why the mystery? Yes, of course, I’ll come, and stop for Phoebe, too. Oh, it may be fifteen minutes. I’ll have to tell Mother and get my wraps. I’m terribly curious.”

“Wasn’t that nice, Nan?” asked Jean, in the kitchen again. “Phoebe told me yesterday that Leigh is just shy, being new here this year, you know, and not knowing any of the girls before.”

“We-ell,” Nan replied, with a spoonful of the hot fudge to try it in a glass of cold water, “I do think that the Dudleys think pretty well of themselves, with that big place and all,—but I suppose, for that matter, all of our families do, and Leigh—gracious, Jean, this fudge is ready to come off! Is that the pan of cold water to set this in?”

The fudge cooling before being beaten, our two girls linked arms and ran upstairs to Jean’s room, where with many giggles Jean imparted her news to her friend. “Do you think it was so awful, Nan?” she asked. “I feel dreadfully guilty, yet I just did it on the spur of the moment and if you girls only do it, it will be a lot of fun.”

“Of course it will. I’m for it, Jean. Why haven’t we done it before?”

“But how about the name? Do you suppose—?”

“Oh, that will be all right. If I were you I’d tell them all about it. What is a secret society without a secret to keep? Jimmy has been awfully smart about his pin, and if we could keep it quiet about our plans—”

“Especially as we haven’t any,” laughed Jean.

“Yes, but they need not know that. Oh, there’s the doorbell! The girls are coming. I’ll slip down the back stairs and beat that fudge while you let them all in. But don’t do anything till I get there,—please!”

“Not a word, Nan. It shall remain a mystery till you come in. But don’t you want some help beating that fudge?”

“Not necessarily, Jean, but send anybody out you like.”

By this time Jean was at the foot of the front stairs to open the door, and Nan’s quick feet were pattering down the uncarpeted back stairs to the kitchen. The Gordon home was almost like her own.

The last girl to be reached by telephone was the first to arrive. Leigh Dudley and Phoebe Wood stood at the Gordon door, giving bright greetings to Jean’s welcoming words. “Come right in,” she cordially urged. “Isn’t this a March wind, though?”

Leigh was taller than Jean, with a vivid color, almost black hair and dark blue eyes. She slipped out of a handsome fur coat, which Jean took from her and put upon a hanger. Phoebe, little and dark and quick, waited upon herself. A wood fire was burning in the living room fireplace and to this the girls betook themselves, warming cold hands.

As Leigh rubbed her hands together in front of the blaze, she said, “I thought at first that you wanted us for something about the party. Phoebe thought it a birthday party. Do you suppose we ought to give a present?”

“No,” replied Jean. “I know that it is not a birthday celebration. Excuse me,—there come Molly with Bess and Fran. Oh, look at Fran’s new hat. Isn’t it darling?”

With this Jean flew to the hall again, while Leigh and Phoebe looked out of the window to behold the “darling” hat, a very cocky felt affair. Only girls could have told any difference in the style from those of the other girls. “Isn’t it a shame that Fran had to get a new hat this late in the winter?” asked Phoebe.

“Why did she? They’re wearing straw hats now in some places.”

“Why, don’t you know, on the bob-sled last night Fran’s hat got knocked off and Jimmy Standish stepped right into it and through it! Fran managed to fix it up enough to wear to school this morning. Then at noon Fran went and got a wonderful bargain because it is so late.”

More raw breezes entered with the newcomers, who talked about how the snow had turned to slush and how raw the wind was and how Fran would have her hat for “next fall” if the styles didn’t change. Then Nan came in with a plate of fudge, divided into squares and still hot. “Your mother came out and gave me the plate, Jean,” said she.

The girls ate fudge and toasted their toes by the fire. Molly French was a plump, happy looking girl with a way of looking at one and considering a moment before she spoke. “Molly always thinks twice before she speaks,” said the girls sometimes. But then Molly was “the preacher’s” daughter.

Frances Lockhart was as tall as Leigh and very thin. But her features were good and her humor so jolly that even if her clothes usually hung on her, as she herself declared, “Fran” was very popular in her class at school, as well as with other young friends. Bess or Elizabeth Crane had grown up “next door” to Frances, as Nan and Jean had lived. Now both girls were united in an admiration and friendship that bound them to the capable and friendly Molly, whose father was their minister. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the appearance of Bess. Brown hair, hazel eyes, a nose inclined to turn up a trifle and a slight figure as graceful as Fran’s was awkward, were what one would observe as Bess entered the room.

Like so many butterflies settling after uncertain movements, Jean’s guests turned from the closer proximity to the fire and took seats. Four of them bounced on the cushion-covered springs of the big davenport that was placed at an angle where the cozy warmth of the fire reached them. Leigh sank into a big over-stuffed chair. Nan perched on its arm, as she happened to be near with the plate of fudge, just passed again. Jean, now thinking thoughts of new presidents or promoters of clubs, stood with her hand on one end of the mantel and surveyed the girls with a smile half embarrassed.

“What’s the great excitement, Jean?” asked practical Molly, tossing back a flaxen bob and leaning forward on the davenport, with her hands around one knee. “What scheme have you and Nan gotten up now?”

Blue eyes and brown eyes exchanged an amused look, though Jean grew rather sober, while Nan spoke up. “I haven’t a thing to do with this one, except to stand by Jean. She’ll explain.”

“All right. Explain and satisfy our curiosity, Jean, or else forever after hold your peace!”

“There must have been a wedding at the parsonage, girls,” suggested Fran. “Were you a witness, Molly?”

“Not this time. Go on, Jean, and tell. I have to get home early and help get supper.”

“All right, Molly. I’m just thinking it out. This is a ‘S. O. S.’ call girls, and if you don’t help me out, I’m disgraced for life, I guess.”

“It is very serious,” remarked Nan, with mock soberness and an air as important as she could manage while still holding the fudge plate, sadly depleted.

[CHAPTER II]
SEVEN S. P.’S

Jean now drew up a straight chair and sat down, facing the others from the other corner of the mantel. Then she began, soberly at first, but frequently displaying her pretty dimple in smiles, chuckles and even grins as her story proceeded.

“It’s this way, girls. We just—simply—have to have a club, and I don’t mean an ordinary club or society, but something different, a secret club!”

