“Do you know, girls,” burst out Arden, “I think we’ve stumbled on something important! You remember what Henry, our dear old chaplain, was muttering about the day we passed him. Something about coming out of the orchard and some sort of a promise. And the old taxi-man, too, warned us, in a way. Certainly that orchard holds a real mystery in its dark leafiness.” Arden smiled a little smugly. A sort of cat and canary smile, as Sim remarked when she got up off the bed to switch on a light.
She and Terry both were very thoughtful after what Arden had said. Perhaps Arden was right. There was certainly something more than merely queer about the orchard, it was getting weird and uncanny.
“Do you think those sophs could have known?” asked Terry.
“I don’t,” was Sim’s opinion. “They’d never have sent us there if they had known what was going to happen.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” spoke Arden. “Those sophs—”
“Hark!” from Sim.
Footsteps in the corridor outside.
A knock on the door.
A little scream from Terry, a quickly hushed scream, however.
The door was opened suddenly. It was Toots Everett and her two familiars.
“Where are the apples, freshies?” Toots demanded.
“We haven’t got them,” Terry stated simply. “We—ah—we—dropped them.”
“Oh, you did! And you look at us and calmly tell us you haven’t the apples we sent you to get! Well, you’d better get them tonight. It would be just too bad if the dean had to campus you in your first week here.” Toots paused ominously and resumed. “For going over to the post office without permission.” It was a theatrical finish.
“Get those apples for us tonight!” commanded Jessica. “Slip out the back door about eight o’clock and you’ll manage it all right. None of the teachers will notice you then. Of course, you’ll have sense enough to take flashlights.”
“We haven’t any yet,” said Sim lamely. “We haven’t been to town, you know.” She and her two chums were wondering how the sophomore knew about the post office visit. Had the chaplain told them?
“No flashlights!” mocked Pip. “The poor dears! Then they’ll have to go in the dark.”
“Oh, no!” Terry cried out with a dramatic restraining gesture.
“Little freshie ’fraid-cats!” sneered Toots.
“Well,” remarked Jessica, “purely out of the goodness of my heart, and not because I like you, I’ll let you take my large flashlight. But don’t forget! We expect those apples before ‘lights-out’ tonight!”
With mocking smiles, the sophs withdrew to their room below.
“Oh, dear!” wailed Sim. “More trouble! I don’t want to go back to that orchard when it’s so dark!”
“I do and I don’t,” said Arden. “I want to find out something, but I’m a little scared.”
“If we all keep together and have a light, it shouldn’t take us long. I think I can find the tree we were near when—when—” Terry didn’t quite know how to finish.
Clang-clang! Clang! Clang-clang! It was the bell calling the students to supper: always a light meal. The “big feed,” as the girls called it, came in the middle of the day.
Wearily the three arose from the beds whereon they had again cast themselves after the visits of the sophomores, straightened themselves with pulls and twists, and joined their classmates in the dining hall. Their coming hazing task was uppermost in their minds, consequently they did not feel like talking much.
Terry was elected to get the light from Jessica while her chums waited in no little trepidation in the main corridor below, near a rear door out of which they had been told they might slip without being observed by those in authority.
“Did you get it?” whispered Sim, as Terry came lightly down the stairs.
“Sure! Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“I was hoping you might not, and then we’d have a good excuse for not going,” Sim answered.
“Well, let’s get started,” suggested Arden.
They went out. The night was clear and beginning to get chilly. Sim knotted her bright scarf more tightly about her throat. Terry turned up the collar of her jacket, and Arden snuggled more closely into her long sweater.
At first, after walking away from the rim of light that filtered from the dormitory building, they could see nothing. But gradually their eyes became accustomed to the darkness and, without switching on the flashlight, they headed for Bordmust Hall.
For a few of their hesitant steps no one spoke. Then Terry turned on the flashlight, focusing its beams upon the ground while they walked slowly along in triangular formation, Sim and Arden forming the base as Terry with the light was the apex.
