“Would we? I’ll say we will and thank you kindly.” Of course as usual it was Betsy who replied. Up into the sleigh they climbed. The boy made room for Virginia and Margaret on the wide seat but the three younger girls sat in the back dangling long legs on which were bright-colored leggins encrusted with snow.
“I’m going to sing,” Betsy smilingly informed her companions. “Please don’t!” the others pleaded.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to do the solo stunt. Everybody, all together!” Betsy really had a sweet soprano voice and when she started a rollicking school song the others joined in repeating the chorus until they reached the kitchen door of the seminary. A crowd of girls were having a snowball game, Dora and Cora being captains of the opposing sides.
“You girls missed the fun, going off that way on a stupid old hike,” Dicky Taylor, rosy of cheek and looking much like a snow girl, called to them. “Out of the way, there, or you’ll be pelted,” someone warned as the five adventurers leaped from the wagon. After hurriedly thanking the delivery boy they ducked into the back entry, and none too soon, for a dozen well aimed balls whizzed through the crisp sunlit air and plunked against the closed door.
Every pupil in the school was ravenously hungry when the gong called them to lunch. Betsy could talk of nothing but the possible mystery of the old deserted house.
“Just because people are not living in a house, doesn’t make it mysterious,” Margaret told her.
“What did the place look like?” Babs, more interested, inquired.
“Well,” Betsy began, “I could tell that it had been very fine in its day but now it is dilapidated and the windows are boarded up. That proves that nobody is living in it, and, of course, if there was anyone there, the storekeeper would know it, for there would be no other place to buy supplies.”
“Your evidence is conclusive,” Margaret said in a tone often used by their algebra teacher.
“Virg, you don’t act very much interested. Why are you gazing out of the window in that preoccupied way as Miss Torrence so often asks Megsy?”