“It must have been a tramp,” Doris Drexel declared.
“Maybe he’s hiding in the woods this very moment,” said Rosamond fearfully.
“It couldn’t have been a tramp,” Bertha remarked thoughtfully, “because the door was locked and there is no window.” Then suddenly she burst into a peal of merry laughter. The other six looked at her in puzzled amazement.
“Why, Bertha,” Adele exclaimed, “surely there is nothing funny about it!”
“Yes there is,” Bertha replied, her eyes dancing. “Don’t you remember that, at our last business meeting, we decided that our bank might be stolen, and that we would change its hiding-place?”
“Oh, of course,” said Peggy Pierce. “And that very day I took it down-town and asked father to keep it in his safe. I’ve been cramming so hard for examinations, I guess, that now I can’t remember anything.”
“Never mind, Peggy,” said Adele, as she slipped her arm around the crestfallen girl. “Our memories all play strange pranks at times.” Then, turning to the others, she called, “Come on; let’s don our hats and finish this meeting down at the Bee Hive, because, of course, we would buy the birthday presents there anyway.”
Firefly came on a gallop when Adele whistled, and whinnying for the lump of sugar which his mistress always had for him.
“Gertrude, would you like to ride?” Adele asked. But Gertrude said that she wasn’t a bit tired and would much rather walk with the others.
“Well then, Betty,” Adele began, and the others laughed at the happy eagerness with which that small girl clambered up on the pony’s back. Betty was only eleven, though she would soon be twelve. She was petite and dark and sparkling, and everybody’s pet. Away she galloped over Buttercup Meadows, her hair flying out like a mantle about her shoulders.