Nothing disturbed them. All was quiet and still and so absolutely silent that Terry remarked it was the “perfect state of nothingness.”
The dark orchard seemed miles away. But as they paused for Arden to tie her shoe, a faint rustling could be heard. Tired old apple trees were once more settling down for the long winter sleep after a summer of fruit producing.
All at once they were there! Right in the orchard. The stones on the ground seemed to hold back their unwilling feet. They stopped and listened. Terry switched on the light but its penetrating beam seemed only to make the surrounding darkness blacker.
“Come on, girls! We’re just at the first row of trees. The one we are looking for is farther along. I remember a funny-shaped one, like a rearing crocodile, next to it. But wait, Terry! I heard something moving!” Arden froze into motionless silence to listen.
“Don’t let your imagination run away with you,” Terry gently mocked. “We’re just wasting time by listening, and I’ve got a lot of French to do. Let’s get going!”
Sim and Terry walked on. Terry, having seen that the way, for some little distance ahead, was clear, turned off the flashlight. They did not want to attract any possible attention. Arden was following a little more slowly. They were beneath some gnarled trees now.
“Flash a gleam, Terry,” begged Sim. In the glow they looked at the leaf-strewn ground. “There’s not a single apple here! I don’t see how we found any this afternoon!” said Sim gloomily.
“Cheer up, old gal! I think this is the tree. That looks like a pretty good specimen.” Terry was examining an apple in the light of Terry’s torch. “Pick them up quickly. If they turn out not to be good, we’ll blame it on the darkness. Hold the bag, Arden. It was very smart of you to bring it.”
Quickly the two dropped apples into the paper bag held open by Arden. They were making what they thought was a good collection when Arden suddenly stopped them as she murmured:
“Listen! Did you hear that? Sounded like someone sneezing!”
They stood motionless and quiet in the frightening darkness.
“I heard—something,” Sim whispered.
“Well, whatever it was, it couldn’t have been very close,” declared Terry, taking charge of the situation. “If we hurry we can be out of here in another minute.”
With renewed energy they fell to their task once more. Arden discovered Sim’s pile of apples from the afternoon gathering and was putting them into the bag; they could not return to those sophs without filling their orders.
Suddenly the night’s silence was broken by a loud noise: a sound between a sneeze and a snort, as the girls afterward described it.
Then something like a black shadow tore past the frightened trio, moving with great speed and thudding feet, if that tearing scramble could have been made by feet. In her excitement Terry switched off the light. The darkness was at once made more dark.
“Oh! Help! Help! It’s—got me!” screamed Arden, in a voice filled with terror.
Some strange force seemed to fling her aside, her skirt being caught and twisted around her legs, twirling her like a human top. She tried to retain her balance but toppled over and fell heavily in a pile of leaves and apples, too frightened to know where she was.
“Arde
n!” cried Sim. “What happened? Where are you?”
“Are you hurt?” demanded Terry trying in vain to get her fingers on the elusive light switch. “Oh, Arden! Whatever—was it?”
“It—it just missed me!” panted Arden, struggling to her feet. “But whatever it was, it certainly tried to get me! Oh, for mercy’s sake, take those apples and let’s get out of here!”
“Show a light, Terry!” begged Sim. “Where are the apples?”
“I—I dropped the bag when that terrible thing rushed past me and was nearly entangled in my skirt,” Arden confessed. “Oh, this is awful!”
“Those sophs!” muttered Sim, “and these unlucky apples!”
“Beasts!” snapped Terry, who at last had the torch glowing again.
Then, never daring to look behind them, the three frightened freshmen, with Sim carrying the bag of apples, Terry focusing the torch on the uncertain way, and Arden almost in hysterical tears, ran out of the perilous orchard. This surely had been a terrifying encounter.
“But remember again,” breathed Sim when she felt strong enough to do so, “the apples are for—the sophs, but the—mystery—is ours!” Good little Sim!
