CHAPTER TWELVE
THE FUDGE PARTY
As Adele and Eva entered the big pleasant library, which was living-room for the Dorings, a tall man rose from a deep, comfortable chair, and, laying aside the evening paper, turned to greet them.
“This is my Giant Father!” Adele exclaimed. “Eva, I am introducing you to the nicest man in the whole world.”
Giant Father shook hands with Eva, and was just about to say some kindly word of welcome when the side-door banged, and Jack, cap in hand, appeared before them. “Sis,” he cried, “cast your eye upon this package! Does it look like chocolate enough? And here are the nuts. It took all the money I have earned this month to make these purchases.”
“Earned!” exclaimed Adele. “Doing what?”
“Children! Children!” Mrs. Doring laughingly admonished from the doorway. And then she added, “Come now, since Jack has returned we will have our supper.”
When they were seated at the table, Adele gayly exclaimed, “Yes, Jackie, since we have a guest, let us have peace to-night.”
“I’ll gladly have a ‘piece’ of yonder chocolate mountain,” Jack said, as he waved his hand toward a large cake such as no one could make, so he thought, except their own cook, Kate. And Kate, serving the supper, beamed happily on the brown head of the boy who had been the darling of her heart ever since he had been placed in her arms fourteen years before. It was indeed her chief happiness to make or bake something for her boy, Jack.
The merry supper in such a happy home brought tender memories rushing to the heart of the orphan girl, but bravely she thought, “I must appreciate what I have and stop grieving for what I cannot have.”
When the supper was over Adele drew Eva into a little room near the library. “This is Giant Daddy’s den,” she said. “Come in and close the door. I want to telephone to the Sunny Six and invite them to the fudge party.”
Soon the line was busy, for Adele was holding merry conversations with first one of her friends and then another. Yes, indeed, Betty Burd could come, and wouldn’t it be jolly fun!
“What shall I bring?” Peggy Pierce asked. “Just your own sweet self,” Adele replied. Bob, Jack’s pal, had told Bertha Angel about the party, and she said that she and Gertrude Willis would come together. Doris Drexel lived next door to Adele, so all that she had to do was to crawl through the hole in the hedge.
Rosamond Wright said that she had to take a music-lesson first. Oh, yes, she would come to the party after that. Why, she wouldn’t miss it for worlds, but she might be late.
“They can all come,” Adele announced, as she arose from the desk on which the phone stood, and then, taking Eva by the hand, she dragged her gayly toward the kitchen.
“We’ll help Kate do the supper work,” she announced, “and then we can be getting the place ready for the party.”
With so many helping hands, the room was soon in apple-pie order. Adele explained to Eva about the club to which her brother belonged. “It’s the luckiest thing,” she declared. “There are just seven girls in our club and there are seven boys in Jack’s, so when we give parties we have an even number. Not that we pair off. I don’t believe that any of the boys like one girl more than another. They are just our brothers, you see. Of course, being boys, they are not content to have a nice quiet club like ours. Last year they had been reading Cooper, so they called themselves ‘The Mohicans,’ and such blood-curdling yells as they could give. Sometimes they would dress up like Indians and paint their faces and swoop down upon us girls when we were in the woods, and, truly, they would frighten us, even though we knew perfectly well who they were. This year they are reading Stevenson, and so their club is The Jolly Pirates. They have elected Jack as their chief, and they call him Pirate the Terrible.”
Just then the front-door bell rang and Adele skipped away, soon to return with five girls, all of whom welcomed Eva gladly, and then laughingly they made deep curtsies to Jack, who had just appeared. That good-looking boy, in return, bowed in most courtly fashion.
A few moments later another bell rang, and Adele, opening the side-door, peered out into the gathering darkness.
On the porch stood six boys. The head of each was covered with a black, shroud-like cloth, and in a melancholy tone they chanted:
“Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest.
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum.”
“Oh, boys!” Adele exclaimed. “Do take off those dreadful black things! You give me the shivers, even though I do know who you are.”
But the six black figures stood motionless, and then one asked, in a deep, gruff voice, “Is this the home of Pirate the Terrible?”
“Yes, it is,” laughed Adele, “but he isn’t so very terrible just now, for he has on a calico apron and he’s cracking nuts for the fudge.”
Then, to the surprise of the onlookers, the boys jumped up into the air, and, clicking their heels together, they shouted in chorus, “Yo-ho! Jolly Pirates, seize the fudge!” Then, snatching off their black headgear, six laughing boyish faces were revealed, and Bob Angel cried, “In, my good men, and enjoy the revelry. Rich entertainment awaits you.”
