“Dear me, no,” laughed Adele. “I shall wear braids until I’m twenty, I guess.”
“Oh, Della, I do hope you’re going to have a party,” exclaimed Peggy Pierce. “I have the sweetest new dress. It’s white muslin, all scattered over with pink rosebuds, and I’m just pining to be asked to a party so that I can wear it.”
“Yes, I’m going to have a party,” Adele replied, “but you won’t be able to wear that dress to it, Peggy; it’s going to be a different sort of party.”
“Oh-o-o!” came a wailing chorus. “Aren’t we going to be invited?”
“Not exactly,” laughed their favorite, “and yet I shall expect you all to be there.”
“Oh, Adele!” Bertha Angel exclaimed. “You are so mysterious and so provoking! Do you expect us to come to your party without an invitation?”
“Of course not,” Adele replied, “and I won’t keep you guessing any longer. This is the way of it. Yesterday I went over to the orphan asylum to read stories to the very little children, as I do every Sunday, and when I was coming out I passed what I supposed was an empty class-room. The door was open a crack, and I thought that I heard some one crying inside. I looked in and saw a girl of about our own age sobbing as hard as ever she could. I had never seen her before. I went nearer and said, ‘Little girl, can I do something to help you?’ At first she only cried the harder, but I sat down beside her, and at last she told me that her mother and father were both dead and that the people she had been living with couldn’t keep her any longer, and so they had sent her to the orphans’ home. I told her that she would like it there because the matron was so kind.
“‘Yes,’ she sobbed, ‘I shall like it, I guess, but next week Saturday will be my birthday, and mother always gave me a party, but now nobody cares.’
“I felt as though I would have to cry, too, but I knew that would not be the way to cheer her up, so I asked her to take a walk with me and I showed her the pleasant places around the Home. She loved the woods, she said, and when we went back, an hour later, I guess she felt better, but right then and there I decided that this year, instead of having a party for myself, I would give a surprise birthday-party for Eva Dearman.”
“Oh, Adele!” Gertrude Willis exclaimed. “I am so sorry for that poor orphan girl. May we help give the party?”