“The hard and croo-il order of the whack, I’ll say.” Jerry caught the conferring hand in time to save herself one last thump. “Now that I’ve been initiated into this wonderful order what happens to me next?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute. Let me think.” Marjorie fixed absent eyes on Jerry as she considered the situation. “You’re to go downstairs and telephone Kathie and Lillian to come over to dinner at the Hall this evening. If they can’t come to dinner, then they must come afterward. Tell them the time has come to open the box. That will bring them.”
“You bet it will,” Jerry made slangy concurrence.
“Then I’ll depend on you to hunt Leila, Vera, Ronny, Lucy and Muriel. They’re not to dare think of another engagement.”
“Yessum.” Jerry made a respectful, bobbing bow to Marjorie. “Please, mum, may I ask what you’ll be doing, mum, about the same time I’m rushing upstairs and down?”
“I’m going over to Silverton Hall,” Marjorie returned as she crossed the room to her dress closet and reached for coat and fur cap. “I’ll see Robin, Phil and Barbara; bring them back to dinner, if I can. Thank fortune Barbara is at Silverton Hall this year instead of Acasia House. I’ll be back by five o’clock. It’s ten minutes to four now.”
“Then you’ll have to go some,” Jerry said skeptically. “If you are back here with those three girls by six o’clock I’ll give you a prize. Remember, you can’t stay to dinner at Silverton Hall. We’ve Kathie and Lillian to consider.”
“The prize is as good as won. What are you going to give me?” Marjorie’s inquiry was slyly coaxing. She sidled confidently up to Jerry.
“Never mind now.” Jerry waved her away. “Come back at five o’clock and ask me.”
“I will. I’m going z-i-p-p across the campus. Just like that!” Marjorie made a lightning forward pass with one arm. “I’m going to have a wind sail. There’s a dandy stiff wind blowing today. Mary Raymond and I used to take our school umbrellas when we were little girls and go out on a windy day with them. It was a regular game. We named it ‘wind sails.’ We’d let the wind blow us along. Sometimes the umbrellas would turn inside out, or the wind would whisk them away from us and we’d have to chase them a long way. Once mine blew into the river, and once a big boy caught Mary’s umbrella and ran off with it. We never saw either of those bumbershoots again.”