This was too much for the discipline of that dear old “boy,” Seth Winters, and he cried:
“See here, lads! I can’t stand for that. Nor need I be afraid of fatigue for you. Nothing will tire a single boy of the lot, to-day, except missing some part of this delectable Show! Scamper! Scatter! Trot! Vamoose! In short, run to the stables and see if there are horses enough to go around, counting in the workers. There’ll none of them be needed at Deerhurst to-day. Then you can all ride to town with our treasurer and put your horses up at the big livery on the High Street back of the town. See to it that they are made perfectly safe and comfortable for the day, and tell the proprietor that they are to be looked after for me. Here, Jamie lad, is an extra ten dollar bill. Use it judiciously, for anything needed, especially for luncheon for eight hungry boys. Better get that at some reputable restaurant and not on the grounds. Also, one of you meet the rest of us at the station at one o’clock with the tickets. Our whole big Party will make our own Grand Entrance!”
“Oh! thank you, thank you!”
With a simultaneous cry of rapture the lads sped stablewards, leaving some rather downcast girlish faces behind them.
“I—I can ride horseback,” said Molly B., with a sigh.
“So can I; and ’tain’t far to our house. I guess Pa Martin’d have let me have old Bess to ride on,” responded the other Molly.
“Shucks! Molly M. How’d you look, rockin’ along on that old mare? Besides, you couldn’t keep in sight, even, of the way them boys’ll tear along. Another besides; you know, well’s I do, that Mr. Martin wouldn’t hold with no such nonsense as your trapesin’ after a circus parade. Who wants to, anyway? We’re born girls and we can’t be boys, no matter how much we try. Since I ain’t let to go I’d rather—I guess I’d rather stay to home and crochet some lace,” said practical Alfaretta and pushed back from table.
“Wait a minute, Alfy. There’s something else I’ve got to say. It has been a secret between Dolly and me, but of course we can’t keep it always and I can’t a minute longer. It’s this: We two girls have adopted for all their lives the two twins! We’ve adopted them with our pocket-money,” proudly stated Molly B.
“Molly! Molly!” cried Dorothy, her face aflame and her eyes swiftly filling.
“Yes I shall tell, too. Secrets are the killingest things to bear. I expect Papa will scold and Auntie Lu make fun but I’m doing it for charity. I shall put away every bit of my allowance to educate my—my son—and I shall call him Augustus Algernon Breckenridge. I thought you might as well know,” and with this startling statement the Judge’s daughter threw back her head and eyed the company defiantly.