“Oh, they’re probably just cleaning it out,” suggested Arden.
The cultivated rustic setting for the big gray stone structures made the whole scene picturesquely perfect, just as the prospectus had stated. But to the girls the college was also a little forbidding. Certainly there was nothing cozy about it—nothing inviting—and not every girl can boast the artist’s taste.
The buildings were solid and massive, as solid and dependable as the women instructors within who guided the four student years of “their girls.” Besides the swimming pool, only the chapel, with its tall spire, caught the warm sunset glow and displayed it more lavishly. But that, of course, thought Arden, was because there was so much more glass, beautifully tinted, in the chapel windows.
As the wheels of the car crunched the cinders, Arden hoped she hadn’t been wrong in urging Terry and Sim to come to Cedar Ridge with her. They had come because of her urging. There was no doubt of this. Had it not been for the promise of swimming, implied by the beautiful picture of the pool in the college prospectus, Sim would, she said, have been content to stay at home in Pentville.
As for Terry—where Arden went, there went Terry. They had been inseparable since the “baby grade” in Vincent Prep.
The driver of the car, a typical country taxi-man, probably too well trained to talk unbidden to the students, pulled up suddenly as he neared a lane that curved around a big elm and wended its way toward a distant grove.
“Down below there’s th’ orchard,” he said hesitantly. “Ef I was you, I wouldn’t go prowlin’ around in it.” He indicated a part of the extensive farm ground that was an inheritance of Cedar Ridge College—long rows of old gnarled trees, many of them now heavy with russet, red, golden, and yellow fruit. The orchard was separated from the eastern end of the dormitory building by a tall and tangled hedge but could be seen from the hill on which the building stood. “No, don’t go down there,” advised the driver as he let in the clutch.
“Why?” came a surprised and gasping chorus.
“Waal, queer things are said to happen down in that orchard. But don’t ask me what!” he quickly cautioned. “I’m only hired to drive this tin Lizzie, an’ I dassn’t talk.”
Terry, who sat beside Arden, evinced a desire to put a question but thought better of it.