“You ought to say, ‘In, my bad men,’ I should think, if you are playing pirates,” Adele suggested. Then she added, “Eva, permit me to introduce to you my brother’s boon companions, the Jolly Pirates. I won’t tell you their names just at first; it would be too confusing. I’ll let you learn them gradually. Now, boys, you may sit over here with Jack and crack nuts. And Peggy, you’d better stay near them and see that they put the nuts into the bowl.”
“Oh, let’s trust to their honor,” Peggy gayly replied. Meanwhile Doris Drexel was grating the chocolate, and soon the candy-making was well under way.
“It’s strange that Rosie doesn’t arrive,” Adele said at last. “It’s quite dark now, and she may be afraid to come alone. Perhaps—” But before Adele could say another word, some one stumbled up on the side steps, the kitchen door burst open, and there stood Rosamond with wide, startled eyes, and face as white as a sheet.
“Rosie!” Adele cried in alarm. “What is the matter?”
“I saw a ghost!” Rosamond exclaimed, as she glanced fearfully out of the still open door.
“It must be some one playing a prank,” said Jack, who had risen. Then he added, “Up, Jolly Pirates! Let us fare forth and capture this ghost.”
The fudge, which was already on the buttered tins, was set to cool, and so the girls declared that they would go along. Not one of them believed that Rosie had seen a real ghost, for they all knew that she was timid and imaginative.
Rosie, however, was convinced that she had seen a being supernatural, and so she clung to Adele’s arm fearfully as they went out into the warm night. In the sky were low, gray clouds, which were slowly drifting. Occasionally the moon appeared in a rift, and then it was dark again.
“It will rain before morning,” Dick Jensen said.
“Now, Rosie,” Jack Doring exclaimed, when they were out on the highway, “I am Pirate the Terrible. Lead me to your ghost and I will scare him so that I will make his bones rattle.”
“I saw it in the orchard, right at the cross-roads,” said Rosie.
“Follow me!” Jack commanded. “We’ll take a short cut through the graveyard.”
At that Rosamond stopped and exclaimed, “Jack Doring, you’ll do no such thing. There are tombstones in the graveyard,—you know there are!”
“Of course I know it,” Jack agreed. “But, my dear Rosie, did you ever hear of a stone, tomb or otherwise, taking legs unto itself and pursuing a young lady?”
“No-o,” Rosamond reluctantly admitted. “But graveyards are so scary.”
“We will stay on the high-road,” Adele said, wishing that they had not come, since Rosie seemed really frightened.
The cross-roads was a lonely spot. There had been a pleasant home standing on one corner, but it had recently burned, leaving only a charred ruin and a yawning cellar. In the fitful moonlight this looked very ghostly. Beyond was an old apple-orchard, and on the far corner near the fence stood—
“Look! Look!” cried Rosie, clutching Adele. “There it is! There’s the ghost. Right there—all in white!”
They all stopped and stared,—the girls startled, the boys puzzled,—for, truly enough, a tall, white figure stood silently in front of them. Then suddenly an unearthly scream rang through the air, followed by another from Rosamond.
“That was a screech-owl,” Jack said. “Now, fellows, if you are worthy of the name of pirates, show your courage and let’s at the ghost before Rosie faints.”
“Yo-ho-ho!” the boys shouted as they ran toward the white apparition. Then such a merry laugh rang out!
“Oh, Rosie!” Jack called. “Come, quick, and see what your ghost is.”
No longer afraid, Rosamond went forward with the others. “What is it?” she asked.
“Why, it’s an old tree-trunk,” Bob explained, “and for some reason or other Mr. Wiggin had it whitewashed.”
“Well, it looked like a ghost, anyway,” Rosamond said faintly. How the boys laughed!
“Never mind our fun, Rosie,” Lawrence Collins called; “we’ve surely had an exciting adventure. Now, let’s hike back to the fudge, for I am convinced that it is cool.”
Then the seven boys locked arms and marched ahead of the girls, chanting in loud voices:
“Yo-ho-ho! Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest.”
“I do wish they wouldn’t sing that dreadful song,” Rosie said with a shudder.
Adele laughed as she replied, “I guess that we shall have to put up with it as long as they are playing Pirates.”
“I wonder what they will be next,” Peggy Pierce remarked. “You remember that last year they were Indians.”
“Many of them will be going up to the city in the fall to attend the high school, and so probably this will be their last club,” Gertrude replied.
They were all rather glad to get back into the warm, cosy kitchen.
“Good!” cried Betty Burd. “The fudge is cool. It’s so nice and creamy, and the nuts are just crowding each other.”
Then followed a happy half-hour in which the candy was eaten amidst much joking and laughter. Soon thereafter the Jolly Pirates escorted the Sunny Six to their homes and quiet settled down over the town of Sunnyside.