Adele Doring of the Sunnyside Club

That afternoon Adele and Gertrude drove to the poorhouse, which was two miles out on the east road. Leaving Firefly hitched at the gate, they walked up the gravel path, on either side of which was a narrow garden, bright with autumn flowers. Tall maples stood about on the lawn, and their leaves were red and yellow. The afternoon sun was warm, and many old ladies, wrapped in shawls, were seated here and there on rustic benches.

“Everything seems cheerful,” Adele said. “I wonder where we shall find Mrs. Quigley.”

They made inquiry of a woman who was coming down the walk.

“I’m Mrs. Quigley!” was the cheerful reply, and the old lady led them to a bench near by. “I don’t know you, do I?” she asked kindly.

The girls were indeed relieved, for they had both feared that they were to meet a grief-stricken old lady. They were not old enough to know that many a bright face hides an aching heart, and the wrinkled face smiling up at them surely tried to be bright.

When Adele told their errand, Mrs. Quigley exclaimed, “Well, now, won’t Pa Quigley be pleased! It’s a long time since we were asked to a party.” Then, turning to Adele, she took her hands and said: “And so you’re Daniel Doring’s granddaughter. Daniel was mighty good to my man and me, and he’d be sorry if he knew that we had lost our little home. But there—” she smiled quickly through her tears. “I tell Pa Quigley, when he’s wishing we had our little home once more, where we could sit by the fireplace evenings, like we used to love to do,—I tell him that we must count our blessin’s. Things might be worse. One of us might be dead, and then how lonely the other of us would be!”

“That’s true,” Adele said as she arose, and then, stooping, she impulsively kissed the wrinkled cheeks as she added, “Mrs. Quigley, you belong to our Sunnyside Club, don’t you?”

“Maybe so,” said the little old lady, rising. “Once I read somewhere, ‘Every cloud has a silver lining; let’s wear our clouds with the linings on the outside.’ I try to do that. It makes it pleasanter for other folks, and I don’t know but it’s cheerier even for the person who is wearing the cloud.”

“I’m going to remember that,” Gertrude said as she pressed the wrinkled hand which she held. Then Adele exclaimed, “Now, Mrs. Quigley, a week from Saturday we’ll call for you at two, so you be ready and watching.”

When the girls were driving down the country road, Adele exclaimed earnestly, “Gertrude, those Quigleys are going to have a home together if it lies within my power to get it.”

“Isn’t it queer, Adele,” the other remarked reflectively, “how different people are. There are some women who have everything that money can buy, and yet they are discontented and fretful. If they could have heard dear old Mrs. Quigley just now, it might have done them more good than a whole book full of sermons.”

They were driving along a pleasant street in the village, and Adele soon drew rein in front of a neat white cottage with green blinds. “There is Grandfather Dally under the apple-tree,” she remarked as she hitched Firefly to a post.

“Well! Well!” the old man exclaimed, as he peered over his spectacles at the two girls. “If it ain’t Tudy and Dellie! ’Taint often I have a call from two nice little girls, but there, more’n likely you’ve come to call on my daughter, but she’s out somewheres, a-wheelin’ the baby.”

The girls assured him that they had called on purpose to see him, as they wished to invite him to a party. The old man was as pleased as a boy when he heard this. Then he added with a chuckle, “I’ve heerd that you little girls have turned the cabin out in the meadows into a sort of a play-house. Ain’t you skeered that the miser’ll come back some time and ketch you there?”

“Miser!” Adele and Gertrude exclaimed in one breath. “What miser, Grandpa Dally? We never heard of one!”

“Hum, now, you don’t say! I thought like as not everybody had heerd tell of him. It was after the sheep-raisin’ business had been given up in these parts, and there wa’n’t no one a-livin’ in the cabin at that time. Your grandpa, Della, had locked it up and kept the key. Well, one day a long, lank man from nobody knew where appeared in these parts, and asked ole Daniel Doring if he might rent that cabin for a spell. Your grandad was for givin’ the under fellow a chance, and this stranger said he was here to recuperate his health or some such, and so he got the key and was told he could live there as long as he chose and welcome.

“The man stayed pretty close to the cabin, and the folks in town was puzzled about him, and so one night two of the boys went out there and they clum up the side of the cabin somehow, and peeked in at that little high window, and Josh Perkins said afterwards that he almost fell down agin, when he saw what was a-goin’ on inside of that cabin. There sat the long, lank man at the table, and in the candlelight he was a-countin’ out gold pieces. Josh said he had a bag full of them. People were suspicious, of course, when they heerd that, and the very next day the sheriff went out to the cabin, and what do you think? The place was empty. Like as not the miser had heerd the boys prowlin’ about in the night, and he left for parts unknown and took his gold with him, I suppose, though nobody knows as to that, for your grandad, Della, locked the cabin right up then and kept the key.”

Half an hour later the girls were again driving down the road. “What a strange, uncanny story that was about the miser!” Gertrude said with a shudder.

