The Orchard Secret Part 38

"What's the idea?" asked Terry.

"I'm sure I don't know," answered the bearer of what was generally considered ill tidings. "But you had better see her at once."

"Come on!" urged Arden. "Let's get it over with. I had half a mind to go there, anyhow, and tell her the news."

"Maybe she's heard it already," suggested Terry.

"More likely," suggested Sim gloomily, "she's heard we were trying to flirt with the good-looking a.s.sistant gardener and we're going to be expelled. If she sends us home, Arden, don't you give her a penny of that reward money!"

"No!" exclaimed Terry. "Not a cent!"

"Well," said Arden doubtfully, "I don't know----" and then she urged her two chums on toward the dean's office while little groups of other girls, among which strange rumors were filtering, watched the three freshmen, with a variety of expressions.

"Come in," greeted Miss Anklon as Arden knocked. And when Sim and Terry had filed in behind her it needed but one look at the smiling face of the dean to let them know they were meeting her on a different footing than ever before.

"For Tiddy was actually _grinning_!" Sim told some of her friends later.

"Please be seated, young ladies," invited the dean, indicating chairs.

"And, not to make them anxious seats for you, I may say that news of your good fortune has preceded you here. Mr. Pangborn has just left me and has told me all about it. I congratulate you, and I hope you will put the reward money to good use."

In a chorus Arden, Terry, and Sim breathed audibly in relief.

"And about the bell," went on Miss Anklon. "I am sorry if, even remotely, I suspected you or any of the girls of that trick. I shall make a public announcement about it. Sufficient to say now that I have dismissed Mr.

Yaeger as gardener and we shall have a new one in a few days. I never realized what a strange mind he had until Mr. Scott--I should say Mr.

Pangborn--enlightened me."

Arden and her chums began wondering if this was all the dean had summoned them for--to congratulate them and inform them about old Anson. It was not in her nature to be thus trifling.

"This is not all that I asked you to come here for," resumed the little dark-faced dean. "It was to warn you----" Her telephone rang, and she had to pause at a most critical point as she answered into the instrument, saying: "I am engaged now. Call me in five minutes." Then to the waiting three: "I want to warn you not to talk too much about this matter for publication, for I realize that it must get into the papers and I desire no unseemly publicity for the college. Also, I wish to caution you about wildly spending that thousand dollars reward which, Mr. Pangborn informs me, will soon come to you. I wish----"

"Oh, Miss Anklon!" Arden could not refrain from interrupting, though she arose and bowed formally as she did so. "Didn't Mr. Pangborn tell you what we are going to do with the money as soon as we get it?"

"No, he didn't."

"Wasn't that nice of him?" whispered Sim to Terry. "He knew we would get a kick out of telling for ourselves."

"Why, Miss Anklon," went on Arden, "we have decided, we three, for Terry and Sim will share the reward with me, we have decided to donate it to the college."

"To the college?" The dean plainly was startled.

"Yes. To repair the swimming pool."

A momentous silence followed Arden's dramatic announcement, and then the dean said, "Oh!" and "Ah!" and "Er!" She was plainly taken by surprise and was as near to being fl.u.s.tered as the girls had ever seen her. But she found her voice and usual poise in a moment and said, with as much warmth as she was capable of:

"Why, young ladies, this certainly is most generous of you. I cannot adequately thank you now. That will come later--more formally and publicly. But are you sure you want to do this?"

"Oh, yes, Miss Anklon!" answered Sim and Terry together.

"We decided that long ago," added Arden.

"Well, it is indeed fine of you," Miss Anklon said, fussing with the papers on her desk and not looking at the girls. "You have shown a very laudable college spirit." The three freshmen smiled a little weakly and shifted about. "I can be generous, also, young ladies!" the dean remarked more firmly as she looked at them again. "I think your gift deserves some immediate recognition. That is--suppose we forget all about your being campused?" she asked, and smiled disarmingly.

"Oh!" murmured Arden and her chums. For they had felt hampered by the campus rule even though they had not strictly kept it. Then Arden added:

"Thank you ever so much! We appreciate it ever so much!" And she told herself: "Hang it, I meant to say 'greatly' in that second sentence." But the dean smiled again, held up a restraining hand as Terry and Sim evinced indications of opening up a barrage of thanks, and with a dismissing gesture said:

"I suppose you will want to tell all your friends the good news. You may go now, and--I hope you enjoy yourselves!"

"Really, she's human after all!" murmured Sim as the three hurried down the hall to find anxious girls awaiting them.

Then such talk as buzzed in Cedar Ridge was never known before! Arden, Terry, and Sim were overwhelmed with questions, and their room resembled Times Square at a subway rush hour.

"This rates another pantry raid!" declared Toots Everett who, with other soph.o.m.ores, came in to congratulate the three.

That second pantry raid was much more successful than the first, which had, however, ushered in the solution of the orchard secret and the ending of the peril beneath the gnarled trees.

"Well, here's to our holidays!" exclaimed Arden at the midnight feast, drinking from a gla.s.s of milk in one hand. The other held a piece of pie.

"Long may they wave!" chanted Sim.

"Pa.s.s me some chicken," mumbled Terry.

A week later, after many crowded hours, and perhaps it may be said after as minimum an amount of study as was ever noted in Cedar Ridge, Arden and her friends were waiting on the station platform at Morrisville for the train that was to take them home for the Thanksgiving recess.

Jerry Cronin, the taxi-man who had first driven the three to the college, was sauntering around waiting for a fare. He smiled at the girls, and they nodded. They knew him better now, for they had frequently used his car.

"I guess you're glad it's all over," he remarked, coming closer to where they stood and taking off his cap.

"What?" asked Arden.

"That there orchard business. You know," he was almost whispering now, "I couldn't tell you about it at first. I da.s.sn't. But I warned you, didn't I? Here's how it happened. Now that old Yaeger is gone I can tell. I caught him up to some of his tricks once, making scares and all that. And once I saw him drive that old black ram into the orchard at night. I couldn't figure out why, but now I know. That there young gardener told me. Yaeger was planning some credit for himself.

"Yep, I caught him at it, and when he saw I knew, he threatened that if I told he'd see that I didn't get any more college taxi trade, so I had to keep still. But now I'm glad I can tell."

"And we're glad it's over," said Terry.

The girls resumed their own talk as the taxi-man walked away.

"Wasn't it thrilling when Arden gave the dean the reward check!" Sim exclaimed, her arm through Terry's.

"It certainly was! And wasn't Harry Pangborn nice when he posed for those newspaper photographers?" Sim inquired.

"Swell!" laughed Arden. "And the party the girls gave us last night in the gym--lovely! Everything has been just wonderful. I can hardly wait to get home to tell Mother and Dad all about it. I could write so little in my letters."

"Don't forget our dance Thanksgiving eve," Sim reminded her chums.

"As if we'd forget--when those nice boys are coming!" exclaimed Arden.

She turned to look at the college. The buildings were outlined by a glorious red sunset. "I can understand, now, how one becomes attached to one's Alma Mater. Cedar Ridge _is_ a dear old place," she concluded.