CHAPTER VIII
A Tea Dance
“There!”
Sim flung the bag of apples with desperate aim straight at Jessica Darglan, who stood in surprised dismay near the doorway of her room.
“We’re back! We got the apples for you. But don’t ever ask us to go to that orchard again. It’s a terrible place!” Arden almost shook her finger at Jessica.
“I think you sophs are going a little too far in this hazing business.” Terry spoke firmly. “We tried to be good sports about it, but we might have been hurt or killed—or something! Well, anyhow, here’s your lamp, and you have the apples. Come on, girls!” she finished a little lamely, but a little defiantly as well.
The three frightened freshmen wearily climbed the last flight of stairs to their room. Never had the sight of those three beds in a row seemed so pleasant, so reassuring.
Terry decided to let her French go until morning. Arden and Sim thanked their lucky stars they could go to bed with easy consciences. They had nothing to prepare.
“But, Arden, what was it?” asked Sim as she began to undress.
“You haven’t given us any idea,” added Terry.
“For the simple reason that I can’t,” was the answer made after a moment of thought. “It was all so sudden—and terrible—a rushing black shape—something getting tangled in my skirt—twirling me down and—and—around—”
“Whoosing, snorting, and sneezing like some giant of an old man with a bad cold,” finished Sim.
“Yes,” Arden assented, glad to have been helped out.
“The orchard,” murmured Terry. “Could it have been—a snake?”
“You’re thinking of the Garden of Eden and Eve’s apple, I guess,” laughed Sim.
“Oh, don’t let’s talk about it!” begged Arden. “Maybe it was—the wind.”
“You know it wasn’t,” said Sim calmly.
“It may have been—for all I know,” Arden said. “I’m going to bed and try to forget it. College life should make girls brave.”
The others followed her example but sleep was long in coming. Adventures like the peril in the orchard called for pulling covers over one’s head, Arden remarked, and she did exactly that. Darling sleep came at last.
In the morning, at breakfast, the trio guardedly whispered to a few of their friends something of what had happened, but the real secret they kept to themselves. There were murmurs of wonder amid promises, exacted and given, of silence. But the talk spread. The idea of three freshmen—etc.—etc.—!
It was two days later, though, before an effect was produced. Then the whole college was called to General Assembly, and the three in room 513 realized to what an extent gossip had traveled.
“Any stories which you may have heard about queer things happening in the old orchard must be taken, well—conservatively, at least.” It was the dean speaking to the college students, who for once were all vitally interested in her discourse. “There is not much danger of our upper class students taking these things seriously. But in a college of this size, stories travel with remarkable speed. It would not be to the credit of Cedar Ridge to have such rumors spread on the outside. So we shall say no more about it, except to remark that, apparently, our sophomores this year are doing a very good job of hazing. It is to be hoped they will remember where hazing ends and bullying begins.” The dean’s usually austere manner suddenly melted into a kindly interest.
“She must have heard something,” Arden whispered to Sim. “Do you notice she doesn’t say exactly what happened?”
“It’s my guess,” whispered Sim, “she doesn’t know exactly what.”
The three girls were sitting together in the large assembly hall.
“Foxy old thing!” Terry spoke out of the corner of her mouth at Arden. “I’d like to hear just how much she actually knows.”
The dean had finished with the matter of the orchard. She swept her glance over the faces raised expectantly to hers as she broached a new and not unwelcome subject.
“The Sophomore Tea Dance will be held this year earlier than usual; in New York, at the Hotel Chancellor. The committee, of which Jessica Darglan, Margaret Everett, and Priscilla MacGovern are the active heads, ask your support in their undertaking.” A murmur of approval greeted this announcement. “They have voted to give any funds they may raise to the college treasury for the reconditioning of the swimming pool. I wish them every success.” This was a real pronouncement.
Then, gathering herself together and teetering on her toes as if, Terry said, she was getting ready to jump, the dean dismissed her students.