“Sakes!” exclaimed Molly, “something like Grace’s sorority at college?”

“No. That wouldn’t be any fun for us. Well, perhaps. But have you noticed how mysterious some of the boys have been lately?”

Several girls said that they had not seen anything unusual. Leigh remarked that she never paid any attention to what they did, except at parties. But Molly remembered that when they were skating recently “a knot of the boys” drew together, talking about something and that when she and Bess happened to skate near them, to avoid a rough place in the ice, “the bunch” broke up and skated apart.

“How about Jimmy, Nan?” asked Molly.

“He’s in it, but the first I noticed was his new pin, this morning, though he may have been wearing it before, out of sight. When I asked him about it, he said, ‘Oh nothing. Bottle up your curiosity, Nan’!”

This called forth various comments on brothers and whether the boys’ club was a senior fraternity or not. Jean waited till the opportunity came.

“No, it can’t be a real fraternity,” said she, “for they aren’t allowed. Besides Billy Baxter belongs and he’s only a sophomore, like us. Nobody wants to know, of course, just what boys do; but this time they have gotten up some sort of a secret society and feel so snippy about it that we just ought to do something, too.”

“And be called ‘copy-cats’,” Nan suggested.

“Yes, that’s so,” acknowledged Jean. “But just wait a minute. Perhaps you won’t think that what I did was so terrible, then; for I thought of that, too. Billy, you know, comes home my way from school, and tonight he whistled and called ‘Je-an,’ and caught up with me. Well, in a minute I knew it wasn’t for anything else than to show me his new pin and crow over us girls a little. I didn’t know about Jimmy, of course, and there must be several sophomores in it, I’m sure. We’ll have to find out how big a crowd belongs.” A wide grin now almost obscured the dimple in Jean’s cheek.

“Girls, they call themselves ‘The Black Wizards’ and their pin is a most terrible lookin’ snake in a queer W! Billy was full of it, and by a few little innocent questions I got a lot of news! I wasn’t pretending either, when I told him that I was awfully interested, and that it must be fine and lots of fun. I imagine that they must have made it up to wear their pins,—they’d just come,—and not keep everything to themselves any longer.

“So I said, ‘Why isn’t that grand,—just like us girls, only, only we haven’t such a scary sign as a snake, and our pins haven’t come yet!’” With this Jean looked around with an expression like that of the cat after it had eaten the canary.

“Oh, you whopper-teller!” cried Molly. “And did you say it after he told you they wouldn’t keep the fact of their having a club secret any longer?”

“Oh, no! I put that in just now. He just said that the boys had a new club, and told me the name and how they had lots of great plans and things like that. What I said wasn’t exactly untrue, for I formed a club of one member then and there, and I felt pretty sure that Nan would help me out, so I could say ‘girls,’—and Billy was gloating so!

“There isn’t a thing in this little town like Girl Scouts or Camp Fire Girls or anything, and nobody to start them. Don’t you think that we ought to have something besides the school societies and the church things, Molly?”

Molly gave Jean a look of amusement. “It would be fun,” she answered.

“It’s a jolly idea,” said Fran decisively. “Go on, Jean. What else did you and Billy say?”

“Of course Billy wouldn’t believe me. ‘You’re just kidding,’ he said. ‘But if we get up a secret club, of course you girls would have to have one, too! What’s the name of yours, if you have one?’ I could see that he was real suspicious, and I didn’t blame him. It did look suspicious!”

Nan almost fell off the arm of Leigh’s chair at this, and the fudge plate tilted precariously. “I should think it did!” she cried.

While the girls laughed, Jean dimpled and rose to take the fudge plate from Nan, passing it around once more. Placing the plate upon the mantel, she continued:

“‘It isn’t best to tell our name yet,’ I said to Billy. ‘It’s sort of secret, too’.”

“I should say so!” gasped Leigh.

“Sh-sh,” said Phoebe. “Let Jean tell it.”

“Billy said much the same thing, Leigh,” laughed Jean. “He said, ‘Yes it is!—’cause you haven’t any!’

“‘I’ll tell you the initials,’ I said,—thinking awfully fast, girls! But I couldn’t seem to think of a thing but ‘Busy Bees’ or ‘Happy Hearts’ or something like that. Just then we passed a sign that said ‘S. P. Smith,’ so I tossed my head a little and said, ‘They’re S. P. What do you think of that, now?’ I was getting in deeper and deeper, you see.”

“‘H’m,’ he said, ‘what are you going to do?’

“‘That,’ I said, ‘is sort of a secret, too. You never heard of a secret society that told everything, did you? We may tell our name later, though.’

“‘It won’t be long,’ Billy said.

“‘Now isn’t that mean of you?’ I asked.” Jean lifted her chin and looked sidewise at Leigh as she had doubtless scanned Billy.

“He asked me where our club met and I said, ‘Most anywhere yet, but headquarters is at our house.’ Billy didn’t say anything for a minute. Billy is terribly smart, you know, and it looked fishy to him,—naturally! Still, some of us have been meeting occasionally, you know.

“Then he said, ‘Well, all I have to say is that it’s awfully funny we never heard anything of it before this. Girls can’t keep a secret!’”

“‘Oh, can’t we?’ I asked. Then Billy looked at me and laughed, and I laughed, and he broke a peanut chocolate bar into two pieces and gave me the biggest,—bigger, I mean; so he wasn’t mad, of course. But by this time Danny Pierce was coming along on the other side of the street, and looked over with a grin,—and that finished Billy. You know how he feels about being seen with a girl! So he never said goodbye or anything but bolted across to Danny. I’m sure he’ll tell Danny about our club, so you see what I’ve gotten us into. But there’s one thing that will save you, if you don’t want to come to my rescue,—Billy didn’t ask me who belonged.

“I rushed home and asked Mother if I could have the finished room in the attic for a club room and that is all right. Now will any of you stand by me, or do I have to be a club all by myself?”

“You forget me, Jean,” Nan reminded her. “I promised to be a S. P. S. P. forever!”

Molly jumped to her feet. “All in favor of being an S. P. stand up!”

Every girl responded and Leigh, of whom Jean had been most in doubt, laughingly announced that she wouldn’t miss it for anything. “Let’s have sweet pins,” she added. “A snake would be dreadful,—Ugh!”