“Rosamond has always said that the furniture in the cabin would probably tell queer stories if it could talk,” Adele remarked. And then she added suddenly, “Oh, Gertrude! Don’t you wish that we could find that gold, and then we could take care of the Quigleys!”

Gertrude laughed. “If he was a miser, he certainly took his gold with him.” Then she asked, “Della, did you ever hear what Miss Grackle’s great sorrow was, the one that made her turn against every one and live all alone by herself in that dismal house by the woods?”

“Yes,” Adele replied. “Father was telling mother about it last night. He said that when he was a boy, Miss Grackle and a younger sister lived in that big, rambling house on the Dickerson Road, the one that has been boarded up for so many years. The sister’s name was Miranda, and she was about ten years younger than Sally, and very pretty, but father said she was nowhere near as capable. They lived together very happily after their father died. Sally did all of the housework and waited on Miranda hand and foot, as the saying goes, and the younger one, who was rather selfish, accepted it as her due. They owned the house and land together, but they each had plenty of money besides. Then one day a stranger appeared in town, and, having heard that the pretty Miranda Grackle had a fortune in her own right, he began to court her. Miss Sally quickly saw that he was a mere adventurer, trying to marry some one with money, and she begged Miranda to give him up, but she wouldn’t, and then one night they ran away and were secretly married. Miss Sally was heartbroken. She heard that they had gone to Arizona, where the man had mines. She followed them there, but never found them. She came back a broken-hearted woman, boarded up the old homestead where she had been so happy, and then went to live all alone in that house out by the woods.”

“Poor Miss Grackle!” Gertrude said. “Here we are by the Dickerson Road, Adele. Would it be much out of our way to drive past the boarded-up house? I never happened to notice it.”

“No,” Adele replied, as she turned the pony’s head in that direction. “The house is just beyond that clump of trees.”

When the little grove was passed, the girls gave an exclamation of surprise. “Why, it isn’t boarded up at all,” Gertrude said. “See, even the windows are open.”

“And if there isn’t Miss Grackle herself,” Adele cried, as a tall, elderly woman appeared in the doorway to shake a dustcloth. She had on a big apron, with a towel about her head.

Adele drew rein and fairly flew up the walk, Gertrude following her.

“Oh, Miss Grackle!” Adele cried. “I’m so glad to see that you are well again. And have you really and truly moved over here?”

Somehow Miss Grackle did not seem to be old, like Granny Dorset, and, for that matter, she was several years the younger.

Upon hearing her name called, the woman turned and welcomed the girls gladly. “Yes,” she said, and there was almost a quiver in her voice. “For years it has seemed as though I just couldn’t come back here without sister Miranda, and when she never even wrote to me, I turned bitter against everybody, but when you little girls came the other day and showed me that there was love and kindness in the world, I decided to live a while longer and see if I couldn’t do a bit of good. I’m going to try to really live now. I’ve been buried long enough.”

“Oh, Miss Grackle,” Adele cried, “I’m so glad! So glad! And what a nice place this is! You had beautiful grounds once, didn’t you?”

The lady nodded. “Father was proud of his lawns and gardens,” she said. “You see that little cottage on the edge of the grove. Father’s gardener lived there, and his wife helped mother in the kitchen, for there were three children of us then,—I had a brother who died,—and there was work enough to do.”

“It’s a pretty little cottage,” Adele said. “Has it been empty all these years?”

“Yes,” Miss Grackle replied. “I would like to have a couple living in it now, if the man would attend to my grounds in exchange for the rent.”

With a cry of joy Adele threw her arms about the astonished woman as she exclaimed, “Would you really, truly, Miss Grackle? Oh, Gertrude, wouldn’t it be just the nicest place for the Quigleys?”

“Why, what has happened to the Quigleys?” Miss Grackle asked in surprise. “I thought that they had a small farm of their own. Did they lose it? You see, I haven’t heard a bit of news in years.”

Then Adele told the whole story, and Miss Grackle indignantly exclaimed: “That shows the ingratitude of people! There never was a sick child in the country round but that Mrs. Quigley was there to help the tired mother care for it, and never a tramp passed her door but that she made him a cup of tea and gave him a bite to eat, and talked to him all the time in that bright, cheerful way of hers; and some of them, I know, took to honest work after that, and they said that it was just because of her. And the town let the Quigleys go to the poorhouse! Well, they’ll not stay there! At least they can live in the cottage, and perhaps in the spring Mr. Quigley could work the garden on shares.” Then she added simply, “My income is not as large as it was, Adele, and my sister Miranda may come home at any time and be in need, so I must be saving for her sake. But there,” she added more brightly, “the Quigleys shall move into the cottage at once, and a way to provide for them will surely open up.”

Soon after that two happy girls drove away. “Isn’t it just like magic, the way things are happening!” Adele exclaimed, and Gertrude agreed. The girls were to have a strange adventure the next day, as you shall hear.