“Wouldn’t you just know they’d do something like that!” Arden was speaking, as the three chums sauntered toward their classes in Bordmust Hall. “Stealing our plan!”
“But we didn’t announce it, Arden,” Terry remarked. “That is, if you mean we are to try for the thousand dollars reward for information about that missing Harry Pangborn.”
“That’s what I mean.”
“But we haven’t done anything,” suggested Sim. “Really, you know, Arden—”
“Why didn’t they give us a chance? I just know we can solve that mystery if we have time. I’m sure of it!”
“Have you decided yet,” asked Terry, “where you think you saw the original of that reward-poster picture?”
“Not yet,” Arden had ruefully to admit. “But I shall. And now those sophs—”
“Well, more power to them if they can raise the money for the swimming pool, I say,” spoke Sim philosophically.
“Never shall I forget, scared as I was, the expression on the face of Jessica as we flung the apples at her! It was almost worth the fright we had,” Terry ventured, to change the subject.
“I know what we can do, though, to get a little even with them,” suggested Arden. “We won’t tell, no matter how much they ask, just what happened.”
“All right, Arden, we’ll do that. Now, don’t let’s talk any more about it. I’m tired of the word orchard. I’d much rather talk about the tea dance,” Sim returned, arranging her books more comfortably. “Do you think we can go?”
“Of course! Why not?” asked Terry.
“Well—boys, you know. We couldn’t get any of our own friends from home to come this far for us,” Sim decided.
“You’ve been thinking about this dance, have you, Sim? Now, I never would have thought that!” laughed Arden.
“Of course I have! I like dances. I’ve been thinking about this one to such an extent that when I saw the notice on the bulletin board I asked Mary Todd what about it, and she and Ethel Anderson and Jane Randall have already written to their three brothers—”
“Oh, my! Has each one three brothers who are eligible for tea dances?” gasped Terry.
“No—one each,” went on Sim, laughing. “What do
you expect? Anyhow, that’s how much I’ve been thinking about it!”
“That’s quite a lot of thinking,” Terry remarked, “for you, my little one! I might say that perhaps you took a great deal for granted, but if it works out all right, I’ll be just as glad as you are. Did you have the sisters send their brothers our pictures? That one of you in the school play, Sim, dressed as an old man, is good.”
“Don’t be silly! Of course I didn’t. Anyhow, as long as we pay for the bids, those boys ought to be glad to go. They don’t have to dance with us all afternoon.”
“Oh, stop, you two! Do let it go, as long as Sim has engineered it this far. It will be fun, very likely. Russ Albono’s orchestra is grand, and we all have new dresses. There are more important things to consider,” Arden decided. “We must get our hair and nails done and see about a room in the hotel. I’ve never been there, have you? Think of going to a real college tea dance in a big New York hotel!”
“I was there once on my birthday,” Sim remarked. “My loving parents took me to dinner and the theater. We stayed at the hotel a whole week-end. I loved it!” She sighed, remembering.
“I hope you’ll find it as wonderful this time,” remarked Terry.
“Let us hope so,” murmured Arden.
“Mrs. Malvern is to be the official chaperon. You must report to her before the dance and after it is over, as you leave,” announced Sim. “I should think she might be pretty tired of answering the phone calls of the girls to her room when they notify her.”
“Really, Sim, how did you find out so much?” asked Arden.
“I asked here and there,” Sim admitted. “I also found out that we are to go to New York the afternoon of the dance, which is on Saturday. We don’t have to be back here at college until nine that night.”
“Quite a bit of liberty—for Cedar Ridge,” commented Terry.
“Oh, dear! Here we are at Bordmust, and we’ll have to separate just when the talk is getting exciting!” exclaimed Arden. “But as soon as you two can, come back to 513, and we’ll complete our arrangements, will you?” she begged as they reached the grim building.
“Yes,” nodded Sim and Terry.
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