CHAPTER IXTHE SECRET IS OUT
Theboys came panting downstairs, having landed the table in its new home safely. They found Polly and Jess on the steps.
“We’re coming right up,” said Polly, hastily. “We were just talking about Thanksgiving.”
Margy joined them, the loving cup in her arms.
“What about Thanksgiving?” she asked curiously.
“Oh, we were saying how queer it is we haven’t heard yet where we’re going for dinner,” said Polly.
Margy looked at her brother.
“Fred knows something about Thanksgiving he won’t tell,” she complained. “I think he’s awfully mean.”
“What do you know, Fred?” wheedled Polly. “Tell us—please.”
Fred’s face turned a little red.
“I don’t believe he knows a thing that we don’t,” said Ward.
“I do, too!” cried Fred. Then he stopped.
“I think you might tell,” said Jess, pensively.
“I promised I wouldn’t. Now will you be quiet?” said the harassed Fred.
“Is it about all of us? Are we in it?” asked Margy, quickly.
“How could you be in a Thanksgiving dinner?” asked Fred.
“Don’t be silly—you know what I mean. Shall we all know what you know when we do know?” returned Margy.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say, but you won’t get a word out of me,” announced Fred, firmly. “I happened to overhear some talk I wasn’t supposed to hear, and then Dad told me all the rest of it and made me promise not to tell.”
“Will you tell just one thing?” coaxed Artie.
Fred had a shrewd suspicion that Artie could find out more, if he wished, than the rest of the children.
“Don’t you go asking me questions,” he ordered. “I said I wasn’t going to tell, and that settles it.”
“But, Fred, tell us just this one thing,” insisted Artie: “When shall we know about—about it?”
“The week before Thanksgiving. Now I hope you’re satisfied,” Fred retorted. “I don’t see anyreason for standing here talking all day; if we’re going to move, why not move?”
Acting on this gentle hint, they went to work again, and before dark the new clubroom was in apple-pie order. Very trim and clean and neat it looked, too, and very warm and cozy it was. Fond as they all were of the little loft room in the barn, they could not deny that it was a bleak place in winter.
Mrs. Marley had given the key to Polly, and had assured her that not an outsider would be allowed over the threshold.
“That means, of course,” she told her daughter, “that you’ll have to take care of the room. You girls will have to get together and clean it now and then, but a room that isn’t used regularly will stay clean a long time. You can dust it thoroughly before each meeting.”
Polly loyally passed over the key to Ward, because he had always locked the padlock on the barn-room door. She knew he liked this duty and felt proud to be intrusted with it.
It was fortunate that the Riddle Club knew they were to have news the week before Thanksgiving, because they would have found it hard work waiting. As it was, each time “Thanksgiving” was mentioned in school or at home they looked anxious.
“I do think it istooqueer,” said Jess, for the twentieth time, as she walked home from school with Margy and Polly. “Carrie Pepper’s mother is going to have six aunts come to their house to dinner. And we don’t know a thing.”
As she spoke, they saw Fred come dashing from the house and give the signal that never failed to produce Artie and Ward if they were within hearing distance. It was a piercing whistle produced in some mysterious manner by putting three fingers in one’s mouth.
Two ear-splitting blasts answered Fred’s whistle, and Artie and Ward shot out of the Larue barn, where they had been engaged in some interesting experiment. Artie always had an experiment or two on hand.
“Hurry up! He wants us,” said Polly, as Fred spied them and waved.
The three girls ran the rest of the way and reached the Williamson gate breathless.
“You know Thanksgiving?” said Fred.
They nodded, dumbly.
“Well, we’re going up to Tom’s Island!” said Fred, who certainly did not believe in wasting words.
“Tom’s Island!” echoed Polly. “But it’s winter!”
“All the more fun. Wait till you hear,” saidFred. “We’re going up in the car Wednesday night and stay over till Sunday. Think of the sport! If the lake is frozen, we can skate or walk on the ice, and maybe we can rig up a sail and have ice boating.”
“I’d rather have it snow,” said Artie, seriously. “Let’s take our sleds.”
Margy shivered.
“It will be awfully cold,” she complained. “There isn’t any heater. How’ll we keep from freezing?”
“Oh, we’ll run all day and take a hot brick to bed at night,” said the practical Jess.
“I think it will be great! Is that your secret, Fred?” asked Polly.
“Yes,” admitted Fred.
“You see,” he went on, “I was back of the sofa, hunting for my cap, when Mother and Dad came into the parlor and began talking about it. I heard some before I could wriggle out, and then they told me the rest and I promised not to tell. They wanted to get all the plans fixed before they let us know.”
“And we’re all going? What a lark!” cried Jess. “We never did that before.”
“Well, you’re all going,” said Fred. “But Mr. and Mrs. Larue and Mr. and Mrs. Marley are going to Rye to have dinner with Mr. Field andhis sister and his two cousins—you know, Mr. Kirby and Mr. Adams. Mr. Kirby planned it. He wrote and asked us all to come, every single one of us.”
