“Indeed you may!” Mrs. Friend replied, smiling at the girl’s enthusiasm, and then she bade them good-bye.
On Monday morning Adele started to school hippety-skipping and singing a merry little song to herself. There were berry-bushes abloom in the field over which she was taking a short cut, and from one of these just ahead of her there arose a clear, whistling note.
“A bobolink!” Adele thought, as she stole nearer to catch a glimpse, if she could, of the feathered songster, but, to her surprise, the notes changed to “Bob White!” Adele stood still, puzzled, when from the blossoming bush, sweet and clear, arose a robin’s morning-song.
“How strange!” the girl thought. “It must be a birds’ convention!” She tiptoed nearer, when up from behind the bushes sprang a bevy of laughing girls, and joyously they cried, “The top of the morning to you, Adele.”
“But where are the birds?” asked the mystified girl.
“Here in my hand,” Peggy Pierce replied, as she displayed a silver whistle. “It’s a musical instrument belonging to my small brother. I borrowed it because I wanted you all to hear the sweet bird notes.”
“Truly, I thought there were birds in the bush,” Adele said. Then, turning to Gertrude Willis, she asked, “Trudie, have you told the girls about our plan?”
“Of course not, Della,” that maiden replied. “The president of the Sunnyside Club should make all announcements.”
“Oh, what is it? Do tell us!” Peggy Pierce and Betty Burd exclaimed eagerly.
“It isn’t a party this time,” Adele replied, smiling at little Betty’s enthusiasm, “but it is another opportunity for our Sunnyside Club to do a kind deed.” And then she told them about the gloomy room which was the nursery for the very little children at the orphanage; about the toys, many of them old and broken; and about the cheery cottage in the garden, and how Mrs. Friend had said that they might fit it up as a play-house if only they could find the way.