Adele Doring of the Sunnyside Club

The following afternoon Adele Doring and Gertrude Willis, hand in hand, skipped along Cherry Lane on their way to Granny Dorset’s. The leaves on the trees were yellow, and fluttered down on them as they passed. Dear Granny Dorset, who had not walked for many a year, was sitting on the sunny front porch in her pillowed chair. She looked up brightly as the girls opened the gate, calling gayly, “Here come my little Sunshine Maidens. What good news have you to-day?”

Granny Dorset’s own middle-aged daughter was so busy with housekeeping and making ends meet that she seldom knew what happened in the village of Sunnyside, and so these girls often hunted up bits of happy gossip to take to the little old lady.

Sitting on the edge of the porch, Gertrude replied, “Oh, Granny Dorset, did you know that Jane Dally has the darlingest new baby? It was christened last Sunday, and when father held it in his arms, it smiled up at him, and it has the sweetest dimple. Old Grandfather Dally stood up with it, and how his face did shine with pride and happiness!”

“’Lijah Dally a grandad again!” the old lady said brightly. “Well, to think of that now. He and I were children together. Della, his dad was one of your grandpa’s sheep-herders, and when he was a little fellow he lived in that cabin over in the meadows.”

“Oh, Granny, did he really?” Adele asked eagerly.

This indeed was the object of the girls’ visit, to find out what other old people, now living in the village, had been young when Granny Dorset was a girl, so that they might invite them to Granny’s surprise-party.

Then Gertrude asked a direct question: “Is there any one else living around here who was young when you were?”

“Not so many now,” the old lady replied thoughtfully. “Some have moved away and some have gone to the better country, but there’s old Mr. and Mrs. Quigley,—they as had to go to the poorhouse when their cabin burned down. They had lived in it for nigh forty year, and they always did for others when they had it, but when they needed help themselves, folks let them go on the county.”

“Oh, how sad!” Adele exclaimed. “Why couldn’t some one have given them a cabin to live in for the few years that are left?”

“Well, nobody did,” Granny replied. “And then there’s Sally Grackle. She lives all by herself, out on the edge of the woods. It’s strange how people change! Sally was such a jolly girl and everybody liked her, but she had a sorrow, which, like as not, made her queer-actin’, the way she is now. She’s shut herself up, and I’ve heard tell that she won’t see anybody. That’s all the folks living around here now who were young when I was.”

Half an hour later, when the two girls were slowly wending their way homeward, Gertrude said, “Not a very promising party, Della, judging by the guests. Poor Miss Grackle, not quite in her right mind, and Mr. and Mrs. Quigley out at the poorhouse. Luckily Grandpa Dally is a host in himself. He’s jolly and brimful of stories, so perhaps our party will be a success if we can get the guests to agree to come to it.”

The next morning the Sunny Seven met under the elm-tree in the school-yard to report progress. When the other five had heard of the visit to Granny Dorset, Betty Burd exclaimed, “That terrible Miss Grackle! You needn’t appoint me on a committee to go and invite her. I know some church ladies who went there once and she chased them away with a broom.”

“Poor thing!” Adele said. “She must be very unhappy, living there all alone by that desolate wood. Gertrude and I will gladly go and invite Miss Grackle to the party.”

That very afternoon they started out toward the woods at the north edge of the village. The houses were scattered, and at last the girls turned into a path which led through a swampy meadow. They had to pick their way carefully, to keep from getting their feet wet. Their destination was a weather-beaten, gray house, which looked as though it was about to tumble down, standing in the deep shade of two large pines. It was a cloudy day and the wind moaned dismally through the trees. There was no sign of life about the place. The seldom-used gate creaked as it swung open on rusty hinges.

“I suppose that at any minute Miss Grackle may rush out at us with a broom,” Gertrude whispered. “Do you feel at all afraid, Adele?”

“No,” the other girl replied, as they steadily advanced toward the house. The porch, which was broken in places, was littered with leaves.

“Miss Grackle doesn’t use her broom to sweep with, I judge,” Gertrude said softly.

Adele rapped bravely, but no one answered. Then she turned the knob and the door opened. The room which they entered was dark, cheerless, and damp. At first, they could scarcely see, and so they stood still. When they had become accustomed to the dim light, the girls saw a large, old-fashioned bed, and in it lay an elderly woman with a pinched, gray face.

“Oh, Miss Grackle!” Adele said, hurrying to the bedside. “You are ill and all alone here!”

“Well, what if I am?” the old woman replied tartly. “It’s nobody’s business and nobody cares.”

“If we made a fire in the stove, it would take the chill from the room,” Gertrude suggested kindly.

“Maybe so, like as not,” the old woman agreed. “But where’s the wood?”

“I’ll bring some in,” Gertrude replied. “I saw some fallen branches near by.”

So saying, Gertrude went out and quickly returned with an armful of dry wood, and soon a fire snapped and crackled cheerfully in the stove.

“And now I’ll make you some broth,” said Adele.

“You’ll be smart if you do,” Miss Grackle replied. “What are you planning to make it out of?”

“Why, Miss Grackle!” Adele exclaimed when she found the cupboards bare. “Haven’t you had anything to eat?”

“Not a sumptuous banquet,” the old woman replied in a non-committal manner.

Now Adele’s father had said only that very morning that Miss Grackle had plenty of money, so Adele decided that she had just been too ill to order things.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” the girl said aloud, and away she went, leaving the wondering Gertrude to care for the invalid.

A woman who often came to the Doring home to help Kate with the cleaning lived in the house nearest, on the main road, and from her Adele procured some lamb broth and bread. Miss Grackle, truly faint from hunger, could not resist the fragrance of the broth which Adele was heating, and she rather ungraciously permitted Gertrude to prop her up with the pillows, while Adele brought to her a bowl of the steaming broth and some fresh bread and butter.

When this was eaten Miss Grackle seemed stronger. She looked at the girls curiously.

“Young ladies,” she said, “perhaps you do not know it, but you are the first two human beings who have succeeded in crossing my threshold in ten years. Now, pray tell me, what did you come for? You must have a reason.”

“We came to invite you to a surprise birthday-party which we are going to give for Granny Dorset,” Adele said simply.

The girls, watching the old lady, were surprised to see a twinkle appear in the gray eyes.

“Well,” she declared, “I had decided to die, but now I do believe that I will live a while longer; and, thank you kindly, I’ll come to the party.”

Before they left, Miss Grackle gave the girls some money and asked them to order some groceries for her at the store.

“And be sure to tell that boy to leave the things just inside the gate the way he always does.”

The next morning, under the elm-tree, the five other girls listened with ever-widening eyes, as Adele and Gertrude told of their visit to Miss Grackle.

“Well, you surely are the two bravest girls I ever met,” Rosamond Wright declared, and the others fully agreed with her.

“The visit we are going to make this afternoon,” Gertrude replied, “will be harder still. I almost dread calling on those two old people, who are so unhappy because they have to live in the poorhouse.”

But a pleasant surprise awaited the girls.