Laura’s ingenuity about the kite and the steeple-jack delighted most of the girls who were with her on that Saturday afternoon tramp. And when they knew she intended giving the gold eagle presented to her by Colonel Swayne to the treasury of the Girls’ Branch they cheered her—all but Hester and Lily.
The explanation of the fire in Mr. Sharp’s office eluded Laura, however, as it did everybody else. But she gave considerable thought to the problem as the days passed.
The Athletic Field was being put in shape as rapidly as possible. Already the high board fence was being erected and a large shed with lockers for the girls. As the field joined their old bathing pavilion there were shower and plunge baths already at hand. Mrs. Case promised the school that, other things being well, the girls should have an exhibition field day for parents and friends before many weeks. The indoor exercises were practiced assiduously, and most of the advanced classes, at least, tried to stand well in these so as to take part in the outdoor games.
With the regular school work, the physical instruction, and the after-hour athletics, the girls of Central High found their time filled. But Laura Belding and her close friends had the added excitement and interest of the coming M. O. R. initiation.
A full week elapsed from the Day of the Touch to the hour when the candidates were to be made full members of the secret society. This initiation was usually a novel affair, and on this occasion it was announced to the candidates that Robinson’s Woods was the scene and Saturday at four o’clock the time of the exercises. Secrecy was maintained—or should have been. No one but members of the M. O. R., or the candidates, was to know the time and place; but events which followed showed that there was a “leak” somewhere.
Robinson’s Woods was a fine picnicking ground, back among the hills. One of the Market Street cars passed a road which led to the grove; one needed to walk but half a mile, and through a pleasant byway. But once at the Woods, it was as though the primeval forest surrounded the place.
There was a small hotel, tables and benches in the open, swings and a carousel, and a dancing pavilion. But the M. O. R.’s did not propose to hold their exercises in so exposed a place. Up from the regular grounds devoted to entertainment led a narrow, rocky path through the thicker wood. The goal to which this path led was a high, open plateau in the midst of the forest, from which one could overlook a winding country road and a more winding, tumbling, noisy brook which came down from the heights.
Two special cars awaited the M. O. R. girls and the candidates for initiation, and it was a merry party that debarked at the head of the wood road. They marched straight away from the regular picnic grounds and were soon on the plateau.
The sun was going down and the view over the valley, in which lay the City of Centerport, was beautiful indeed. There were nearly a hundred girls, and in their bright dresses they made a very pretty picture in the open space in the forest.
They were far from human habitation. Indeed there was no house in sight, save an abandoned farmhouse at the upper end of the clearing. Surrounded by a straggling fence, with a gate hanging from one hinge, and the out-houses behind it fallen in ruins, this old dwelling presented a rather ghostly appearance. It did, indeed, go by the name of “Robinson’s Haunted House”; but in the late afternoon sunlight none of the visitors thought of the grewsome stories told of it.