CHAPTER VIIA POSTPONEMENT
Margycaught Ward and Artie at the gate of the school yard and Polly herself met Fred as he came down the stairs, his mouth puckered to whistle as soon as he should be safely out of the door. Whistling inside the building was forbidden.
“What is it? What is it?” cried Jess, who had caught the excitement from Margy. “Hurry up, Polly, and tell us.”
“Well, you know that room at the back of the house we just had finished this fall?” demanded Polly.
“The one your mother is going to have as another spare room?” asked Jess.
“With painted furniture and a gray and pink rug?” said Margy.
“Yes. Only there isn’t going to be any gray and pink rug,” answered Polly. “Mother told me this noon. She has talked it over with Daddy, and she wants to wait till spring when he goes off to the Hardware Convention. She’ll go withhim and buy the furniture then and get the latest—she said so. And what do you think?”
No one thought. They stared at the sparkling Polly.
“Mother said,” Polly announced with a rush, “that, as long as she wasn’t going to use the room, we could have it for our clubroom this winter!”
“Polly! How perfectly lovely!” squealed Margy, in delight.
“When did she say so?” asked Artie, this being the first time he had heard the news.
“This noon, after you had gone,” Polly told him. “And it’s the nicest room—three windows and a window seat and as warm as toast. The radiator is under the window seat. There isn’t a bit of furniture in it, so we can move our own stuff in. And it’s over the back hall, so it won’t matter if we do make a little noise. No one will hear us.”
“I said last night I wished we had a room we could use,” declared Jess. “But our house is so little we use every single place. In winter Dora doesn’t go home to sleep, and that takes an extra room.”
“My goodness, Jess Larue,” said Polly, “don’t you think you’ve done enough? We’ve had that perfectly fine room in your barn ever since the club was started. We’ll never have as nice aplace as that, and the minute it is warm we’ll move back. But I certainly am glad we can have this room.”
“I am, too,” declared Fred. “I say three cheers for your mother. Do you suppose we can meet there to-morrow afternoon, Polly?”
“Well, we can, if you’re willing to help move this afternoon,” said Polly. “I think, if every one will help, we can get everything done in time. If there is one thing I will not stand,” she announced firmly, “it is to meet in the room before we get our stuff moved in. I’d rather postpone the meeting.”
“Come on,” was Fred’s reply to this speech. “What are you all standing here for? We’ve got to move the table and the chairs and all that junk before supper time.”
He started to run, and after him ran the other members of the Riddle Club. The pavements were wet from the stray snow flakes which had melted as fast as they fell, and Margy slipped once or twice, but she never complained. She, too, felt that getting to the barn and starting the moving was the most important thing to be considered. At a time like this, mere legs and feet were of little consequence.
They dashed into the three houses, to tell threemothers that they were home from school, and then dashed out again and made for the barn. As Ward complained, pantingly climbing the loft ladder, they acted as though the barn was on fire and they had to save their furniture from the flames.
“Well, it gets dark so soon that we have to hurry,” said Fred. “Hurry up and unlock the door, Ward.”
“I haven’t the key,” answered Ward. “It’s in my other pocket.”
“You mean the pocket of your other coat,” Artie corrected him.
“Well, isn’t that my other pocket?” argued Ward. “How could I have the same pocket in my other coat that I have in this one?”
“We don’t care about your other pocket or this pocket or which pocket is where,” broke in Fred. “Go get the key, Ward. And hurry. It isn’t going to be so easy taking this stuff down that ladder as it was to bring it up.”
Ward went off to get the key for the padlock, and the others sat down in the old, dry hay to wait for him.
“Why don’t we lower the table out of the window?” suggested Artie. “That’s the way they took the new safe into the lodge hall; they pulledit up to the second story on a rope. If you can take something in that way, why can’t you take it out?”
“Window’s too narrow,” Fred objected.
“If you can let it out of a window, what’s the matter with lowering it over the loft on a rope?” said Jess, slowly.
“We could! Good for you, Jess!” cried Fred. “I’m not anxious to go down that ladder, let me tell you, with one end of the table and some one else at the other end liable to let the whole thing slip and knock me off. Let’s get a rope and let the table down.”
As Margy had once disconsolately remarked, if there was one thing that was scarce and hard to find in River Bend, it was a good rope. It was her complaint that there was never anything on hand to serve as a jumping rope, and the boys were always discovering that they had no rope to use when they really needed rope. Mothers guarded their clotheslines jealously, and woe betide the boy or girl who cut it in two, or even chopped a tiny length off. “You’d think a clothesline was made of gold,” to quote the exasperated Margy.
“I’ll go get a rope,” offered Artie. “Dad has some down at the store, and he said I could have it, if I came after it. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
“I don’t see what Ward calls it, he is doing,” said Jess, presently. “Even if he had to stop to get his breath, he’s had time to find that key and be back. Perhaps I’d better go down and see if he needs me to help him hunt.”
