“Jack must have been a doggie in a former existence,” Peg teased.
“Sure thing I was!” the boy replied good-naturedly. “I’d heaps rather have been a dog than a cat.”
“Sir!” Peg stepped up threateningly near. “Are there any concealed inferences in that?”
“Nary a one. I think in a former existence you girls must have all been sunbeams.”
“Ha! ha!” Bob’s hearty laughter expressed his enjoyment of the joke. “That’s a good one, but do get a move on, young ladies; I’ve got to deliver groceries after I have delivered you.”
The girls flocked from the room, leaving the boys to finish the doughnuts. In the wide front hall, as they were donning their wraps, they did a good deal of whispering. “Meet at my house tomorrow afternoon.” Peggy told them. “Bring any old duds you can find; we’ll make up our milkmaid costumes and have a dress rehearsal.”
CHAPTER VI.
MILK MAIDS AND BUTTER CHURNERS
The next day arrived, as next days will, and, as the blizzard had blown itself away and only a soft feathery snow was falling, the girls, communicating by the repaired telephone system, decided to walk to the home of Peggy Pierce, which was centrally located. In fact, it was on a quiet side street “below the tracks,” not a fashionable neighborhood, but that mattered not at all to the girls of Sunnyside. The parents of some of the seven were the richest in town, others were just moderately well off, but one and all were able to send their daughters to the seminary, and that constituted the main link that bound them together, for they saw each other every day and walked back and forth together. Peggy’s father owned “The Emporium,” a typical village dry-goods store.
Peg threw the door open as soon as the girls appeared at the wooden gate in the fence that surrounded the rather small yard of her home.
“Hurray for the ‘S. S. C.’!” she sang out, and Merry replied with the inevitable, “Hail! Hail! The gang’s all here!”