Jan was soon back. “Mom says we can go, but we should remember that dinner is at six o’clock. She is strict about being home in time for dinner,” she explained to Fred and Susan.
Julie looked at her watch. “It is only a little after three o’clock now. We have plenty of time.”
Jan and Julie had received watches as gifts for their last birthday. They were expected to use them to be on time.
The children ran down the slope to the creek.
“I guess no one will drown here,” Susan said looking at the creek.
Jan could see she was right. The children were easily able to find places to cross it. Mostly it was marshy with cattails growing tall on both sides.
There were a few squeals as one or another of the girls sank a tennis shoe in squishy mud. But Fred seemed to be enjoying himself. He just plowed right up the bank of the creek. Mud-covered shoes don’t bother him one bit, Jan giggled to herself.
When at length they were on dry ground, Jan pointed to a footpath. “Look,” she said, “I’ll bet this goes right to the barn.”
The others thought so too. But it was a bit difficult to tell for certain. The ground sloped up again from the creek. And it was all overgrown with weeds nearly as tall as the children, or so it looked to Jan.
Even the little path was hard to follow. The children had to push weeds out of their way. These were full of sticky burrs which clung to hair and clothing.
Finally they came out at a small clearing. Everyone was slightly breathless. Jan was surprised, when she looked back, how high up they were from the creek.
Then she caught sight of Fred and gasped, “Oh, look at Fred!”
The girls all started to laugh. Poor Fred was full of burrs. His reddish hair was matted with them. He began to do a high stepping jig, hopping around madly. He pulled his face this way and that. He grinned, he frowned, he rolled his eyes, he wrinkled up his nose, he stuck out his tongue, and all the time letting out the most awful whoops and shrieks.
“Stop it, please!” Julie begged at last wiping her eyes. “My sides hurt.”
They all flopped down on the ground. It took a little work to get rid of the burrs, but by helping one another they were soon done.
At last Jan jumped up. “Come on, you slowpokes. Let’s see if we can get in the barn.”
The barn was on their right. It was facing that direction too. To their left and at the barn’s back was a huge old apple tree. It was bent and lumpy and would be fun to climb some day, Jan decided.
But just now she was more interested in seeing the barn itself. The children walked around to the front of it. It was not a very big barn even to Jan’s eyes and looked awfully old. There was not a scrap of paint on it. Yet it was not falling down either. In fact it looked very sturdy. The large double doors were open, and the children went in.
Julie was last. “I’ll bet whoever lives in that house owns this barn,” she said looking at an older house a short distance away. It was close to the road on the far right corner of the field.
“Do you think they’ll care if we’re in here?” Susan asked. Fred shrugged. “I don’t see why,” was all he said.
There was a stout rope hanging from a center beam. He already had one foot on the large knot at its end as he spoke. Now he put the other foot on and pulled himself up. Soon he was swinging back and forth scratching himself like a monkey.
Julie and Susan started to laugh. Jan giggled too.
“Aren’t you ever serious, Fred?” Jan called to him.
He only grinned for an answer. Jumping down he bowed to Jan. “Would you care to be next, Madam?”
He held the rope until she pulled herself up then gave her a good push. She caught her breath as the rope twirled and soared through the air. “Not so hard!” she screamed. But soon she was laughing and enjoying herself.
Julie and Susan had to be coaxed. While they took their turns, Jan walked around. There wasn’t anything in the barn except a broken down stall and a couple of old bales of hay. There wasn’t even a hay loft. She wondered what the barn had been used for. Perhaps a horse or two had lived in it at some time. She didn’t know.
When everyone tired of swinging, they sat down on the floor to rest a minute and talk. Suddenly a wonderful idea popped into Jan’s mind. “Let’s have a club,” she said excitedly. “We could use the barn for our clubhouse.”
“Wow, Jan, that’s a great idea!” exclaimed Fred.
For a few minutes everyone talked at once. Each had a different idea about what kind of club they should have.
“Hey, we’ll never get anywhere this way,” Fred yelled over everyone. From one pocket of his jeans he produced a stub of a pencil. From his shirt pocket came a scrap of paper. “Now, tell me your ideas one at a time and I’ll write them down,” he said.
This seemed like a good idea to the others. Jan spoke first, “I don’t know just what I want to do in a club. But I like to have fun, no work for me, please.”
Everyone laughed at that. Fred wrote FUN on his paper.
“Who else has an idea?” he asked. No one answered right away so he said, “I’d like to have adventures in a club.” He jumped up and swished the air with his arm like a sword. On the paper he wrote ADVENTURE.
“I enjoy crafts,” Julie volunteered softly.
CRAFTS followed the other two ideas on Fred’s paper.
“I like crafts too,” Susan now spoke up, “but I also like other things, games and stuff.”
“How about I write THINGS TO DO?” asked Fred.
Susan nodded.
Fred studied his paper for a few minutes. This is what it looked like:
FUN
ADVENTURE
CRAFTS
THINGS TO DO
“Say,” he said, “the first letters spell a word.”
The others crowded around to look.
“You’re right,” said Susan, “it spells FACT.” She thought a moment. “Why don’t we call our club the FACT Club? That way we can do all the things in our club that we wrote down. But it will be our secret what FACT means.”
“Why Suzy-Q, that’s brilliant, absolutely bril...liant,” Fred said in admiration. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
Susan turned quite pink. But even though he was teasing her, it was nice teasing, and she looked pleased.
Everyone liked the idea. For awhile they talked about what they would like to do in the club. They decided to each write their ideas down to talk about whenever they came to the barn the next time.
Something had been bothering Julie. “I think we ought to get permission from the owner to come here,” she said quietly.
Jan gave her a scornful look. “Julie, you would think of that. Suppose he won’t let us play here? Then what?” She was more than a little angry. Julie has gotten to be such a goody-goody, she thought crossly.
“Boy, what a hothead you are,” Fred teased. He gingerly touched the top of her head. “Yow!” he yelped. “Hot, just as I thought.”
Jan giggled. She felt a bit sheepish.
“I think Julie is right,” said Susan. “If we don’t ask, they might send us away the first time they see us here.”
Everyone agreed, Jan a bit reluctantly. She hoped fervently the owner wouldn’t spoil things by saying no.
Julie was saying, “Look what time it is, Jan. We have to get home or it will be Mom who won’t let us come back.”