Harriet Pyne Grove

“ Jean laughed heartily. “I don’t mind a bit. That was cute of Danny. Why it’s Fran and Bess and Molly, Phoebe and Leigh, and of course Nan and I are in it. There are exactly seven of us now, though it might be possible that we’d take in some more girls later on. I sort of think we ought to, when we carry out one of the things I’ve been thinking of. I’m president, Billy, and that’s everything I can tell you.” ”

“ How about Stealthy? The ‘Stealthy Prowlers’? That isn’t so bad, is it? If we want to see any of the wild things in the woods around the lake, or even on the beach of Lake Michigan, we’ll have to do some prowling.”
“I can’t say that I think it very pretty,” said Molly.
“It isn’t. I’m sorry that I got you girls into those initials.”
“It’s all the funnier, Jean,” said Frances.
“Why, I rather like it,” Leigh added. “‘Stealthy Prowlers’ has a touch of mystery, as my mother would say. Let’s be it, for a while anyhow, but we’ll never tell a soul, shall we?” ”

“ But science was not the only interest. The Orders of Sibyls were duly started, as soon as the girls decided between sibyls and witches. As Billy one day enlarged upon the fun the boys had in initiations, and Jean duly repeated all he said, S. P. initiations began. These, after the manner of initiations, were entirely secret, though Judge and Mrs. Gordon often smiled at the squeals of surprised victims, or giggles of the other girls. Not even the president was exempt from initiation, but the girls promised to do things that were “really smart,” not silly tricks to hurt the girls. ”

“ Don’t you like winter fun any more?”
“I’m not too old yet, Phoebe,” laughed Miss Haynes, “but I want to get out as easily as possible during the spring migration of birds,—so I want a pleasant April and May.”
“We’ll do our best to get it for you, Miss Haynes,” declared Nan, rising with Jean, to go. You didn’t want a teacher to get tired of you, of course, and Miss Haynes was busy. Funny, she didn’t like tests, either, because you had to grade papers. Still, how would she find out who knew anything?
The girls hurried home to call up the rest of the S. P.’s and notify them of the hike. ”

“ It surely will not be hard to find out what boats went down in that storm. If you were lashed to something it would mean that you were in some wreck, you see.”
“I wish you had lost a sister, Jean,” smiled Greta, “but I do hope that there will be somebody. Still a whole family could be lost on a pleasure boat, you know, and if I can work and learn something along as I can, I shall be happy. Can’t you learn without going to school, Molly?” ”

“ The only thing secret will be our initiations; so that that mystery is over. But the great mystery of the S. P.’s was the one we didn’t expect at all, the one that made Ann Gordon out of Greta Klein! Sure enough, I did go up there to find a cousin. Suppose we hadn’t gone camping. Suppose we hadn’t had a S. P. Club!”
“You would have gone East with your father and mother, and Leigh would have gone somewhere with hers, and Molly,—well, you would have been scattered.” ”

“ Let’s draw a long breath and start in, Wizards and S. P.’s, to raise money for the new library. You’re great on thinking things up, Jean. Get up some good schemes and I’ll back you.”
“Thanks, Billy. It’s a great relief that you don’t think that so terrible. And speaking of schemes, Uncle Everett says that he will give a contribution to the S. P.’s for any cause they like. My cousin Ann writes to me, you know. They are not rich, but so happy. I’m to go there on my Christmas vacation and Ann is going to be an S. P. So are a lot of other girls if they will join us.” ”

“ Branches lay on the ground, whipped from the trees. It was a small elm that had hit the porch. “Girls, if that tree hadn’t been actually lifted by the wind, I don’t believe it could have reached us,” said Jean. “My father said that they particularly tried to see that no tree could hit us if a storm felled it, no big one, I mean. We have shade enough as it is.”
The girls stood looking about. “I’m glad that the boys built their shack in a pretty well cleared place, too,” said Nan, who could scarcely help worrying about Jimmy. Greta was thinking of home and the children. ”