“No, really, Leigh, their pins are pretty,” said Nan, “gold with a little black enamel, and Jim said that when they could afford it they might have rubies for the snakes’ eyes. That was when I looked at his pin.”

“The ‘Black Wizards!’ Wow!” exclaimed Bess. “Let’s elect Jean president, and Nan secretary, and Leigh would make a good treasurer, as her father’s president of the bank now. I’m a nominating committee!”

The girls agreed that Bess’s suggestions were good. Bess, Fran and Phoebe were appointed a committee on what the club should do, and every one was to consider herself a committee to determine what S. P. should represent. “S. could stand for Sophomore,” Molly suggested. Molly had begged off from any office, as she had so many church organizations to help.

“Sophomore is too common, Molly,” said Phoebe. “There are exactly seven of us, too, and seven is a lucky number. But I think that we can tell better after we think up what would be fun to do. Could we see the attic, Jean?”

“Yes. I’ll ask Mother, though, first. And don’t you think that we are enough right now, or would you rather ask more girls at once?”

For several minutes the girls talked that matter over, finally concluding that for the present, though they had many other friends, it would be better to keep the number as it stood. The sophomore class was not large. If they wanted to mix the group, as the boys were doing, there would be time enough. As Jean well knew, these were the leading girls of her class.

She slipped out to consult her mother, who gave permission at once for the girls to visit the attic and “view the landscape o’er,” as Molly said. Mrs. Gordon came into the living room to meet the girls and advised them to wear their coats into the cold regions and to look out for dust. “We do not dust the attic every day,” she added, with a smile like Jean’s.

The seven S. P.’s accordingly trooped up the two flights of stairs to the attic, or third floor. As they rounded the post at the top of an enclosed stairway, they found themselves in a large space dimly lighted by one window at the head of the stairs. The whole attic, to the farthermost corners, stretched before them. Dusty, shrouded shapes stood here and there. A great chimney went up through the middle, showing some of the sooty dust that had also sprinkled down from somewhere upon draped furniture or old trunks. Jean warned the girls again about dust, but no one cared.

At the front of this third floor a gable and a room of good height had been finished, separated by partitions and a door from the rest of the “attic.” The door was not far from the stairs and Jean explained that her father intended to make a hall there some day, shutting off the unfinished part by another partition and door. “But there’s no use in doing it, Mother says, for we’ll never need to use this room, and that’s why it will be just the thing for us. I suppose we can use the whole attic if we want to. We could have a lovely party up here some day. And I never even thought of it before!”

“Before your necessity became the ‘mother of invention,’ Jean.”

“That’s so, and ‘one thing leads to another’!”

Keen young eyes surveyed the proposed club room and found possibilities. A covered couch ran along one wall. Several good pieces of furniture stood about. The room was about fifteen feet in one direction, though it would have been hard to give its actual dimensions, so broken up was it into nooks and corners. Jean threw open the door of an immense closet and explained that the house had once been a big country house and that this room had been occupied by two maids.

“It is the very place, Jean!” cried cheery Fran. “How soon can we fix it up? I have a lot of ideas already!”

“Mother will have to see if the heat will turn on, though there is a place for a little stove, you see, if the furnace won’t heat us. I’ll let you know; but we ought to have another meeting soon.”

“Come to our house Saturday, girls,” Leigh invited. “We haven’t a lovely attic like this, but we can meet in my big room all to ourselves.”

This was a good suggestion. Leigh was warming up, the girls thought, and Phoebe knew that it was the opportunity Leigh wanted to do something for them without appearing to thrust herself into their affairs, a thing about which she was sensitive. A club would be just the thing for Leigh.

Nan suggested that it would be a good thing to make no reference to S. P. affairs, or appear to be concerned about anything private, to “show Billy that girls could have something going on without their making a great fuss about it.”

Fran took a little exception to this. “Don’t you think that once or twice we ought to be saying something and then stop suddenly till we get past some of the boys?” she asked.

“Fran, if you will do that, I’ll be—a—vindicated, and your friend forever! Thanks muchly, girls, for going into this! Now do rack your brains to think of a good S. P. name, even if we should want to change it after a while.”

“Don’t worry, Jean. S. P. can mean something, I’m sure. We’ll put on our thinking caps till Saturday and longer if necessary. Still, Jean, if we can’t think of anything, nobody will know the difference!” And this was Leigh Dudley, over inviting whom Jean had hesitated, not sure that Leigh would be at all interested!

CHAPTER III
SHAMROCKS

The party that night was given by one of the senior girls and was quite general. Nearly all of the girls in the small high school were there and many of the boys, with some who had been graduated or stopped to go to work in some store or business.

The town was small. Originally a community formed in a farming district not far from Lake Michigan, it was populated by people who were intelligent and of good standing. But a big railroad had diverted its main line from the town and a larger town, with manufacturing interests had absorbed such growth as this village might have had. The school was good, but small.

As Jean had said, there was no organization for girls outside of the school literary clubs and the church societies. These were excellent in their lines, but girls bubbling over with activity wanted something else. So did the boys and the “Black Wizards” were created.

The party proved to be an advance St. Patrick’s Day celebration. The house was appropriately decorated and one of the senior girls stood at the foot of the stairs to pin on each girl and boy, as they came from leaving wraps in the respective rooms, a bright green shamrock. A March wind blustered outside, but it was bright and warm within.

“I’d forgotten that tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day,” said Jean to Nan, with whom she had come. Jimmy had gotten to the stage when he escorted one of the girls to the party. Most of the younger ones let the girls come by themselves, yet took them home. But Jimmy Standish was more or less devoted now to a very pretty senior, Clare Miller, and permitted Nan to make any arrangements she liked about being escorted to this or any other party. Sisters were of secondary importance, as Nan told Jean.

“I’d have worn my green frock, if I’d known,” replied Nan, “but this blue one is more becoming. I love your orchid, Jean.”

Jean adjusted her bracelet and repinned her shamrock a little self-consciously, for Billy Baxter was making straight for her and some one of the girls drew Nan away at that moment. “Hello, S. P.,” said Billy.

“Oh, Billy, please,” said Jean, putting her finger to her lips. “I told you that in confidence. We’re not a bit ready to have that get around!”