“My goodness, that would have been—two—six—ten of us; no, twelve,” said Margy, calculating swiftly.
“That’s what Mother said—that twelve was too many,” Fred replied. “So she talked it over with the other mothers, and at first, Mother told me, they thought they’d all go and leave us at home. Then they decided that was kind of mean on Thanksgiving, so Mother and Dad offered to take us all to the island. You know Dad likes to be outdoors. Mr. Kirby wrote and said that plan was all right, but Dad and Mother must come to dinner New Year’s. He asked them for Christmas, but of course they couldn’t go away from home on Christmas.”
“Of course not,” echoed Polly. “So we’re going with your father and mother in the car. I’m so excited, I can hardly wait!”
“I’m glad to know what we’re going to do,” said Margy, sighing as though a burden had been taken from her shoulders.
“Now don’t——” Polly instructed her younger brother, “don’t, Artie, whatever you do, tell any one who belongs to the Conundrum Club wherewe’re going. It would be just like them to want to go, too.”
Artie said he would be careful, but it was lucky he had to memorize a verse to recite at the Thanksgiving exercises. Artie loved to talk, and he was apt to talk to any friendly listener.
It was not till the Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving Day that Carrie Pepper heard of the plan. School was to close at noon, and Mr. and Mrs. Larue and Mr. and Mrs. Marley had gone off in the Larue car at seven o’clock that morning. Rye was over the state line and some two hundred miles from River Bend.
“I saw your folks going off,” remarked Carrie, sociably, joining the six chums as they set off for school at half-past eight. “What are you going to do for dinner to-morrow?”
“My mother’s at home,” said Margy, with dignity. “And so is Dad.”
“Oh! Then are they all coming to your house?” asked Carrie. “My mother is going to have a lot of company, too. She’s going to kill the turkey this afternoon. He’s nice and fat, too.”
“We’re going to carry the turkey with us,” said Artie, innocently. That was enough for Carrie.
“Carry it with you?” she asked. “Why, where are you going?”
“Up to Tom’s Island,” said Fred, darting a severe look at Artie. “We’re going up in the car and stay till Sunday.”
“I never heard of going to a summer camp in the winter time,” declared Carrie. “You’ll probably freeze, and it will serve you right.”
But the minute she reached school she told Mattie Helms and Joe Anderson, and in less than an hour every girl and boy in the school knew where the Riddle Club intended to spend Thanksgiving.
The six members hurried home as soon as school was dismissed. They were to leave at half-past three, and there was still some packing to be done. Mrs. Williamson had set her heart on taking a full Thanksgiving dinner, and there were enough cooking utensils left at the camp, safely packed in strong, dry boxes, to cook it properly. The last thing Mr. Marley had ordered done before leaving the island in the summer, was to have Mr. Mains bring a load of firewood and stack it under a shelter. He had foreseen that they might wish to visit the camp in winter.
Each member of the club was to take a flannel sleeping bag, a hot water bottle, a pair of blankets, and rubber boots. Even the girls in River Bend owned rubber boots, for they wore them to school during the winter storms. Mr. Williamson said they would be taken for gypsies if any one sawthe back of the car, for comfortables and blankets were piled high around the suitcases and the one sled that Fred had insisted must go.
“I ought to be thankful, I suppose, that you don’t each clamor to take a sled,” said Mr. Williamson, good-naturedly. “No, Artie, positively no ice skates allowed. It won’t be cold enough for that. It may snow, but even if the lake froze over, it wouldn’t be thick enough to bear you so early in the season.”
So the skates were left out, and that gave room enough—so Mrs. Williamson always declared—to put the six children in.
Jess and Ward were upstairs, getting into their heavy sweaters, and Mr. Williamson was backing the heavily loaded car out of the garage, when they heard Mrs. Pepper shrieking.
“Catch him! Catch him! There he goes!” they heard her cry.
Then came the sharp tinkle of broken glass.
“What’s the matter?” cried Ward, running for the stairs and down them as fast as he could go, Jess at his heels.
Mrs. Pepper met him on the lawn. She presented a terrifying sight, for the shawl, in which she had muffled her head, had slipped over one ear and gave her a reckless look. In her right handshe carried a hatchet—a “tomahawk” the excited Ward dubbed it—and this she waved fiercely.
“Where’d he go?” she demanded of the frightened children.
“Where’d what go?” stammered Jess, for Ward, as usual, had lost his breath.
“The turkey! I tipped the coop over—I’ve had him shut up for a week to give him the final fattening—and he was off like a streak. He came in this direction. I saw him fly over the hedge.”
“I heard glass breaking,” said Jess, doubtfully, turning to stare at the house.
Down the steps of the Marley house came Polly and Artie, and around from behind the car in front of their house, came Fred and Margy.
“Most ready?” they called. “Mother’s putting her hat on.”
“One of the parlor windows is broken,” said Jess, suddenly. “Do you suppose the turkey did that?”