CHAPTER XXII. A NEW RESOLVE
On Monday morning Geraldine awoke with a new resolve. Never again wouldshe be put in the embarrassing position of not being able to do anythingreally useful when the "S. S. C." got up a dinner, and not for worldswould she have Jack Lee know that she had considered cooking menial: anaccomplishment far beneath her. His ideas and ideals were very differentfrom those she had acquired at the fashionable seminary in Dorchester.
When the girl went down to breakfast, she found that the Colonel andAlfred had gone early to town. Mrs. Gray was waiting for her, sitting inthe sunny bow window reading the morning paper. "Oh, here you are,dearie." She rose briskly as she added, "I'll have to go down to thekitchen to get the things I've been keeping warm for us."
Geraldine looked surprised. "But why doesn't Sing send them up on thelift?" she asked.
Mrs. Gray, at once sober, shook her head as she said: "Poor Sing! Itseems that he went to Dorchester to the Chinese quarters yesterday to seea sick friend, and while there the place was quarantined for smallpox andhe will have to remain away at least two weeks."
"Oh, Mrs. Gray, whatever _shall_ we do? How can you do all thehousekeeping and--the cooking as well."
The old lady smiled at the girl lovingly. "Do you know, Geraldine," shebegan, "I sort of thought that perhaps _you_ would like to help me. Nowthat you can make a bed the way Merry Lee taught you, if you would makethe Colonel's and Alfred's----"
"Of course I can, and will!" was the almost unexpected rejoinder. "Andbetter than that," the girl flashed a bright smile at the old lady, "I'm_glad_ Sing is going to be away for two weeks, because that will give usa chance to use the kitchen all we want to, won't it Mrs. Gray?"
"Use the kitchen, Geraldine?" The old lady could hardly believe that shehad heard aright. "I thought I once heard you say that you hoped youwould never have to step inside of a kitchen."
The girl flushed, but she answered frankly: "You are right, I did! Butyesterday, when I saw those girls, all of them from nice families,cooking such a very good meal, I felt sorry. Oh, more than that. I wasactually ashamed when Jack Lee asked me _which_ of the dishes _I_ hadprepared, and if someone hadn't changed the subject, I would have feltterribly humiliated to have had to confess that I couldn't cook at all."
A ray of light was penetrating the darkness for Mrs. Gray. Briskly shereplied: "I shall enjoy teaching you to cook, dearie, as I would agranddaughter of my own." Then Geraldine further surprised the old ladyby leading her to her seat and declaring that she would go down to thekitchen and bring up the breakfast.
While they were eating it cosily in the sun-flooded room with snowsparkling on window sill and icicle, Geraldine confided that she hadimpulsively invited all of the girls and boys, who had been at Merry's,to a dinner party which she had said that _she_ would cook.
How Mrs. Gray laughed. "Good! Good!" she said. "I shall enjoy that. Whenis it to be?"
"I thought I would like to have it on Doris Drexel's birthday. That willbe in about two weeks."
That very afternoon the lessons began. No one was in the secret exceptthe Colonel, and every day he drove to the seminary to get Geraldine thatshe might reach home the sooner for the lesson in dinner preparing. Thegirls wondered, especially when they were so eager to search for moreclues in their "Myra Mystery," as Peg called it.
"What _are_ you up to?" Doris asked her at last. "_Why_ do you rush homeevery day after school?"
"I believe she has a mystery of her own," Betty Byrd teased.
Geraldine flashed a merry glance in the speaker's direction. "Righto! Ihave," she confessed. "However, I am going to reveal it to you all at ournext meeting of the 'S. S. C.' Where is it to be?"
"At Bertha's again. That is the most central place," Merry told her."We're all going to try to unearth something which will help solve the'Myra Mystery.'"
* * * * * * * *
When the girls met on the following Saturday afternoon, it was quiteevident that at least two of them could hardly wait for the formalitiesto be over before they could reveal something of interest. The president,being aware of this, said as soon as Sleuth Bertha had read the minutesof the last meeting: "Geraldine and Doris look as though they would burstif they didn't tell us something. Have you both unearthed clues in theMyra Mystery?"
But Gerry shook her head. "Nary a clue!" she confessed. "My news item isfar less interesting than that."
Doris, on the edge of her chair, was waiting to speak, and when thepresident nodded in her direction, she exclaimed: "Girls, Danny O'Neil'smother's first name began with M. And wouldn't it be wonderful if _she_should have been that Myra Cornwall? Then Danny would own _her_ share ofthe ranch. Of course he wouldn't have to go out there to live, but hecould have the money it brings in for his art education."
The girls, gazing at the flushed, eager face, wondered why Doris was sogreatly interested in the boy, but Bertha, the practical, asked: "Whyshould you think that the initial M. would mean Myra? There are ever somany Christian names beginning with that letter."
"Oh, of course, I'm just grasping at a straw. I only learned about itthis morning. Mother had me go over a box of old receipts and throw outmany of them, and I found one from Danny's mother signed merely 'M.O'Neil.'"
"That would be splendid!" Merry commented. "I _do_ wish we could findthat Myra, especially if she is someone in need, and then we would bespreading sunshine as well as having a mystery club."
"I'm going to see Danny tonight," Doris told them. "Mother was sointerested in--in some carving that he did that she wants to meet him,and so she had me invite him to supper."
"You call us up as soon as you find out. We'll be wild to know," Merrysaid; then turned toward Geraldine: "Now, may we hear _your_ news item?"
The city girl beamed on them. "I invited you all to a dinner party, youremember, and told you that later I would let you know the date."
"Oh, goodie!" Betty Byrd clapped her hands. "I adore parties. When is itto be?"
Geraldine told them, and Doris said: "My birthday! I certainly appreciatethat." What Gerry did not tell them was that _she_ was to cook every bitof it. She had the menu all planned, except the dessert, and she wantedthat very afternoon to find out what Jack Lee liked best. To achieve thisshe asked: "What do most boys like for dessert?" She looked at Bertha andthen at Rose, but just as she had hoped, Merry was one of the first toreply: "Jack likes whipped-cream cake with banana filling best." Thisinformation was rapidly followed with other suggestions which Geraldinescarcely heard.
The only dessert that she _cared_ to remember was the one that Jackliked, and she could hardly wait for the Colonel to call for her that shemight go home and practice making one for the family's Sunday dinner.
That night every member of the "S. S. C." received a telephone call, andthe voice of Sleuth Doris regretfully told them that Danny's mother'sname was Martha O'Neil, and so the mystery was no nearer a solution thanit had been.