The little party had now reached the familiar pine woods and there, only a few yards ahead, stood their deserted cabin. The totem pole raised its gaunt head to greet them, still decorated with the history of their year in the woods together. But the doors and windows of the cabin were barred with heavy planks. Nowhere was there a sign of life.
"Let's go back home at once, please, now that we have seen that everything is all right," Mollie begged a moment later. "It always gives me the blues dreadfully to see Sunrise Cabin closed up and to know that perhaps no one of us shall ever live there again. I never dreamed when we said good-bye to it last spring that we would not come out here often for club meetings and parties."
"Parties?" Meg repeated. Then she continued standing perfectly still and silent for several moments, although the others were moving about laughing and talking.
"Parties!" she exclaimed again, speaking in such a loud tone that her companions turned to stare at her in surprise.
"Betty Ashton, Mollie O'Neill and Billy Webster, if you and some of the others will help us, why can't we have our dinner party here at the cabin? We are not planning to have it until New Year, so there will be plenty of time to make arrangements."
However, Meg could get no further with her suggestion, for Betty and Mollie had both flung their arms about her and Betty exclaimed:
"It will almost make me have a happy holiday time, Meg dearest, and I can never bear to refuse your invitation if we are to be together at Sunrise Cabin once again."