Fred and Margy and Polly waited in the loft till the shadows deepened to such a dark gray that they began to think it must be nearly supper time.
“I don’t know what you think,” said Fred. “But I know we’ve waited long enough. I’m going in.”
Margy and Polly followed him down the ladder. To the natural shadows of a wintry afternoon, the heavy gray snow clouds had added a deeper tinge, and though it was only a little past four, a light in the sewing-room of the Marley house showed that Polly’s mother had found it necessary to have the help of artificial light in finishing her work.
“Let’s go over and look at the room,” suggested Polly, and the three went in the side door and up the back stairs, which brought them to the room set aside for their use.
“It’s fine,” commented Fred. “Just fine, Polly. We’re mighty lucky to have it. There’s room for everything, and that shelf will be just the place to put the loving cup.”
Polly was pleased. She had been so delightedto have the room to offer the Riddle Club that she had taken their pleasure for granted; and now Ward and Jess and Artie were apparently making no effort to help her take possession. However, if the critical Fred approved of the room, it must be all right.
“Hello!” said Mrs. Marley, passing through the hall and seeing them sitting on the window seat. “Why, I thought this was the big afternoon! Where are all the others? And you haven’t moved a thing!”
“Ward went to get the key and he didn’t come back,” explained Polly, dully. “And Artie went down to the store to get some rope, and he hasn’t come back, either. And we waited and waited and waited for them.”
“Why, Polly dear, didn’t you go after them?” asked Mrs. Marley, in surprise. “Of course something has happened. You mustn’t be so ready to believe that it’s their fault. They’re just as much interested in the Riddle Club as you are, dear.”
“No, they’re not,” said Polly. “They like it as long as I’ll do all the work and the planning, but they won’t do a thing to help.”
“And this isn’t the first time Ward’s gone off and forgotten to come back,” declared Margy.“He always thinks there is plenty of time for everything.”
“There they are now,” said Mrs. Marley, as the doorbell sounded. “I’ll go down and send them up.”
Ward and Jess came stamping up the stairs, with Artie following them. He carried a large coil of rope over his arm.
“What you doing up here?” asked Ward. “We went up in the loft and you weren’t there. Then we went to Williamson’s, and you weren’t there, either.”
“How are we going to get anything moved, if you don’t do anything?” said Jess.
“Do anything!” exploded Margy. “Where’ve you been all this time? Here it is half-past four, and you talk about us doing something! Where have you been all this time?”
“Is it half-past four?” asked Jess. “Why, Dora was baking cookies and we stayed to watch her a little while. She said we could scrape the bowl, but we didn’t wait for that. We hurried back as fast as we could.”
Polly said nothing at all. Fred glanced at her uncertainly.
“What happened to you, Artie?” he said.
“Why, nothing,” Artie replied. “I went down to the store and got the rope; here it is.”
“Did it take you an hour?” asked Fred.
“An hour? I wasn’t gone an hour,” Artie protested. “All I did was to turn the emery wheel for Mr. Kelper a little while; but it wasn’t an hour.”
“Come on and let’s do the moving,” urged Ward. “What are you waiting for? It’s almost dark now.”
“It’s too dark to begin getting things down from the loft,” said Polly, quietly. “And, anyway, there’s no hurry; we can’t have a meeting till after Thanksgiving.”
“Why, to-morrow!” said Jess. “It’s our day to-morrow, Polly.”
“But we won’t be moved,” Polly pointed out. “We can’t get our things in here and in place and have a meeting, too. And if we go over our regular day we have to wait till the next meeting. I said I won’t hold a session without everything in order, and I won’t.”
“Are you mad, Polly?” asked Jess, anxiously. “Perhaps we didn’t hurry right back, but we meant to.”
“No, I’m not mad,” said Polly, calmly. “I’m only telling you that there won’t be any meeting to-morrow. We can move to-morrow, if you want to.”
“But let’s move now, Polly,” urged Artie. “Ihave the rope and everything. There’s lots of time.”
“We could start, Polly,” said Fred.
“I think Polly is exactly right,” declared Margy. “It’s almost dark now, and we couldn’t see to get up and down the loft ladder. Besides, I nearly froze to death waiting up there for you. It will serve you right to have to wait till after Thanksgiving.”
“Well, you’ll have to wait, too,” Jess retorted.
Polly, usually the gentlest of girls, could, when aroused, be like “a little cake of cement,” her father said. If she said that no meeting of the Riddle Club was to be called till after Thanksgiving, the other members knew that no amount of persuasion could make her change her mind. Jess was not exactly easy in her conscience, for she had lingered beyond all reason; and Ward and Artie, too, knew that they had been thoughtless and selfish to keep the rest waiting.
“We’ll start to move the first thing after school to-morrow,” said Jess. “And I’ll bring the key with me, so we’ll be sure we have it.”
Fred thought wistfully of the lost dues, but he resisted the temptation to speak of them.