yclopedia; and it was open at the word
"Texas."

Mrs. Wilson smiled and went out, closing the door softly behind her.

It was, indeed, as Mrs. Wilson had said, "Texas, Texas, Texas,"
everywhere throughout the town. Old atlases were brought down from
attics, and old geographies were dug out of trunks. Even the
dictionaries showed smudges in the T's where not over-clean fingers had
turned hurried pages for possible information. The library was besieged
at all hours, particularly by the Happy Hexagons, for they, of course,
were the storm-center of the whole thing.

Ordinarily the club met but once a week; now they met daily--even in the
absence of their beloved president, Genevieve. Heretofore they had met
usually in the parsonage; now they met in the grove back of the
schoolhouse.

"It seems more appropriate, somehow," Elsie had declared; "more sort of
airy and--Texasy!"

"Yes; and we want to get used to space--wide, wide space! Genevieve says
it's all space," Bertha Brown had answered, with a far-reaching fling of
her arms.

"Ouch! Bertha! Just be sure you've got the space, then, before you get
used to it," retorted Tilly, aggrievedly, straightening her hat which
had been knocked awry by one of the wide-flung arms.

The Happy Hexagons met, of course, to study Texas, and to talk Texas;
though, as Bertha Brown's brother, Charlie, somewhat impertinently
declared, they did not need to meet to _talk_ Texas--they did that
without any meeting! All of which merely meant, of course, retaliated
the girls, that Charlie was jealous because he also could not go to
Texas.

CHAPTER II

PLANS FOR TEXAS

It was a pretty little grove in which the Happy Hexagons met to study
and to talk Texas. Nor were they the only ones that met there. Though
Harold Day, Alma Lane's cousin, was not to be of the Texas party, the
girls invited him to meet with them, as he was Texas-born, and was one
of Genevieve's first friends in Sunbridge. On the outskirts of the magic
circle, sundry smaller brothers and sisters and cousins of the members
hung adoringly. Even grown men and women came sometimes, and stood
apart, looking on with what the Happy Hexagons chose to think were
admiring, awestruck eyes--which was not a little flattering, though
quite natural and proper, decided the club. For, of course, not every
one could go to Texas, to be sure!

At the beginning, at least, of each meeting, affairs were conducted with
the seriousness due