“ What can girls do? If any of those girls lose a key, O boy!”
Billy Baxter took great delight in repeating Danny’s last sentence to Jean, who passed it on to the rest of the girls, creating quite a stir, as Billy had intended. “Would they dare?” asked Molly, in horror.
“No,” said Jean, “but they might climb up and peep in. I’d better keep the curtains together, though we’ll have to have the windows on the balcony open part of the time.”
“Unless they’re human flies, they can’t climb up,” said Leigh, looking out of the front window. ”

“ Patrick’s Day celebration. The house was appropriately decorated and one of the senior girls stood at the foot of the stairs to pin on each girl and boy, as they came from leaving wraps in the respective rooms, a bright green shamrock. A March wind blustered outside, but it was bright and warm within.
“I’d forgotten that tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day,” said Jean to Nan, with whom she had come. Jimmy had gotten to the stage when he escorted one of the girls to the party. Most of the younger ones let the girls come by themselves, yet took them home. ”

“ If the cocoa was hot, it was bracing to Greta. She sat at the yellow and brown and white table, on a yellow, brown and white chair and had her bacon and eggs served on the yellow dishes decorated with daisies. “We are sibyls in our club,” Molly explained, “and our colors are yellow and white, but we aren’t what the boys call ‘yellow,’ for our motto is ‘sans peur,’ that means ‘without fear,’ and we’ve already discovered that to have courage is one of the most necessary things anywhere. ”

“ Lockhart sent the most wonderful binoculars out for Fran. She was so surprised and pleased! Some of us get out pretty early to see what is singing over our heads and we have enough glasses now to get our identifications of even the little birds pretty sure. We are glad that we brought all our nature books along. And we have found a girl who lives near the lake and knows where different birds nest. She took me to see a wood thrush’s nest, such a pretty, or odd one, only yesterday. ”

“ Six of the Wizards154 were climbing into a Ford sedan when Molly and Jean ran with a school bag full of the little packages. “Don’t you want something to eat on your ride?” asked Molly of Jimmy Standish.
“I believe I do,” grinned Jimmy, feeling in his pocket. “I just bought some at noon, but I need nourishment already.”
“I need all my nickels,” said Billy Baxter, “but as you said at noon, Jean, that this is the last chance, I’ll indulge, too. Give me two, if you please, one fudge, the other that good hard stuff that lasts longer.” ”

“ Isn’t it awful what some are up against?”
“Yes; and I never thought about it before. I’m always going to think more about other girls and not take everything for granted after this. By the way, Billy, I’ve a lot to tell you some time.”
“Why not now?”
“Because we have to play games and things. Wait till we get home. I have something on hand now that is very exciting. Could you keep a secret?” Jean’s eyes were dancing and the dimple was in evidence.
“Try me.”
“I haven’t said a word to Molly or Nan or any of the girls, for fear Sybil might get a hint and then have her heart broken.” ”

“ Sometimes it is more fun to get ready for something than to take part in the actual performance. But the S. P.’s knew that the Attic Party would be a success. It was different from what there had been before. They knew that both boys and girls would be curious about their club room. With a few games and good things to eat, everybody would enjoy it, they felt pretty sure.
Whom to invite was a problem. The whole high school was not very large, but they had school and class parties sometimes. “Shall we just invite the Black Wizards and let them bring the girls they want?” asked Fran. ”

“ Without something hot it would be a funny sort of a beach party, they thought. Accordingly local shops sold a few tin cups or those equally light. The girls would have cocoa.
In the morning, Jean, who had no glass to carry, put her sandwiches in an aluminum kettle, carefully wrapped “not to rattle and scare the birds away.” Water could be found at springs familiar to all of them. Cream went farther than milk and was not so heavy. One bottle was tucked in the pocket of Phoebe’s oldest coat and Nan put another in hers. ”

“ Three sober girls watched Greta make her way around the curve in the lake shore and steadily row toward them, stopping for one little wave when she saw them.
“She is awfully strong, isn’t she—for all she looks so pale and worn when she comes?”
“All that hard work would give anybody muscles. Have you noticed her poor hands?”
“Yes, Jean; but they are not out of shape at least.”
“No, just rough and her finger-nails are all broken. I suppose the washing does it and I don’t know what else she does, but she happened to speak of doing that. She had a big bundle of clothes in the boat last evening. ”