Billy grinned, and Jean was surprised to see that he was really pleased, probably over knowing something that the other boys had not been told. “I hope you didn’t tell Danny Pierce what I said,” Jean continued.

“No, I didn’t,” returned Billy, glad that an accident had saved him from imparting the news which he would have had no hesitation in passing on. Jean hadn’t told him not to tell. But Danny had had something to tell Billy; then they had met some other Black Wizards with great schemes afoot. “I told you things I oughtn’t to’ve,” said Billy, “so we’re even. But we’re all wearing our pins right out to-night, you see. And say, Jean, may I see you home to-night after it’s over?”

“Yes, Billy, of course. But please don’t say S. P. till I give you leave.”

“All right. But who belong, Jean?”

“Sh-sh! I’ll tell you to-morrow if I see you when no one’s around.”

“All right,” said Billy again. “Don’t you kind of like our pins, Jean?”

“They’re stunning, Billy—even if I am scared of snakes; and I think that ‘Black Wizards’ is an awfully cute name. I suppose you have some terrible initiation, don’t you?”

“Yes. We have some doings at our meetings, believe me, Jean.”

At that point Jean and Billy were summoned to take part in a game that was being started and Jean did not have any conversation with him for some time. Yet Nan told her that he “hovered” around, and one of the senior boys tried to tease her by remarking that Billy Baxter had gotten over his dislike for girls. “Is that so?” she answered without confusion, recalling that the senior had passed her and Billy as they had been walking along together that afternoon.

But Jean was wondering how, now that Billy was pledged to silence, some knowledge of the S. P.’s could “leak out”; for there would be no fun unless the boys did know. She had not thought of that when she was talking to Billy this time. But perhaps some of the other girls were managing better than she had done.

She threw herself into the games, however, enjoying everything, as Jean always did, and temporarily forgetting both Black Wizards and S. P.’s. The scene was gay with the decorations, the light dresses of the girls and the movement of the games. Once, when Jean was waiting with others for a charade to be begun, she stood by Fran and whispered the state of things to her.

“Don’t worry. I’ll fix it,” said Fran with a twinkle.

When the time came for the refreshments, which were more elaborate on this occasion than usual at the parties Jean had attended, she saw that Fran was next to one of the boys who wore the Black Wizard pin. She herself had found her pretty place card between Billy and Danny. Bess was on the other side of Danny, and once she heard him exclaim, “Is that so? What do you call it?” and she knew that Fran had passed the word on to Bess.

It was a shame, though, to have started it the way she had. What was it about “tangled webs” when first we “practice to deceive”? But there were to be no fibs. When they were looking at the attic room, it had been decided that if they were asked how long since their club had been started they would answer “Not very long.” More searching questions need not be answered at all, and presently the club would be taken as a matter of course. Such thoughts as these ran through Jean’s mind and she ate her green salad, nibbled the green frosting on her cake or took a spoonful of green and white brick ice-cream.

As a rule Jean acted on impulse first in ordinary affairs; but most of her impulses had been so far based on common sense she had thought. Anyhow, a club would be fun.

There were more games after the late refreshments, for the seniors were running this party. Jean was both tired and sleepy, though happy, when Billy took her through the sloppy streets to her home. “Say, Jean, I noticed that you had lost your shamrock in the games,” said Billy, as they stepped upon the porch. “I want you to take mine.” With this he threw open his overcoat and unpinned the precious snake pin, for the Black Wizards had put their badges upon the shamrocks to make them more prominent, a little while after arrival.

“You may as well pin it on with this, too,” he added. “You can give it to me in the morning. Goodnight, Jean.”

“Goodnight, Billy,” returned Jean, astonished to find both shamrock and pin in her hand. “Thanks.” But Billy was half way out of the yard by that time.

A sleepy mother was waiting up for her, but Jean shut her hand upon shamrock and pin. That was a crazy thing for Billy to do! “Yes, Mother, we had a lovely time. Billy Baxter brought me home, and Danny Pierce took Nan. Most everybody was there. It was a St. Patrick’s Day party and they had the best refreshments and everything, a regular supper. Jimmy took Clare and the seniors ran things. I’ll tell you all about it to-morrow. There were some of the older boys and girls not in school, too. Oh, there must have been forty or fifty there, I think,—maybe not so many. And Mother, that was an S. P. meeting here yesterday and I’m so delighted that we can have the attic. Please don’t say anything about it.”

“I usually know more about a matter before I talk about it, daughter,” said Mrs. Gordon. “Get to bed as soon as possible, child. It is such a pity to have a party in the middle of the week. You will be too sleepy to study to-morrow.”

Jean was almost too sleepy to get up the next morning, but she did not forget to pin on the shamrock which Billy had given her. She certainly owed him that little attention. The snake pin she had under her coat ready, and when she passed Billy’s house on the way to school she found that he was waiting for her, as she shrewdly judged, to receive the pin before its absence should be noted by other Black Wizards.

“I didn’t have sense enough to think that you couldn’t wear the shamrock that late last night,” Billy explained, rather sheepishly. “Some day we’re going to give a party and badge the girls we invite with our pins for the evening. Jimmy Standish said that last night and I was thinking of it as we went home.”

“Oh, that was all right, Billy. It was great fun to have it and I’m wearing the shamrock, you see, on my coat. I see Nan coming now and I’ll just stroll back to meet her, I think. There goes Danny. Do ask him if Bess told him anything startling last night. I thought I heard her say ‘S. P.’”

So Jean’s handling of the situation saved her from walking to school with Billy and probably, as she thought, saved him from some embarrassment. It would also give Billy a chance to say to Danny that he “knew it already,” if, as she thought, Bess had told. Jean had not exactly planned it, but instinctively she felt a situation when it occurred.

The seven S. P.’s felt a little undercurrent all day, but they avoided being together except as they would usually meet, in twos or threes. Once or twice conversation, not upon the S. P.’s at all, was suddenly stopped, as they had planned.

Jean had really forgotten about having promised to tell Billy about who belonged to the club, till after school that afternoon Billy caught up with her before she had left the school grounds and took her books as Jimmy had just taken Clare’s in front of them. He copied Jimmy’s nonchalant air and said, “Excuse me, Nan,—I’ve got to see Jean about something.”

Bess was just coming up behind them and caught Nan’s arm, drawing her aside as Billy and Jean walked on. Well, thought Jean, maybe Billy hadn’t liked it that she hadn’t walked to school with him that morning.

But Billy made no reference to that. “Jean, it’s all over school about your club. The other girls must have let it out.” So Billy began in a low voice. “Before I said a word to Danny he said, ‘So the girls have got a secret society, too; I heard last night.’

“‘What did you hear?’ I asked. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘they’ve started something and all Bess would tell me was the initials of their name, the S. P.’s, and I suppose it stands for Sweet Pickles or Sour Grapes or something like that.’

“I told him, of course, that I had heard about it before, and that he’d better go slow on ‘Sour Grapes,’ because they were mighty nice girls all right. But do tell me who they are, so I’ll not be so ignorant the next time.”

Jean laughed heartily. “I don’t mind a bit. That was cute of Danny. Why it’s Fran and Bess and Molly, Phoebe and Leigh, and of course Nan and I are in it. There are exactly seven of us now, though it might be possible that we’d take in some more girls later on. I sort of think we ought to, when we carry out one of the things I’ve been thinking of. I’m president, Billy, and that’s everything I can tell you.”

“I thought you would be, Jean,” said admiring Billy. “You are great at getting up things.”

“Not half so good at it as Molly, or Nan either, for that matter.”

“That will do for you to say, Jean. Come on, Jimmy’s taking Clare into the delicatessen. Let’s go, too.”

Jean wondered what was getting into Billy, Billy the shy with girls. He was “certainly putting coals of fire on her head,” though he did not know it. But she had known Billy Baxter all her life and it seemed very natural to sit at the little table and sip a chocolate soda. They left the subject of secret societies and talked about the school teams, the prospect for baseball, the plans for the new gym, how the old town might wake up after a while, and who had a new car. Jimmy Standish slapped Billy on the shoulder as he passed him, going out with Clare, and said, “Hello, Jean, how are the Seven Peaches to-day?”

“I can’t imagine what you mean,” grinned Jean, “but that’s a nice name.”

CHAPTER IV
STEALTHY PROWLERS

It happens sometimes that a sudden decision has far-reaching consequences for good or evil. On the other hand, an organization started upon an impulse and with no particular purpose might easily die an early death, with no special consequences. It was probably due to the character of these girls that their little club, so impulsively formed, should bring them some happy adventures, as well as some odd ones, with a mystery of which they could have no idea now.

There were two points about which the girls were thinking: what they should do, and what the S. P. should mean. Naturally it should have some connection with the purpose of the club, provided it was to have any. It was queer, Jean said, how many things S. P. could mean. Who would have thought of it? The boys missed no opportunity to tease them by concocting different combinations. Other girls asked Jean or Nan what was going on and they explained, “It is just a simple little club that we are beginning to work on a little, and we are not telling much, about it yet. No, it isn’t a sorority and won’t be like one.”

“I’ve made more explanations, Jean,” said Molly, when they all met on Saturday at the Dudley place, “and when there isn’t anything much to explain, what can a body do? I do hope nobody feels left out!”

“You couldn’t help that, Molly, if any one wanted to feel that way, about any club. It seems all right to me to have one and we’re not going to act any different from before. You’re an old dear, Molly, and you are used to the church societies, where it’s come one come all.”

“They are the best, then.”

“Of course they’re the best. As Dad says sometimes, ‘You can’t start an argument with me on that, Jean.’ The thing is—let’s see—‘self-evident’.”

But Molly enjoyed the fun as much as any of the rest and it began at once. Saturday’s meeting at the Dudley home was like another party, Fran said. Jean, who had felt so shy with Mrs. Dudley, was made to feel at home by her cordial way of meeting the girls.

“So you are the young lady who started this mysterious club, are you?” she asked. “Leigh will not confide the name, only the initials. If there is anything that I can do to help the fun along, let me know, Madam President!”

The bit of formality about Mrs. Dudley made her only the more “fascinating,” Jean confided to Nan later on; but the girls were taken at once to Leigh’s own room, where they exclaimed in little oh’s and ah’s over her pretty arrangements. “Papa let me plan it,” said Leigh, pleased that the girls liked her room. “When he built the house he told Mamma and me that we might as well have just exactly what we had always wanted. So as I had wanted certain things, I planned it out. Do you like my long window-seat?”

“It’s like a real living room, Leigh,” said Nan, “with your fireplace and mantel, and your built-in bookcases. I love the chaise longue! Here is the beautiful movie heroine, reclining in her boudoir!”—and Nan gracefully sank into the damask-covered arms of the article of furniture mentioned, arranging imaginary draperies over her feet.

“Don’t, Nan,” laughed Bess. “I’m growing hilarious now and Leigh’s mother will be shocked at our laughing so much, especially when the secretary reads the names the S. P.’s have been called.”

“Don’t worry about Mamma,” said Leigh. “She thinks that I have not had enough fun with the girls since I have been here; but you all were such old friends that I felt,—well, you know how a stranger would feel.”

“Especially a nice stranger like you,” warmly said Jean. “But you are one of us now.”

No more time was lost. The president with quite an air called the meeting to order, asking at once for the report of the secretary. Nan, still occupying the admired piece of furniture, languidly read her report, which was so funny that her hearers were convulsed. Nan had quite a gift as scribe. No funny detail of how the S. P.’s started was omitted. Shaking with repressed laughter, they felt that they could not miss a word and Jean’s voice shook as she said, “You have heard the report of the secretary,”—then she could not go on, and Molly moved that it be accepted.

“We have had some valuable suggestions from our friends, the Black Wizards,” ran the report. “Some were complimentary, some quite otherwise. In planning the charades for the school party, Billy Baxter told Jean that he would get all those Sweet Patooties, Smart Prodigies, or Serpentine Pythons on his side, and Jean told him that she did not mind being called a sweet potato, but she drew the line on being either a prodigy or a python. Mr. French asked about the Serious Pedagogues and Judge Gordon wanted to know more about the Seraphic Peris. He had to explain to Jean that a peri is a kind of fairy! But we feel that the judge appreciates us.