“ Any girl that isn’t warmly enough dressed will have to go back!” Miss Haynes smiled, but her firm tone showed that she meant what she said, and it was not the first time that the teachers had mentioned the girls’ dressing too lightly.
“Wouldn’t it be a good idea to take a lunch, too, in case we want to stay?”
“That would be lovely!” exclaimed Phoebe.
“Oh, yes,” said Jean, “and couldn’t we build a fire and have something the way we do at a beach party?”
“A fire would be a good idea, if it is in a safe place, but if you are going to see birds, you don’t want to carry much. ”

“ The presence of the girls at their camp was one source of pleasure, if somewhat tantalizing. She told her mother about a camp at that end of the lake and asked if she might not sell their eggs and vegetables to them. To this Mrs. Klein agreed, more readily than ever after the sale to Fran and the good price that she paid. Long evenings in the garden Greta spent, plying a busy hoe against the weeds. That the campers were girls she did not mention, but their bright faces were often before her. ”

“ I should have had more sense than to go off for a hike and breakfast when it felt like a storm, even if we did not notice any signs when we left so early. I’ve been wondering about you.”
“All of us have,” Jean added, “and Greta is worrying about her folks across the lake. This is Greta Klein. Greta, this is Nan’s brother, Jimmy. He’s in charge at the boys’ camp, just as Grace French is here.” ”

“ Rewarded for good work in school, the seven girls of the S. P. club are given a cottage on a little lake where they are to spend the summer. Greta, a poor German girl who lives near by, arouses their sympathy, and they try to help her. A storm damages Greta’s home, and her father dies in a drunken fight. Then her mother acknowledges Greta is not really her child, and the girl dimly recalls her childhood. One of the girls writes her father about Greta, and she is identified as the lost child of his own brother. ”

“ Occasionally they had merely a fudge party in the club room, when86 ideas gave out, or they were tired of decorating and making posters to put up around the attic. As the migration of birds grew more interesting in April, they not only went with Miss Haynes, but had their own private hikes after school, or early in the mornings on Saturday, submitting their lists or their descriptions to her when she was not too busy. Sometimes she was able to take out her science classes, when they looked not only for birds but for everything else in Nature’s great laboratory. ”

“ She was standing by Leigh224 Dudley, who had drawn a chair into the middle of the room and had sunk into it as quite exhausted after their mad rush through the woods. Leigh reached up with a smile and drew Phoebe down into her lap. “Sit down Phoebe-bird. It doesn’t do any good to be scared, but I’m not feeling any too safe myself.”
The two girls cuddled together and shut their eyes, but Jean and Greta stood together, looking out, and Greta whispered, “The good God can save us if it is best.” Not in vain had Greta read that German Bible. ”

“ Molly French was a plump, happy looking girl with a way of looking at one and considering a moment before she spoke. “Molly always thinks twice before she speaks,” said the girls sometimes. But then Molly was “the preacher’s” daughter.
13 Frances Lockhart was as tall as Leigh and very thin. But her features were good and her humor so jolly that even if her clothes usually hung on her, as she herself declared, “Fran” was very popular in her class at school, as well as with other young friends. Bess or Elizabeth Crane had grown up “next door” to Frances, as Nan and Jean had lived. ”

“ The Black Wizards have to make some; Billy told me, and you and I know what for, or we haven’t had much trouble in making a pretty good guess. One of the church societies is selling that candy we thought we could get hold of. Our fudge goes off like hot cakes when we make any, but school is nearly out and I’m proud to think that every one of the S. P.’s gets out of finals, and that in spite of our new club and all our doings! ”

“ They have all sort of crazy things in the pattern, peacocks and birds and I don’t know what.”
“Why, that would be fine for Stealthy Prowlers, Fran,” said Jean. “Bring them over and we can see. Mother has some plain draperies that she is fixing. Those will show behind the shades, but we can have our gay curtains inside of those. We’d have to have something to brighten things up. And I have a grand idea—that is, if you think it’s grand, of a witches caldron, right in the middle of the room, with a fire under it, you know, or things fixed to look like one, and maybe an electric bulb hidden in it. ”