“We have seen the boys double up over some of their brilliant—interrogation point—thoughts on S. P. and heard ourselves called Some Pumpkins, Sweet Peas, Syrupy Pancakes, Serious Problems, Sleepy Possums, Sour Persimmons, Sappy Poets, Saucy Palmists, and by our principal, who deigned to listen one time, Soulful Psyches,—which wasn’t so bad.

“So if the S. P.’s wanted what the secretary’s editor father calls ‘publicity,’ they have had it. Father threatens, as it is, to write it up in the paper.”

After the secretary’s report had been duly accepted and Jean had remarked that she would not call for a treasurer’s report, as there could not possibly be any money in the treasury, Phoebe, who sat on the floor near the fire, gave a bit of advice.

“The funny part of Nan’s report, Jean, is her write-up of you and Billy and your ‘reaction,’ as she calls it, to the news of the Black Wizards. I’d advise you not to let Mr. Standish, or Jimmy, get hold of it.”

“Jean needn’t worry, Phoebe,” said Nan. “Father thinks all the stuff I write is silly, and anyhow I destroyed all my notes. This new S. P. notebook is to be kept locked up in my desk.”

Bess, Fran and Phoebe, the committee on what the S. P.’s should do, asked for a “general discussion” first. Molly, by this time having laid aside conscientious scruples about a secret club, said that as far as she was concerned she’d rather just have a good time. That was a popular suggestion and was applauded.

Jean, however, said that you had to have some program even for good times. “I can’t think, for the life of me, any S. P. name that will mean anything much, and if the rest of you can’t let’s let it go right now. How would it do for the present to fix up our attic for all sorts of funny things, maybe witches’ quarters if the boys have wizards. We could even give a party there to all the boys and girls. Then Mother suggested that when it gets too hot for meetings in the attic we could be an outdoor club and take hikes and do things that girls and boys do now. We’ve been doing them anyhow, a little, like our beach parties over on Michigan, and our breakfast hikes to our own little lake. But it would be lots more fun to do things as a club.”

“I have a lot of nature books, girls,” said Leigh, brightening. “How would you like to start a little library in our club room and read up on what girls study in some of the camps?”

“Fine, Leigh!” exclaimed several girls. “We ought to be up to date!” said Fran.

“I have a tree book,” said Molly. “I never read it, though.”

“Molly’s turning frivolous,” said Phoebe. “All she wants to do is to make fudge and be a witch.”

Molly, surprised, looked at Phoebe to see if she were being critical, but Phoebe’s grin reassured her. “You have to be on too many programs as it is, Molly, to want to improve yourself outside of school,—isn’t that so?” Phoebe continued, and Molly nodded.

“But I like hikes, Phoebe, and I really ought to know what there is to see around town and the lakes.”

“Let me tell you something,” said Bess. “As I went down street on errands this morning I met Miss Haynes. You ought to have seen her. She had on old high shoes, an old hat and a heavy sweater. Some sort of a case was swung around her shoulders and her pockets were stuffed full of something. When she saw me she just grinned, nodded and went on, and she was headed out of town, toward the lake. Imagine, on a day as damp and chilly as this! Of course, we do it, whenever we feel like it, and we skate and all in the winter; but she was going all alone, and I just thought to myself, there must be something to see, or she’d never go just for her health or a walk. It’s muddy as anything out that road.”

“More ideas!” cried Nan. “How would it do for the committee to talk to Miss Haynes? She’s the science teacher since Mr. Peters left and maybe she’ll take us out on a hike. He did once in our freshman year, only I think that he didn’t know much about anything.”

“That was the reason they let him go, I think,” wisely remarked Molly. “I imagine Miss Haynes is getting ready for some field work with the class.”

“I never heard of field work,” said Bess, “but I’m for it! Hurrah for hikes and fires and food and we can at least prowl around and pretend to have an ‘object’.”

“Oh, Bess. That makes me think! You say ‘prowl around’,—why not Prowlers? S. Prowlers,—what are prowlers, that begin with S? Still—silent—searching—slinking—slippery.”

Jean paused for breath and Phoebe suggested “sprightly,” or “stalking.”

“Get the dictionary, somebody,” laughed Bess. “We’re going to ‘acquire a vocabulary,’ as our English teacher recommends, if we keep on.”

“Steady,” continued Jean, still thinking, and now clutching her hair in a pretense of great concentration. “Aha! How about Stealthy? The ‘Stealthy Prowlers’? That isn’t so bad, is it? If we want to see any of the wild things in the woods around the lake, or even on the beach of Lake Michigan, we’ll have to do some prowling.”

“I can’t say that I think it very pretty,” said Molly.

“It isn’t. I’m sorry that I got you girls into those initials.”

“It’s all the funnier, Jean,” said Frances.

“Why, I rather like it,” Leigh added. “‘Stealthy Prowlers’ has a touch of mystery, as my mother would say. Let’s be it, for a while anyhow, but we’ll never tell a soul, shall we?”

“After all the names that we’ve said yes or no to, just for the fun of it, nobody would believe that this was our real name anyhow. And aren’t witches a sort of prowlers? Why not prowlers with a good purpose as well as prowlers with bad ones?”

“Put down Stealthy Prowlers, Nan,” said Bess, “as our best suggestion yet, and let’s get to talking about our attic club room. But Jean, you and Nan have more opportunity to see Miss Haynes than the committee does. Please see her about the hikes. She might even know about Scout work and be willing to camp with us somewhere.”

“That’s a great suggestion, Bess!” Leigh exclaimed. “Mother never would let me go to a summer camp, but she might, near home, as it would be here.”

S. P. ideas were growing. Jean and Nan promised to see Miss Haynes on Monday; and then the planning was directed to immediate affairs with the arranging and furnishing of the club room, the time of meetings, whether they should have refreshments or not, and kindred matters to be decided. Jean was to be spared some things, for it would not be fair, the girls said, for her to be at all the trouble, or expense, if there were any, about the room. It was enough for her to offer the room. But Jean informed them that the furniture was there and the room doing no one any good. “Mother is having the attic all cleaned for us to-day,” she announced, “and this morning we decided that it was foolish to keep a lot of things that might do somebody some good. So you ought to see the clearance! But all the furniture that can be fixed for us, and some trunks of things that will be lovely for us to dress up in will still be there.”

“I adore an attic!” sighed Leigh. Then a neat maid came to the door to announce that tea was ready, and the girls of the S. P. Club had their first dainty meal together in their official relation.

CHAPTER V
THE WITCHING WITCHES

Phoebe was delighted when Jean told her how glad she was that Leigh was in the club. “Do you know,” said Jean, “if it had not been that you have liked her so much, I would not have called her that afternoon. They seemed like such reserved people and have so much money and travel so much, or I suppose they do, that I imagined Mrs. Dudley would not care for us girls, and Leigh never seemed to. But I understand now.”

“She didn’t want to show how lonesome she was,” said Phoebe, “and then she hasn’t been around much with other girls anyway. She was sick and tutored, at home or wherever they were.”

The whole seven, Leigh included, were going to Jean’s after their good supper at Leigh’s. The purpose was to inspect the attic once more.

“You feel better, Jean, don’t you, to have some sort of a real name picked out, even if it may be only temporary?”

“Yes, Phoebe, after what I said to Billy. Some day perhaps I’ll tell him all about it.”

“None of the rest of us will, and it must be understood that if we take in other girls they are never to know how this started. We’ll probably forget it anyway. It isn’t important to the S. P.’s.”

The girls were delighted with the roomy attic that was floored over the entire house. Full of everything, it had not showed how large it was. “Oh, Jean,” cried Fran, stooping her tall height a little as she explored a corner near the eaves, “the room will be the regular Witches’ Retreat, and we can have all this to fix up for a Hallowe’en party or anything!”

“Yes,” eagerly seconded Leigh. “The sanctum sanctorum we needn’t let anybody see, if we want to be mysterious, but this would be wonderful, as Fran says.”

“I wouldn’t want to wait for Hallowe’en,” said Jean. “Let’s have an April Shower or a May Day, before it gets too hot and ask the Black Wizards to have a stunt.” Then Jean gave a little squeal, for the one electric light at the head of the stairs and another shining from the room did not disperse all the shadows and she had not noticed that someone else had come upstairs. It was Judge Gordon.

“Oh, Daddy how you scared me!” she cried.

“Sorry, Jean. I just came up to see what these witching witches need. I see that we must have more lights, unless you prefer darkness for your spells.”

“We wouldn’t need much more light until our party, but if you’re having it wired it would be good to have it when we want it, any time. Of course we could use candles.”

“And burn up the place. No, I’ll have proper lights. What else?”

“The running water doesn’t run and the chimney is choked or whatever flue that is. The stove smokes, at least, and couldn’t we have a fireplace instead?”

“You don’t want much, do you?” asked the judge, laughing. “But if you will investigate, you will find that a little fireplace has been boarded up. If you will be careful about fire, I’ll have it opened up and a grate set in. The radiator was fixed to-day.”

The girls found the room, or “Witches’ Cavern,” by Molly’s suggestion, quite warm enough for a meeting. They closed the door upon themselves for private conference after Judge Gordon had left them.

“Do you think that your father heard all we said about witches?” asked Bess. “He called us witching witches, which was very nice of him.”

“He probably heard what we said about Hallowe’en,” Jean replied. “Anyhow, he suggested at noon that if the boys were Black Wizards, we girls ought to be some sort of witches. He had walked home with Jimmy Standish and Jimmy told him the latest school gossip, I guess. How about it, Nan?”

“Nobody knows how all these things get around,” said Nan Standish. “But it’s a good suggestion. Why not have Orders? The Order of the Witch or Wings, for the bird division, for instance.”

“‘Swooping Pelicans’ would be better,” said Leigh quickly. “They look just like old witches riding the waves in Florida!”

“So do the kingfishers all scrooched up on a limb over the lake,” suggested Fran.

“And how about a little green heron watching for that next fish?” queried Bess.

“This club’s getting altogether too smart,” laughed Jean. “Nan, take these things down quick before we forget ’em! Stormy Petrel is another bird name with S. P., and haven’t we a Phoebe bird and a Crane already?”

“Help, help!” cried Nan, sharpening her pencil. “Swooping Pelican—Stormy Petrel, any more S. P.’s?”

Nan scribbled away, taking notes. Nor was she without some excellent ideas of her own. For the next hour or so the girls made their plans with many a laugh and chuckle. Leigh, who always had such pretty things, said that she could bring some cushions for the couch, which Mrs. Gordon had already covered with a gay couch-cover or robe. Fran had some curtains that she would offer.

“Maybe you won’t like them, though,” she added. “I bought them myself for my room when I was about ten years old, and Mother never would let me put them up, since my room is at the front of the house, like this, to be sure. Oh, I suppose they won’t do! They have all sort of crazy things in the pattern, peacocks and birds and I don’t know what.”

“Why, that would be fine for Stealthy Prowlers, Fran,” said Jean. “Bring them over and we can see. Mother has some plain draperies that she is fixing. Those will show behind the shades, but we can have our gay curtains inside of those. We’d have to have something to brighten things up. And I have a grand idea—that is, if you think it’s grand, of a witches caldron, right in the middle of the room, with a fire under it, you know, or things fixed to look like one, and maybe an electric bulb hidden in it.

“And let’s not have our witches all in black, since the wizards will be, I suppose. Let’s have yellow and black, or red and black, or—something!”

“Why not have each order of witches dressed differently?” asked Molly.

“In other words, each girl have a separate costume?” said Bess, in smiling reference to their limited numbers.

“I suppose so,” Molly replied, “but we’ll probably have more girls in outdoor things, won’t we?”

“That is to be decided,” spoke Jean quickly. It would not do to talk of this as yet. Molly would have everybody, dear girl that she was, but it would not always do. “By the way, girls, Dad said that we wanted to be careful not to make any of the boys mad about us or get mad ourselves—of course he did not put it that way, but that was what he meant. He heard me gibbering to Mother about things, you know. I’ve had to tell her quite a lot, of course. But I told my father that we were being ‘just wonderful’ not to get provoked at the names the boys make up for us, and that we were planning to entertain the Black Wizards, provided they would condescend to an attic party. Dad just laughed and told me that if we advertised plenty of refreshments he thought that the Black Wizards would come. I said that we liked eats ourselves and that the attic party would be a real supper, moreover, he could come up and have supper with us!”

“I think that your father is just too nice for anything,” cried Bess, warmly. “Just think of all the trouble and expense, too, in fixing this up for us!”

“Dad likes to do things to the house, Bess. Besides he said he hoped we’d wake this sleepy old town up and show the folks what boys and girls needed in this ‘day and generation.’ I don’t imagine that he wants us to do anything startling, though.”

Here there was an interruption from Nan. “Being secretary to this club is just awful. Do you want me to put down all your old suggestions, or wait till we really do something?” Nan was holding up her pencil with a comical expression of despair.

“No, Nan,—you might make a few jottings of anything you think is important, for fear the person that makes the suggestion might forget it. This is not a formal meeting, anyhow.”

So spoke the president, and Nan replied with a twinkle, “When have we had a formal meeting? Tell me that!”

“Echo answers, ‘When’?” laughed Jean.

And as informally this conference went on, among girls who were going to try something without a real leader. As yet their plans were unsettled, but they were evolving from chaos quite rapidly. The world was theirs in one sense, and girls in a small town have some advantages over others. It is easy for them to get together and it is only a step, figuratively speaking, into the country, where wonderful things happen all the time for those who have eyes to see them.

At present, fixing the “club room” stood first. Second, there was a decision to give the Attic Party as soon as possible, by way of opening the club room, or dedicating it. Then, meantime, how much should they tell of what they were doing, and how could they keep it a secret club if they had the party?

The president had things to say about this.

“Considering the way this club was formed, I imagine that the less we say right now to the boys, about our plans, the better. I’d dearly love to know what they are doing, but suppose we let them be curious about us, instead of showing too much curiosity about them. We can get up enough funny things to do ourselves, even if their doings are funnier; don’t you think so?” All this was in Jean’s own emphatic manner.

“And,” she added, “the Attic Party is going to do wonders to everybody’s disposition. Remembering how Billy’s crowing about the Black Wizards made me feel like getting even—in a way, let’s remember how they’ll feel if we act superior or anything like that. Dad is right, and this ought to be fun, pure and simple.”

The other girls agreed, though Nan remarked that she agreed “with reservations.” “If Jimmy starts anything at home in the crowing line, I may—,” but Nan stopped and laughed, then asked what the girls wanted Jean and herself to say to Miss Haynes.

“Maybe you’d better not suggest anything about camping at first, girls,” Phoebe suggested. “Just ask her if she knows what other girls do about outdoor work and where we could find out and what she sees on her trips, and if we’re going to have any field trips with her, and—” Phoebe stopped, for they all were laughing at the long list she was making.

“I think that we’d better add Phoebe to the committee,” giggled the president. “All those in favor of adding Phoebe Wood to the committee, say ‘ay’!”

CHAPTER VI
A NEW SORT OF A PARTY

For some days after this meeting mysterious bundles were brought into the Gordon home. To pass Billy, or Danny, or some of the other boys, with a knobby package whose contents were well kept from view by thick paper and a well-knotted string, was such fun. Jimmy offered to carry one for Nan one afternoon when she was coming from Leigh’s, but Nan said that it was “fragile” and that she could trust it to no one. “Of course, he wanted to feel of it and see if he could tell what it was.”

Whether the boys had a real club room or not they did not know. Nor did they know how long the Black Wizards had been in existence. “Curiosity killed the cat,” was all that Jimmy would say when Nan asked him where the Wizards met, after informing him first, that the S. P.’s were planning to have all their meetings at Jean’s, their business meetings, at least. The girls carefully noted all the boys that wore the snake pin, and put their names down. This was to make the number of girls fairly even, when they gave their party of celebration.

Although there were no other children at Judge Gordon’s beside the lively Jean herself, the club room was kept locked and it leaked out among the boys that the judge was having a number of keys made, “I’d like to get into their club room,” said Danny Pierce to Billy, “and see what they have there. What can girls do? If any of those girls lose a key, O boy!”

Billy Baxter took great delight in repeating Danny’s last sentence to Jean, who passed it on to the rest of the girls, creating quite a stir, as Billy had intended. “Would they dare?” asked Molly, in horror.

“No,” said Jean, “but they might climb up and peep in. I’d better keep the curtains together, though we’ll have to have the windows on the balcony open part of the time.”

“Unless they’re human flies, they can’t climb up,” said Leigh, looking out of the front window.

“There’s that oak tree,” Jean reminded her. “Wouldn’t it be funny if they planned to do it, and then we invited them?”

“Yes, but we are not sure that we’ll let any one into the inner sanctum.”

Every possible moment of the week was spent either on the attic floor itself or in sewing draperies or annexing ornaments in the various homes of the S. P.’s. It was not until Friday afternoon that the committee visited Miss Haynes, screwing up their courage to do something that turned out very pleasantly, as things dreaded often do.

The girls found Miss Haynes at the pleasant occupation of grading test papers in her room after school. She nodded pleasantly as they came in, halting just inside the door, while Jean asked, “Could we see you just a minute, Miss Haynes?”

“Certainly,” she replied, “but take seats for a few minutes. I’m just in the middle of averaging some grades.”

The girls sat down at the front desks, while Miss Haynes apparently forgot their existence in her work. But they kept as still as mice, or the Stealthy Prowlers they had decided to be, though time went on and they hoped that she really had not forgotten them.

“There!” she said presently. “That’s done. Why do we have to have tests and keep grades anyway?”

“Oh, that’s what we think, Miss Haynes. Can’t you do something about it?”

“I’m afraid not, Jean,” but Miss Haynes’ eyes danced. Why, it wasn’t going to be hard at all to talk to her. Probably it was because she liked hiking and things that she was so human!

The girls explained. They had started a club. They wanted to do some things that girls did in some of the organizations they’d read about in Camp Fire and Girl Scout stories and yet they wanted their own fun, too. They knew that she took hikes and knew everything about nature work and maybe camping, and could she suggest anything that would be possible to do?

Miss Haynes listened thoughtfully. “Why, yes, girls do a great deal that is very wholesome for them these days, but if they take up anything seriously they usually have a leader. I am not familiar with any of the organization work. Isn’t there any young woman in the town who does?”

“Nobody, Miss Haynes, and besides, the older girls don’t want to bother with us.”

“Will we have any field work in science, Miss Haynes?” This was Phoebe.